One more “bad” for the month of September

Thank GOD tomorrow is October!!!

And the worst mother of the year award goes to… guess who.

On this brisk fall morning, for the first time this year, I had to take both kids to school.

We were on time, and everything was running smooth …until… my son announces that his legs were cold. Now, this time of year it can be slightly chilly in the morning and then 80 degrees in the afternoon. I had dressed him in longer shorts with a t-shirt and a jacket. But on the way to take my daughter to her school, his legs were cold.

I had a bad feeling about this…no way was this going to end well.

I tell him there is a warm fuzzy blanket right next to him if he wants to snuggle while we are in the car. “NO” he didn't want the blanket. He wanted to go home and change into pants. He could not understand why we couldn't go home to change into pants and he couldn’t understand why I didn’t understand the necessity. He fussed about the shorts. He fussed that his legs were cold. This went on for about 15 minutes. I tried to distract him with music, nope. I tried to make him laugh, nope. On and on we go about shorts vs. pants. I had finally had enough and get stern with him and told him the way it was going to be – at least for today. He could throw away every pair of shorts in his room and wear pants the rest of his life but that would have to start tomorrow… today he was wearing shorts.

It was time to get out of the car and he was upset and crying now and we were holding up the line so they tell me to pull up so others can get around me. Great.

We have jacked up the carpool line. When he sees me get out of the car he thinks he is in terrible trouble and the crying gets worse as he is telling me he is sorry. I go to his side of the car to get him out and poor thing is sobbing. I hug him and tell him everything is ok and we will get more pants I promise… and I get him out of the car… try to send him on his way. Still crying.  I walk him half way and tell him to go into school so he can start his day and there is a teacher near by that gives me the “signal” to go and she will get him.

I had to walk to my car telling him to go ahead into school and it will be ok. Get in my car and leave my son standing there crying for me and drive away. To think that just because his legs got chilly in the car and he wanted to change into pants set him off is crazy. But it is true. If my Monday and Tuesday morning is any indication of how the rest of the week is going to go I should just take the rest of the week off and go home, lock the door and just wait for Armageddon. 

Where is my damn giant bottle of Advil??

The Good The Bad and The Full Moon

The month of September has been all over the place for me. Highs and lows and everywhere in between.

1-    My son officially started kindergarten and we were done with the stupid staggered entry process, which is I think more to get the teachers acclimated than the children. He has done well so far. They are on the Green, Yellow & Red stoplight behavior chart and if you are super good you are given Blue. He has only seen two blue days. The rest of the month was equally green and yellow. I love it that he is so honest when you ask him what color he was on. I ask him and he says “yellow” and when I ask why he says “playing in the hallway”.  If you read my previous post about his kindergarten assessment and the toy issue we had you can appreciate this… every morning he will put a toy car or something in his backpack. I think he is doing it mainly because he was told he can’t, or could it possibly be like a security blanket ? Not sure yet. Defiant? Yes. Breaking the rules? Yes. He does know he can’t take it out of his bag till he is on the bus or at after school care. I think we will both get on red for this eventually.

2-   My daughter is playing middle school volleyball. She is now in the 8^th grade (the seniors of middle school) and her coach told her she had to be a leader. I think she translated this as being the boss. Which, by the way, comes natural to her. I went to see her play and I was so proud, because she was so good! A trait she did not get from me.

3-   I finally finished my wreaths for my front porch. It only took me 3 ½ weeks to squeeze a wee bit of creative craftiness out of myself.

4-   I mostly cleaned out the dining room/ dumping ground. We can now sit at the table and do homework but the bench is broken so I only have 4 chairs, two of which I am scared to sit on.

5-   Our million dollar washing machine was getting hung on drain/spin/rinse. So I go online and try to figure out the problem. Apparently there is a trap thing under there that all the water goes through when draining. They don’t tell you that in the Maytag manual… you have to go online and figure the shit out yourself. 2 hours later , many gallons of water all over the laundry room floor and we find the trap thing is clogged with two socks, a few marbles, a Popsicle stick and three shoe strings.  Works like a charm now…

6-   My Alpha cat died. He was hit by a car driven by some loser that was probably texting and not looking at the road. OJ was the king of the beasts… the ghost in the darkness… alpha orange kitty who ruled all dogs with an iron paw and whose wallet said “Bad MF”. Now I have no mouser… I have to go find two cats to keep the damn pied piper from taking up residence in my house this fall/winter.

7-   I took my daughter for some much needed mommy/daughter one on one time. She wanted to go shopping… I hate shopping. But I went anyway. Almost $500 lighter in my bank account  I now know why… and the only thing I bought for myself was a $20 desk fan. But I really needed everything I bought… really. Target is what did me in. Damn that place.

8-   The dog has stopped pooping on my deck. I still have to hose it down all the time because she hasn’t stopped peeing on it. I plan on moving my deck furniture to the front porch so I can sit out there when the weather is nice and I don’t have to bring in the cushions. I had two throw pillows that are now her chew toys. I don’t want them anymore. If you could see what she did to them you would understand.

9-   My husband likes to sing in the kitchen on Sundays when he is creating his culinary masterpieces. He also likes to substitute words of a song with my maiden name, which is what he calls me most of the time. So, he is having a large time singing and then he will throw in “my Maroon” for whatever term of endearment is in the lyrics. I just shake my head… I can’t do anything with him.

10- My son mooned the entire after school care class on the playground this past Friday. I am so glad my husband picked him up!!! To his credit he acted totally surprised that our son would do such a thing but then he made the incriminating mistake of adding “at least he yelled FULL MOON before he did it” That was a dead giveaway of where the 5 year old got it from. 

Throwing Some Horns... It's Genetic

For those of you that know me, you know my husband was, is and will always be a rock star. He still looks and acts like a rock star.

OK , here is the funny part of this story. Wednesday nights at church are for adult bible study and the youth program. The youth are doing all kinds of activities including some of their own bible study. My son, who has just gotten used to being called a kindergartener, has had to transition to an older class that he was resisting because he really liked all the toys in the nursery. He  resisted last week but this week he did fine, accepted that he is a big boy now and went with his new Wednesday night teacher. (yay for me) 

My husband, the rock star, usually works later on Wednesday nights so I am mostly solo when going to church. I hate he missed last night. He grew up in this church, went to school with most people there our age so they KNOW… he is the resident & local head banger. At the end of the night each little class can get up on the stage and tell the audience what they learned that night. And it was time for my son to go up. He got on stage and did his ironman pose and then proceeded to throw some Rock and Roll horns in the air for everyone. He then laid on the floor and did some kind of worm thing down the steps and across the floor. Stood up, threw thel horns again as if to say “Thank you ! Good night!”

I had to wrestle him the rest of the time because he didn’t understand that his moment was over and it was someone else’s turn. Thank God everyone knows the boy’s daddy and not a single person was offended or surprised at what my child did in the sanctuary. Nor were they surprised that my husband’s son wanted to get back on the stage.

So , for now, we have managed to avoid the prayer list and entertain everyone all at the same time.

Hot Date, Hot Mess and the Petite Genius

It was our 14^th wedding anniversary dinner date. I remembered we had over $100 in gift cards from Christmas (9 months ago) that we will probably never use because the damn restaurant is at least an hour away so that is where we decided to go. May as well use them right? I was SO looking forward to Friday, mainly because I was getting about 5 hours alone with my husband, but also because I had heard so many wonderful stories about this 18 oz bone in rib eye I was practically drooling by the time we got on the highway.

So my hot date says to me on the way to the rib eye of my dreams, we should probably do some shopping before we go to eat because the wait will be too long at this hour and by the time we eat everything will be closed. Ok, better get me some crackers or something because I might go all jekyl and hyde on you and scratch your face off if I get too hungry. So a pack of Gold-N-Cheese and a pepsi later we arrive at our destination and head into a Barnes and Noble…. my mother ship.

You know, there are certain smells that make me smile. Anything Gain, new car (duh), a new Dooney (which is quite similar to the new car), my fave perfumes, a freshly scrubbed baby (this includes my 13 and 5 year olds) and BOOKS. New books have that distinct smell and you mix that with some coffee and I could fall into one of those overstuffed chairs that everyone in Raleigh has farted and wallowed in and be perfectly content. Although I tell myself that the dutiful workers at Barnes and Noble spray those suckers down with Lysol and vacuum them every night I know better, but its my lie to myself so hush.

Anyway, since I have a NOOK I am no longer allowed to purchase actual books so what the hell am I doing in here I don’t know. But my honey was having a good time pilfering through graphic novels and CDs, so we decided to go ahead and do a little advance Christmas shopping. We amble over to the children’s section, in which I could easily spend $100 in about 5 minutes then walked over to the Thomas the Train section with the wooden trains. First of all they are EXTREMELY expensive for a painted block of wood with wheels and secondly something STUNK to high heaven. Immediately I look at my fabulous husband with the accusing stink eye knowing he went over there and farted, knowing I would walk right into it… and at the same time he gave me the same look! UM.. Hello… I don’t know if you remember but I don’t have gas. And at that moment we both turn around to see a petite mother sitting in a chair, texting on her phone, and her kids were very sweetly playing on the train table. Being parents we both recognized the pungent smell of a stinky toddler and wondered, was it the boy or girl and was this woman so accustomed to this stench that she didn’t recognize it?

She was completely unfazed by the cloud of funk in which we were all engulfed. As we ambled away from the contaminated area I had to wonder… did this woman have a sinus infection that she couldn’t smell or was this some evil genius plan to keep people away. It was better than Mace I tell you. We laughed so hard all the way out of Barnes and Noble I think I snorted.

Finally I sat down to order my steak. Bone in Rib eye, medium, mashed potatoes and salad. Our server was training another server and got our order mixed up. He wanted his steak well done… I wanted mine medium (which is of most importance because I do not eat steak jerky) I get my $25 steak well done. I may as well took $25 out in the parking lot and set fire to it. If there is one thing I don’t do is bitch about food at a restaurant. They can’t undo a well done steak so what are they going to do … put another $25 steak on the grill for me? Probably, but what will they do to that steak before I get it?? Call me paranoid but I have worked in restaurants… and I have seen how problems are handled. Nope… I didn’t say anything. It was still good but not as good as It could have been for sure. The waiter did bring me a giant piece of cheese cake for our anniversary- free. That was nice.

It was time to go and they brought us the check. I had two $50 gift cards of which was about $31 dollars left over unused. I have been a server, and I have been a server in training. None of which are at the top of my list of jobs I have loved. SO, in the spirit of paying it forward and making someone’s day I left our server and server in training the balance left on that gift card as a tip. 50% tip would have made my day … back in the day. I hope it did theirs.

So overall I had a great hot date with my hubby. It’s nice to get alone and realize that we do have fun together, without kids to entertain us. And to the woman in the children’s section, I believe you are a mad genius. You managed to go shopping and not a single sales person bothered you. Or any other human being for that matter. Carry on girlfriend… make sure you get some Desitin for that baby’s butt on your way home. 

This World We Live In...

My mother remembered where she was and what she was wearing when Kennedy was shot. She was 16 years old and probably a sophomore in high school. She remembered it vividly as if time stood still and the oxygen across this entire country had been sucked away by a black hole and no one could breathe.

I can say the same about events that have taken place in my lifetime. I vividly remember where I was when these world events took place:

1-    1974 - Nixon’s resignation speech -  I was 5 years old and in what we now call “time out” and that was what was on the TV.

2-    1977 - Elvis died, mainly because my mother was crying and I didn’t understand why. It wasn’t like she knew him.

3-    1979- Three Mile Island – I was living in NY at the time and didn’t understand why everyone was wigging out. I was 11. They didn’t make as big of a deal out of it then as they would if the same thing happened today. We were fortunate.

4-    In 1981 Both President Regan and Pope John Paul II were shot and wounded.I was still in catholic school at the time.

5-    In 1997- princess Diana was killed in a car accident. I watched her funeral on TV

6-    In 1998 – The Monica Lewinsky thing. I was in bed after getting all wisdom teeth taken out and it was on every channel.

7-    1999- Columbine High Shootings- unbelievable that kids would even do something like that to each other.

8-    2001 – 9/11 – I remember looking out the window at my office thinking what a clear blue day for something so awful. This was the first time I actually used the internet to stay on top of what was happening.

9-    2008- First African American man elected president of United States. I know it was a big deal but in my mind he was just another man that had been elected president. So many times in my life I don't look at things as black or white. I dont think that should be what defines the man and his ability to do his job.

10-  Daily Since 2001 it seems that the news is filled with terrorists and what they are doing. Sometimes I think that the media attention fuels them to get meaner, more viscous and more extreme in their tactics to achieve their goals. I cant for the life of me understand why someone would hate americans, or anyone unlike them for that matter, enough to commit mass murder of innocent people and die along with them. It makes no sense to me. 

I remember each of these incidents over the last 40 years. 9 out of 10 events are not positive or celebratory events in world history. The impact of the devastating events is what makes its mark on our memory. I honestly don’t know if I could list just as many positive world events that I can recall in my lifetime, without having to look them up.

What does that say about us? What does that say about the world we have created that when asked about world events that are burned in our memory not a single one is a happy or joyous event. I have a book full of happy events that are in my own little circle of existence but as far as worldwide.. nope.

How do we fix that? Can’t the media start trying to balance the bad news with an equal amount of good news? Show everyone that the world can be a wonderful place and you don’t have to look too hard to see it. I am trying to do that with my kids. At least I can show them that our planet is not a punishment or trial we have to muddle through to get to the next level of existence. Life is what you make of it and as my Granny would say “The Lord won’t put any more on you than you can bear, but he sure can bend you double sometimes.”

Things I Cried Over or Almost Cried Over in the Last 30 Days

1-    I would have to say at the top of the list has to be taking my baby to kindergarten.

2-    Walking out of kindergarten and down the hall away from him wondering if he was going to get on the right bus and get to his afterschool care or would these people lose my child.

3-    Him telling me on his third day that he was going to walk by himself and its ok mommy.

4-    I have worn my hair in a pony tail for almost two weeks because with all the starting of two schools for two kids I don’t have the time to go get my hair done. I look like some hobo two tone trash but… I can put it in a ponytail again (small smile)

5-    I haven’t had time to write. Literally I have not written a thing since the whole kindergarten growling incident.

6-    The fact that I didn’t have my mother here to help me see the humor in everything was upsetting. Having to literally talk to my self as if she was talking to me to help me get a laugh out of the whole situation was ultimately sad.

7-    Some inconsiderate asshole who wasn’t watching where they were going hit and killed our beloved OJ Kitty. People drive too fast on the road we live and I am sure they didn’t even bother to slow down because of an animal close to the road… hit the poor thing and keep going. I probably know who did it and honestly, it is best if I don’t find out. Whenever I see an animal I slow down… even if they are walking along side of the road but some people don’t care… and will hit and kill an animal and keep going like they hit a pothole. I hope they all rot.

8-    It rained about 5 inches in one day this week… and of course I left my deck furniture cushions out so they are DRENCHED…. STILL… I don’t think they will ever dry out so I can sit out there before spring…. That is how wet they are.

9-    After a bit of research and some Ph strips I have figured out that I am considerably acidic. Great. From what I read I may as well go outside and start eating grass and dirt to become more alkaline. Apparently acidic is bad… alkaline is good.

10-  And last but not least… there are 12 boards on my deck that still have to be painted. And when the grass is wet the dog seems to think she is too good to get her feet wet and go to the bathroom in the yard… so she does her business on my deck… that I then have to scrub -  because she is stupid.

Somewhere between a growling 5 year old and a stupid dog I did manage to find some humor in all things listed with the exception of #7. RIP OJ… you were one bad ass kitty.