My Letter To You

Dear Grandma Stone,

Last night I stepped out of the shower and grabbed a clean towel from the closet, started to dry my face, and stopped. I took a long, sweet, inhale of that towel which smelled exactly like the ones I’d pull from beneath your bathroom sink as a child. That wood-soaked, fresh-laundry smell, hinting slightly of shelf liner and extra bars of soap, transported me back into your house, into the hall bathroom, and I was 5, 7, 13 again, stepping out of your shower and onto the yellow carpet. There were the Picasso-esque New Orleans jazz players on the wall at my right, the brass floor rack that held extra towels by the double sink, the soap dish that cradled mysteriously shaped soaps I was always too scared to use. I didn’t want to mar them. I used the pump dispenser.

And when I went to bed last night I couldn’t get you or your house out of my mind. Was it because it was your birthday and I hadn’t called? Was my obsession motivated by guilt? I laid in bed for over an hour and walked through your home in my memory. Like a 360-degree video clip I scanned each room; the walls, the contents of the cupboards, the index card labels on each box and carton written in black sharpie. Walking into your home always filled me with such a sense of peace; the smells, the quiet jazz station playing from the radio on the counter, the cleanly order of each room, dusted and sparkling perfection. Your home was one of the few places I felt I could truly escape, even amidst the turmoil of life and work and motherhood, and no matter my age, where I could stretch out my arm for the soft caress of your fingers. I imagined all this and for a brief, fleeting moment, felt like things were still as they were. And you still lived there on Manhatton Drive and I could still go to you for respite. In your presence I could always breathe deeply, unencumbered by life.

Dad had taken me through your home when it was empty and cleaned, the walls sterilized with fresh white paint, the new windows draft and rattle free. Walking in sucked the breath from my body as if every beautiful thing and all the magic and all our history in those rooms had been wiped clean, existing only in particles of eraser dust on the crisp, virgin carpet. I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to that house then. I’m not really ready to say goodbye to you now.

Is that why I imagined your home so vividly last night? Did you know about today somehow, and send me those beautiful memories to help make today easier for me? It did a little. I think.

You’d be glad to know I’m surrounded by you in my home. I go to bed and wake up every morning seeing your painting; the nude you painted in art class hangs in gold frame on my ice blue bedroom walls. It’s the most perfect place for that piece, the room bringing out the best in the aquamarines and browns. I stare at that painting and try to imagine what you were like at that age, try to imagine you painting it, what you might have been wearing, the strokes of your hands as you laid the oils on canvas. Your other painting hangs in my living room, your dishes are in my kitchen cupboards, I pour tea from the crystal pitcher you gave me, your beautiful crèche adorned my holiday mantel. You are everywhere here. And yet, you live most vibrantly in my memories of plywood play sets and green felt advent trees, red suitcases filled with special toys, and dolls from faraway lands. Wicker ducks and chickens that laid candy once a day, and a closet full of strange and exciting toys I’d never seen and didn’t have at home. The smell of your lipstick and Bill Blass perfume. Your closet that housed a menagerie of necklaces and jewelry. The way you set a beautiful table. Your gift for gracious hostessing. Your bible verses and quotes on the side of your refrigerator. Your never ending lists of things to do, to make, to order, to cook, to prepare for.

I was coming to visit, in three short weeks (now three long weeks), to hold your hand and sit by your bed and keep you company. I would have brought you chocolate covered ginger even if you could have only smelled it. I wanted to show you the book I just published, even if I only read you a few pages. In my heart, did I suspect this might happen? Perhaps. But even when we know what the future holds, it’s still difficult isn’t it Grandma? And although I know there was rejoicing in heaven today when you got up there and that this day was the best of your life, right at this very moment it doesn’t console me much.

I could wax poetic forever about the childhood memories you gave me and the endless ways you made me feel special. But the value of those recollections matter to no one but my own heart. And now, in heaven you know them all. There is nothing left to say except I’m sorry I didn’t call you yesterday. 

I love you.

I'll miss you.

Rachel

The First Test

The forgotten trumpet. 

It’s January 3^rd, and I was already given an opportunity to put my only New Year’s Resolution into effect. As is typical, this morning my son was late getting out the door, with my husband waiting for him in the driveway, car running. My son always announces that he’s “ready” for school, even though he’s sitting at the table, barefoot, sporting bed head, with cereal milk dripping from his mouth as he says it. The time between the words, “I’m ready,” to his butt actually hitting the passenger seat is about 10 minutes. At least. Such is the life of pre-teens.

About 20 minutes after he left, the phone rang. I was elbow deep in my daughter's french braid so I let the machine get it. I heard:

“Mom. It’s me. Can you bring my trumpet to school? I need it. Thanks.” Click.

I finished my daughter’s hair and assessed the situation. I was dressed and ready, but my four year old was on the couch in her pj’s, and another daughter who needed to get to the bus stop in 15 minutes, and it was colder than a witch’s….well, it was just really, really, cold outside. We’ll leave it at that.

I flew through the house, grabbing his trumpet from his room, his music folder strewn about his floor, trying to unhook my parka from the closet, mentally checked the fact that I had 15 minutes to get there, drop it off, and return home or either my middle daughter was going to miss the bus, or my four year old would be home alone, and it was getting hard to breathe, and I realized…

Hey. I have choices here. Am I making this decision On Purpose?

No. I wasn’t. I was trying to be a good mom. You know, that good mom who brings the trumpet to school when her pre-teen son should have been getting his things together but was instead watching cartoons on TV at 6:30 a.m. I was doing what I’ve been trained and conditioned to do, which is rescue people/children from situations they get themselves into, and while certain circumstances do call for a mom to bring things to school (medication or a project that won’t fit into a bus seat) this was not one of those times. So I shelved the instinct to be good, and settled for what I do best, and that is mediocre. I was selfish and chose sanity over saving my son's arse. Sealing my decision with a grain of reality, I also rationalized that band was only the first period of the day. Chances were good that even if I got the damned trumpet to school, the class would soon be ending and he wouldn’t be able to play it anyway.

So I made a different decision. I hung my coat back inside the closet, grabbed a new cup of coffee, and had a very pleasant, non-stressful morning. Making that decision On Purpose was so liberating! I made another decision On Purpose and moved my son’s trumpet and music folder to the front door where he would see it when he left for school the next day. You’re welcome son.

The best part about my decision? When my son came home he asked me, “So, did you get my message this morning?”

“Yep,” I replied.

“You just didn’t feel like bringing it?” he asked.

“Nope. I didn’t have time. Did you get in trouble?” I asked, silently hoping for some logical consequences here.

“No. I just changed the subject and my teacher didn’t say anything else about it.”

Well, no consequences, but overall the experience was win-win. My son didn’t get into trouble (this time) and I had a fabulous, productive, stress-free morning.

On Purpose. 

Life Lesson Cont’d

This past weekend was one of the few weekends in November (or December) that didn’t have tiny writing in the calendar boxes, meaning my husband and I had two full days to do what we damn well pleased. You know, yard work, chores, laundry, and grocery shopping were able to be completed totally unencumbered by sports games, karate, sleepovers, or birthday parties. Which turned out to be a really good thing since the vast amount of our energy, patience, and emotions were sucked dry simply by trying to deal with our son, who has officially morphed into a sad-morose-glass-always-empty-pre-teen.

Since his birth we knew it was coming.

For those who need to catch up a little bit, I guest blogged on the website Good Enough Mother yesterday, about our son’s impending report card status and what is going to happen when he brings home any grade below a “B.” Which I’m praying will happen because if he manages to eeeekkkk his way into all “Bs” it means one thing: that he’ll never change. He’ll think he can half-ass his way right into college with the same amount of effort he gives to picking up his room and folding his clothes into tight, neat piles. I’m sure you can imagine what that looks like.

Last week he mistakenly thought report cards would come home on Friday, but no, it’s actually Monday. Which meant of course, he had one more weekend of video games, TV, and computer, or to be more precise, three more days to breathe easily before he started flopping around, gasping for air like a fish out of water because he has lost technology. Which he tried to work to his advantage.

Every request this past weekend started with: “Since I’m going to lose video games next week, can I…” or “This is the last weekend I have to watch TV, so can I…” which we went ahead and let him do. We’re not as cruel as he makes us sound. We’re happy to give the kid on death-row a few tasty meals of his choosing. He stayed up late Friday night watching a movie. He spent the night at a friend’s house on Saturday, his last tribute to Halo and bonding with his buddy. Sunday morning came, and he was a tired, moody, mess, and angry I called him home from his sleep over so he could attend Sunday morning mass. Apparently the I-need-to-be-thankful-perspective is a few years off.

Sunday was choppy for us all, and I asked him, “Do you have any homework you need to complete today?” He wasn’t sure. He thought he might have a little.

“Don’t you have quite a few tests coming up this week?” I ask. Maybe he does. He thinks so. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have the study guides he needs to study effectively. Besides, he tells me, he can always study Monday night.

At which point I send him off to his room to bring me his backpack and folder, while I walked to the nearest wall and banged my head against it a couple times in a repetitive why me motion. Dealing with my son and his homework habits is a little like picking up a drunk relative from the police station after being arrested for a DUI, only to have that relative ask you to stop at the liquor store on the way home so he can buy more beer. And I’m thinking in alcoholic metaphors these days because dealing with a pre-teen has increased my desire to throw a few back. At the end of this year there’s a good chance I’ll have sclerosis of the liver.

My son brings me his backpack, and I proceed to rifle through it just to make sure he was indeed telling me the truth. That he had no homework. That he was all caught up, almost. That the life lesson he was currently swimming through had pushed his little head out of the water long enough for him to gain perspective of the shore. Surely, SURELY, someone who was going to lose four and a half weeks of technology (anything with a cord for heaven’s sake) would MAKE SURE their assignments were completed, wouldn’t they? Faced with the thought of being holed up in our house with only his books and model rockets to keep him company, wouldn’t that encourage him to make SURE he started the new grading period off with completed assignments and good grades?

Do you see where this is going?

I found the weekly letter in his backpack. The one I’m supposed to read on Thursday when it comes home and not on Sunday, three days later. But I’m mediocre and didn’t ask him for his folder on Thursday—or all weekend for that matter—because I decided to be selfish and organize my daughter’s closet and wash the outside of the windows with the 10-foot stepladder.

In this little note home, I discover that my son has a one and a half page essay due on Monday. That he has a graphic organizer “to help with the assignment” and to “please ask your child about this.” So, per teacher’s instructions I say, “Son? What is this about an essay due tomorrow?”

“A what?” he asks. “An essay?”

“Yes,” I reply. “An essay. And you have some type of graphic organizer to help you? Where is that?”

“An essay?” he keeps repeating, like I’m suddenly speaking in tongues and he can’t quite make out what I mean, but maybe if he looks all confused and mopey it will buy him some time to come up with another feeble excuse. He rifles through his backpack and drags out a piece of crumpled paper, a notebook with about seven sentences written down, and he says to me, “You mean, my personal narrative?”

At which point I grabbed the edges of my stained couch and prayed, Lord, please help me not kill my son who is deciding to take this moment to dicker with me over the semantics of his assignment. Is he seriously getting into a pissing contest with me over lexicon? Jesus, hold me back.

“Yes.” I reply, sociopathically. “Your personal narrative. When is it due?”

“I don’t know,” he tells me.

“It says here it is due tomorrow. How much do you have written?”

He holds up his notebook and shows me his 1/8 of a page of chicken scratch and I reply, “Well. Looks like you have a busy day.”

The best part of this emotion-suck-lesson however, was when our son’s best friends pulled into the driveway in their van, hoping to take our son back to their house to hang out and have dinner. His rant suddenly stopped, his smile returned, and he looked at me with hopeful, doe-y eyes. Surely, not even I would say no to this outing! There they were in our driveway, just waiting for him, and it would be rude to say no! But I declined on behalf of my son, thanked them for being salt in his wound, and sent them on their way. Our boy needed to finish his essay. And while it would have been so much easier to let him go play—while the thought of not having to deal with his passive-aggressive harumpfs and deep sighs would have made my day easier, I thought about that cold beer in the fridge, and I held my ground.

He managed to finish writing his assignment, and his father and I forced him to type it up, even though he swore up and down that only the rough draft was due Monday and not the final draft. He was worried he’d get in trouble by completing so much of it ahead of time. I assured him, I would be happy to write a note apologizing to his teacher that he went above and beyond and that his father and I forced him to do it. Blame us for having expectations for our son’s behavior, we can take it. He’s just our minion.

Incredibly, he eeeekkkkked out his assignment at the eleventh hour once again. It took about that long too. There was a lot of crying and nose blowing and used tissue on the floor. And although he told me he was “finished” about five times (each time asking if he could now go be with his friends),we kindly pointed out the other things he needed to complete: picking up his room, studying for his test, working on his math, and doing a final proofing and edit of his essay. Excuse me, personal narrative.

He’s my first child, my only son, and I had no brother’s growing up. I get that I’m new to this adolescent game, especially when it comes to dealing with boys. I naively thought the report card status would be enough to change his behavior in one swift motion. Looks like it’s going to be more of a year-long process. Me, my husband, and my bottle of Merlot are ready for the challenge.

Good Bye Arizona. I’m sorry we stayed so damned long.

We leave for home tomorrow. It’s safe to say the kids and I are ready to be in our own beds. It’s been a good trip, don’t get me wrong. We weren’t abused in any way. We didn’t stay in a filthy, germ ridden hotel. We didn’t fall on any cactus or get stung by scorpions. We were able to see many old friends and most importantly, spend a lot of time with family. A lot. Of time.

Here are some Arizona trip statistics for you:

We stayed in Chandler for 26 days. That’s 624 hours or 37,440 minutes or 2,246,400 seconds, not that I was counting. 98% of that time we were hot. (The other 2% we were in Flagstaff just feeling warmish.) It rained a total of 5 minutes, which equates to .000133547% of the time. That’s so insignificant it’s like it didn’t really happen. Now that I think about it, maybe those drips were a figment of my very hot and tired imagination yearning for home.

We didn’t really intend to stay this long, it’s just when my husband happened to purchase the tickets. He saw the cheaper price and hit the “book now” button and realized a little late that it meant we’d be gone for almost a month. Oops. But we’ve made the best of it, even if this 26 day trip was about 16 days too long. How do I know we’ve stayed too long? Well, let me tell you:

10 Signs That You’ve Been On Vacation Too Long

10. The kids cry when you tell them there are 5 more days until you leave for home.

9. Your children start crying when you talk about Daddy and ask why he can’t come here.

8. The kid’s grandparents start conversations off with, “You know, your mother and I were thinking how nice it would be if each one of your kids came out separately for a week at a time next summer. It would really allow us to get to know them better.”

7. The kids start reminiscing about even the bad memories of home. As my middle daughter said to me, “Mom, I miss waking up at home and asking you to make chocolate chip pancakes and you saying no.” Thank God she hasn’t started waxing poetic about the yelling yet.

6. You check to see if you can change your reservations to an earlier flight home.

5. You are surprised to find that changing your tickets would only be $350.00 and it doesn’t sound like a bad price.

4. The kids cry when you tell them that you leave for home the day after tomorrow, with the youngest responding, “But I want to go home NOW.”

3. Every day the kids ask to call their friends in Massachusetts at least twice.

2. I start thinking that if I didn’t see any family or any of my children for 24 hours, it’d be the best 24 hours of my entire life.

1. Everyone starts feeling not only annoyed, but angry that every single room in the house contains a person who is doing something, leaving absolutely no place for alone time. And it’s too hot to take a walk even at 9:30 at night.

Don’t get me wrong, we did have a good time. And for the rest of July I’ll be blogging everyday about the trip, the things we did, events we witnessed, and things that made me laugh. Best of all we spent time with family; parents, sisters, nieces, nephews, aunts, uncles, friends, and grandparents. That part was worth it. I’m pretty sure I could see all those people in a two-week span however. That saying that fish and company both stink after three days wasn’t entirely incorrect. This stinky fish and her three loud, complaining minnows are swimming upstream toward home.

We can’t wait. 

It’s Van-Tastic

Today I started my morning off with a list of things I’d like to accomplish. I then proceeded to walk outside and start cleaning out my van which wasn’t even on the list. The catalyst for my decision was the fact that my van had started to smell like rotten milk. I’m past the stage of hidden baby bottles, but I am not past the stage of the Go-Gurt. My children cannot get into the van without grabbing one in their pre-trip ritual: go to the bathroom, grab your shoes, get a yogurt. Thank the heavens that Yoplait invented little tubes of dairy product, just perfect for busy families on the go. But now my vehicle is littered with (mostly) eaten yogurt casings. And the tiny little tip the kids rip off while opening the tube. In fact, I put this heinous chore off as long as I can and for good reason. If my family was stranded in New York City, in temperatures of 110 degrees, and a cab pulled up with an interior that looked and smelled like my van, I'd shove the kids out of the way, slam the door, and say, "No thanks, we'll walk." But since it's crap from children I know, while still gross, it's oddly acceptable even for my germ-a-phobic nature. But my van smelled. I could ignore it no longer.

I’m sure all of you have seen the You Tube clip, “Mom My Ride,” but if you’ve been living under a rock and haven’t seen it, you really need to watch it. I wish like hell I had been the one who thought of putting this together, but alas, I wasn’t. However, it is pretty much exactly what my van looks like and was what I was dealing with this morning when I decided to actually clean my vehicle.



Step One: Crap Removal

This is what I unloaded from the van today, although it was much worse a few days ago, when trying to find one of my children, I had to remove some trash from the floor. So while my trash bag is not nearly as full as it should have been, I did remove enough items to require four trips to the house to carry things in. While taking this photo I thought it would be a neat idea to put together some “I SPY Van Crap” fun.

I spy a bucket and a spool of thread,
I spy a hat for wearing on your head.
I spy a water bottle, phthalate free,
I spy an orange cup and pink pony.

I spy a rain slicker and bag of clothes,
I spy tissues for a snotty nose.
I spy sunglasses and a foil pan,
I spy some socks and a stained hot pad.

I spy a canning jar and a striped sun hat,
I spy two baseballs that you’d hit with a bat,
I spy a table cloth white and green,
I spy a bag of trash just for me!

Perhaps I’ll sell this photo to the I Spy book people. Maybe I could make a buck or two. (I also took a picture of the contents of my purse which I emptied out the other day as well. I’ll be doing another post on purse crap, with more I SPY fun to come.)

Step 2: Department of the Interior

Once the crap is removed, it’s off to grab the vacuum with the super suction. I admit that I didn’t do a stellar job with the floors; I just vacuumed over the floor pads without removing them. Upon first glance at this photo you might think that I have some groovy, retro tie-dyed carpeting in there, but alas, it’s fabulously stained from coffee spillage, sodas that leaked after the waxy bottom of the cup disintegrated, and other assorted liquids one might carry in the van. I don’t kill myself trying to suck up every last rock and crumble because I live with stains like these, and really, the bitty grit on the floors makes the stains less noticeable. I do however vacuum all the seats, especially the ones in the back where the kids inhale snacks and assorted sundries by first smashing them on their face, and then eating the crunchy bits. The seat around my daughter’s buckle is pretty malleable, considering that I had to dismantle it some years back to clean up a quart of chunky vomit.
I’m not even going to say it outloud because you know it’ll jinx me, but since then we haven’t needed to perform that particular service again. I understand this is just a matter of time.


Step 3: Put Van Back Together, While Admiring It’s Beauty

If cleaning out and vacuuming the vehicle wasn’t enough of a time suck, you then have to actually put away all the garbage you shoveled out of it. I had a pile for the laundry, a pile for the kitchen, a pile for the garbage, and yes, there is still a foil pan with a few remaining stragglers sitting on the driveway. I put back the driver’s side floor mat, admiring the cool hole that has worn through the bottom, but it does make a cool new way to play peek-a-boo with your three year old.

And lastly, the favorite part of my van has to be the passenger side mirror:

You too could be a proud owner of a carpet-soiled, rotten milk smelling van with a broken side mirror. The only thing you’ll need to do, is back out of your garage early in the morning (before your cup of coffee) while looking through the rearview mirror to make sure you’re not actually running over your children, and wait for the CRACK! CRUNCH! that is to ensue. For while we have a two car garage, it is obviously designed for two Tato Nano’s  and not for a Dodge minivan and Toyota hybrid. When the cars are parked in the garage together, I have to climb into my van through the passenger door and into the driver’s seat. This is not a reflection of my growing arse, but simply a statement about how large our garage is. (Although those wood-working tools along the side may be taking up a bit of room as well.) The interesting thing to note about my side mirror, is the entire apparatus popped off and is too broken to work again unless we purchase an entirely new side mirror part, so my handy man-y simply popped in the mirror just so it doesn’t look as tacky. This mirror is no longer able to be controlled with the little buttons on my dash, nor does it even reflect anything, because it’s so loosely popped in there, that it vibrates so much that the images are just a blur: like trying to watch a movie while someone is fast forwarding it. But whatever makes him feel less like a white-trash van owner. I’m happy to own up to it.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, with a little hard work, a bachelors in education and a masters degree in English, you too could own a vehicle just like mine. If you need any tips on how to get the fab smells like vomit and rotted dairy products out of your vehicle, give me call. If you’re needing information on how to disassemble the vans seats to clean up excrement, body fluids, or to find a lost limb or missing child, I’m here to help you. If you’d like to post information on the state of your own vehicle and attach pictures for us to commiserate together, I’d love you forever. It’s my calling to turn my misfortunes into learning experiences that help others. No need to thank me.

House of a Different Color

This is our house. Just a few weeks ago it was this not-so-lovely grey color with burgandy shutters. The paint was in bad shape, many of our eaves were rotting, and it basically needed a lot of TLC. It also wasn't very cheerful and quite honestly, didn't do much for me in the way of inspiration. But I attribute a lot of that to my personality, which can't look at any house, room, yard, or garden without imagining how it could be. With a just a little paint, or organization, or construction project, or new design. In fact, while I love to watch HGTV--one of my favorite channels--it always leaves me feeling a tad depressed at what I could have. If I only had the time and/or the money. I have figured out (the hard way) that I am much more content with my life (which, let's face it, is amazingly blessed) if I don't watch HGTV or read Better Homes and Gardens magazine. What I don't know exists can't tempt me. Or make me wish I could do....well, everything.

But for the first time in our 11 years of marriage, my husband and I finally paid  contractors to fix our eaves and paint our peeling exterior. Of course we could have done it. My husband being the electrician handy-man that he is could have replaced all the wood trim and done a fabulous job. Working together we could have painted the house ourselves, even if it took four years: one side each 12 months. We could have done it, but decided to use the tax return to fix the exterior and keep the neighbors happy. I picked the colors out (helpful little 2" squares that they are), hired the contractors and the work began.

Here's the final product:

I'm still getting used to the colors, and was worried that it looked like a rainbow threw up in my yard (what with the Azaleas blooming in bright red) but my good friends and neighbors across the street seemed to like it. As long as they are happy, that's all that matters, since they have to look at our house everyday. So, am I content with my surroundings, now that our residence has a brand new outfit that should last for the next five or six years?

Well, the driveway needs to be sealcoated. The backporch needs a new roof. And I still haven't gotten my dream kitchen in all these years....but that's a house of a different color.

Eleven-Year Old Gifts

I have officially survived my son’s 11th birthday party. I think I rather like the older-kid parties because they are a lot easier to plan. Everything’s a trade off, and the time you save not purchasing goody bags, themed paper plates and accoutrements, you must add to the bottomless well of your patience. Must have patience. And ear plugs.

Honestly I don’t think I’ve seen my son this happy since he got his DS for Christmas, or since he got his XBOX 360 the Christmas before that, or perhaps even when he got his first Gameboy in 3rd grade. He has told me he loves me 27 times (at last count) since yesterday afternoon at 1:30 when his friends came over. He has complimented every meal, and has remarked how wonderful this birthday party is incessantly. Now I know exactly how to make my son happy:
Give him everything he wants.
No problem.

His birthday requests weren’t really all that difficult. Four of his friends met here yesterday afternoon, all wielding hand held gaming systems. It was a peacock moment as the boys eyed up their gaming systems, their games, their game cases and holders, and proceeded to have a verbal pissing contest about who could kick who’s butt in what game. This deeply intellectual conversation took place in our upstairs living room whose ceilings I have now discovered are way too low and are not acoustically sufficient. Their loud, boisterous voices reverberated off the ceiling and walls like a game of Break Out. Yes, even I, videogame hater, was cool enough to play them at one time. Even if it was back when Aqua Net was the hairspray of choice.

Before we left for our next activity, Eli opened up his birthday presents, all flat envelopes containing Game Stop gift cards. The boy was like a starved child who suddenly found himself in front of a free food buffet, and I was thrilled that I didn’t have to fork over money for his video games. I loaded the boys up—with their hand held devices mind you—for the very LONG drive to play laser tag.

For the next twenty minutes, the noise in the car went something like this:

OKAY! WHO WANTS TO PLAY MARIO CART? I do! I do! Me too! Alright! Okay I’m all loaded, are you loaded? WAIT! I CAN ONLY SEE ONE OF YOU? Just wait we’ll come up you have to wait for it to load! OH! I’m SO GONNA KICK YOUR BUTTS IN THIS GAME! NO YOU’RE NOT, I’M GONNA KICK YOUR BUTT! CRAP! I JUST DIED! Hey! Get off my tail! Wait! You can’t use a bomb! OHHH! ARRRGHHH! NO WAYYYY!! HEYYYY!!WHO WANTS TO PLAY POKEMON? I DO I DO I DO!! AWESOME! ANYONE WANT TO TRADE? ME ME ME ME- ALRIGHT WHO WANTS MY ARBOK? HOW MUCH POWER DOES EKANS HAVE? CRAP! I JUST DIED! AHHHHHH!! NOWAYNOWAY!! AHHHHHH!

In fact, quite a few times the noise level actually made me flinch. I’m pretty sure they were talking about video games during that ride, although they could have been speaking Latin or even some Aboriginal dialect as far as I could tell. Most of the words and names they were using were completely foreign to me. Whatever. As long as it wasn’t foul or swear words I was happy. Crap was about the worst that flew around the van. And idiot. But I think they were referring to their Pokemon.

Laser Tag turned out to be a huge hit, and the boys had tickets to play 8 games each. The rounds are only 7 minutes long so I figured 56 minutes of laser tag would be sufficient. Turns out after all the running around in there, smoke in their eyes, living a hunt-them-and-shoot-them video game fantasy, these boys were toast after only four games. Four. I now have twenty games to play at a later date. Then they moved onto the arcade.

I’m not sure what the thrill of arcade games is for children. I suppose it is fun to play a game, try to rack up a high score and then watch tickets shoot out the machine, whereby you feel incredibly adept at skeet ball or throwing balls into hoops. They don’t search out the games that are fun to play, but ones that will give you the most tickets. After their tokens are finished (I’ve replenished them twice mind you) the boys walk up to me mummied in tickets wrapped around their heads, necks, hanging from their arms, trailing behind them on the floor, and proceed to brag about all the fine things they are going to get at the ticket redemption counter. I’m sure they have visions of miniature army tanks with moving cannons, big stuffed animals in neon colors, and super soaker water guns. After all, some of these boys have over 250 tickets. Surely that must be enough to get the good prizes.

But they walk back to my home-base table with….a couple whoopee cushions, a gold happy face ring, little rubber diaphragm-looking “poppers,” and puffer-fish shaped inflated gel balls.
“Where’s all your prizes?” I inquire.
“Right here,” they announce.

Of course, my son gets the inflatable gel ball with a hole in it, so as soon as he steps away from the counter, the guy deflates. He tries to ask for a new one, but the (please forgive me) rather large, not-so-happy carnie behind the counter won’t give him a new one. “It was fine when you got it. You put a hole in it. I’m not exchanging it,” he says (granted, that’s my son retelling me the story.) Now, this piece of crap inflatable gel ball is probably available from Oriental Trading Company-for about 23 cents each. I’m not going to argue with Mr. Smiley, but what I want to say is, “Seriously? I just paid forty dollars for that fantastic prize with a defect and you can’t trade the boy out for a 23 cent replacement? Did you personally go over to China and carry back all these prizes stuffed into your sweat suit making them worth more than forty dollars?” But I shut my mouth and used it as a lesson to teach Eli that this was NOT an event-ruining moment, that it was a dollar store item and gee, wasn’t it so much fun playing laser tag. He agreed it was. (But he brought up what a raw deal he got on the popped prize at least five more times that evening.)

Upon returning home, I took the boys to Game Stop so my son could spend the gift cards that were smoking up the pockets in his shorts. This was a good move on my parts, since he was able to use his cards immediately and I didn’t have to listen to him beg me to take him to the store until my ears bled.

For dinner we feasted on grilled hamburgers and hot dogs, French fries, a veggie platter, and grapes. Everyone was happy. Everyone was fed. Everyone played more video games after dinner.

The piece de résistance was a mint chocolate chip ice cream cake, made from scratch by moi. Yes, even the cakey part was made from scratch, and I took pictures. Mainly to serve as proof that I loved him when he’s an adult and can’t remember a solitary instance of my being nice.

Cake done, boys in pjs, they stayed downstairs and played video games, air hockey, and briefly watched a movie, before turning on the games again. At 12:45 I went downstairs to confirm they had followed my instructions to be in bed, asleep by midnight. As I rounded the corner to the darkened downstairs, I was greeted by four little faces glowing like aliens from the DS screens in front of their bulging eyeballs. When they realized I was standing there, slam, slam slam, slam, went the DS’s. It was too late to feign sleep—clearlyI caught them, but I simply gave them a verbal warning to leave them off and go to sleep. The next morning they informed me they went to bed about 2 a.m. Fine by me. I was asleep upstairs by that time. I’m no idiot.

All in all, I think my son had the best birthday of his life. Every detail was chosen by him; the menus, the cake, the activities, and the friends. It required very little on my part; no decorating, party bags, craft projects, or structured games. The best present I gave my son for his birthday was one he probably doesn’t even realize he loved best; an entire day, night, and following morning free of my mom-lessons, nagging reminders about how much time he spent playing video games, and a patient countenance that responded to his requests with, “Sure. No problem.” The truth?

It was an even more fabulous experience for me. And so much less stressful than how I usually roll. Maybe I need to adopt more of his easy going personality and be less of a micromanager. Maybe the person who left with the best gift on his birthday was me.

Thanksgiving of Epic Portions 2009

Our family made the seven-state trek to Wheeling, WV again this year to spend Thanksgiving with my husband’s family. What started a few years ago as a “special” trip out to WV for the November holiday has now turned into a “family tradition” that my children and my in-laws both eagerly anticipate (don't get me wrong, I do to-sorta). Weeks before the trip the kids start running around the house planning the games, headphones, food items, blankets and pillows they will shove into the backseats, making the mini van look like an episode of Hoarders. I, on the other hand, spend those weeks calling our friends to borrow the roof-top luggage carrier (that I should name for how much time it has spent with my family) and trying to mentally organize the van so I’m not up to my pits in crap before we leave our street. My husband actually asked if we really needed the luggage rack. I just laughed.

I didn’t time our departure very well, and heads up: 2:30 p.m. is not a good time to leave Massachusetts heading south on the 95, given that it puts you at about New York right around the time people are flying out of the city like The Birds revisited. Half-way through Connecticut brake lights glowed like a river of lava, and you know how well four-ton minivans with luggage carriers and three young passengers do while bobbing along in lava. We decided to follow the GPS and GET OFF THE HIGHWAY, which, heads up again: is NEVER a good idea. The traffic you know is always better than the traffic you don’t know. Needless to say, three-hours later we broke free of the auto-chains keeping us back and actually made it into New Jersey.

Now I’d like to give a shout out here to my three children, who, despite the traffic and the length of the trip thus far, were absolutely perfect angels. No one cried, pouted, whined, peed their pants, threw-up, or got a fever. I’m sure some of their good-naturedness had to do with the fact that their eyes were glued to some type of hand-held gaming screen or video playing device, and their mother who usually polices their time on such drivel was actually throwing movies at them card-dealer style and suggesting they play a few more games, even if their thumb joints were tired. If I have ever said a nasty word about video games (I haven’t, have I?) or our societies dependence on the damned television set, I would hear-by like to publicly eat my words and thank those designers and engineers who probably failed English, but dammit, save the lives and restore peace to traveling families worldwide. Even my youngest sat in her car seat, her face reflecting the glow of Elmo banging away on his dollar store piano for at least 70 blissful minutes.

My children were so fabulous they didn’t even complain about not getting to eat dinner until 9 p.m.. Sitting in traffic threw off the eating schedule, and in addition to feeding their brains with mind-numbing entertainment, I was also throwing back the only food I had brought with me: candy, fruit snacks, Gatorade, and stale Halloween pretzel packs. In fact, now that I’m typing this, I’m starting to see why the kids love the road trip so much….But anyway, by 9 p.m. I was feeling guilty for not providing some type of official dinner, as I’m pretty sure that’s in my parental job description somewhere—dinner before bed—so we pulled into the first place we could find. I couldn’t even tell you what town we were in, but we managed to locate a Quizno’s where I ordered food for me and my husband, while he took them to a McDonalds that was located inside a Walmart. Since I had met them at Walmart after I got our sandwiches and Mickie D’s was about to close (it being 9:00 p.m. and all) we decided to picnic in the parking lot. Now if I was a town resident and I happened upon a family sitting in a mini van with the back up in a dark parking lot of Walmart, whose kids were sitting on top blankets eating dry beef-product patties on a bun with 1.5 pickle slices, while their parents wolfed down sodas and hoagies simultaneously trying to keep the pillows and crap from falling out of the vehicle onto no doubt dirty, filthy, pavement crawling with germs, I would probably have called the police to tell them a transient family may need some assistance, or asked them if they needed $50 bucks and a place to stay the night. Fortunately, we managed to finish our quality eats, change the kids into pajamas, clean out the accumulated trash, and reorganize the pillows and blankets before Social Services stopped by to questions us. Unfortunately, no one offered us $50 bucks. Which I would have greatfully taken, as it’s rude to reject people trying to minister to others. I’m sure we looked like we needed some ministering.

The rest of the trip was uneventful, and our vacation—and the food prep—was in full swing bright and early later that morning (we got in at 3 a.m.). I will admit that when we started going to Nana and Papa’s for Thanksgiving it was difficult for me to leave behind the Thanksgiving traditions of my youth: the food dishes that were served only during the holiday meals, the sense of prepping, decorating, and setting a pretty table. After all, an Italian themed Thanksgiving is not what I was used to, and seeing spaghetti sauce on the table made the holiday seem, well, like a school night.

But as the years have progressed and I’ve grown in maturity and understanding, (how big of me to admit) I’ve let go of my assumptions about the Thanksgiving menu. What food items show up on the buffet table are the items I will eat, and if I really need to have a particular dish I can make it when I get home. As for the kids, I’m not sure you could please my children more than by offering gnocchi and sauce with every meal, that is unless you let them watch tv, play video games and gorge themselves on sugar for 10 hours. But the holiday menu is, well, rather loosey-goosey, and Papa and my brother and sister-in-law all love to cook and prepare food. When you get that many great chefs in the kitchen, it’s best to just go with it and make what you are told, or offer to perform the mundane tasks such as prepping or peeling or dicing. In fact, now that I think about it, Thanksgiving at the in-laws is all about cooking and preparing the food--creating fabulous dishes and offering a variety of personal favorites for each guest. Whether or not those dishes actually all go together or ever showed up on the Thanksgiving plates of the first New Englanders is of no concern. It’s also been my experience that Italians are a meat-loving bunch; the more meat you can serve and put into other dishes the better. Like I said, I’ve come to embrace the carnivoristic tendancies, even if it means I may need a stool softener later.

Turkey did make the cut this year, all 22 pounds of it. Yes, a 22 lb turkey. From what I’ve read, you should figure on 1 lb of turkey per person (which I think is a bit ridiculous because when is the last time you sat down to eat a full pound of anything, unless it’s a slice of fruit cake from your old Aunt Pat?) which would have meant a 10-12 pound turkey would have done the trick, but this Thanksgiving I suppose that each of were entitled to almost three pounds each. Ingest that much turkey and you may as well sprout feathers and a wattle. Or a waddle. Either one. And where’s room for the Thanksgiving meatballs?

The night before Thanksgiving, it seemed as if all the adults had been cooking for two solid days (in fact my middle daughter complained, “Mah-muumm, we haven’t even seen you since we’ve been here. You’ve been in the basement kitchen the whole time and haven’t even come upstairs.” Yes, I know. There is another pretty complete kitchen in the basement which is another blog entirely) and we were still saying things like, “Have you started the gnocchi yet?” “When are we going to put on the roast?” “How long does the bread take to make?”

“Do we even know what we’re serving?” Someone asked.

“Why don’t you write down what we have,” Someone else suggested.

So my brother-in-law started writing. Here’s the menu we ended up with:

Thanksgiving 2009

• Roasted (22 lb.) Turkey
• Pork Loin
• Meatballs
• Sausage Stuffing
• No Knead Wheat Bread
• Gnocchi & Sauce
• Cranberry Chutney
• Roasted Cauliflower Casserole
• Brussel Sprouts Piri Piri
• Green Chile Corn
• Green Salad with Pears
• Parmesan & Garlic Brussel Sprouts
• Deviled Eggs
• Antipasta Platter
• Mashed Potatoes & Gravy
• Pumpkin Pie
• Pumpkin Pecan Pie
• Pineapple Upsidedown Cake
• Pumpkin Roll
• Jenis Ice Cream
• Cinnamon Coffee Cake
• Fruit Cake

Now, at this point I’d love to tell you that the family gathering numbered more than 45, or that we cooked 15 dishes and provided 7 different desserts for the hungry college students from Franciscan University 25 miles away who were unable to go home for the holiday. But we didn’t. There were eight adults and three kids. Just us. We ate. And ate. I stood up, unbuttoned my pants and had a second plate of food. And after dinner there were so many leftovers we could have bathed in the remnants and still had enough for dinner the following day. But like any good, quality family gathering, it doesn’t have to make sense. The menu, the food items. The fact that we filled every plastic baggie, bin, and resealable container with food and were storing them on the back porch outside and under the front of the house because the two household refrigerators were already full, just goes to show you what a food-loving bunch we all are. Did we have the leftovers for breakfast? Well, some deviled eggs, but Papa made pancakes. Did we eat the leftovers for lunch? No, the ladies and children ate at Costco and the gentlemen ate fried fish at the American Legion. Did we have leftovers for dinner? Yes, we did pull them out for dinner. But guess what the kids ate? You got it. Gnocchi and sauce, leaving us with approximately 15 pounds of cold turkey.

But with any family gathering, the good times must come to an end, the love and stress of the holidays bottled and saved for next year. We packed up all the gear we brought, then packed up all gear we purchased, then packed up all the gear Papa gave us, and with the luggage rack near bursting, the kids knees at their chins for the 50 pound car jack, gently-used V-Tech phones, orange flashing dome light with car lighter adapter for emergencies, BB gun for my son (what 10 year old doesn’t need a BB gun?) and other accoutrements at their feet, we set off for the 10 hour trek back home. Did I do any complaining about the amount of items we brought back with us? Not much. Because one of the things we left with was a brand spankin’ new Cuisinart food processor my father-in-law happened to have on the shelf down in the basement kitchen. Not even being used. Just gathering flour dust. And funny enough, a Cuisinart food processor was just what I wanted for Christmas.

I’d love to continue this blog with a hellacious story about the ride home, but was surprisingly peaceful. The kids’ eyes bulged at the screens. We listened to our ipods. We even stopped for dinner at a REAL restaurant and even ate inside at a table. Dinner was good. Traffic? Non-existent all the way home. Weather? Crystal clear and starry. We pulled in around 1:00 a.m. and everyone went to bed without a fuss. Perhaps this ride home is my reward for all the other years of hellish driving conditions and screaming children. That, or maybe I was mesmerized by the thought of the 22 lb turkey and my new Cuisinart.

Dear Jon Gosselin:

People Magazine March 23, 2009 Vol. 71 No. 11

Seriously. If you had ever hoped you could “get away with” the whole cheating-on-your-wife scandal by playing the poor-abused-husband card while continuing to deny you ever cheated on Kate while married, you pretty much screwed that up by taking your not-cheating-on-my-wife-female-“friend” to France on a vaca with you.

Though your celebrity is rather new, (I hate using the word “celebrity” as a verb, it really should solely be a noun) you sure did graduate with flying colors from the Dairy School of Cheating, whose free-range mantra is “How to have the cow, make the cheese, and sample milk from as many bovines as possible, all while claiming to be hormone and antibiotic free.” Unfortunately, you’re not in very good company, what with the likes of Bill Clinton, Eliot Spitzer, Senator Jon Ensign, and Governor Mark Sanford being alumni of the same college. Of course there are many more cohorts of the sort, but really, this is a blog and not a dissertation. In fact, have you every thought of running for office?

What is so very sad to me—and the millions of people who have become sucked into the Jon & Kate Plus 8 vortex—is how transparent your whole conundrum is. I’m lucky enough to be older than 32, and this looks to me like your run-of-the-mill mid-life crisis. Trust me on this: us women with children have an identity crisis almost hourly, which pretty much makes me an expert. Sub out the red hot convertible sports car for the big booming motorcycle (you have already clearly scored the much-younger-than-you-and-so-opposite-your-wife-girl), some late night partying, and trips to France, and there you go. The salve that will heal all your wounds from the life you didn’t plan on. While the grass does appear to be greener from a distance, I can assure you that up close, there are always brown dead patches, even on those manicured, pristine golf courses. Grass is grass after all.

Let me break it down for you and tell you how it ends:

1. Passive guy marries strong willed woman. Knowingly.
2. Couple gets pregnant with twins. Unforseen.
3. Couple gets pregnant with sextuplets. Really really unforeseen.
4. Guy gets bowled over by wife daily, but never says a word. Resentment builds. Knowingly.
5. Guy feels trapped by eight children he loves but didn’t plan on, while continuing to be bowled over by wife. Daily.
6. Guy explodes and refuses to “take it anymore.”
7. Guy finds a girl nothing like his wife, who "likes him for who he really is." Claims he isn't cheating, they are of course, JUST FRIENDS.
8. Guy divorces wife.
9. Guy publicly announces relationship with party girl ten years his junior, who is openly considered a “wild child” and who has a drug arrest. She also likes his motorcycle. Bizarrely enough, she has NO children.
10. Guy finds out that girlfriend is shallow and so is his life. Eventually.
11. Guy breaks it off with girlfriend—or she leaves him—and guy is now alone, divorced and his grown children hate him for cheating on their mother.
    

I’m telling you, this isn’t one of those win-win-win situations you never read about but hope will happen to you. You want to be friends with Kate? Hardly. I must admit that at the beginning of your reality show, I tried to keep an open mind about the connection between you both. You two appeared to know where the other was coming from and seemed to be realistic about each other’s personalities.

As the seasons progressed, I have to say I started to venture over to your side. Kate did seem to be condescending and rude, making fun of you at every opportunity and using your back to step up into the camera focus to show us her new hairdos and how “together” she is. Maybe having eight kids does that to you. I’m sorry to say, that if you thought she was overbearing, controlling, and yelled at you before, honey it’s bound to be nothing like what you’ll experience as the ex-husband. The ex-cheating-husband. The ex-cheating-leave-my-wife-and-eight-kids-husband. That’s a Kate we haven’t even seen yet, and I didn’t think anything could be worse than the shopping in the toy store episode. It made me want to hide under the bed and I’m on the other side of the television.

I must admit to being inexplicably fascinated by your family and story when the series was new. I watched to see how two humans could possible raise that many kids who are that close together, since I only have three children and would like to rip out all my hair most days. The kids were cute, you and Kate seemed so normal, and most of the time it looked like—at the end of the day—things were going to be fine.

But now I’m Switzerland. At 32 you’re no victim, and laying low taking her blows is 50% of the problem. Seems to me, instead of trying to “stick it” to Kate (which is sure how it looks out here in viewerville), you’ve gone and reduced your family to just another dysfunctional example of how not to live. I watched your life to escape my reality (to a degree). If I wanted to see and hear more family dysfunction, I need only pick up the phone and dial close family and friends. There’s plenty to go around. I’m sure I’m also not the first to remind you, unlike those of us who live in relative anonymity, your life is not only recorded, but will no doubt be available in boxed sets in the series movie section at the local Target. Instead of labeling them “Season One” or “Season Two,” your family video collection may be labeled “Jon & Kate Plus 8: Media Machine Virgins,” “Jon & Kate Plus 8: Things Get Ugly,” “Jon & Kate Plus 8 Separate,” and the last season aptly titled, “The Aftermath.” Not only can the world re-live your moments, but your kids will be able to watch them with a bowl of popcorn. And maybe a glass of milk you brought home.

Honestly? I'm not willing to watch your show anymore; it's lost its appeal. I'll get my dose of Jon and Kate drama from the local tabloid headlines, or perhaps my MSN homepage when I fire up my internet. But there is something sad about watching two parents try to give their eight kids a normal life--claiming it's their first priority--when the rest of us adults know how the story ends. When you're finished experiencing the "life you missed out on," you'll see it too.

Sincerely,

Rachel Vidoni, realistic ex-viewer

If You Give a Mom a Headache

If You Give a Mom a Headache...
(Adapted from "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" by Laura Joffe Numeroff)

If you give a mom a headache, (because of children who were up crying all night), she’s going to want a drink. Since drinking grain alcohol at 7 a.m. is taboo in our culture, she’ll head for the coffee maker hoping for a stiff caffeinated pick-me-up. After pouring her mug of coffee, she’ll need to have some creamer. She’ll open the refrigerator looking for the creamer and feel like Erin Brokovich because of the vast empty space looming before her. While she doesn’t spot a roach, mom will notice lots of molding food crumbs and sticky orange liquid that has melded underneath all the produce drawers. She’ll make a mental note to clean the fridge later.

Mom sucks down her coffee with creamer while scribbling miscellaneous food items onto a grocery list. While thinking of her grocery list, it will occur to her that her husband’s birthday is Friday, the in-laws are coming on Thursday night, and Easter is Sunday, and she has no food, no plan, and no lists going for any of those events either. Mom will sigh and wonder what is so wrong with drinking grain alcohol at 7 in the morning. Glancing at the clock to confirm it is still 7 in the morning will remind mom that she needs to call the doctor’s office when the phone lines open at 8:30, in order to take (one of her up-all-night) daughters to have her ear checked. Thinking of her poor, ear-achy child will make mom wonder if there is any way she could still go to school today and how long Motrin will last, but since child neglect is also a social taboo, mom calls the doctor and gets an appointment for 9:45 a.m.

Mom heads to the doctor with two children, three errands to do, and a scribbled down grocery list. While driving to the doctor, mom notices that her gas light is on and she needs to stop and refuel. She’ll stop for gas, even if it means she’ll be a little late to the doctor’s office because if she runs out of gas, she’ll be really late. After gassing up, mom drives to the doctor and gets the confirmation that her daughter does indeed have an ear infection. Mom will rejoice at the diagnosis, not because she wants her daughter to be in pain, but because it means her $30 cop-pay wasn’t in vain. Thinking about that little ditty makes mom laugh to herself because she is such a good rhymer. Laughing to herself will make mom think about how mentally unstable people laugh at themselves, and since she feels a little unstable, tired, and overwhelmed herself, mom makes it a point to be in a non-humorous mood the rest of the day, for fear of being thought crazy.

Being in a negative mood and thinking about crazy people will remind mom that the next stop on the list is Price Right. She’ll head to the grocery store to purchase ridiculously cheap food and try very hard not to think about why it is so ridiculously cheap. When she enters the grocery store, she’ll notice carrots, and noticing carrots will remind her to get out her grocery list, and as she’s searching for the grocery list, she’ll remember that it’s sitting on the front seat of her van. Too tired, too cold, and in too foul a mood to go get it, she’ll impulse buy from one end of the store to the other, throwing unhealthy snack foods at her two daughters to keep them quiet. One hour, 7 bags of groceries, and $96.72 dollars later, mom loads the kids, the food, and herself back into the van to go home. Upon getting in the car, mom will spot the list on the front seat and remember that she has to stop by the pharmacy to pick up her daughter's prescription so she won’t cry all night and will be able to go school tomorrow. Thinking about her daughter going to school the next day puts mom in a suddenly decent mood, and she speeds all the way to CVS. While at CVS she picks up the prescription and drives home to unload the kids and the groceries.

While unloading the groceries onto the counter, mom remembers the spilled orange drink and moldy food bits in the fridge. She decides to wipe out and clean the icebox since it is so empty and shouldn’t take long anyway. While wiping down the shelves, mom notices that the rubber lining around the freezer is caked with additional dried food bits. Mom moves from the fridge to the rubber freezer lining, using her fingernail to shovel out the nastiness. Deciding that she’d rather use a knife to unencrust the rubber grooves, mom goes to the silverware drawer to find a sharp, pointy object. While rifling through the drawer, mom will be grossed out by how many chunks of food live here too-and vows never to eat off her utensils until that drawer is clean. Thinking about how much the drawer needs to be cleaned reminds her that the hovel she lives in also needs to be cleaned before her in-laws arrive on Thursday.

Thinking about Thursday will remind mom that today is Tuesday, the very day that one of her assignments is due. She’ll glance at the clock to see what time it is and realize with horror that it’s already noon and she has gone to the doctor, purchased groceries, picked up a prescription, cleaned the fridge and freezer liner, but has not done any writing. Panic gripping her, she realizes that she also used a good portion of the baby’s nap to clean the fridge, instead of sitting at the computer to bang out her assignment—one that actually helps contribute to the family bank account. She races to put the food away, swearing about the condition of her house, and making another mental note to add it to the list.

While mom is downstairs in the office working, the baby wakes up. Her other daughter’s ear is hurting again. Her son comes home from school with a friend. They need to eat, they need paper, they need to use the phone, the baby is crying, can I have, can I get, can I go, can I bring…while being bombarded by the children and overwhelmed by the events of the next few days and stressed out by her deadline, mom gets another headache. And if you give a mom a headache, she’s going to want a drink to go with it.

Only now it’s not 7 a.m.

My Great Idea: Successful Communication Without Talking or Listening

I think I’ve found a new way to communicate with my children. No more long lectures about right and wrong. No more mom-o-logues about expectations and rules. The eye rolling will stop, the facts will get communicated, and what’s more, it will all be in writing. Those offspring of mine won’t have the chance to say, “I didn’t hear you,” or “I forgot.” I’m jumping on the “25 Things” bandwagon (a little late), and taking my family with me.

I’m a card-carrying Facebook addict; that social networking site that lets you rekindle all those dysfunctional relationships from high school. Not too long ago, the “25 Things You May Not Know About Me,” phenomenon swept through Facebook like a lighted gasoline trail. Everyone, including The Wall Street Journal , The Boston Globe, and the New York Times, has written and blogged about it. There are lovers and haters of this “25 Things” list. People who didn’t want to be burdened by personal information they would rather not know. People who loved reading about little nuances of friends and family. I happen to be a lover, enjoying the random personal tidbits thrown my way. That, and I’m a writer. Typing up a list of things about myself is right up my alley.

It occurred to me the other day, that creating lists would be a perfect way to start communicating with my children. Sure, they may only be nine, seven, and two, but I don’t think the list idea would be lost on them. I could impart all my motherly wisdom in chunks small enough to remember. My training in education comes in handy at this point, as I know full well that 25 things to remember is just not age appropriate. This, and my children have the attention span of a sand gnat, so I figure I’ll start a little more slowly, say with 15 things. My long lectures will be replaced by 15 bullet points highlighting only the most important facts at the time; “15 Things You Must Do Before You Can Play,” or in the future, “15 Reasons Not To Smoke or Do Drugs.” Bound neatly in a three-ring folder, labeled with applicable topics, it would serve as our family’s standard operating procedure manual.

The first list I’d like to share with my children is “15 Things It Would Be Helpful To Know About Me For Both Our Sakes.” I’d really rather not wait until my children are adults for them to come to grips with all my peccadilloes, or acknowledge that I am a person outside my mom jeans. It’s a blow when children come to the age of understanding that their parents are pretty screwed up all in all, and contrary to what I have told my son since he was born, we do not “know everything.” I think it would make the child rearing years go much more smoothly for my children to understand that I have some personality issues that helped form how I raised them, and not uncover those secrets in my diary while going through the attic junk after my funeral.

I compiled a list of the 15 things it would be most helpful to know about my personality. I figure if they read this, maybe my children can brainstorm some coping strategies on how to survive me, and be a support to one another as they get older. If nothing else, perhaps it will alleviate the number of counseling sessions in their future. Here’s my list:

15 Things It Would Be Helpful To Know About Me For Both Our Sakes

• My deep seated germ-a-phobic nature goes back to my childhood. I cannot explain it, but when you touch the escalator handrail, public trashcans, anything in the bathroom, anything in public, anything at all, I have a visceral reaction that defies logic. Sanitize, sanitize, sanitize.
• Life for everyone would be so much easier if you listened to me the first time.
• I am controlling. The sooner you learn and accept this, the easier it will be for you to blow me off when I am freaking out over how the dishwasher is loaded.
• I’m not the mom I always thought I’d be. I now know that ‘perfection’ is not a gene I was born with. You don’t have it either.
• I’m not a morning person. There is no single worse way to start your day than by whining at me. You don’t want to get up? Neither did I.
• When I say “in a minute” or “just a second,” it will never be a minute or a second. Never.
• Even though you may think I hate you (if not now, then you’ll think this in a few years) I love you so much that I’d give up my life if it would guarantee your health and safety for the rest of your lives.
• All of you children were surprises. The best presents I have ever gotten in my life. God knew that it was probably the only way you were going to get here, given my need to plan for perfect timing.
• It is much easier to do things my way. If we do them your way, it will take a lot longer, there will usually be a lot of crying, and eventually we’ll end up doing it my way. See #3.
• God gave me a very sparse dose of the Patience Virtue. It is sometimes so difficult to see, you might not think it’s in my being at all- but rest assured, the reason I only freak out at 85% of the things you do is because of what little patience I do have.
• When we stay at a hotel and I make you wear socks in the shower and while walking on the carpet, I’m not afraid you’ll get your germs on the floor, it’s the other way around. You do not want to know what people do in hotel rooms.
• I want you to grow up to be self-sufficient, capable adults. That’s why I’m teaching you how to clean the bathroom, start the laundry, and do household chores. It is not because I’m lazy, like you think.
• I pray for you every night and bless you before I go to bed. Then I pray for myself all day long.
• I love you each so much and am so worried for your safety that I often get up at night to double-check the doors and windows.
• There is often no real reason for many of my arbitrary rules, but creating them is one of the very few perks of this parenthood job and I’m going to use it to my full advantage. When you are parents, you can make up your own fun rules to torture your children.
  

So there it is. The list that will start our family S.O.P When my kids start to argue with me, I will simply point to the three-ring binder on their desk. Refer them to the lists in black and white. Reference page numbers and line items. Communicating with my children will be so much more effective when I take the talking and listening out of it.

Guest Blogger: Ted TenEyck

Introducing: Ted TenEyck. Guest Blogger, Social Worker and Funny Man. Close personal friend. If you're lucky enough to be on Ted's Christmas letter list, you already know how his mind works. Thought I'd pass the funny along and invite Ted to blog here now and then. Don't worry, he'll get his own blog up and running soon. Right Ted?

DO YOU KNOW HOW LUCKY YOU ARE TO HAVE A FATHER LIKE ME??? DO YOU???

I love the promises people make to themselves about what what life will be like when they are a parent: “When I have kids, I am only going to feed them organic foods.” “I refuse to use the television as a babysitter.” “I vow to not let being a parent impact my relationship with my friends.” And sure enough, a few years later these same people are plopping Junior down to watch the same episode of Spongebob Squarepants for the fourteenth time while serving him some Jimmy Dean Pancakes & Sausage on a Stick: Blueberry (a real product, by the way). This, of course, buys Junior’s parents some time to go on Facebook and attempt to reconnect with friends they have had no contact with since they first learned the art of how to suction a baby’s nose.

As for me, my false promise was that I would not subject either myself or my kids to traditional children’s music. Nine years and four kids later, I have 5,670 songs on my ipod. And I listen to the same thirty-three songs by The Wiggles in heavy rotation until I am pretty sure that my ears are going to start to bleed.

This was not something that I ever planned, and it was surely something that did not happened overnight. No, it was a slow gradual process, which began when I realized that finding music to meet everyones’ needs and tastes is much easier said than done. As a result, I now have very stringent requirements for anything that may eventually wind up in my “Tolerable Kids Music” playlist. The following is just a brief sampling of what it takes to be immediately disqualified from ever making that exclusive and elusive list:

Songs that may cause my kids to one day need antidepressants.
I have learned the hard way that my cherubs do not enjoy any of the 193 songs that make up my “Despondency” playlist. My eldest son reported to me that the folksy songs from the soundtrack to Once were, “giving me feelings that I don’t like.” I wanted to shout at him to “lean into the pain and feel your emotions,” but I thought I should just cut my losses and play something different.

I-Would-Rather-Look-At-How-Much-My-Financial-Portfolio-Lost-Last-Year than listen to these songs:
Surprisingly, Alvin and The Chipmunks are not the main offenders in this category; even when they cover “Funkytown.” This is still more tolerable to me than anything associated with High School Musical. Zac Efron, I swear on my mother’s grave that if I ever run into you and your faux-basketball-playing cohorts, I will personally kick the crap out of each and every one of you. And not because you did anything to me personally; rather, I will beat you to a bloody pulp because you introduced my kids to the genre of musicals. If I ever have to take any of my kids to a matinee of “Cats,” I will hold you responsible.

Songs that mention any of George Carlin’s “Seven Words You Can’t Say on TV.”
Unfortunately, about a full one-third of my music library falls under this category. That probably wouldn’t happen if I had no taste and enjoyed “easy listening favorites.” Luckily, most of the time, the offending dialogue is really pretty blatant, allowing me to be a “good parent” and not play it for the kids. However...

One day while cleaning the kitchen, the song “URAQT” by M.I.A. started to play from my ipod. In a rare moment for me of pure excitement and joy, I picked up my daughter and danced with her for the duration of the song. Whenever we would hear the song again, my kids would beg me to do the “Silly Dance” with them. It quickly became a wonderful tradition. Around the seventy-fourth time we were enjoying this dance, my wife quietly asked me exactly what the words of the chorus were. Unsure myself, I looked up the lyrics on line. It was at that time that I discovered that the song is rather... well, filthy and profanity-laden. If I was capable of learning what the lyrics were, I was pretty sure that my kids one day would also discover what these lyrics were. And I thought that this was probably not the type of childhood memory that I wanted them to have of their father. There are already plenty of other memories that involve me that I wish I could permanently remove from their tiny little brains, so I did the only thing I could, and retired the “Silly Dance” immediately.

Songs that require me to have to explain how communist organizations work.
The Johnny Cash Children’s Album contains the extremely entertaining song “Why is a Fire Engine Red?” The song uses fun and silly word play, eventually concluding with the line: “The Russians are red. A fire engine is always rushin’ so it’s red too.” “I don’t get it!” my kids would shout when the song ended. “What does he mean by the Russians being red? Explain that to us Dad.” And that was the last time that I ever played that album for them again.

Songs that require me to have to explain how double negatives work.
I’m looking at you, theme from Ghostbusters. “Dad, I’m confused. ‘I ain’t afraid of no ghosts’ actually means that they really are afraid of ghosts, right?” “Yes, kids. You are correct. The writer of that song is indeed afraid of ghosts and is apparently also an idiot.”

Perfectly good songs that I ruined because I’m an idiot.
The soundtrack to Shrek the Third contains the classic song “Cat’s in the Cradle,” by Harry Chapin. The kids would listen to the song and recall the funny scenes from the movie when that song was played. And then one day I had to go and spoil all of their fun by shouting like a drill sergeant: “Do you know what this song is about? Do you? It’s about a father who didn’t spend enough time with his kids. DO YOU SEE HOW LUCKY YOU ARE TO HAVE A FATHER LIKE ME? DO YOU??” Surprisingly, the kids never wanted me to play that song again.

Any item in the wildly bizarre Kidz Bop catalogue.
What is better than a CD compiling all of the most popular radio hits from the past year? If all of the songs were sung by eight year olds! That's the concept behind this apparently popular product line. Not only are these songs painful to listen to, but they are at times downright creepy. That's because the producers didn’t apparently think about the fact that lyrics that were intended to be sung by adults would now be sung by third graders. For example, one song contains the line: “I can have another you in a minute. Matter fact, he’ll be here in a minute.” Sung by someone who will not be able to get her driver’s permit for at least another seven years. Isn’t that precious?

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is just an abbreviated list of reasons why I have resorted to just listening to The Wiggles as I drive around all day in my eight year old van. Feel free to call me lazy or a conformist. These labels may indeed be applicable. But listening to The Wiggles makes my life easier, even though now I have to explain to the kids on a daily basis why Greg Wiggle is no longer in the group because he has been diagnosed as having “orthostatic intolerance.” Although not an easy task, it is still better than the alternative: watching my five-year-old daughter walk around the house singing: “If you liked it then you shoulda put a ring on it.”