It Might Start with the Violence of Thanksgiving Day

Sometimes the wife and I team up to help with the children's homework. Last night it got hilariously out of hand…

I posted on Facebook:

Damn. I suffer with the 6th grade poetry homework. Anyone want to come help her? I can't take it. 

We need poem about Thanksgiving with a title, 2 stanzas with 4 lines each, 1 metaphor, 2 similes, 1 personification, and imagery. This is torture. Why can't they ask her to write a self-help book?

She is writing it and we seem to differ on our respective understandings of the basic concepts of metaphor and simile and personification. It can be non-rhyming, but she isn't really handling it very well. She is writing these rhythmic lines and plugging in whatever last word she wants because it doesn't have to rhyme. I'm dying here.

I'm such an O-Mom.

The love of my life replies, from her office upstairs where she is supposed to be studying, with the following series:  

A day for turkey, as tradition demands

Not tofu or soy, only birds in the plans

Poor turkeys in corners shivering with fear

As the feast, like a racecar, rolls ever more near

Tradition, tradition, the American machine

Its gears chewing up the humane and the "green"

We fight here like mad dogs, all caught in the fray

It might start with the violence of Thanksgiving Day

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Or were you looking for something a little, um, "warmer?"

I title it "The Annual Bloodletting."

Subtitled "Happy Holidays."

I got your Norman Rockwell right here...

I howled and wept and eventually gathered myself enough to reply: 

You are the best wife... ever. Period. The rest of you divas just lost your status. Sorry.

The best part? Tonight, it's haiku homework. My wife thinks in haiku… that's owesome.

Warning: Don't Eat Real Sauge!

Is there anything more pleasurable than a lazy phonetic speller? I think not.

The 11 y.o. girl child spells it like it is... well, almost like it is. She once wrote me a note and called me Cwen Christy. I enjoy this vision of me, the queen of my world, with the crown on my head sitting just a little crooked. It's certainly true... only it's off a bit. I think it's not such a stretch.

So, the phonetic speller thing makes for big fun here at the house. I've saved homework assignments, love notes, and grocery lists that look as cryptic as FBI's secret code: 

toylt papr

mlk

qcmber

bred

Of course, when I'm at the store (wondering what in the hell I'm supposed to buy) I must remember to sound out the words. Naturally, her intention is perfectly clear. 

The problem is the lazy streak that occasionally rears its ugly head. Perhaps it's an impatient streak... she spares no time for double checking! Other times, I suspect straight up arrogance, she simply couldn't be wrong. Why bother with all this second guessing. 

I submit to you Exhibit A: 

My son is the lone meat eater in a house full of vegetarians and recently, I found this note on a container of leftovers in the fridge. He cooked "real" meat and my daughter was, it appears, concerned that my wife or I would mistake the leftovers as our ready to eat faux meat products. 

Where else in the world can a woman discover (in her own kitchen) a container of leftover pork sausage links with a sticky note warning that reads, "Don't eat real sauge"? 

That's so freaking owesome!

O-Mom Confession: I Play with Their Minds.

Every now and then I have an idea that is just twisted.

I'm not sure where these things even come from and the worst part is that I crack myself up. Last night, I saw this commercial for Disney Vacations.

The boy-child said, "Dude... that's awesome."

I'm a little ashamed to admit that my first impulse was to torture the children. My mental movie played in fast forward:

Scene 1: The children, the wife, and I are watching the commercial. For a couple of weeks, the children go on and on about the idea of us surprising them with a trip to Disney.

Scene 2: Nine months later, we wake them up before the crack of dawn, put them in the car, and drive for hours, refusing to answer questions about our destination. Finally, I make them put on blindfolds, arrive at the secret destination, get them out of the car, and just when they are certain it's going to reveal we've arrived for our super-secret Disney vacation, I announce that we're doing a 5 day spiritual retreat - lots of yoga and meditation, reading and writing. Oh, and it's a silent retreat. Their faces distort in just such a way, as to earn them new pet names... Shock and Awe.

Scene 3: Next, the movies flashes through a dozen or so scenarios where we employ the message-inside-a-pizza-box technique to announce exciting family news - "Haircuts for Everyone!" and "Laundry Day!" and "Sugar-Free September!" With each experience they grow more and more annoyed... eventually, it's so ridiculous that they start to have fun with the pizza box, too - "Soccer games all weekend!" and "Back to school shopping!"

Scene 4: We pack everyone up again, but this time only drive across town. It's a good couple of years into my twisted game, it's early in the morning, and they are not amused. Mom, this isn't funny anymore. You said it's not nice to tease.... Seriously Mom, I've got stuff to do. Can we just go home?

Standing in airport lobby, we invite them to remove the blindfolds and hand them a perfectly wrapped gift box.


Girl-child: Great, what's this? No, let me guess... an invitation to my graduation?

Boy-child: Tickets to a chess match?

Me: Go ahead, open it.

Boy-child: No wait... (to his sister) I bet it says we're going to Disney World.

They roll the eyes and laugh a little. Reluctantly, they unwrap into the box, open it up, and look inside

Of course, there are airline tickets for the four of us and a picture of Mickey Mouse.

Speechless. Frozen. Eyes darting from me to my wife and then each other.

Finally, we confirm.

They freak out.

Movie closes with this image:

Sick. Twisted. I know about it.

Middle School Rules

This afternoon I got a facebook message from a friend who lives in my community:

"Hey Christy - Now I'm coming to you for input.......(my oldest), like Kira, is starting FMS this year.......he's excited.....I'm very nervous and unsure.......any tips or advice I need before letting him go off in to the big world of middle school."

I replied: 

Off the top of my head...
1. Make sure he goes to the pool party Friday night for the 6th graders from all three feeder schools. You won't be staying.
2. Drop him off at the curb on the first day. You won't be staying.
3. Ask lots of open ended questions once he starts going school to get info out of him, as it will be harder and harder to get info out of him.
4. Be involved, even if he doesn't seem to like it.
5. Activities - sports, academic clubs, arts - if he isn't already involved or planning to be involved, encourage him to do it. It seemed to really help Seth a great deal to have a group of kids that he got extra close to. He's going to get an identity for something, it might as well be a sport or as an artist or something good, right?
6. You are not going in. Really.
7. Tell him it feels odd to you, you're not really sure how to act. He is getting older. He needs you a little less. This is new for both of you. It will help him recognize that those things all apply to him also. He will like the idea that he's got something to offer you... how to be a cool middle school mom.
8. Once he's involved with something, find out how you can help with that thing. For Seth that was soccer, and I volunteered to be the team coordinator and photographer. This allowed me to connect really well with the coach and ALL of the other kids in his little micro world (who were all completely digging me because I was taking bad ass pictures of them) and their parents, without it feeling like I was tagging along with him.
9. Tell him how awesome you are. He will forget to notice. So, tell him, "It would be socially appropriate for you to tell me I'm awesome right now." I use this every once and a while when I drive him to school without complaining that he missed the bus or even without him asking (like when it was sub-zero or he had a ton to carry.) I smile that knowing mother smile. He sheepishly says, "Thank you." We get on with our day.
10. You're not going in... just stay in the car and let him slam the door and trot off into that big ol' foreign building without you. He probably won't even look back... it's okay. He's already fine and you will be, in about fifteen years.

I wanted to post this little exchange for anyone else who wants to know how we (what that really means is 'I') survived the first year of middle school. If you haven't been paying attention, it was a doozie of a year and my kid rocked it.

I rocked it, too, thanks to the kind women running the above referenced pool party last year when Seth was a rising sixth grader. Their PTO table, covered with Fairview Middle School paraphernalia, was planted firmly across the sidewalk leading into the pool. They took my kid's cash and told him to go on in and have a good time.

I just stood there, while he bolted off into the festivities, wondering when he'd acquired that middle school swagger... finally I said to one of them, "I'm not going in, am I?" She smiled that knowing smile and said, "No, you're not going in. He'll be fine." I said, "Obviously, he's fine. What about me?"

We chatted for a while and then I said, "Okay, so what about the first day of school?" She said, "You're not going in." I said, "Really?" She said, "Really." I said, "He's got all of those school supplies... they won't even fit in his backpack?" She said, "You are not going in."

Really.

1-2-3-Gibbs!

Watch and listen.



These boys want to remember their friend and teammate, Jake Gibbs.

They want to build two concrete memorial benches on the soccer field shared by Fairview’s Middle and High School teams. The project is pending school system approval, and a budget from the supervising contractor.

They will need money for materials.

Please help.

To learn more about the Jake Gibbs Memorial project, visit www.FairviewSoccer.com

Thank you.

O-Mom Parenting Solution Number One: Don't Be That Girl (or Guy)

These women took the Easter sacrifice thing to a whole new level. They gave their freedom... for Easter candy.

Straight from The Salisbury Post...

Brawl erupts over Easter candy

Tuesday,  April 06, 2010 12:00 AM

Staff Report

Police aren't sure whether Walmart's prices were so good or if there was a shortage of chocolate rabbits. Whatever the reason, seven women ended up in a brawl in the Easter basket aisle Saturday evening. Candy eggs, rabbits and Peeps flew through the air in an unlikely Easter exchange.

Property damage, primarily to candy and Easter decorations, totaled nearly $800. Salisbury Police responded to the Walmart at 323 Arlington St. around 7 p.m. Saturday. The five officers separated the women into two groups — with each claiming the other group started the fight.

Unable to figure out who initiated the brawl, officers decided to charge all of those involved in the incident with public affray. Those charged, whose ages range from 17 to 24...

_____

I removed the names of the women involved because... well, even when it seems reasonable, I am not all that into shaming people. I do, sometimes, find sharing - for the good of the masses - simply irresistible.

Introducing O-Mom Parenting Solution Number One:

Don't Be That Girl (or Guy)

Don't Be That Girl (or Guy) Parenting Solutions began one hot summer afternoon a couple of years ago in a local ice cream shop, as my impressionable young children and I enjoyed our delicious frozen treats. People were coming and going while we chatted and shared the flavors we'd chosen, and I was a happy woman. Then, she walked in... smiling, full of life, and seemed very pleased with her tasty ice cream selection. I'm unclear about when we go from calling females "girls" to calling them "young women," but she seemed to be a perfectly friendly one of those. It is likely that the line gets drawn somewhere around the moment she got knocked up, but perhaps it wasn't until a few weeks after our encounter when the baby in her gigantic belly took it's first breath.

Normally a big ol' pregnant belly like that would leave me feeling warm and fuzzy, reminiscent of the treasured time, many years ago, when I created and incubated my charming, brown-chinned table-mates. My oh-how-I-love-pregnancy-and-natural-childbirth moment was profoundly distorted by the "Class of '06 Rules" t-shirt literally fighting its way across this girl/young woman's baby's residence. The signatures of her classmates, equally profoundly distorted, looked more like a human graffiti art project.

While I completely appreciate the with-child-and-needing-ice-cream thing, I didn't enjoy the reality check. It hit me that my son and daughter were still not old enough to keep from being blue-faced and brown-chinned at the ice cream shop, but they were no longer without the cognitive ability to assess that this girl/young woman was still in school... just like them. They could see that her little friends had signed her t-shirt. They could recall how, just a month before, their elementary school "peeps" left barely-legible streaks of Sharpie on the t-shirts all had been awarded for their reading prowess.

In truly O-Mom form, I said to the children, "If you are young enough to have your friends sign your t-shirt, then you're too young to get pregnant and have a belly like that. Kira, don't be that girl. Seth, don't date that girl... and make her that way."

In hindsight, I might have added a little something about the importance of preserving their high school memorabilia (a.k.a. the peer-autographed t-shirt) with the procurement of some high-quality maternity clothing, should this tragedy ever befall either of them.

Cow's Milk

This is pulled from the bowel's of my long since closed myspace account for a faux-friend on Twitter @scarrymommy whose son just discovered the connection between a baby chick and the food on his plate...
_____

After school yesterday, Seth (10) and Kira (8) were scheduled for long overdue haircut appointments. I forgot to pack a snack to counter their afternoon hunger pains, so we stopped at the new Dunkin Donuts. After what was certainly the longest pastry contemplation time in history, we settled back into the car, each child pleased with their respective donut of choice and a small jug of milk to share.

Conversation about their school day turned to plans for the evening, then to silent enjoyment of their snacks. Then it happens...the ALWAYS loaded, "Mom?" Kira's use of my title when preceded by silence and loaded with inquisition has become a source of both great joy and anxiety for me. As I recall, the earliest "Mom?" conversation occurred on a steaming hot afternoon in late July when she was five years old…

Her: Mom?
Me: Yes, Kira? (always my response)
Her: Is Santa Clause real?

See what I mean? These are hard questions, always intense and always in the car. So, back to yesterday…

Her: Mom?
Me: Yes, Kira?
Her: I know milk comes from cows, but…like, how do they make it? I mean, do they just make it?
Me: (Pause) Well, Kira, do you know how when a mom has a baby and if she breastfeeds, her body makes milk? Actually, do you remember how every woman's body makes milk when she has a baby, and if they breastfeed their body just keeps making more milk for the baby?
Her: Yes.
Me: Well, cow's milk is what mama cows make for their babies. They have a baby, then milk comes, just like in humans and people use those machines to milk the cows so they keep making more milk.

I looked in the rear-view mirror and oh my, the look on that child's face. I would give everything I own to go back and capture this look on film. I've never seen it before. It's not the "yuck" face or even the disbelief face or even the dreaded "you are the worst mother in the world" face. I swear her face said, "What the fuck is wrong with you people?"

I realize this is an extreme assumption for me to make about the thought process of an eight year old child, but I promise I have no doubt that is exactly what Kira thought. She was appalled, no mortified, not only that she was drinking a baby cow's breast milk but that I would give it to her knowing where it came from. I'm sure some part of her even felt disappointed with the farmers who produce it and our society as a whole for continuing to support such an obviously insane concept, humans drinking the sacred mama milk of baby cows.

Not long ago, we rescued a couple of baby chicks. They only lived here for a few days but we quickly came to love them. The day after our chicks moved on to a permanent home with their adoptive family, Kira put together that baby chicks grow up to be chickens, and that she eats chicken. I feel like this brief visit from our little chicks finally did me in for eating meat, but it was a long time coming and I've done it subtly. I'm very careful not to push my choices off on them. But, Kira was uncomfortable with it, and I knew it was simmering in there. Time will tell where she ends up on the issue. I suppose all I can do for now is answer her questions honestly and support her in whatever she finds herself contemplating next.*

*It took about a year from the "discovery" but Kira is, in fact, now a 10 year-old vegetarian.