EDGY, WHOLESOME
I’m at work and Joe is with the boys this afternoon until I get home around 6:30ish. It looks like I’m not missing much. Methinks someone partied too hard last night.
But a nap sure would be nice. I think there is room for me right there in the middle….
We’re standing at the register, almost done buying our groceries around 11pm at night. It’s a holiday. There is no one else in the store. The kids are tired but not too. It hasn’t been a bad grocery run, as grocery runs go. And we’re almost done and ready to fall in to our respective beds.
I hear a strange noise coming from a few feet away and down the isle. It sounds like heavy breathing. It is heavy breathing. It’s Tony. With his head in a Darth Vader helmet that is supposed to change your voice to sound all robotic and what not. His big brother Devon immediately goes over to take it away from him. After all, it’s his right as Big Brother to take anything away at any time with little to no reproach. And take it he does.
Anthony meanders over to where we are at the checkout. The woman has really finished scanning and the transaction is almost complete. I half heartedly say, ‘Dev. Let’s go.’ not really believing that he can hear me or that he is going to come over. I figure he’ll notice we are gone after his 20th ‘Luke. I am your faaaaaaathaaaaaahhhh’ and come out to us in the parking lot where we will undoubtedly still be loading groceries in the car.
‘What’s his name?’ asks the checker-woman.
‘Devon.’ and I smile and slightly sigh.
Without missing a beat, she plucks up the phone-intercom and says over the speaker system, ‘Devon. Your Mommy and Daddy are waiting for you at the register. Devon, please come to the register.’
Any 16 year old in their right mind would die. And he almost did. He ripped off the helmet, his face glowing red, and walked out the store muttering, ‘at least there are no people here…’ while we all suppressed our giggles.
I didn’t know whether to slap her or give her a high-five. It was one of those moments you cherish but in a weird way since you really had nothing to do with it but you’ll somehow reap the benefit.
While driving the kids to their ‘Other Home’ on Monday night, we followed our tradition of singing the Star Spangled Banner.
Why do we sing that song? I’m not sure. Especially since there are so many other nauseatingly over-sung songs to pick from. Like Cum ba ya. It might be because we know most of the words. And since there are so many of us squished in the car, usually, one of us knows the parts someone else doesn’t know so that you can almost hear the entire song in continuity. Except for the last word. ‘Brave.’ We never sing ‘Brave.’
To someone listening in, like the guy next to us at the stop light who can’t stop staring at an entire carload of people singing The Star Spangled Banner at the top of their lungs with the windows rolled down because it’s too hot and the AC is broken, it might appear that we are half wits. Or, he could have just really hoped we would be shutting up soon so at the next light he wouldn’t have to hear us sing anymore. But in any case, we have fun, ok? And one time, over a year ago, when the drives were much, much longer and the time in between seeing each other was more like eons than days, one of the kids decided that if we sang slower and slower with each word, the song could last a long, looooooooooong time. And then that same child discovered that if we really wanted the song to last forever, or at least until we saw each other next time, all we had to do is never sing the last word. Brave. So we didn’t. And we don’t, still. Because if someone forgets and sings it, they get punched in the arm and we have to start all over again. And no one really wants to sing the whole song over again, because, hey! we don’t really like the song that much, so Alexandra will sing it alone, super fast and super high, sort of represeh’in all of us, and once all the windows are shattered and our eardrums are bleeding from the high decibels, we have arrived and it’s time to say goodbye. And the song is left hanging in the air until next time. Only we can no longer hear, so it’s irrelevant. But so very
This Mother’s Day marked the year that I’ve been a mother for half of my life. There is nothing I would rather do with my life than be their mother and everything else in my life creates an environment that makes that possible.
I had Devon at age 17 closely followed by Alexandra, Tyler and then Anthony. This year, at age 34, I can’t imagine my life any other way and I thank God for them every, single day.
Devon, 16, now rides around on a Harley. I try to ride around in my car behind him. He’s masculine. He’s sensitive. He’s a boy learning how to be a man. He’s good with sparks of mischief. He’s wise yet still blissfully naive. He writes large amounts of text full of angst with sizeable nuggets of insightful prose. He’s perfect.
Alexandra Gabrielle, 14 and very much a teen girl, is so beautiful inside and out. She deftly maneuvers the struggles of Becoming and Growing. I watch her and am so thankful to not be a teen girl. Her graciousness sprinkled with tinges of spicy femaleness are a wonderful combination. She worries about having braces and doesn’t wear too much makeup. She has all the normal body issues and struggles to accept herself. She is perfect.
Tyler, 12, most recently famous for eating a small amount of sodium chemical compound in chemistry which awarded him detention and a slight stomach ache, exudes loving. Love drips out of every single pore, but as soon as he notices or worries he might not be well received, he sends out rivulets of teasing to balance the universe. His ‘jolly rancher’ comments turned into ‘your mom’ comments which turned into ‘Tyler Scott Peterson’ and then ‘bacon’, as in: ‘your mom goes to college’ or ‘what do you want to do this afternoon? – bacon/Tyler Scott Peterson.’ Completely nonsensical. He’s perfect.
Anthony, 10, entertainer and magician extraordinaire, sometimes carries red sponge balls around in his pocket. Once, during a waiting-on-AAA-to-unlock-the-car-because-mom-left-the-keys-in-the-
ignition-and-the-car-runing episode, he pulled out the red balls and juggled. On Mother’s Day, he made balloon animals while I waited in bed for the other kids to get something completed. He made me a hat, giraffe, sword and shield.
He is trying to learn how to feel his feelings and still be ok when his feelings hurt a little or a lot. He’s perfect.
It’s all perfect.
Tony is notorious for closing his eyes right when the shutter closes.
I have at least 2 closed-eye versions for every 1 open-eye.
Man, that kid is cute.
Let me start off by apologizing to all of you that came here through Google expecting to find something about the senate or president Bush. You’ll find neither. Except for that sentence. Which I guess is something. But it sure isn’t much.
I’m remembering that while growing up I had this technique for getting what I wanted. Let’s just say for example that I wanted to go to a party on the weekend and because of the small size of the town, my parents knew that there would be no adults at the party. Now, taken at face value, you could pretty much be sure that I wouldn’t be going to that party. However, given the nature of my relationship with them, I could get them talking/arguing for days with each other and never really, truly address the issue of whether or not I could go. They would be talking about who was parenting better. Who was a truer Mormon. Who was really on God’s side. Eventually, I could distract them to the point of me getting my own way. I’d go to the party and they’d still be comparing righteousness notes. Then, they’d both throw their hands up and blame the other one.
I believe that is the finest example of filibuster that there is.
My reward? I have spawned 4 offspring that all seem to have inherited my innate ability to ‘work the situation’ to their advantage. Some more pronounced than others. But by the time I realize it, it’s too late and not only did I buy my son Matrix Online, but he’s taken it to his dad’s house to play it and spends 4 hour blocks of time glued to it. Now, in the first place, I didn’t want to buy the stupid game. And if I bought it, it was sure going to stay at my house and not go to his dad’s. And if he did get to have it, he was only going to play it for max 2 hours a day and that was it! The only difference between my son and myself is that I never instigated an argument over video games and that I only argue with myself whereas my parents had each other.
And here’s another revelation that, I have to tell you, really snuck up behind me and bit me in the butt. The original belief was: I’ll never be as fuddy-duddy as my mom. When I am a mom, I will be a cool mom. I will be Queen Cool Mom. I will never make my kids wear the types of embarrassing clothing that I had to wear. My children will thank me for being so darn cool. I will have their friends over practically all the time and we will eat french-fries with every meal.
Well, with the exception of the french-fries part, I’ve recently been alerted that I suck. I am so not the cool parent I had planned to be. Oh, I thought I was. Until my daughter and I went to the mall to try and find any kind of pants that would just, please, in some kind of way, not have the waist band hit 7 inches below the belly button area. For the love of all that is holy, please. And they don’t make them. They are simply not available in any way shape or form. Every single pair of pants we found were some miracle of sewing construction in that there didn’t seem to be any possible way of wearing them without some crack showing and yet, it didn’t. Why? Because my daughter showed me her technique of bending to pick something up. When you wear the pants nowadays, you can’t bend over at the waist and grab your pencil. You have to carefully bend both legs and plie, balancing so you don’t fall over. When I started pointing out that other girl’s pants were so low that you could see their *ahem* hairline, she offhandedly told me that of course she shaves so that is never an issue. Duh. After I picked my jaw up off the floor, because please, I don’t really want to think of my daughter as being old enough to need to worry about that kind of thing (is she really older than 9 yet?!) I told her I needed a moment. And I took it. And did the head shake thingy with my lips blubbering against each other to clear my brain. Reset.
So, then we looked for skirts. Yes, the day just got better and better. My mother told me I couldn’t wear skirts that were higher above the knee than 2 fingers. This is where the swearing ‘I’ll be so cool’ comes in. Because I’m the kind of mom that tells my daughter to go ahead and take a full hand-length. Yes! Go ahead! I’m that cool! And then she rolls her eyes and tells me that that is so uncool because all the skirts are made to be two fingers longer than your butt, which I didn’t believe but then was proved wrong when we couldn’t find anything longer. And as I looked in disbelief at my daughter’s unhappy face which so closely mirrored mine own oh, so long ago, I had a sudden realization that I, in fact, was a dumb, fuddy-duddy mom. That is the curse of being the mom: that you will never be cool. That is God’s way of playing a joke. You only think you’ll be cool. But times change and you can never keep up. And then I realized that my mom probably thought she was being cool compared to the 5 inches below the knee skirts she used to wear when she told me I could go 2 fingers above. And then I laughed.
I shudder to think what my daughter will be faced with, with her daughter. Will they even be wearing clothes? Because the pants can’t get much lower and the skirts can’t get much higher before clothes become completely inconsequential.
1. On Wednesday, our Project at work got a recommendation letter of support from the Dali Lama. I told my mom. She asked me what the Dali Lama was.
2. On Thursday, I told my daughter, Alex, that Drew Barrymore’s people had mentioned her support for the Project. Alex and I are both huge fans of Drew’s. Alex squealed, ‘Yes! I know Drew Barrymore!’
UPDATE: According to Googlefight, Dalai is the preferred spelling, via joe
Joe took Basilone to the airport last night where he was threatening homeland security and needed to be frisked. Twice. I kid you not. Watch out for those dangerous cats.
Bas is going to have a wonderful time living in Roanoke with Joe’s parents.
We are missing him very, very much. I said goodbye to him at the door since it was so late, the redeye flight, and it was my early day today. (5 am)
Looking for the positive: Devon won’t have asthma attacks and miss school due to cat dander anymore. There’s that. Although Dev is as sad as anyone to see him go. He just can’t help himself from petting Bas. Hence the swelling and wheezing.
I hope that the spontaneous waterworks will subside so I don’t look like such a dork in public.
Who knew I could love a cat so much?
Scene: Driving to the softball game, running about 5 minutes late. Alexandra, who had a really bad day, is telling me all about it. Devon and Tony, in the back seat, keep interrupting.
Alex: It’s just been a really crappy day, mommy.
Me: Really? Tell me what happened.
Devon: Interjection. My day was not of crap.
Alex: Tahisha (not her real name) totally ditched me, like three times.
Me: That sounds not fun, Al. What else?
Devon: Query. Why do you keep hanging out with her?
Alex: And Mack (not his real name) is totally, like, so mad at me because he told me to call him last night and I didn’t.
Devon: Query. For what reason did your call not take place?
Me: You didn’t feel like calling him?
Alex: No. That’s not it. Yesterday someone opened my backpack during PE and they took out my purse and stole it. My phone was in there. (almost crying now)
Devon: Interjection. That sucks.
Tony: Query. That bites.
Devon: That’s not a Query, that’s an Interjection. Or an Exclamation, but you’d have to say it like this ‘THAT BITES!’
Alex: Everyone is all blaming me saying I shouldn’t lose my stuff, but it wasn’t me! Someone totally stole it!
Me: Man, honey, that sounds like a bad day to me. I’m sorry.
Alex: And, I’m hungry. All week at lunch I’ve had meetings and I will tomorrow, too.
Devon: Affirmation. You are in need of food.
Tony: Affirmation. I am hungry, too.
Devon: That’s not an Affirmation. That’s a Statement.
Me: Well, baby, we could stop and get something right now but you’ll be more late for your game. What do you want to do?
Devon: Request. Please get food.
Tony: Re-Request. I am in need of food as well. Or my systems will fail.
Alex turns around and looks at them.
Devon: Attempt to Retrieve More Information. Will we stop for food?
Alex turns back around and looks at me.
Alex: I don’t want to be late. I’ll just eat after.
Devon: Interjection. That is sad.
Tony: Observation. My systems might fail.
Devon: Good one, Tony. I should have thought of that one.
Me: Ok. We’ll eat after. Did you check the lost and found in the locker room?
Devon: Observation. Your lost article may be found there. You must ask there.
Alex: Yes. (turns to the back seat) Yes! I’ve already asked!
Me: Well, just keep trying. Maybe it will turn up.
Devon: Interjection. It ma-
Alex: Interjection! Shut up!
Tony: That’s more of a command Ali. Especially the way you said it all mad like that.
My daughter’s outgoing VM message says:
“I FREAKIN’ LOVE YOU SO MUCH but I’m not here right now. Please leave a message and I’ll call you back when I want.”
Yea! It’s Spring.
Ty and Anthony won their championship game in the basketball league on Friday.
Saturday was hanging out and *not* going to 15 games and snack-bar rotations due to rain.
It was also Joe’s birthday party night with the kids. They picked out some new shirts for him. We watched ‘The Incredibles’ and ate mac & cheese and had the most spectacular layered cake with strawberries.
Sunday, which was Joe’s actual birthday, was pretty uneventful. Which is how he wanted it. We watched American Splendor and napped.
Wonderful.
Today on the radio I hear this:
this my ta
this my ta
A few times I’ve been around that track
So it’s not just gonna happen like that
Because I ain’t no hollaback girl
I ain’t no hollaback girl
Ooooh ooooh
this my it
this my ta
Let me hear you say the ta is bananas
B-A-N-A-N-A-S
The sh is bananas
B-A-N-A-N-A-S
Why? Just don’t play the song if you can’t really play it.
But we can listen to this and it’s ok?
O…that’s gonna be the sound
Girl when it’s goin’ down
Your body sayin’ O…
Don’t have to say my name
Girl I’m just glad you came
So you can say O…
In the morning O…
In the night
You sayin’ O…
Means I was hittin it right O…
You can’t be mad at me
I’m just aiming to please
Let me hear you scream O..
Dude. Even my 12 year old son knows what that song is talking about. But hearing the word ‘shit’ is more offensive?
While we’re at it, let’s just edit out every offensive part of every song. You Are My Sunshine, arguably one of the most frequently sung campfire and travel songs, talks about co-dependence, fanaticizing, veiled threats, food gluttony and the entire song is basically some type of schizophrenic episode. (Who is he pleading with to not take her away?) Yes, I’ve never liked the song just based on the tune and the repetition. But if we’re going to be editing, can’t we begin with songs that are annoying? Why Gwenny-Gwen-Gwen?