It's Never Over

So it's Friday night, and I wanted to write a blog because I have been writing freelance stuff all week.  I started this afternoon.  I stared at the flashing cursor thingy (which was totally mocking me, by the way), and I thought "What is wrong with you?  You have written over 14,500 words this week on traumatic brain injury, premise liability, boating safety, and other legal issues.  That was new.  This is YOU.  THIS is your thing!  Write!" 

And still I had nothing.

Sure, I started a few things.  I would write a few words, or a couple of sentences -- I even managed a whole paragraph once -- but I always "backspaced" them away because, well, they sucked.  I was really getting discouraged.  I thought I had lost my blogging mojo. 

I went back and looked at some of my most popular posts and I realized that it wasn't me.  It was my kids.  They were growing up and they weren't doing the same stupid stuff that they used to do.  They weren't shredding the mattress cover or cutting each other's hair or coloring the walls.  My kids are acting more normal and depriving me of great blog material.  No wonder I had nothing. 

Then, as if on cue, the 9 year old proved me wrong.

She was having a friend to spend the night.  We were going to order pizza and watch movies by the fire.  I sent her 2 brothers over to my mom's to hang out until bedtime so they could have girl time (her little sister stayed).  I gave them a snack and I started to watch "Revenge" from last Sunday on the DVR, telling them that we'd order pizza in a half an hour or so.  They went upstairs and I heard giggling and laughing and all was well.

Or so I thought.

Skipping the commercials, it took me 40 minutes to finish my show.  I started upstairs to ask what kind of pizza they wanted, and was met on the stairs by my 9 year old. 

"Mom, I have to tell you something."
"What?"
"We were pranking [her big brother] and....and...."(dissolves into tears).
"And what?"
"And I told her not to but she did it anyway."  (More tears)
"Okay.  Hold on.  Take a breath.  Start over."

This is the tale I was told:  My daughter and her friend wanted to "prank" her brother while he was gone.  It started fairly benign with molding clay on his light switch.  Then they decided to spray perfume all over his room.  Again, although incredibly smelly, also fairly benign and easily fixed.  If they had stopped here, we would have had a little scolding, and gone on with our evening of pizza and painted nails and Disney movies. 

But they didn't stop there.

They took his hair gel and squirted under his comforter and all over his sheets.  Sheets I had just washed.  Now it was getting annoying.  I was going to have to rewash his sheets and his comforter and I was going to have to figure out how to make his room smell like a boy again.

Then she told me that her friend had the idea to paint on his wall with glitter nail polish.  (I don't know why, we were not to the whys at this point, we were stuck on the "what-else-did-you-do").  So the friend got the glitter nail polish, even though my daughter told her not to do it.  She didn't come get me.  She took it into her brother's room and painted on the wall.  She still didn't come get me.  She didn't want to get her friend in trouble. 

So instead, she decided to try to fix it.

(SPOILER ALERT: She made it worse.)

My daughter is very artistic.  She received lots of art supplies for Christmas.  So she went into her room and got her acrylic paints and took them to her brother's room to try to paint over what her friend had done with the nail polish.  Now, to her credit, she expertly mixed about 6 different colors and matched her brother's wall color almost perfectly.  Not that it mattered, since her brother's room is painted with a satin finish, and she was using acrylics.  What did matter, was that in the process of all of this mixing, she got paint all over the carpet. 

THIS is when she decided it was time for her tearful confession. 

I turned to the little girl (whom I happen to like very much) and asked her if this was true and she said yes.

I made my daughter show me the damage.  I got some cleaning supplies and did what I could and I called her mom, my friend.  I relayed what had happened and we both agreed that they should come and get their daughter.  I told her (and her daughter) that I really liked her and was glad that she and my daughter were friends, but they had made a mistake tonight.  I also told her that I really hoped that she could come back another time, but that tonight they had abused the privilege of having a sleepover. 

Now don't get me wrong, I applaud my daughter for coming to me, even though it was a little late.  I let her know through the long discussions that we had tonight that I was proud of the fact that she told me but that I wish she had come to me sooner.  I let her know that there would be consequences beyond the end of the sleepover, and I talked to her about how I understood not wanting to get her friend in trouble. 

I explained that in the grand scheme of life, this was a very small thing; but that I wanted her to remember 3 very important lessons from it that would serve her well throughout life as the bigger things came up:  1) I want her to remember that she made a mistake.  She knew it was a mistake, but instead of confessing, she tired to cover it up and in the end it was a much bigger mess than she or I could handle.  I told her that if she remembered that, she could save herself a lot of trouble in the future.  2) I wanted her to remember that sometimes telling on a friend will keep them out of trouble.  If she had come to me and said "My friend wants to paint the wall with nail polish even though I told her it was a bad idea."  I could have kept all of this from happening and no one would have gotten in trouble.  3)  I told her that I loved her no matter what she did.  I told her that I would get angry at her and at what she does sometimes, but I would always love her no matter what.  We talked a long time.  She was very upset because she knew that she was wrong and because the evening had not turned out like she had planned at all.   She apologized to me, and in the morning she will apologize to her big brother.

I was going to wrap this up with a clever remark, but I am being verbally assaulted on my Facebook page right now and I cannot focus on being witty or clever.  The bottom line is, I realized that my kids still have loads of potential for future blog posts.  They may not be about how they are domestic terrorists who destroy the furniture or how they lock me out of the house so that they can have a butter and cheese picnic, but this is a parenting humor blog (for the most part) and I am a parent forever.  I will always find the humor in what they do and there will always be lessons learned. 

As for the verbal assault on my page, well, that is just more blog fodder for another day.

Sugar is Meth to A 2 and 4 Year Old

I happen to be a pretty laid back mom.  I try to keep things pretty loose and happy (although they often end with me getting overwhelmed and yelling and then feeling like a big pile of poo).  I have never been very concerned about things that my kids eat.  I mean, they eat like I do -- whatever is relatively fast and easy.  I do try to work in vegetables and fruit and limit the candy intake.  And I am obsessive about teeth-brushing.  But I have never been too concerned about soda intake.  My kids drink soda at least 2-3 times a week, and sometimes more. It has never been a problem.  My 9-year old had his first carbonated, caffeinated, beverage at about 18 months.  I half expected him to go berserk and bounce off the walls, but he didn't.  He just sucked on his straw and said "More!"  Kid number 2 came along, and the same thing -- gave her soda, waited for impending meltdown, and nothing happened.  I was thinking "Man, all of these people freaking out about kids and sugar are SOOOOOOO WRONG!!  Sugar doesn't effect my kids AT ALL!!"  I had witnessed my friends' kids go into sugar induced frenzies that rivaled the meth addicts I had seen on late night episodes on COPS.  My kids were special.  They could eat 2 cupcakes and guzzle a Dr. Pepper at a birthday party and fall asleep on the way home 30 minutes later.  I was certain that my kids had some sort of super gene that allowed them to be unaffected by sugar and caffeine.  It was like a super-power.

When kid number 3 came along, I assumed that the trend would continue.  But Lorelei was different from most kids -- and when she was younger, she had chronic tonsillitis and ear infections so I don't think that ANY amount of stimulants would have perked her up.  Then Jackson came along, and Lorelei had her tonsils taken out.  And here's one of the problems with having 4 kids:  you HAVE to be consistent in the way that you treat them and what they are allowed to do because they notice the inconsistencies.  So if William and Bella could have sugary-brown-goodness in the form of sodas, then Lorelei and Jackson wanted the same. 

I soon discovered that these 2 younger children did NOT have the super-power gene.  In fact, they appeared to have some mutated gene that caused complete irrational behavior accompanied by rotten attitudes and violent mood swings when it encountered sugar in their systems.  (I really would need Allie from Hyperbole and a Half to properly illustrate this, but if you read her "God of Cake" post and take note of the drawings, you will get the general idea).  As amusing as it is to see a 2 and 4 year old ping around the house like pin-balls every once and awhile, and as entertaining as conversations with them can be during these periods, I have decided that this is just simply not going to work.  I had hoped to possibly build their resistance to sugar by keeping it as a regular component of their diets, but this hypothesis has proven to be a complete failure, and now I have created 2 little sugar fiends.  This is a typical morning conversation at our house:

Me: Guys, what do you want for breakfast?
Jackson: I want CANDY!!!!
Me: You CANNOT have candy for breakfast.  How about some cereal or a bagel?
Jackson: Can I have a lollipop?
Me: No.  Lollipops are candy, and you CANNOT have candy for breakfast.
Lorelei: Can we have candy AFTER breakfast?
Me: No.
Lorelei: When do we get candy then?
Me: I don't know, but right now we are talking about breakfast, so what do you want for breakfast?
Lorelei: Can I have Dr. Pepper?
Me:  No, you CANNOT have Dr. Pepper with breakfast.  Would you like some milk?
Lorelei: Can I have chocolate in it?
Me: No.
Both:  (Chanting and jumping around in circles) Chocolate milk!  Chocolate milk!  Chocolate milk!
Repeat this conversation for both lunch and dinner, as well as for any snacks, and you will get a rough idea of what a typical day of feeding these two is like.

They are both also incredibly gifted when it comes to ferreting out candy that may be hidden somewhere in the house, and they work as a team to get it.  It is not at all unusual to find the chair from the dining table in front of the fridge with a stool perched precariously on top while they try to get to the candy bowl on top of the fridge.  They have perfected this to the point that in the 3 minutes it takes me to go pee, they can easily be standing on their impromptu ladder and stretching their grubby little hands over the edge of the bowl before I get back.  And I have learned that any candy I get for MYSELF needs to be hidden extra well because there is something about the fact that it is MY candy that makes it extra appealing to them.  Jackson once found my stash of Rolos (which was in a shoebox under my bed that he had never seen) and while I was in the shower, the 2 of them ate over half a bag.  I now hide my candy in the medicine cabinet behind the nebulizer.  They HATE the medicine cabinet (with the exception of the Band-Aids, which is an entirely different post) so I am pretty sure that my Rolos are safe.

Next time I feel up to being entertained by giving them a sugar-fix, I will be sure to video it and post it here.

Don't Ever Agree To Be The Room Mom. EVER.

So I got called lazy by a total stranger today and it took everything I had NOT to totally go off on her Martha Stewart little butt.  Maybe I should fill in the whole story:
Back in October, I got a rather frantic call from the "Head Room Mom" at my kid's school.  She needed someone to step up and be the room mom for my son's 3rd grade class.  She had already called me the month before and I had politely refused -- I had offered to help in any way that I could but I have 4 kids, and RUNNING a class party is hard enough without having to keep up with the 2 and 4 year old that I would have in tow at all times.  This time, after about a 2 hour conversation, she had convinced me that it was "super-easy" and that "everything is practically done for you" since there are only 2 parties allowed in the class each year, so I reluctantly accepted and waited for my folder to arrive with all of the information.  I never got a folder. 
I had kind of forgotten about it, what with trying to raise 4 kids and having a husband who is working 2nd shift...oh, and having my gall bladder removed in the beginning of December, which left me throwing up for 6 days after surgery.  So after my surgery when I finally start feeling somewhat human again, I remember that "Crap, I have to plan the 'Holiday Party' for William's class" and realize that I never got the stupid folder with all of the "super-easy" info and stuff that is "already done for me" in it.  Now, in hind-sight, I probably should have called the school and found out who the "Head Room Mom" was again (since I couldn't even remember her name), and tried to get her phone number so that I could have called her and asked her whatever happened to the magic folder.  But I didn't.  I thought "Hey, I have a degree in English, its a letter saying 'There's a party.  Send Chips,' so how hard can it be?"  So I took a whole five or six minutes to whip out a letter that said basically that and to ask the parents to send in a wrapped ornament to do an ornament exchange ($5 limit).  I hopped in the car and took it to the school office and left it to be copied and given to the teacher to pass out on a Tuesday afternoon before the party 9 days later on the following Thursday.  The office staff said that they would run the copies as soon as it was approved and that they would call me if there was a problem.  I never got a call. But Friday night, I got an email from that Head Room Mom letting me know that the letter had not gone out.  The office staff had given it to the Assistant Principle, who had given it to the Principle, who had contacted the PTA President, who had called the Head Room Mom -- this process apparently took 3 days.  The problem was that it wasn't the "pre-approved" letter that was supposed to come in the fabled "So-Easy-A-Caveman-Can-Do-It Room Mom Folder" that I never got.  I was not allowed to tell the parents to send a $5 ornament -- I was supposed to say "new or gently used" in case some of the parents didn't have the money for such things.  I thought that was ridiculous since I sure wasn't asking for "new or gently" used paper plates, napkins, chips or drinks. I was pissed.  So by the time I found out about it, it was too late to send any letter out, and I got to do the entire party by myself.  We had snacks, candy, and a goodie bag to take home and the entire party cost me over $100.  We did not have a craft or a game.  I was the only parent who showed up even though the teacher had sent home a note the day before the party inviting everyone to attend.  The kids had a great time and there was almost no left over food.  I thought that I pretty much rocked.
Well, the only other party allowed during the school year is Valentine's Day.  (First of all, I find this 2 party rule completely asinine.  There should be AT LEAST 5 parties a year for elementary school -- Halloween, Christmas, Valentine's Day, Easter, and End of Year.)  So it is time to once again to plan for the party.  After talking it over with William's teacher, we decided to bend the rules a little and ask a few parents to contribute money to buy pizza.  I finally got the Golden Folder and was shocked by how little it actually contained.  There are 21 kids in my son's class and only 6 parents had provided emails or phone numbers and I was one of those.  So I sent an email to the 5 remaining parents asking them to send in $5 each as their contribution to the party to cover the cost of the pizzas.  One email came back as undeliverable, and the same person's phone number was no longer valid.  I got 2 responses of "What a great idea" and then....then I got the phone call from Mrs. Polly Perfect.
She introduced herself as "so-and-so's Mom" and then proceeded to go on a self-praising tangent about how she was the room mom for her youngest daughter's class and what a great job she had done and how she would be happy to share some of her tips and advice with me.  Now, those of you who know me, know that I was mildly amused by this at this point, and I tried to indulge her fantasy that things are always sunshine and rainbows where our kids are concerned for just a little while longer.  She then asked me what kind of game and craft I was planning for the Valentine's Day party and there was an audible gasp when I told her that we weren't planning on having one.  I explained that the teacher and I had discussed it and that we had decided that it would be easier to just get the pizzas, drinks, chips and maybe some cupcakes and let the kids socialize for the 45 minutes allotted for the party.  Her response?  Well she said "I just don't think that it is fair to the kids to deprive them of these fun activities when they only get 2 parties a year just because you are too lazy to organize them. I was really pretty upset that there was no craft for the party at Christmas. I was sure that so-and-so would be bringing home an ornament or something that they had made in class. I had my younger child's class make ornaments as part of their party and they absolutely loved it and had a great time."  Through gritted teeth, I explained what had happened with the Holiday party -- that I had done the entire thing by myself with 2 kids in tow 2 1/2 weeks after surgery and that it cost me over $100 to do so.  Her response to that was that it could have been done cheaper -- she had done her younger child's party all by herself "as a gift to the parents in the class" and only spent about $60 WITH a craft and a game.  With white knuckles in a death grip on the phone to control my annoyance at Little Miss Perfect, I told her that the teacher doesn't want a game.  She doesn't want a craft.  She wants pizza and snacks.  Period.  She went on to pontificate about how our children deserve more from us than 45 minutes of eating junk food and that they should be allowed to make memories during these parties.  I was obviously dealing with Rainbow Brite.  Her kids must be perfect angels who burp sunshine and poop Skittles.  I mean, I don't know about any of you, but I really do not remember ONE holiday party that I had in elementary school.  I do not remember the food, or what we did, or how many games and crafts we had -- nothing.  I remember that we had parties and they were fun and relaxed and no one was trying to make sure that we finished our craft before we got to eat, or finished eating so that we could play some stupid game. 
I finally had to cut into this woman's delusion by telling her that I had to respect what the teacher wanted and that was food and nothing else.  I thanked her for her time and (ahem) "advice" and asked again if she would be willing to send in the $5 for the pizza.  She said that she would but that she wanted to make sure that the kids had a "good" goodie-bag to take home from the party this time and so she would be doing those as well.  Ignoring the obvious dig at the goodie-bags I had provided for the Christmas party, I told her that would be wonderful, relieved that I could check that off of my list.  She told me that she would love to meet me in person and would do her best to finish up her younger child's party so that she could get to the classroom and meet me on Valentine's Day. She will surely come floating in on a cloud of pixie dust with forest animals in her wake, birds singing around her head, flowers will litter her path and the room will get brighter by her mere presence.   I. Can't. Wait.

It's Okay

As I sit here contemplating what I should write, and trying to come up with something sweet and sentimental to say in honor of Mother's Day, I have yelled at each of my 4 kids at least once, and I have made NO dinner plans. Hmmmm....

So, in honor of all mothers everywhere, I would like to tell you that it is okay. It is okay if you have just as many clothes in your CLEAN clothes hamper as you do in your DIRTY clothes hamper. It is okay if you have to pick up half eaten food off of your floor. It is okay if you don't get the beds made, the dishes done, or the bathroom cleaned. It is okay if you do not wear make-up everyday, or even SHOWER every day. It is okay if you never go and get a "mani-pedi" or a facial or wear the latest fashions. It is okay if you have not scanned all of your kids' artwork into the computer and made a digital scrapbook for them, or even filled out all of the pages in their baby books. It is okay that your kids' clothes do not come from a high-priced boutique or if they even match! It is absolutely fine if there are fingerprints on your mirrors, crayon on your walls from three-feet up to the floor, and and smears of God-knows-what on various hard surfaces in your home. YOU are normal. You are not Martha Stewart and you do not live in this month's edition of Better Homes & Gardens. If your kids are loved and happy, none of the other stuff matters.

We all know "that" mom -- the one who has it all together. Her house is clean, her kids are all dressed alike, she is perfectly coiffed, clipped, and painted and you stare at her in full-on green-eyed monster mode in your faded yoga pants, ponytail, and t-shirt with the bleach stain near the hem and the spit-up on the shoulder and wish you could get it all together like her. Her kids had homemade pancakes for breakfast and your kids had Pop-Tarts. Her kids take French, Ballet, violin, and voice lessons and your kids play soccer. She goes to yoga every other day and only drinks soy milk and your idea of a work-out is to clean out from under your kids' beds and you had 4 cups of coffee and a slice of cheese for breakfast. Her min-van is the pristine model from last year and yours is from the last millennium with precisely 76 stickers on the 2 back windows, and a slightly offensive odor when temperatures climb to over 100 degrees. Yes -- you are jealous of her perfection, but if you look closely.... there are chinks in her armor. Remember, you see what she WANTS you to see. No one is THAT perfect.

However, you do not need to know what her faults are. It. Does. Not. Matter. You were not feeling inadequate before you ran into her in the car-pool line, so why does she make you feel that way now? Remember that your kids are loved. They are happy. They do not want to take French, or violin. They did not ask you for pancakes this morning. They do not have to worry about wrinkling your clothes, smudging your make-up, or messing up your hair when they throw their arms around your neck and say "I love you, Mom." Ahhhhhhh, there it is. That is YOUR perfection. (And mine!)
So Happy Mother's Day. Ignore your laundry, dishes, and general housework and sit on the couch and cuddle with your kids. You are the perfect one for them.