May 22: Sullen teen = sullen mom

The Boy frustrates me a lot lately. A lot of it is his snarky attitude—where on EARTH did he get that???—but the nagging required to get him to do anything other than play video games and play more video games is exhausting.

He thinks piano is stupid because most of his friends don’t play. Ask me how much I care about that opinion. Someday he’ll be glad I forced him to take a minimum of five years of lessons. I know this. But right now, I am sooo tempted to give in. I hate that he once thought it was so fun, but because of his idiot friends, he thinks he has to hate it now. I hate how he loathes practicing even though he really truly is good at playing; he caught on way faster than Katie did. I hate that he stops playing mid-song if the practice timer dings. I hate that he still has another year of lessons to get to FIVE and I really just want to get it over with so I can nag less.

I also really, really hate “Scarborough Fair.” So much. But I can’t ask him not to play it.

It’s not just piano. He makes the I’d-tell-you-I-hate-you-if-I-thought-I-could-get-away-with-it face if we remind him to do his homework before he gets on the Xbox. He makes the face again if we ask him why he hasn’t turned in assignments and therefore has a 29% in social studies. He makes the face if I ask him to push his chair in or pick up trash he’s let fall to the floor or hang up his towel. I do not enjoy that face. I want to smack that face. He has no idea how lucky he is that we’ve never adopted a spanking/slapping disciplinary method. He also has no idea how close I am to re-thinking that policy.

So… yeah. I’m sometimes not a big Jack fan these days. If I’ve had a little bit to drink, I refer to him as some not-very-nice things, and that is why I don’t often drink around him.

But then last week he came home with a recipe from his FACS class (FACS = Family & Consumer Sciences, this generation’s Home Economics) and wanted to make us dinner. It was basically homemade Hot Pockets, but he was excited to re-create what was “so delicious” in class that day, so we got the ingredients and let him make us White Trash Dinner. It’s hard to complain about a kid who wants to prepare a meal for his family.

The next day he came home with recipes for lemon chicken and blueberry muffins. I noticed he kept referring to the iPad while making the chicken, and assumed it was a FACS web site or something; when I asked, he said “It’s got tons of recipes and they look so good. It’s mar… tha… stewart… dot com.” I think he’d be even more impressed with her if I showed him this:

 

While the chicken was grilling, Jack even set the table. We ooohed and aaahed over the yumminess of the meal. It really was quite good. When we were done, he cleared off the table. In other words, he acted like a normal human person.

Last Friday he came home with a cheesecake recipe—a cheesecake recipe that called for THREE AND A HALF POUNDS OF CREAM CHEESE. I thought that was slightly excessive, and encouraged him to find a different one. At the same time, I was glad he was wanting to make things from scratch rather than reading directions on the back of a Jell-O cheesecake box. Once he’d settled on a new recipe, he was eager to get started on it, and stayed up until midnight to wait for it to finish baking.

That cheesecake was fall-over-dead delicious. He was so proud, too, to watch us devour it.

After twelve long years of feeding that kid, it’s kinda nice to have the favor returned.

Now he’s talking culinary school and getting all snobby about food. It’s hilarious. Forget that the kid has still never eaten anything green, nor does he ever plan to. He thinks he’s a foodie now.

And it makes my shriveled black Mean Mom heart fill with love and adoration again for this little boy who can still acknowledge that not everything that makes Mom happy is as horrible as piano. Today, cooking. Tomorrow, maybe a concerto? Eh, I can hope.

Jan. 2: TBT – Ugly Boy

This might be my first-ever Throwback Thursday post. I tend to throw back whenever I feel like instead of waiting for a Thursday.

Let me preface my post by saying that we thought Katie was pretty from her first moments, and were thrilled to discover that she was very photogenic. I mean, even her not-very-good pictures weren’t awful. I think she gets it from her Auntie Sonya, which is why I sometimes don’t like Auntie Sonya.

I wrote the other day that if I could find Jack’s ugly baby picture I would post it. It took me forever to track it down because it wasn’t digital. In fact, this picture was the reason we bought a digital camera—The Boy was ten times whatever the opposite of photogenic is. I finally found the horrific thing in a scrapbook and snapped a photo of it with my phone, which promptly broke itself in half.

So, here it is—and I present it with a warning: looking directly at this photo has been known to cause nausea and vomiting. I’ll give you some scrolling room so you can back out now if you need to.

Jack, six weeks old, on Christmas Day 2001:

I’m right, aren’t I? Ugliest baby EVER. What you can’t really see in this picture is just how big his ‘fro is, which, believe it or not, makes him look even more like he should live under a bridge. Fortunately, Jack gradually cutened up and we were able to take him out of the house without fear of being chased back by a pitchfork-wielding mob. Here he is at five months old:

 

And here’s our bird-flippin’ boy at one year—no need to ask why this is our favorite of Jack’s milestone portraits:

I can’t resist sharing one of my other favorite Jack pics, an outtake from my attempt at something cutesy for our 2004 Christmas cards:

We love that kid. He’s weird, but we love him.

Nov. 30: Month in review

My summary of November 2013 is a teensy bit late (it’s already December), but I’m dating it as though I posted it on time. Or let’s just say it’s November 31st. Yes, let’s.

Special days I celebrated this month and how:

• Jack’s football team had their end-of-season party. The coaches praised each boy for their strengths and contributions to the team, and left all of us parents grateful and kinda teary. I’m not gonna lie; I’m glad football is done, but I also love that Jack had the opportunity to be part of a great group like this one.
• Our boy turned 12 on Nov. 13. He invited a couple friends to a Blazer game, and the next weekend he had them over again for a sleepover party. In anticipation of that night (better known as FartFest2013), Katie and I made our escape to a hotel in Portland. Fun was had by all.

• Victor and I went up to Long Beach, Washington for a belated birthday vacation from Mother Mary. We stayed at Adrift Hotel, an odd little place just steps away from the beach. Lucy had never stayed in a hotel before, and was really agitated at first—pacing and looking for the other rooms and more people. Then she realized that she’d get several walks each day for potty breaks, and she decided she loooooves hotels. It was a nice little break for all of us. Long Beach is way underrated.
• Thanksgiving! This year we spent our favorite holiday with friends. We had a delicious dinner, followed by an epic poker game. There was also an assortment of Christmas movies, music, hide-and-seek games, and these pear-rosemary cocktails. ‘Twas a lovely day.
• Dear friends Ed and Sheila celebrated birthdays this month. I didn’t celebrate with them, though because neither of them invited me to their parties. Never mind they were in Oklahoma and a Dakota at the time. Happy birthday anyway!

I was in the audience:

• Mom, Dina, and I went to an advance showing of The Book Thief. I loved the book and wasn’t thrilled when I heard it was being made into a movie, but we all thought it was really well done. The cast was amazing—every single character was impressive. I highly recommend it—the book and the movie.
• We upgraded our Christmas movie collection with this purchase. I’m embarrassed—just slightly—to say we watched all four movies in one evening. At this rate, I’ll be Christmas-ed out long before Dec. 25. That ain’t good.

Books and things:

• I started reading Amy Tan’s newest book, The Valley of Amazement. I’m planning to go to her reading at Powell’s on Wednesday.
• My stack of “to be read” books is getting precariously high. I could get through it if I could stay awake for five minutes. Lately reading makes me sleepy. Pffft.

This month’s disappointments:

• Our kitty was sick. At first her teeny-tiny sneezes were really cute, but then she started doing it on my face and that was enough of that. Poor Millie. Getting her to and from the vet was insanely difficult for me and stressful for her. Thankfully, after a round of antibiotics, she’s all better.
• Although Victor had most of the week off, he had to work the day after Thanksgiving. He always does, and I hate it. What’s worse, though, is this year he has to work on Christmas Day. Actually, maybe this whole Christmas-ed out thing will work out well for me. I can spend Christmas Day undecorating the house.

newsy bits from in and around our family:

• These are the people with whom I closed out November 2013—Tina, Theresa, and Val. Lucky me!

• So, I attempted another blog challenge in November and failed in a very successful way. I’m trying something similar in December and predict I’ll do about as well.
• Mother Mary has now joined the rest of us in the 21st century: she finally upgraded from a 1990s-era flip phone to an iPhone. If you get a text from her, you’ll have to add your own punctuation, though. She hasn’t figured that part out yet. Baby steps.

I likes to share the silly stuff:

 

Happy December, friends! Smell ya later.

Nov. 11: Jack’s TD

I’m not gonna make excuses for failing miserably at my blog challenge this month. I’ve felt rotten for the last week and, quite frankly, have thrown my hands in the air like I just don’t care.

I do care about this video, however, which shows Jack making a touchdown in his last game of the season. He’s #25, and you’ll see him in the foreground before he gets the ball and squeezes through all those big kids. He is one fast little dude.

I love that Blaine runs to Jack immediately after the touchdown and congratulates him. The boys all seemed to be so supportive of each other throughout the season, and the coaches were (mostly) great. ‘Specially that one. Dina knows who I’m talkin’ about. Rawr.

It was a nail-biter of a game, and our boys won in the last few moments 42-43. It made me love football more than a little bit—but only for a little bit.

Now that we’re done with football for eight months or so, I can stop mega-dosing on Xanax. I get to go back to being mostly-always-anxious Jen, which is a huge improvement over constantly-anxious Jen (why do they gots to hurt my boy all the time, huh?).

Yep, I’m (kinda) doing another blog challenge. This one is photo-riffic!

Oct. 31: Month in review

Time for my summary of October 2013.

Special days I celebrated this month and how:

• Sherilee and I had a mini girls’ weekend in celebration of our birthdays (mine last month, and hers the other day). We stayed at the Hotel Rose, had dinner at The Melting Pot, saw Gravity in 3D (still nauseous), met up with Lisa H-S for breakfast the next morning at Mother’s Bistro, and wandered in and out of stores all over downtown. So much fun! Thank you, Sher!
• On October 21, there were posts all over the ‘net about it being the exact date Marty McFly travels to in Back to the Future II. But it wasn’t 2013 he went to; it was actually 2015. Here’s the countdown clock to the real date, at which time we’ll all have flying cars and food hydrators. I can’t wait! (One of my favorite parts about the 2015 scenes in that movie is their reliance on fax machines and pay phones. Such advanced technology!) This article from earlier this year lists the things BTTF2 actually got right.
• Our giant puppy, Lucy, turned two years old. She celebrated with extra loves and carrots, which is pretty much the way she celebrates every single day. Here’s a video of her singing along with Katie on the piano (this might be the first video file I’ve ever embedded in a post, and I apologize if it takes eleventy years to load).

I was in the audience:

• Last weekend the four of us went to Spamalot at the Cottage Theater in Cottage Grove. It was so much fun! Sometimes community theater is really well-done and that makes me happy. Why did we go all the way to Cottage Grove when we could have seen it in Lake Oswego in September? Because I didn’t do very thorough research, obvy. :(
• Lisa and Sher suggested I watch Sherlock. It’s quite clever and if not for the combo of fast-speak and British accents, I might not have to watch each episode three times before I get it. Season 3 will be airing on PBS back-to-back with Downton Abbey in a few months! That loud sound you just heard was me falling over from all the awesome.
• My review of the new TV shows I’ve seen: The Blacklist – OMG yes. So good. Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D – Meh for me. Victor likes it. The Goldbergs – I’ve gone back and forth with this one. The first two episodes were really funny, the third was stupid, and the fourth very subtly referenced Sixteen Candles and in doing so, may have won me back. Ironside – You’d think more Blair Underwood on my TV would be a good thing no matter what, but you’d be wrong. I’m not surprised it’s already been cancelled. Super Fun Night – I wanted to love this, I really did, but it’s just not doing it for me. The Millers – I watched the first episode and thought it was funny, but I need to watch more before the show gets a spot on my Hulu subscription list. Brooklyn Nine-Nine – So dumb. Sean Saves the World – I do love Sean Hayes, but this show seems like it’s trying soooo hard. I’m on the fence. The Michael J. Fox Show – Meh. This is another show I really wanted to love.
• I watched the first season of Girls. I liked it fine, but can someone tell me how this show is not exactly like Sex & The City? I mean, besides the absence of ridiculously expensive shoes.
• Since early in the summer, I’ve watched all seven seasons of The Closer and both seasons of its spinoff, Major Crimes. That’s a lot of time spent with Homicide Division; I feel like I got to know each character pretty well and I already miss them. Also, I know Provenza’s not old enough to be my grandpa, but I wish he was anyway.

Books and things:

• This month I went to the Jamie Ford event at Powell’s. He was charming and fun, and it was fascinating to listen to him talk about the backgrounds of Hotel on the Corner of Bitter & Sweet and Songs of Willow Frost. My mom wanted a book signed but couldn’t make it to the reading, so I asked him to be kinda snarky. Here’s what he wrote:

 

• Powell’s is pretty much the King of Author Events ‘round here. If you’re curious about upcoming dates, check out their calendar. Amy Tan will be here in December with a new book!
• I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned BookBub before, so this might be a rerun. If you enjoy ebooks—on Kindle, Nook, Kobo, whatever—sign up at BookBub.com to get daily emails with discounted and free ebooks. You can choose the genres that interest you, so if the emails suggest you buy books you don’t want, it’s your own fault.

This month’s disappointments:

• I really was hoping—for Jack’s sake, not mine—that his football team would make it to the playoffs. Bummer.
• My laptop died. I don’t think I’ve ever bought a laptop and been happy about it—it’s always an emergency to replace the busted one. Grrr. My new one has Windows 8 and thus I have begun my slow descent into madness.
• The blogging streak of September didn’t continue. I actually hoped to post a little more often this month. I guess I was too busy watching all that TV and screaming at Windows 8.

newsy bits from in and around our family:

• Jack came back from Outdoor School alive and not even very muddy. He had a blast.
• Katie’s cross country team won the league championship.
• Jack made a touchdown in his last game of the season. I’ve seldom seen that boy so happy, and that sooo makes sitting through all those games worth it.

Anything else noteworthy:

Just some funny tweets, courtesy of Huffington Post.

  

  

  

  

 

That’s it for October. Happy Halloween!

Oct. 7: Sports are for… momma?

As I’ve bitched about mentioned already, Jack is playing tackle football again this year. It’s an incredible thing to watch each game. And by “incredible,” I mean “frightening,” because the combination of not-too-serious and very-scary-looking injuries, refs who don’t make the calls they should, and that one horrid mom sitting too close to me (just my luck her kid had to be on Jack’s team)… well, they cause my blood pressure to spike, my anxiety levels to go sky-high, and my skin to do something it shouldn’t. I don’t know exactly what my skin does, but I just read that stress is not good for women’s skin. Thanks, Idiot Scientists! Like we didn’t know that stress is pretty much bad for everything.

And Katie is competing in cross-country again this year. After not-great finishes last year, she’s finally grasped the importance of building up her stamina. Even so, every time she gets home from practice, she whines and whines (don’t know where she gets THAT) about how exhausted she is. I remind her that cross-country is exhausting—the name of the sport implies such—and also that no one is forcing her to do it. Pretty sure she’s in it for the Nikes and the season-end pizza party—I mean, she only played soccer in first grade because of the post-game snack.

The fact that our kids’ two chosen sports share the season is no picnic for me and Victor; our afternoons are different every day and therefore impossible to remember. It’s really only our sync-ed online calendar that keeps us sane.

Mondays: Jack gets home at 4:30, Katie stays at school for CC practice and I pick her up at 5:15.
Tuesdays: K&J get home at 4:30, Jack has to eat a hearty snack and get his gear on so I can take him to FB practice near the school at 5:15, Victor picks him up at 7:45.
Wednesdays: I pick up Jack at school at 4:05, feed him quickly and head off to Katie’s CC meet 4:35-6:00 at a park or school in the district, Jack’s FB practice is near school at 5:15 (hopefully he can hitch a ride with a teammate; otherwise one of us misses the CC meet), Victor picks him up at 7:45.
Thursdays: Jack gets home at 4:30, Katie stays at school for CC practice and I pick her up at 5:15, she showers quickly before they both have piano lessons 6:30-7:30
Fridays: K&J get home at 4:30, Jack has to eat a hearty snack and get his gear on so I can take him to FB practice at a local park at 5:15, Victor picks him up at 7:45, or they end at 7:00 if there’s a HS football home game that night and the moon is full and you’re holding your head just right.
Saturdays: Jack’s football game, anywhere from Sandy to Hillsboro, anytime from 9am-5pm; he has to be there an hour and a half before kickoff—Victor usually takes care of this delivery, thank Buddha.

The whole sports schedule is chaotic, to say the least, because things like dinner, homework, orthodontist appointments, and piano practice have to happen in waking hours too. I still work occasionally, and those twice-a-day naps won’t take themselves. But there’s something that makes the crazy all worthwhile for me.

No, it’s not alcohol.

Well, it’s mostly not alcohol.

Several of my friends with kids in cross-country (like Stephanie, Cristina, Dawn, and Julie) attend the weekly meets. Football games are all-Dina-all-the-time, plus some other fun moms. Not only do we get to hang out and sip from our flasks all stealth-like, we get to pretend we’re good parents while we cheer for our kids.

Momma likes the win-win.

Aug. 10: Football parents (ugh)

Just now I started to blog nasty things about football parents and it was all sounding very familiar, so I looked back at August 2012, and sure enough, I blogged about it then. Here’s what I said last year at this time, and I mean it even more this year. Just ignore the part where I whine about my hair—not that those complaints don’t still apply too, but OMG, I was really annoying whining about my hair like that. Thanks for not telling me. Sheesh.

So, yeah, apparently football parents can be real jackholes. As an adult, I’ve seldom been told preemptively to behave like a decent human being; this makes the second year in a row I had to go to a meeting to hear exactly that. And again, it just surprises me so much that these things need to be said.

I know I don’t always make the right decisions about how best to handle situations that make me unhappy. I know I can be a jerk. I fully admit that I go into the football season every year with a frowny face. But I know my place when it comes to being a football parent. That, I know.

Here’s why Victor and/or I would contact my kid’s coach:

1. To tell him Jack is going to miss practice (rarely happens)
2. To tell him Jack is going to miss a game (never happens)
3. To tell him Jack’s arm fell off (you never know)

Here’s why Victor and/or I would contact the head coach or league president:

1. To tell him we’re pretty sure the kid on Jack’s team with the full beard isn’t 11 years old.
2. To tell him we discovered that Jack’s coach looks exactly like and has the same name as the president of NAMBLA.

Here are things Victor and/or I would NEVER say to my kid’s coach, the head coach, or league president:

1. “I want Jack to be on [specific coach or player’s] team. Make it so.”
   (This is a tough one… the right teammates make carpooling to practices so much easier!)
2. “Why did you let that other kid go in for Jack in the second quarter? He’s way better than that kid. I’m emailing you a list of reasons right now.”
3. “When will Jack get to play quarterback? He’s worked so hard! I’m emailing you pictures of him in an NFL jersey right now.”
4. “Jack only got 136.5 seconds of playing time in the last game. The other boys played 142 seconds. No fairsies!”
5. “I’ve been watching video of the last three games we lost, and I’ve come up with a great play I’d like to share with you.”
6. “Can I stand next to you during the games? Maybe occasionally yell things?”
7. “Remind me again: what exactly is a ‘down’?'”

Every one of us is committing our entire fall season to football. The coaches and league board members volunteer incredible amounts of their time to making it a good one. Our job, as good football parents, is not to see if our kid can get special treatment, or to offer up our vast football knowledge, or really, to question the way the league runs. We take our kid to practice, get him the gear and apparel he needs, go to his games, and cheer for his team. We praise our kid, win or lose. We encourage him to work hard, be a good teammate, and have fun.

But some parents think the coaches need help doing their jobs, and those moms and dads are the ones that have made a parental behavior contract a necessity for all of us. Pffft. What are we demonstrating to our kids?

…

People super-suck sometimes, and when I am reminded of that, it changes the way I look at the world—and not in a sweet-tea-and-sunshine* kind o’ way. I’d like to practice an act or two (or eight) of kindness today to balance out the universe a bit. If you’d like to join me, here are a list of really easy ideas found with a quick Pinterest search:

• Send a snail-mail card to someone
• Pick flowers from your yard and give them to someone whose day needs brightening
• Put coins in a vending machine to surprise the next customer
• Give another driver your parking spot
• Donate to Goodwill
• Pass popsicles out to the neighbor kids

So, yeah. Let’s be nice.

*Yep, that’s a shout-out to Sherilee, who manages to stay positive, or at least blog that way, even when faced with stuff that sucks. Good on ya, Sher!

Jun. 30: Month in summary

June is over? ALREADY??? That was fast.

Special days I celebrated this month and how:

• Jack “graduated” from elementary school. They had a nice little ceremony and party for the kids, and all of us parents stood around wondering where the time went. Seriously, where did it go? Just yesterday they were registering for kindergarten, I know it. Sheesh. I would be wistful at this milestone, but Jack is so excited about going to middle school that it’s hard not to be happy for him as he moves ahead. Here’s a pic of Jack and Mrs. Johnson, Best Teacher Ever. We love her!

• School’s out! We had our annual last day of school party with lots of fab folks joining us for the celebration. One of Jack’s classmates, who showed up with a car-load of other kids we hadn’t invited, certainly left her mark—she clawed the heck out of two kids AND broke Tina’s fence. I think she might secretly be a Hulk. Scary. Besides the antics of Lady Destructo, though, we had a great time.
• Our lovely, brilliant, tender-hearted and talented niece, Julianne, graduated from high school. Although we weren’t able to attend her actual graduation ceremony in Seattle, we went to her party the next weekend. Here’s a picture of Her Highness that I stole from Sonya’s Facebook album:

• After Julianne’s party, we stuck around to spend Father’s Day with family at Sonya’s house, and it made for a very pleasant weekend. We’ve got some nice family, we do.

Gifts I gave and/or received this month:

• Grad gifts, Father’s Day gifts, birthday gifts, retirement gifts, anniversary gifts… it was a little bit of everything in June.
• I got some very special thank-you gifts for PTO-related doodies. People can be so kind!

Movies and TV shows worth mentioning:

• We saw Monsters University and all four of us loved it.
• Downton Abbey Season 3 is on Amazon Instant Video, finally! I’m re-watching, and Vic is seeing it for the first time.
• We finished watching the 15 episodes of Arrested Development and are totally bummed that it’s over. Again.
• We watched several DVDs: Zero Dark Thirty (intense), Life of Pi (beautiful), The Dark Knight Rises (really, really good), Oz the Great and Powerful (meh), The Avengers (better than I expected).

New recipes or restaurants I tried:

• These cinnamon roll pancakes. We were underwhelmed, possibly because of extremely high expectations. I mean, LOOK at those! They look delicious! They turned out so-so.
• Dina brought Mexican caviar to the last day of school party. I forgot how much I love it. Even with the tomatoes.

This month’s disappointments:

• I had that kidney stone that was pretty much no fun at all.
• I was standing under a long shelf in the garage when it collapsed and I was showered, ouch-ily, with Little People houses and farms, followed by a big storage box of the kids’ keepsakes. I’ve never hated happy memories so much.
• We were planning to go to San Francisco next week, but when I looked into making reservations for lodging and activities, I realized that our dates coincided with the start of the America’s Cup trials being held there. We decided to postpone the trip for a less crowded time, which bummed us all out. We have some good alternatives planned, though, so the week won’t be a waste.

My accomplishments:

• This isn’t my accomplishment, but it was a huge one for Katie: she sang a solo for her school’s talent show. We were so proud of her—I was amazed that she was willing to get up in front of everyone to perform. She did a great job, and although we have the video to prove it, she has forbidden us from posting it anywhere so you’ll just have to trust me.
• Another biggie: today is my last official day as PTO president. Bittersweet.
• We held a garage sale yesterday to raise $$ for our Relay for Life team. I have eleventy bags of clothes to take to a resale shop before I can figure out exactly how much we earned, but thanks to very generous donations of sell-able items from friends and family, it was a worthwhile weekend.
• Preparing for the garage sale meant sorting through our attic, garage, bedroom closets, and big/deep closet downstairs. I was able to clear out HUGE amounts of space and get rid of things I haven’t needed in ages. What a feat! I love to de-clutter and simplify.

Anything else noteworthy:

The funnies I’ve been collecting for you this month:

<shivers>

 

That’s all I got. Happy July!