One of my favorite parts of our visit with Kira---and please brace yourself for hysterical laughter from her when I say this---is that her 4-year-old doesn't sleep. Mind you, Kira has nothing but my most heartfelt sympathy that she has been blessed with a child who has 1,001 excuses for why she cannot POSSIBLY go to sleep just yet, but it's not MY kid who refuses to sleep, so for me, it's kind of amazing to observe. Because Sophia is wee and lovely and delicate and she needs some water, no, some milk, and she needs her music, and her dolly, and she didn't say goodnight to everyone yet, and...
Hey, we're home again. And I almost feel normal. ("Normal" being relative when it comes to me, natch.) Know what is NOT a great way to overcome any potential jetlag when traveling back home to Eastern time after being on Mountain time? Planning to take the last flight home on Sunday evening. I mean, it's probably not a great idea, anyway, but then if it's truly the airline's last flight of the night to Atlanta, chances are they're going to delay the flight to catch all the folks who are making a connection, and then chances are that a ginormous storm cell is going to divert your flight path...
I think the most solid foundation for a healthy, mutually-fulfilling relationship is good communication. Fortunately, being a writer-type-person who likes to make many word-like squawkings with both my hands and my face-hole, PLUS given the importance I place on really listening to similar transmissions from the ones I love, I've got this one down pat. My family never has to feel like we don't all understand each other. I mean... uhhhh... unless one of us has been doing math for 10+ hours straight and another of us has been trying offer support for said unholy amount of time devoted to said...
This Monday-on-Tuesday nonsense is kicking my butt, today, but I just had to share a brief glimpse of the lovely family hike we took yesterday while enjoying the holiday: Monkey: Licorice keeps pulling me ahead. Me: She is a small dog. You are a medium-sized boy. You should be winning. Monkey: No, really, she pulls REALLY hard! She keeps dragging me. Me: Dude, she weighs twelve pounds. Maybe it's time for you to grow a pair. Monkey: Of what? Which prompted this simultaneous response of: Chickadee: TESTICLES! Otto: Boobs. Your mother is suggesting you grow boobs. After the laughter died down,...
I'm coming to a place where I believe the teenage brain may indeed be so hormone-addled that basic connections of common sense and cause-and-effect are suspended until further notice. MRI imagining would reveal that teen brains light up when shown caramel brownies, but those same brains can look at unfinished homework and angry teachers and ask what's on television, and also, hey, are any of those brownies left? You would think that having once BEEN a teenager would allow a parent to better understand this phase, but you would be wrong. I can't follow their logic, no matter how hard I try....
When I was about Chickie's age, I was busy chewing my way through everything Stephen King ever wrote. The freakier and scarier, the better. This came up when I tried to convince Otto to watch Bates Motel with me the other night; he's not so much a fan of a series that is fairly unapologetic about the amount of blood and gore, whereas I love it. I found myself explaining that---for me---there is catharsis in stories filled with terror. I get to experience all the fear/loathing/panic my body can handle WITHOUT having to relate it to my own particular life, and afterward, somehow my brain goes,...
Far be it from me to complain about the south when, in fact, there is little I detest more than snow and coldness. I mean, yes, occasionally I need to whine a little bit about the bugs. Perhaps it is true that I have compared our little patch of land to a spot on the surface of the sun, mid-summer, when it truly feels like we will never be un-sweaty again. And ideologically speaking, it maybe wasn't the very brightest move for this pair of pro-education northerners to find ourselves in a region where our congressman believes evolution to be "lies from the pit of hell," true, but... hang on....
There's quite a bit of sibling adjustment happening 'round here. The kids have missed each other so much---more than I think either of them realized---but both have grown somewhat used to being the only kid in the house, and so we are seeing some natural jockeying for position now that they're together again. For Monkey's part, I think he has blossomed in his sister's absence; he is the beta to her alpha, and with alpha absent, beta has discovered that he can monopolize the conversation if he feels like it (neat!). He is much more assertive now than he was when she left, and Chickadee finds...
If the writing thing ever completely dries up, I've decided I'm going to sell drugs. It seems like a reasonable course of action, given that a lot of people probably already think that's what I do. Hang on; let's back up. Back about a year and a half or two years ago, Chickadee's middle school band teacher made certain to tell me at a teacher conference or a concert (you can see this is really burned in my memory with utter clarity...) that "it's time for a new flute." I especially love this sort of thing because it's not like "buy a new spiral notebook" but "hello, I barely know you, but...
