It finally happened; after months of hovering just under my height---and countless mornings of not-so-subtly sidling up to me and comparing our stature---this morning Monkey came downstairs and I was struck speechless for a moment. "Holy crap," I finally managed. I turned to Otto. "Are you seeing what I'm seeing here? Isn't he, like, an inch or maybe TWO taller than when he went to bed last night??" Otto concurred as Monkey grinned and bounced by my side, using one hand to supposedly feel the plane from the top of his head to over the top of mine (though he was a bit slanted, and we had to...
Some people love the Christmas season, others twirl around with glee in the early spring when the flowers begin to bloom. Me, I think mid-summer is the most wonderful time of the year. Everyone else is all "It's so hot! It's so rainy! I can't believe school's starting soon!" And then I'm over here on cloud nine, all, "IT'S BAND CAMP SEASON, BITCHES!" Band camp is a miracle, wrapped in jubilation, taking the covert form of teenagers who are happy and too tired to be difficult. Sure, getting up early and packing lunches again isn't really something any of us missed, but it's worth it....
Someone asked me the other day how long I've been gluten-free, and I couldn't remember. I ended up sounding like a complete moron, I'm sure (this would be different from the hundred other ways I normally sound like a complete moron...), with my response of, "Oh, you know, a bunch of years? Maybe 4 years? Wait, 5 years? 3 years? I MISS REAL PIZZA." [I just looked it up. 5 years!! Whoa.] It's been a long time, is all. And I feel better and my skin isn't falling off anymore and so that's all great. I appreciate not being a giant wad of eczema. In the beginning I tried my hand at various...
Perhaps my favorite yearly assignment in writing for Alpha Mom is the chance to do a summer reading round-up---nothing makes a bookworm happier than talking books, after all, except maybe talking books that are shaping the next generation of bookworms. [Aside: I am so glad my kids love to read. I'm also glad they've developed such excellent taste in books that I find myself reading their picks more often than not. It's like having a couple of librarians in-house, albeit somewhat cranky and messy librarians.] Without further ado, I'm pleased to offer up this year's summer reading round-up for...
I wanted to bring you back something awesome from our trip to Breckenridge, but I realized after we got home that I brought back... nothing, really. I mean, I remembered the kids, but to be fair, we'd brought them with us in the first place and I figured the people renting out the house we stayed in might be mad if we left them behind. I managed to buy my children 0 souvenirs from our super fun family vacation week. Zilch. Nada. I DID want to buy them a couple of I GOT HIGH IN BRECKENRIDGE t-shirts that we kept seeing everywhere (it's nearly 10,000 feet, you know), but for SOME reason Otto...
I feel like I could probably write an excellent Dr. Seuss-esque book about some of our recent adventures, although small children might not find them as entertaining as I'd like. Into the kayak you'll go, You'll plan to go slow... But oh, the river goes fast, Until sanity's flown past! And then you might need a plaster cast. I kid, of course. No one is injured. Much. (Otto doesn't want to talk about it, though.) But we did go kayaking. And then I wrote about it for Alpha Mom. You should read it, maybe. (Also, I am mulling over Things I Can Write About because I know it's been a while. The...
It happened again, last night... the inevitable pre-birthday sadness. This is the first year you tried to put it into words: It's too big of a deal, too much pressure to be a happy day and too many eyes on you. You didn't want it. Don't want it. "I look at the past year, the past three years, and... nothing's changed," you said, voice low as we lay on the floor of my office together, pretending to be starfish, because for some reason that made talking easier. "I'm still me. I haven't fixed anything." "Of course you're still you," I said, trying to keep the alarm out of my voice. "That's a...
There's this magical time period when your little kids start becoming more self-sufficient and fun to do things with that do not involve Candyland or being a pretty pretty princess, and for a few years, you can totally be lulled into feeling like being a parent is totally awesome and not that hard after all. And then they become teenagers. (SURPRISE!) So then you'll find yourself saying things you never imagined would need saying, and doing things like putting a condom on a banana and then watching your kid eat the banana afterward because, hey, that's a very safe banana and it shouldn't go...
I commented to someone the other day that I really never know how to react to the (often placating) usage of the phrase "All teens do that, it's totally normal." Do they/is it really? On the one hand, I don't appreciate challenges we face due to my kids' "extras" being brushed off as no biggie; but on the other hand, it turns out that I have no idea what normal teens do. It's doubtful that I was ever a normal anything, myself, and my kids are not neurotypical, so how the heck am I supposed to know if they're being normal teens or being their special snowflakey pain-in-the-butt YOONIQUE...
