If you need some distractions
Yep, I know what today is. Nope, not gonna talk about it. There are plenty of places you can go to get that, today.
What I’m offering, instead, is two different distractions if you need ’em. Because YAY, shiny and less-depressing things!
First: My latest post at Alpha Mom is all about teaching teens to think about money, even though mostly what my teens think about money is, “Mom should give us more of it.”
Second: I’ve been given the privilege of doing some collaboration with the National Center for Learning Disabilities, which does all sorts of awesome things (and I would say that even if I wasn’t working with them). I think that when you say “learning disability” most people think “dyslexia,” even though there’s a plethora of learning differences which includes things like ADHD, Autism Spectrum disorders, and more. The NCLD is interested in hearing more from other parents. If you have a child with a learning difference, what types of resources would you find most helpful in making sure your child receives the best education possible? Everything shared here will be passed along to the NCLD to assist them in improving their offerings. (Please share this feedback opportunity with others who might have something to say, too, even if they’re not blog readers. All input welcome!)
We have been assimilated
I post a lot of Amazon grocery deals over at Want Not, largely because we have never belonged to a warehouse club and this has always been the cheapest way for me to, say, buy enough Cheez-Its to last my children more than a week without having to take out a home equity loan. Nearly every time I post something I think is a super great deal, though, someone invariably comments, “Oh, it’s less than that at Costco.” And then I make a voodoo doll out of that commenter.
Kidding! (How could I possibly make a voodoo doll without a piece of their hair?) I respond patiently, as I always do, that some of us live in the boonies and do not have a local Costco. I DO NOT HAVE A LOCAL COSTCO. Yes, I understand that it is the Mecca of all things wonderful, but I don’t have one, so just leave me be with my cases of cereal bars from Amazon, okay?!
But… there’s a Costco in towards Atlanta, about an hour from here. And every now and then, Otto and I talk about how even if we only went out there every few months, it might be worth it…? We used to do that with Trader Joe’s, after all. We’d take coolers and go stock up a few times a year. Somehow—perhaps our recent thumbs up from the financial advisor left us feeling like we had too much money?—we decided It Was Time. read more…
Conclusion: I continue to be a hazard to myself
Hey, remember that time I broke my hand on an apple and turned into a cyborg? Good times, man. That was almost a year ago, now. It was year ago next month, in fact, though I wasn’t thinking about that at all this week. After the surgery I did months of physical therapy and then also kept going back to the hand surgeon for rechecks because my hand remained kind of weird and deformed for a LONG time, prompting him to keep saying, “Let’s have another look in a couple of months.” And then I’d go back and he poke and prod and finally my hand mostly looked like a hand again and he said, “Okay, you’re good to go!” and that was that.
That was that until this past Wednesday, anyway, because I AM ME and if I made stuff like this up you’d be all, “Oh don’t be stupid, that could never happen.” That’s because on Wednesday I was making a lovely from-scratch chicken pot pie—one of Monkey’s favorite things, so he kept wandering into the kitchen and asking if it was ready yet, starting at about 2:00 in the afternoon—and the thing about me and chicken pot pie is that it’s a “one dish meal” where I end up using every pot and pan in the kitchen. I had to bake the chicken, roast the veggies, caramelize the onions, etc. I was moving things around and lifting heavy pans and making a huge mess and having a grand time.
Finally dinner was in the oven, and Licorice—who’d been under my feet all afternoon, hoping I’d drop anything at all, but hopefully some chicken—sat down by her dishes and wagged. So I pulled out the canister of kibble and scooped her dinner, and then as I was putting the container away… read more…
It’s important to smell good
It’s always fun to have to fulfill a work assignment dealing with parenting tips during a time period when I’ve become completely convinced that the only parenting tip I’m qualified to offer anyone is, “Don’t have children.” That’s my FAVORITE! (As my kids would say: hey, it’s Opposite Day!)
So when I was thinking about my topic for Alpha Mom this week, I ended up feeling confident about… well, the fact that my kids are clean. Yes. I’m 15.5 years into this parenting thing and that’s the kindest parenting-related congrats I can offer myself right now. There’s plenty of other awesome things about the kids—don’t get me wrong—but I feel I can only take CREDIT for the fact that they smell pretty good most of the time.
Hey, I’ll take what I can get. I’m not proud. Meanwhile, my teens are free to express themselves in various ways, as long as they shower first.
Points for honesty
The adjustment to the new school year has been… well… a little rocky. It’s been a month, so you’d think things would be evening out about now. Of course, if you actually knew my children, you’d realize that one month is about enough time for all unaddressed issues to come to a glorious, face-melting head of WOE and GNASHING OF TEETH, and that’s pretty much exactly how it went.
[Related: I have never wanted a long weekend to end as badly as I did this past weekend. Instead of feasting on charred meat, we spent our extra day wondering if we could, perhaps, just move away when the kids weren’t paying attention. But apparently that’s “bad parenting” or something.]
Anyway! We are ALL ABOUT the now-dreaded phrase “skills building” here at Casa Mir. It is SKILLS BUILDING to work on consuming your dinner as if silverware is not a foreign concept. It is SKILLS BUILDING to be instructed in the fine art of putting dirty clothing IN the hamper instead of NEXT TO the hamper (I have never understood that). And it is most definitely SKILLS BUILDING to learn how to make checklists for yourself if you have the attention span of a fruit fly and are constantly in trouble for forgetting to do things. read more…
Cranky
I am cranky. [I am going to spare you a thousand-odd words about said crankiness, because really, the only thing worse than someone cranky is that cranky person trying to justify said crankiness. I HAVE MANY FEELS. Mostly they feel like throwing tantrums. Being a grownup often sucks, it turns out.]
Know what’s good for an advanced case of poormeitis? Baking. Yay! Here, I made you some healthy cookies you can eat for breakfast. You could make some for yourself/your kids and say thank you, if you wanted. Or if you wanted to pretend to be one of my kids, you could just eat them while glowering at me and expounding on the many ways in which I am the most horrible person on the planet. Either way. They’re versatile!
Bona-fide adults
A few years ago, Otto and I went through the process of writing our wills and advanced directives (I almost wrote “prime directive” there, which I suppose my little Trekkie would’ve appreciated, but that’s not the same thing), by which I mean we gave a lawyer a lot of money and he gave us a lot of paperwork. This was the adult and proper thing to do, but the impetus was not quite as mature as it maybe should’ve been. Most people think, “You know, I just want to make sure I have all my ducks in a row in case of unexpected tragedy or whatever.” And then they go write their wills, like grown-ups.
For us, I became irrationally convinced at some point that 1) I was going to get run over by a bus or fall off a cliff, and that then 2) my children’s father would compound their grief (assuming there was any; most days, only half my kids find me bearable) by immediately traveling to Georgia to snatch them out of our home the second I stopped breathing.
So, sure, “estate planning” and “establishment of trusts for the minor children” and blah blah blah BLAH; I, personally, spent all that money on all of that paperwork so that the completely non-legally-binding phrase, “In the event of my untimely passing, I urge my children’s father to consider their desires and school careers and grant temporary custody to my husband if the children desire to remain in their current home even after I am gone.” read more…
Totally on top of things
Because I know everyone is terribly concerned about the state of my bladder, I’m happy to report that all is well. I am also somewhat perplexed to report that—after going to the doctor first thing last Wednesday morning for this issue—I didn’t get a call from the doctor’s office until the following Monday evening to confirm that yes, indeed, my urine culture had grown bacteria and I had an infection. (To my credit, I didn’t respond to that with, “No, REALLY?”) I mean… nice of them to let me know… three days after I finished the antibiotics. When I questioned the need for the call at all, the nurse said, “Uh, well, we wanted to make sure you were feeling better.” Thanks?
In other, unrelated, news: Nothing in the world makes me feel dumber than parenting teenagers. Seriously, Mother Nature is a stone cold bitch, making babies all adorable and kids intriguing and delightful and then being all, “HAHAHAHA, you’re all invested in these people who just TURNED INTO SOUL-WITHERING ALIENS! Suckers!!” I hear I’ll become smarter again in a few years, but in the meantime, oof. Sometimes I write about stuff to remind myself that I am not a complete failure when it comes to them. For example, today on Alpha Mom I share that I am pretty good at getting my kids to do their chores, and I don’t scream or beat them or anything. So I’m still stupid, but at least we don’t live in squalor. (I’ll take my points wherever I can get ’em.)
Birthday bonuses
I neglected to mention that about a week ago, Licorice and I had our birthdays. (Hers is the day after mine, according to the rescue from which she came, and also karmic math equations wherein your birthday + a dog’s birthday the very next day = The One True Dog.) It’s hard for me to verbalize why my attitude towards my own birthday these days is pretty unenthusiastic. It likely has something to do with the speed of time passing, the unexpected loops life has thrown our way the last couple of years, and gravity. (Mostly that last one.) Regardless of the cause, my excitement for marking another year of my life is hovering somewhere between “NO” and “whatever.”
On my birthday morning I woke up to a very excited family, a pile of small wooden boxes, and a weird paper thing. Following instructions from Otto, I eventually assembled this tableau:
Here, have all the Band-Aids
I’m sure this will come as a complete shock to anyone who’s been reading here for longer than a day or two, but Monkey has a small group of friends with whom he gathers every few weeks to play Dungeons & Dragons. This band of merry nerdlings is made up of the nicest kids imaginable with even kinder parents, and we especially appreciate having this group now that some of us are no longer at Hippie School. With Monkey truly homeschooling most of the time this year, every get-out-and-be-social opportunity is even more important for him more than ever before. And he just really loves D&D and these other boys with his whole nerdy heart.
So yesterday was a D&D day, and we dropped an excited, bouncy Monkey off at the hosting friend’s house, and then as I was back here at home riding herd on a certain other child who had a crap-ton of indecipherable homework, I thought, “Well, this is unpleasant. I’m glad this is the worst thing that’s going to happen today.” (When will I learn, Internet? WHEN? I should just go get on LinkedIn right now and change my job title to “Tempting Fate.”) read more…