Excellence addendum
“Friends will come and go. Your family is forever. You only get one brother, and you only get one sister. This is it.” I do a small mental-finger-crossing whenever I speak these words to my children, because of course their father could yet remarry and bring more siblings into their lives, but with each passing year it seems less likely, and I don’t own a crystal ball, anyway, so I feel okay about asserting the finality of their circumstances.
They fight. All kids do, of course. I don’t think they fight any more than “average” siblings (whatever those are), but it’s possible I fret about it more than I should. I know what they don’t, which is that they need each other even more than other kids. Monkey needs an ally in his sister because his forays into the world are sometimes harder than they ought to be, and as I keep telling Chickadee, we owe it to him to always make sure home is a place of safety and love. And Chickadee needs her brother more than she admits, because–although she’s starting to spread her wings—there is a hard little knot of uncertainty deep between her shoulder blades that only the worship of her little brother can soften.
When they work together, there is nothing they can’t handle. read more…
Be excellent to one another
I’m reading recaps of Mom 2.0 all over the place, this week. It sort of makes me wish I could do one of those deep and profound sorts of rundowns, the kind where I tell you all about how I was inspired and enchanted and finally met this or that person and they were astonishingly lovely and whatever. I mean, that sort of thing does happen, for me, but somehow I come home and put my hands on the keyboard and tell you a story about how I fell down, instead.
Le sigh.
The truth is that I the anxiety I normally feel about heading into a conference situation is topped only by the concern that once I get home, I will be perceived as name-dropping or otherwise insufferable if I talk about it in any way other than to mock myself over something I did there. I am good at mocking. I am not so good at “Yay, I like you and you like me! Hooray for us!” Or maybe I feel like saying it out loud would jinx it.
Hi, yes, I’m 12. Please don’t beat me up in the locker room after gym. read more…
Fortune follies
As part of birthdaypalooza, Chickadee was allowed to choose any restaurant for dinner out, on Monday. We don’t eat out all that often, and we almost never go out to eat during the week, so this was an auspicious occasion, indeed.
Her debate with herself was arguably the most entertaining part of the evening. Should we go to the Mexican place she likes? No, Otto and I had had Mexican the night before. (No amount of assuring her that if that’s what she wanted, we would happily eat it again would convince her it was a good choice.) The vegetarian restaurant? Possibly closed on Mondays, and also quite possibly not worth Monkey’s whining. (Monkey would’ve been fine there, but the IDEA of it was kind of freaking him out.) The diner? Last time what she got there wasn’t very good, so maybe not.
Too many choices! So much agony! But finally she remembered that she really enjoyed the Big Buffet Place, so we packed up and headed over there for an appropriately American stuff-your-face adventure. read more…
Now that she’s a grown-up, and all
Yesterday I was super-awesome and let my daughter skip school to celebrate her birthday!
Yesterday I was also a stone-cold bitch and made my daughter spend half her birthday at the doctor’s. Um. Oops!
So, no, we still don’t know what’s going on with her skin, though at least we didn’t have to see the horrifying Dr. BadHair, again, but instead saw one of the nice doctors who actually listens and explains things and has ideas. More on that another day, but we’re headed to yet another specialist. Fun.
After we finally escaped, I took her out to lunch to a soup/salad place called “Lettuce Souprise You,” which is notable only in that it provided endless entertainment for our meal. (“Sooooouprise, there’s worms in your salad!” “Soooouuuuuprise, it’s not really lettuce!” etc.) When we got up to the cashier to pay, the woman at the register asked Chickie how old she is. And I immediately answered, “She’s an adult.” I paid and we sat down.
Chickadee was grinning ear to ear. “You said I’m an adult!” I explained that for purposes of PAYING she was an adult, but the damage was done. She’s going to be insufferable, now. Heh.
So I decided to capture her wisdom at 13 quickly, before she really is an adult. I hope you’ll come over to Off Our Chests today and read about what she’s taught me.
Lucky 13, in a milestone way
Monkey claims that 13 is his lucky number, in large part, because it’s mine. He still thinks I’m cool; he still wants to like what I like and do as I do.
You, on the other hand, suffer under no such delusions. If I say it’s black, you are all but legally obligated to say that it’s white. If I dance to a song, you roll your eyes and make a mental note of the song’s now inherent uncoolness. If I remind you to thank me for something, you deadpan, “Thank you so much, Mom, you’re are quite simply the very greatest,” and don’t even crack a smile until I start laughing.
But you also curl up with me on the couch to watch television; plunk yourself down in my lap as if you were still a preschooler instead of just a few inches shorter than I am; demand I join you in jazz hands or link arms and skip with you; and rest your head on my shoulder and catch your breath when you’re trying not to cry. Because I am yours and you are mine, and today you are a teenager, even though you’re still my baby. read more…
Can’t take me anywhere
So on the heels of having a very rough few weeks, I headed to New Orleans for a conference. Because the thing to do, when you’re a depressed, stressed-out introvert, is to head somewhere loud and crowded where the streets are paved with vomit
Yeah. I am not a smarticle.
But I was slated to go and so I crossed my fingers and packed some 6-year-old Ativan I found at the back of my bathroom drawer and my pretty red shoes and headed off to the airport, muttering some Stuart Smalley-esque affirmations under my breath. (Rather than “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me!” I tend more towards things like, “I have a degree in acting and I am NOT AFRAID TO USE IT! Plus I have really cute shoes!” but, y’know, whatever works.)
“You’ll be fine,” Otto told me, as he dropped me off in Atlanta. read more…
Point happy, point to sad
I currently have this book sitting on my desk for review, and I hope the authors don’t mind me borrowing from their title. (The book is great; it gives kids on the spectrum practice with identifying emotions via facial expression. I can only assume that the correlating adult book would feature such directives as “point to socially acceptable” and “point to pretty,” instead, but I prefer this version.)
My folks headed back home, yesterday. In the middle of the afternoon I got a helpful automated phone call from their airline, letting me know that their flight had been canceled. As they were currently stranded in Philadelphia I’m not sure how useful that was, but it sounds like they eventually made their way back to the homestead. While I was sorry for their complicated, longer day, I was not sorry they didn’t take the call, as the voice on the other end was just so downright chipper in regretting to inform me that the flight had been canceled. That’s the sort of thing that can spark a good rage, you know.
I am somewhat prone to those sorts of rages. Sometimes I think I majored in righteous indignation in college. As we muddle through helping Monkey and the school deal with his meltdowns, every bewildered “He just gets so ANGRY” from someone who doesn’t quite get it is a little knife in my heart. Anger is a shielding emotion. It’s much easier to be angry than to be sad. Misery is vulnerable; outrage is invincible. I know why Monkey gets mad—being pissed at everyone still feels like being in control, while admitting that you feel lost and hopeless is a free-fall. read more…
Three items of dubious importance
1) Today is National Licorice Day. Licorice requests that you please remit liquid chicken post haste. (My dad gave her an egg white yesterday and she clearly wanted to know why we hadn’t brought the liquid-chicken-gifting people over soon.)
2) We have our first middle school IEP planning meeting this afternoon, so I am busy making cinnamon rolls to bribe anyone who will help bring with me to let everyone know that yes, my kid is going to be extra work, but he is worth it because I always bake something yummy. Then this morning I noted that my inability to eat wheat probably leaves folks in these meetings wondering if I poisoned the snacks. (“Oh, I can’t, you go ahead….”)
3) I am over at Off Our Chests today, talking about hair, again. It’s the kind of my head, this time, though. No dirty words or anything. Pinky swear. Come on over.
Many models available for rental
Party planning can be stressful business, because there are so many factors that go into hosting the perfect event. Can you manage all of the preparation on your own? Do you have the time and resources to clean your house? What food do you have planned for your guests?
Well, let’s face it. None of that really matters. If you want to have an evening of entertainment for a group of people, all you really need to do is make sure that you have Balderdash on hand, or—if you were lucky enough to pick one up at a yard sale for a quarter, like me—Beyond Balderdash. These games are guaranteed hilarity and entertainment, played properly.
But played IMPROPERLY, they’re even better. And I am willing to rent out members of my family to enhance your Balderdash experience. We feature low rates and a guaranteed laugh-until-it-hurts experience. read more…
Batterbatterbatter sWING batter!
My poor father took something of a scolding yesterday for being mushy when I had really been hoping for a wacky story from my childhood. But which one could he have told? he wanted to know. What would’ve been the POINT of the story about the time I had my finger slammed in the car door, for example? My attempts to explain that there is rarely a point to what I talk about here seemed to fall on deaf ears.
The family tales flew fast and furious last night, though, hitting on item after item where I would invariably protest, “Why didn’t you write about THAT??” Because my childhood was FILLED with good blog material, y’all. And lots of it I didn’t even know about. (“Oh, they were a funny couple, because they each only had one leg,” Dad said, halfway through dinner. “WHAT??” Relatives I’d known since birth, it seemed like, and somehow I’d either never known or forgotten this little tidbit. It seems like something I’d remember, no?)
Of course, with baseball looming this morning, there was some discussion of my esteemed Little League career. read more…