Month: April 2012

My Pint-Sized Terrorist

Tonight, Joe was in a mood. Why? Because I refused to pay $2 for him to breed some imaginary creature in DragonVale. The impetus for buying Joe an iPad in the first place was to help him with his studies. For a while, he was great about doing both spelling and math apps with it. We loved that he spent hours on Google Earth. Bit by bit, though, he started getting more into gaming apps and spending less time on the educational apps. Next thing I knew, he was asking me to check on his Tiny Zoo, feed his make-believe fish, and buy him dragons. Seriously? Is this what it has come to? Now I’m an app lackey in addition to being Laundry Queen and Head Chef?

After I told Joe I would not be putting in our iTunes password to purchase a sack of imaginary gems for his dragon breeding, he had something of a meltdown. I sent him to his room. Soon, Luke came down with a report.

“Joe is really sad, I think.”

“Yep. I told him I wasn’t buying him any dragon gems.”

“Well, I thought you should know he’s hatching a plan to figure out your password so he can still get them,” he tattled.

“He is, huh? Thanks for the report, lieutenant.” I saluted him.

I went upstairs into their room and Joe was not on his bed. I called his name. A noise emanated from under the bed. Yep. My nearly 11 year old son, livid at his unwavering mother, had crawled under the bunk bed in protest. I laughed to myself and then got flat on my belly next to the bed to confront him.

“So…you were going to use my password to get your gems anyway, huh?”

“NOOOOOOOO!” came the reply, which was followed in rapid succession by the confession. “I couldn’t figure it out anyway.”

“Uh huh. You realize that if you EVER input our password to purchase something without our approval we will consider it theft. At that point, your iPad will become MY iPad.”

“I didn’t steal. I told you. I couldn’t figure out the password. I just typed in a bunch of G’s, but that’s not it.”

“No. That isn’t it. So, you do admit that you tried to steal?” I inquired.

“No. I told you. It didn’t work,” he said, exasperated with me.

“But you were planning to go behind our backs and do what we told you not to. That is a problem.”

“If you would just give me the $2 (my mind immediately went to Better Off Dead), I wouldn’t have to be sneaky.”

“Well,” I replied, “I said no. That’s my final answer, and it’s not up for discussion.” And, with that, I left the room.

As I was leaving he said, “I took you off my text messaging list. I’m not sending you any more messages, Mom. Ever.”

“Nice try, sweetie. But you know I don’t negotiate with terrorists. I’ll miss your texts, but my texts from my other friends will get me through.” (Mean, I know. But he has to know that he can’t get to me that way, even if he did just a little with that comment.)

I know he’s mad at me now, but he’ll get over it. In time he’ll learn that his terrorist tactics are a waste of his time with me. I’ve been the target of these attacks for years now and I’ve acquired some skill in handling them. Don’t tell him, but I’m secretly impressed by his attempts at coercion and blackmail. He’s good; he’s just not as good as me.

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How To Encourage Your Way Into An Empty Nest

Just what you want to see at 9:30 p.m.

Last night our boys decided they no longer wanted the flannel sheets on their beds. We were downstairs cleaning up after our Easter festivities and, unbeknownst to us, they stripped the bedding off their bunk bed and then called me up to fix their problem. When I got upstairs, their entire bedroom floor was covered in blankets, dirty sheets, stuffed animals, and confusion. I was exhausted and annoyed.

I got out the regular cotton sheets for their beds, tossed them at the boys, and told them to get busy making their beds before I stomped out of the room. Five minutes later I went back to check on them, and they were still clueless. Nothing in the room had changed. I’ve shown my boys repeatedly how to change their sheets, but clearly they have not been paying attention. So, I stood over them barking directions, trying to get them to finish their own task. They labored mightily. They could not get it together. About 9:45 when the beds still weren’t ready for sleep, I decided the quickest path to rest for all of us was for me to take over. So I did. I finished what they had started and we were all asleep by 10:30. I knew that doing their work for them only encourages them to call me to fix their problems, but I was too tired to care.

This morning when the boys busted into my room at 7 a.m. on their day off, still reeling from the bed fiasco last night, I told them to hang around for a minute. I had my second wind and I was ready to be patient. I hauled my butt out of bed.

“You need to make my bed,” I said, still sleepy.

“What?”came the response, times two.

“You heard me. You’re making my bed today.”

“Is this because of last night?” Joe inquired. “Is this my punishment?”

“Oh, sweetie. It’s not a punishment. It’s an opportunity.”

So, I stood there and I let them struggle with the sheets and the comforter. I gave them tips but allowed them to do it all themselves. I coached and encouraged. I told them how to stack the pillows. When it was all said and done, my bed was made and I hadn’t touched it. I felt like Samantha on Bewitched. A little twitch of my nose and the housework was finished. It was a watershed moment. They’re learning to be self-sufficient. I was proud. I was pleased with them but more so with myself for letting go of the reins and giving them control. I felt powerful. So powerful, in fact, that I folded some laundry and had them put it away themselves. Then, I sent them make their own beds because practice makes perfect.

Wonder what I can have them do tomorrow? The more work I have them do in my house now, the less I think they’ll want to live here when they’re 25. If you feather the nest too nicely, they’ll never fly. If I know one thing for sure, it’s that I don’t want to be doing their laundry 15 years from now.

 

 

 

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Brotherly Love

Brothers

Eleven years ago when we discussed having children, we decided that if we were going to go through the trouble of having one child we would definitely have two. Together, they have tracked in twice as much mud, caused twice the damage to our house, and given us twice the doctor  and dental bills. We’ve also lost twice the sleep and had to ingest twice the caffeine. (I didn’t become a daily latte drinker until our second was born. True story.) But, sometimes, I see them together and I know we made the right decision. They are the best of friends. And, now, we have twice the love.

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Whiskey Barrel A Go-Go

The infamous barrel

Last night was the final scene in the well-documented Whiskey Barrel War in our house. Last year, I blogged not once but twice about my husband’s decision to drop a used whiskey barrel into our otherwise tastefully landscaped yard. At the time he planted said whiskey barrel, I told him he was doing so against my will and at the risk of placing us one wagon-wheel away from becoming white trash. Sure enough, a couple months after he installed the barrel, we were playing mini-golf on a kitschy course among a load of wagon wheels and when I spied a whiskey barrel planter. I thought that mini-golf whiskey barrel planter would finally bring him to his senses. It did not however. The barrel received mums in the fall, which then withered and died, and remained in place all through the long winter. I would look out my kitchen window and shake my head at the stupid thing each day, resigned to the fact that it was here to stay, like it or not. I decided to consider it a small concession in my marriage to a guy who has been nothing but wonderful to me. After all he’s given me, he earned the right to keep that tacky whiskey barrel.

Yesterday I was cleaning up in the house and Steve went out to work in the yard. I’m always thrilled when he works in the yard because I hate gardening. The more he does out there, the less I have to be out there. After a little while I went out to see what he was up to and I found the whiskey barrel out of its spot, sitting on the grass. He had removed it. I pulled my camera out and took a photo of the empty spot for posterity.

GONE!

“I decided it didn’t look right there,” he announced somewhat sadly.

A million sarcastic thoughts ran through my head. Really? You think? But, I decided to be kind in his sadness.

“Well, maybe we can put it somewhere else, hon. Maybe on the front porch in that corner?”

He perked up a bit.

“That might work,” he said. “Or over at the corner of the house on the rocks.” His wheels were already turning trying to figure out a spot for his much-maligned purchase, the one he had been so proud of less than a year ago. And, I can give him that. I can give him another place to put that barrel that isn’t the location I originally told him he could shove it.

Marriage is compromise. It’s not about right or wrong or winner or loser. It’s about finding a way to work through differences of opinion and living with each other’s likes and dislikes. It’s about making concessions. Marriage is all about occupying common ground…provided that common ground does not have a half-buried, used whiskey barrel in it. 😉

 

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I Was A 98 Year Old Author

One stack of books I am working my way through.

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”             ~Aristotle

I feel like a kid in school again. There is so much I need to do if I want to realize my goal of writing a major work. Yesterday, I spent a long time in Barnes and Noble in the Writing section flipping through books on every conceivable aspect of writing and publishing. I looked through books with ideas, books about the process, books about writing every possible genre, books about self-publishing, and books about finding an agent. I sat on the floor thumbing through pages becoming more and more overwhelmed with every passing second. The amount of information is astounding. I could spend a lifetime reading about how to write a book and never even write a book. It made me question if I was insane for imagining I could do this. I left the bookstore with four books, two about writing and two about feminism, a headache, and a hole filled with doubt in the pit of my stomach.

When I got home, I opened up one of the books, A Novel in a Year by Louise Doughty, and started reading. Ms. Doughty offers 52 weeks of exercises designed to break the unconquerable task of writing down into bite-size bits. It is filled with useful advice on writing and practical exercises to “help writers develop confidence and style.” Yep. That sounds like something that might help me. I’m, more or less, starting at ground zero right now. I could use all the advice and practice I can get. The first exercise was simple. She offered a sentence for us to complete. I turned my sentence into a paragraph and felt reasonably pleased what I had written. Funny how the fear of writing goes away when you write instead of merely thinking about it, preparing for it, or talking about it.

And so I’ve decided to look on this as a journey, not a destination. The goal is to publish, but the timeline is flexible. If I work constantly thinking that the only way I will be successful is when I actually publish, then I’m unduly stressing myself out. I am on a path, not a racetrack. Every time I write, I learn something about myself through my emotion, my choice of words, the mere act of putting thoughts on paper (or a screen). I do mean to publish, but if it doesn’t happen until I’m 98 that is fine. If I write repeatedly from now until then, I might just turn myself into an excellent 98 year old author.

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The Bell Tolls for Critical Thinking

I can tell by the Recent Stories listed that this is a highly reputable news source.

I had several ideas floating around in my head today regarding things I could write about tonight, but all of them were trumped when a story flashed across my Facebook news feed. It was yet another forwarded article from an obscure, political web site. The article (and I use the term loosely) was held together by opinions, shoddy grammar, and few facts. Yet, according to the Facebook widget on the article, it had been shared over 7,200 times. Good Lord help us.

I wonder sometimes if the average American has lost all mental capacity for differentiating between propaganda and reality. Random pieces of information fly around the Internet, and people take them to be gospel. I thought at first that this behavior was mainly conducted by naive youth who were copying reports verbatim from online sources and handing them in at school, unaware that plagiarism is a punishable offense. I later discovered that some older (and otherwise truly intelligent) adults believe in the Internet’s truthfulness. That debunked my youth theory.

Why does so little thought go into reading and critiquing these articles for fictional qualities before forwarding them on? I mean, how legitimate is an article from a “news” source that would also list this video on the same page as an article about the president: “Man Kills Younger Brother By Making Him Eat Ounce Of Cocaine From His Butt in Police Car”. Seriously? I can’t make this stuff up. Before you forward an email about the killer spiders lurking under toilet seats in public restrooms, please check your facts through Snopes. (The spiders don’t lurk, by the way.)

Come on, people. THINK. Before you forward something, think critically about the source and not just the opinion behind the article. Just because you want to believe something is true does not actually make it true. Ignorance spread via disinformation is worse than ignorance alone.

The Internet is the most fascinating place on earth. It’s kind of like Vegas. There’s a lot to see, but only part of what you see can be believed.

 

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Fasten Your Seatbelts

I feel like today is the first day of the rest of my life.

“If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.”         ~Lao Tzu

You know that thing? The one you’ve always thought you should do but it seemed so daunting, so arduous, so clearly out of left field that you couldn’t bring yourself to attempt it? Well, I’ve made a decision about that thing. I’m going to do it. Today I started the wheels in motion and now there’s no turning back. Everything I’ve done up until now has led me to this point, and that’s how I know this is what I am supposed to do.

Today I made a commitment to myself to start writing with an end-goal in mind. For as long as I can remember, I’ve known I would eventually try to write something “real” and, by “real,” I mean publishable. Yes. I publish these words on my blog on the Internet, but I’m talking about something more substantial, like a book of some sort. Yes. I have a bound Master’s Thesis collecting dust on a shelf at Illinois State University, but that’s not the type of book I’m referring to either. I’m talking about something even more substantial than that 80-page paper. The idea has been germinating in my head for a year and I’ve been rolling it around on my tongue to get used to the sound of it, and today I decided I can’t put it off any longer.

On the advice of a friend, I’ve registered for a one-day, informational seminar and networking opportunity for current and prospective authors. It’s going to be my jumping off point, the official launch into my future. And, I can’t tell you how much I am filled with terror right now, facing the thing I wasn’t sure I was brave enough to attempt. Whether I will walk away from this event with useful information or merely with the experience itself, I’m taking a step in a direction I’ve been meaning to head in for a while. It could be a bumpy ride. I sort of feel like I’m in that incredibly creepy, psychedelic scene from the original Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, the one where Willy Wonka sings about not knowing exactly where they’re going. For a while there, the passengers are nervous and fearful, but I figure if they came out of the tunnel just fine, with Willy Wonka at the helm no less, then I should be fine too.

 

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Powering Off

My boys enjoying a peaceful morning with hot beverages.

A little after 4 this morning, I heard the tell-tale click of the air pump on our Select Comfort bed shutting off. That usually means an interruption in the power. In our ten years in this house, our power has rarely gone out. Occasionally, it flickers off and then on again within a matter of seconds. So, I waited. A few seconds later I raised my sleepy head and opened one eye to glance at the alarm clock across the room for verification. Yep. No light in the room whatsoever. We were without power. I told hubby, set my iPhone for his 5:10 alarm and then my 6:45 alarm, and fell back asleep.

At 6:40 the kids burst into our room to announce the exciting news that we were without power, just in case I was unaware. I was not. I’d heard hubby fumbling around in pitch black getting ready for work at 5:30. I wondered briefly if he’d managed to walk out of here wearing clothes that matched, then told my children who were all a-twitter that it was no big deal. I shuffled them into the shower and made a mental note of all the things I would not be doing this morning…making my usual latte, listening to Phineas and Ferb on the television, drying my hair, using the garage door opener.

When we arrived downstairs, the house was cold. I had Luke flip on the gas fireplace. Ooooh….it’s like camping, they said. The joy wore off when Joe realized that his Eggo waffles would remain frozen this morning. I suggested cereal and told them I would make some hot chocolate. They looked at me like I was crazy. How could I use the stove when there was no power? I walked over, flipped on the gas, and lit the burner by hand. You would have thought I had invented fire. They were in the presence of pure genius. When I lifted the garage door, I might as well have been Hercules. I couldn’t decide if I was happy that my kids finally understood how much I am capable of or I was depressed that apparently under normal circumstances they barely think I’m capable of a thing.

I feel sorry for my kids. They’ve had it so easy for so long that they have no clue what they could live without if they had to. Based on their utter amazement that life was even possible without electronics this morning, I made a unilateral decision. This Friday night we’re unplugging for an entire evening. Starting at 5 p.m., there will be no television, computers, iPads, iPhones, lights, appliances, Nintendo games, iPods, nothing with an on/off switch for any of us. We’re going to spend the evening playing cards or games, reading books by candlelight, and just spending time together without distractions. I envision one of two things happening during this grand experiment: 1) someone will have to be restrained to control their gadget-withdrawal-trembling hands or 2) we will have bored each other to sleep by 8:30. I sure hope it’s the latter because I could really use a good night’s sleep.

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Hoodiewinked

Me in one of my six hoodies. I have hoodie issues.

For the sake of my sanity, I generally refrain from watching any news. This is something that started when Hurricane Katrina hit and my then 5 year old son started asking questions about what he was seeing on television. I decided that my sensitive child didn’t need all the sensational coverage the news provides these days. Now, instead of watching the news, I read it online from a variety of sources…including sources that normally run contrary to my own opinions. That is the only way I have found to ensure fair and balanced news coverage.

Because of my antipathy for television news, I was largely out of the loop on the shooting of Trayvon Martin. I missed the President’s comments to his parents, I missed Geraldo’s crazy ranting about hoodies, and I missed hearing about Reverends Al Sharpton and Jesse Jacksons’ concerns regarding racial profiling. Today I finally sat down and read through some information to get a better perspective. There was a lot to sort through, but I found myself returning to the same thought repeatedly: this hoodie-wearing kid, armed only with Skittles and iced tea, did not have to die. George Zimmerman called 911. That was his duty as a civic-minded, neighborhood watch captain. That is all he should have done, and if he had done just that Trayvon Martin would more than likely not now be a top news story.

Despite being fairly liberal, I am not anti-gun. I’m fine with the second amendment. I’ve chosen not to own a gun because of our sons, but I don’t expect others to give up their firearms simply because they’re not my thing. What troubles me, though, is how gun possession seems to make some people believe they are the law. When Zimmerman spied Martin, Martin was not in the process of stealing someone’s car or breaking a window and entering someone’s home. He may have looked suspicious to the neighborhood watch captain, but he wasn’t doing anything illegal. Instead of allowing the authorities to address his concerns (wasn’t that the point of his call to 911?), Zimmerman apparently followed Martin on foot against the advice of the 911 operator and there was a deadly altercation. Would he have been so brave if he’d not been carrying a concealed weapon? Maybe. Maybe not.

I have six of hoodies and I do wear them, sometimes with the hood up because my ears are cold. I think about my sons. They like hoodies and Skittles too and their ears get cold. Someday I hope they will be teenagers. Do I really need to wonder about their safety if they’re out walking at 7 p.m. on a Sunday night wearing their hoodies? Do we really need to be that afraid of one another?

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The Dream Police

The end of an era

“Some of us think holding on makes us strong, but sometimes it is letting go.” ~Hermann Hesse

Last night I had a bad dream. I hesitate to call it a nightmare because, although it did wake me up and stay with me all day, it wasn’t the most horrific dream I’ve ever had. In my dream, I was in a very crowded mall with my sons. My youngest needed to go to the bathroom. So, we walked down the mall together to the bathroom where I asked his brother to take him in while I waited outside. This is the usual routine. While I was within viewing distance of the restroom where my boys were, I kept on shopping around. After what seemed like a while, I noticed Joe standing outside the restroom door alone playing games on his iPhone. I asked him where his brother was. He told me he’d left him inside. I sent Joe back in to get Luke and that was when we realized he was missing. I felt immediate and intense panic. I am not a worrier, but I was worried. I knew something was wrong. The rest of the dream was a blur of running around, calling Luke’s name, asking people if they had seen him, and wondering how I could have been so stupid to leave him in his brother’s care when the mall was overly crowded.

I’m not ashamed to admit that the dream shook me. When Luke came into my room a few minutes after I had awoken, I called him over and gave him a huge hug. I was near tears. The feelings from my dream were still palpable. I was angry at myself for letting him go. I held onto him this morning until he began to writhe from my grasp.

I thought a lot today about that dream. Because I’m not a worrier and I haven’t thought twice about letting the boys go alone into the men’s room since they were roughly 7 and 5, I know that the dream was not about stranger danger. It was my way of working through the fact that my baby is gone. He’s almost 9. I know it’s foolish to be sad about this thing that I cannot change (nor would I want to because I am truly excited to see where life takes my ambitious, creative, and determined son), but it’s painfully clear that I am sad. Maybe I haven’t wanted to admit it, but apparently while my conscious mind is telling me that denial really is just a river in Egypt my subconscious is trying to help me resolve my issues…against my will, whether I like it or not.

I know that my mind wants me to wake up and appreciate my present with my boys before it becomes my past with my boys. It’s reminding me to make the most of this moment because this moment is the only one I’m guaranteed. Sometimes, though, I wish the dream police would pull out the billy club and beat my subconscious back into a state of quiet submission so I could enjoy a few more moments in LaLa Land, where my boys are not moving away from me faster than the speed of light. Watching your children grow up is tough, but what makes it tougher is knowing that as they’re getting older you are too.

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