Outgrown

                            

We had a nice day on Sunday. My grandmother turned 78 and we went to Charleston Place for breakfast to celebrate. I told my kids we were going somewhere fancy and they were excited. Not Olive Garden fancy, really fancy. They were so pleased. They put on pretty dresses. They were amazed by the beautiful chandelier and fountain. They sat down and laid their napkins in their laps and were served orange juice in wine glasses. The waiter called them miss. "Would you like some more juice, miss?" They raised their wine glasses, "Yes, please." They were so funny, they were little ladies. "Mom, we should eat here every Sunday." I smiled, "Sure-after we win the lottery." It was nice and relaxing and delicious. Afterwards we strolled through a graveyard near the parking garage. The stones were old and worn and the girls asked me to read them. I love old graveyards - people used to write books on their stones, "Here lies William F. Smith. Beloved son of  James and Sarah Smith. Departed this life on June 8th, 1740 at the age of 16 years, 6 months and 27 days." Those old graveyards are full of young people. It made me sad. Every time I read a stone my daughter would ask, "How did they die?" "I don't know -it doesn't say." Then I would read another, "But mom, how did they die?" I told her I didn't know and she got annoyed with me. Who does she think I am, John Edwards? I don't talk to the dead - I don't know, please don't hold that against me.

We went home and were lazy. I hosted my sister and her family for dinner but I hadn't gone to the grocery store so I made a hodge podge of random things that was left in the house. I made tortellini, mac and cheese, 1/2 a box of spagetti and sliced strawberries. She was very sweet and gracious but I felt kind of bad. I get to host again this weekend and make a legitimate dinner.

The night came quickly like it always does. The kids were bathed and ready for bed. I laid down next to my 8 year old and she read to me. Afterwards we sat and talked. We faced each other, forehead to forehead, nose to nose and she stretched out her body. "Mom, I am almost as big as you." I sighed, "I know, how do you feel about that?" She paused for a moment and thought. "I don't know. I'm afraid when I grow up and am in college, I will be so busy with school work and friends that I might forget about you." Keeping it honest. I ran my finger through my hair. "I am sure that you will. Just like now, when you are playing with your friends you don't think about me. But you know I am always here when you need me. It will be like that. That's okay. It's how it goes." I thought about that for a while. She is right. It's like this passage from a Jodi Picoult book, "I would have given anything to keep her little. They outgrow us so much faster than we outgrow them." I wish it would stop going by so fast. I don't want to be outgrown ever. 

Saggy Butts Unite

                                      
I've been traveling a bit for work and on Wednesday night, I was in a hotel room with nothing to do but watch the boob tube. It was 10 pm and I am laying in bed eating a gooey butter cake I had ordered from dinner. It wasn't a whole cake, but brownie size. It was still unacceptable. If you eat anything cake-like in bed you might have a problem. I had been on a PMS-induced carb binge all day. For dinner I had a plate of linguine and a loaf of bread. It was really bad, I was feeling a sense of shame and regret after that dinner.

So here I am, in bed with my cake and TV and I come across this lady talking about her butt. I was confused and intrigued at the same time. It was an infomercial for this workout called Brazil Butt Lift and there was this little man jumping around so excited, saying things like, "Luke ot her bot." They were squatting, bending, doing crazy dances. I watched the Brazilian butt infomercial for a whole hour. I couldn't stop, I was mesmerized. They had all these moms taking about their big saggy butts. It was sad. Give birth, get a saggy butt. It's like a present that comes with the baby. This one lady was like, "I started the Brazil butt lift a week after my son was born." That's setting the bar a little high, I think. That's a little too ambitious. She's lucky her uterus didn't fall out. They were like, "Don't you want the booty of your dreams?" I was nodding, alone in bed, inserting another piece of cake into my mouth. Then they were like... for only 45 minutes per day you can have the butt of your dreams. Only 45 minutes per day? Who has 45 minutes per day? People without kids maybe. That's 4.5 hours per weeks. I don't have time for all that. People always say things like, "If it was really important to you, you would make time." What a load of crap that is. I don't get to do anything I want to do ever. I'm lucky if I have enough time to get done the crap I don't want to do but need to do. So I was feeling discouraged by this. The butt of my dreams was slipping away before my eyes. Then.....it comes with a DVD that features a 10 minute workout, appropriately named Bum Bum Rapido for the busy mom who doesn't have 45 minutes today. Sign me up, here's my credit card, I'm doing it.

I did get it and I am going to do it. They encourage you to do a before picture to track your results. Yeah right, if anyone found that thing and looked at it they would turn to stone. They even encourage you to do the pencil test by seeing if your saggy butt can hold a pencil in place. I'm not doing that either. I can just imagine that conversation with my husband. "Honey, what did you just do with that pencil?" I'm going to put down the gooey butter cakes for a while as well. Before I get really out of control.

Lets Take a Walk

                                           
My husband and I have been working on making some healthy lifestyle changes. Nothing crazy, we're not going to start running over bridges or anything. We're really just making half-assed attempts to make ourselves feel better about ourselves. Like only eating out twice a week instead of 8 times a week. We have been trying to take a walk daily.

Tuesday evening was warm and breezy and after dinner we headed out for a walk and the kids wanted to ride their bike and scooter. My oldest daughter rides her bike down the drive way and asks, "Can I get a banana seat bike?" I was like, "No, you just got that bike 10 months ago. We paid $200 bucks for it. It's brand new." She rolled her eyes, "Well this bike gives me a wedgie and a banana bike wouldn't do that." My husband said, "Bike seats give wedgies. It's just one of those things." She protested. "Not uh, I rode my friend's bike before and it was a banana seat and it didn't give me a wedgie." I sighed, "Well, I'll buy you a seat cushion." She was getting angry, "You guys never get me anything!!" Way to speak in generalizations. I hate when my kids are ungrateful. They don't know how good they have it. "You know what? Some kids don't have a bike. There are starving kids in China. Be grateful for everything you have." I felt bad when I said it. Mostly for the starving kids in China. I don't give money to the starving kids in China yet I mention them casually. I'm horrible. Starving kids in third world countries: helping American parents guilt their children since 1953. She rode off and didn't talk to us for 15 minutes. Shes a diva.

As we were walking we came across a baby turtle crossing the road. He was headed for the yard of a guy who was mowing his grass. Not the smartest turtle. My kids asked if we could keep it. I was reminded of the turtle I found as a child that I kept as a pet and how I woke up one day and she was dead and her eyes had fallen out. I was traumatized. We've had enough pet death in our house this week so I told them no. We picked up the baby turtle and decided to take him to the pond. As we walked we made up a name for the turtle. We called him Tee-Tee. The girls took him to the edge of the pond and said goodbye. A pair of geese were a few feet away, sizing us up. My 8 year old began to get really upset. "Mom, the geese are going to try to bite us. We have to go now." This kid is afraid of everything.

We walked home. My 6 year old wiped out on her scooter 3 times. Really. She fell and scraped her knee, the palm of her hand...she was like, "I'm good." She fell again and got her elbow and hand again. Got right back up. By the third time I insisted on carrying her scooter and made her walk. She was just dripping blood, pulling the flap of skin hanging off on her hand. "Mom, I have lots of boo boos." She wasn't bothered. She is a warrior. We spent the next 1/2 hour cleaning the road out of her knees, elbow and hand and applying generous amounts of Neosporin and bandages. I was ready for bed after that. It's hard to semi-exercise, save turtles, and do first aid. It was way too much excitement for me crammed into 2 hours. I really need to slow down.

Books

                                     
I have been looking for books about "changing" to have in my house, something geared for the 9-12 year old crowd. I have been doing research, reading book reviews, and really investigating this. There are so many to choose from and I wanted to make sure it was appropriate and not super embarrassing. It was freaking hard to do. Some of the stuff they put out there is outrageous. This book for instance:
                                      
Granted, it's for boys but still. Could you imagine if your parent handed you a book with that on the cover? I would just want to crawl under the couch. I like their reactions. One kid is uphappy, one is puzzled, but the kid in the middle is a little bit too excited. I saw this and thought, "Thank Jesus that I don't have boys." This is the kind of stuff that is on the market in the puberty book section. It's just horrible. So I settled on the Care and Keeping of You which talks about a lot of different things - eating healthy, skin care, making sure to wash your feet and underarms because you will soon be a disgusting, smelly adult. No stuff about boys or anything icky. They had a section on bras and maxi pads but generally is not cringe-inducing. So my daughter has been reading it. We were at the breakfast table and she laid the book down on the table. My youngest was refusing to eat breakfast for some reason. My husband picked up the book and looked through the table of contents. "See, this book says you need to eat breakfast. You want to grow up to be healthy right? Look at the girls on the cover of this book. Don't you want to be big and healthy like them?"
                                                    
She was looking at him like he was crazy and she said, "Dad, they are cartoons." Haha. "Eat your breakfast." I don't remember books like this when I was a kid. I did read Are You There God? It's Me Margaret in the 3rd grade. You can always count on Judy Blume to ruin the innocence of children.

We purchased a lot of books this month. The kids had book fair at school and I spent an unacceptable amount of money. My oldest daughter has been reading chapter books for a while now and my 1st grader now reads so well. We were picking out books and she would only buy chapter books. Books with pictures in it are for "babies" she told me. So we purchased some more chapter books. We came home and had no where to put them. The book shelf is full, we have books stacked everywhere. I decided we would pack away some books to make room for the new "big kid" books. My oldest daughter helped me. We sat in front of the book case next to a big box. I began pulling books off the shelf. "Look, Quack, Quack you got this book for your 1st birthday." She didn't give a crap. We began to stack the box full of books. The Poky , Little Puppy, The Little Engine That Could, books that were once mine and my husband's. I laid my hand on the covers and thought out all the nights the children curled up next to me as we poured through the pages. They would lay their tiny little heads on my shoulders and listen. Now they read to me, or just read their novels silently. As I packed up the books, I felt a deep sadness. Those nights of reading little kids books to my children is over. I try not to attach emotions to things because I think that it means I have the potential to become a hoarder some day. It was so hard for me to do. I closed the box. My daughter asked if we were going to give them away. "No, when you and your sister have children I will give you some and I will keep some so we have something to read to them when they come to visit." It suddenly occurred to me that I am saving books for my eventual grandchildren. They will be awesome and well read. Just like their mothers. In 20 years.

Just the Two of Us

                                   
This past week was Sping Break which meant we let the kids run wild, play outside in bare feet and enjoy extended bed time hours. Early in the week my oldest daughter slept over a friend's house. That evening my 6 year old wanted to do something fun so I took her to play mini-golf. We go and get our club and golf ball and headed off. She was leading the way. She counted every stroke out loud. The first hole she got 6, I got 3. The second she got 5, and I got 2. She started to wise up pretty quickly that she was going to lose at this rate. On hole three she did three strokes and said, "One" and then another two more, "Two. I got two." I said to her, "I think you got 5." She laughed, "No, I got two. Put down two." So this went on the whole game. Every time I would question her she would just laugh and say, "Just write it down." Cheater. We saw turtles in the pond and a goose sitting on a nest next to hole 7. It was warm and we just laughed and had a good time. We played games in the arcade and then ate cheese fries and she drank an icee. It was a neon green. I told her that her poop was going to glow in the dark after drinking that thing. It looked toxic. We had a nice time.

The next day we got up early and I made her breakfast but I had a ton of work to do. I told her that she could watch a movie, play a game, read a book - whatever she wanted as long as she stayed out of my hair. I felt bad but that's how it goes. I was in my office all morning and she popped in occasionally and was just so sweet and understanding. I called her up at lunch time. "I am going to take you out to lunch today. We can go where ever you want." Her eyes got wide with excitement. "But mom, can we go some where fancy?" I said, "What do you have in mind?" "I want to go to the place with the grapes on it? You know, near the mall." "The Olive Garden?" She nodded, "Yeah, the Olive Garden." Then it occurred to me that my 6 year old thinks the Olive Garden is fancy which made me chuckle. I told her to get dressed and she left the room. I got up a while later to get dressed myself and she walked in wearing a pretty dress and sweater. She dressed up so she could go to a fancy restaurant. We walked in arm and arm and this child was beaming, she was so happy. The hostess asked if we wanted a table of booth and said said, "We would like a table please." We went to the table and she unfolded her napkin and laid it in her lap, like a little lady. Then we played tic-tac-toe on the kids menu. She ordered pizza and a side of mashed potatoes. An odd combination, in my opinion but when you eat at a fancy restaurant you can get mashed potatoes with everything. Afterwards we walked back to the car. "Thanks for going on a lunch date with me." She looked up at me with her big brown eyes, "You're welcome." Love her.

Something Fishy

                                

I went away for work this week and my husband was in charge. I picked the kiddos up from my dads house last night and as soon as I walked through the door the kids ran at me for hugs. They were both talking a mile a minute, they needed to tell me something urgently.

They told me that one of our hermit crabs died. They had food and plenty of water. We check them everyday but they got up in the morning and one had croaked. So they told me dad took them to the pet store to buy fish. They each got their own bowl and tiki hut for the bowl and they were so excited for me to see them.

I was very happy for them but I thought, "What a horrible idea. Those fish will last a week." My husband is always buying random things when I go away. I have come home to new vacuum cleaners, pots and pans, piles of toys for the kids.....and now fish.

So we headed home and on the car ride home the kids where talking about what they were going to name their fish. My oldest chose Henry Coral and my youngest chose Amy Ocean and they were brother and sister and we built and imaginary life and future for the fish. We get home and my kids bolt up the stairs. I am lagging behind. When I get to the landing my daughter asked me, "Mom, do fish sleep?" My heart dropped into my belly. I just knew. I went over and both the fish were belly up in their bowls. The kids are huddled around me waiting for an answer. I turned to them and said, "I'm so sorry guys, your fish died."

The look of devastation on their faces was overwhelmingly sad. My youngest daughter collapsed into a heap on the floor and began to sob. My oldest sat at the edge of the bed and wept quietly. "Mom, we lost 3 pets in one day. I am traumatized." I laid down and they both laid down next to me, one kid on each shoulder, crying their hearts out. I held them like that for a long time.

Finally I told them to take a shower so they could get ready for bed. I read online about what could have happened. I think the temperature difference between the cup the came in and the bowl must have been too different and that caused their demise. :(

The girls got on their pajamas and were acting so somber. "Mama, I never want another pet ever again." That's fine with me. I think I can arrange that.

Easter Time

                                  
It's only April 2nd and Easter has already come and gone. We will be celebrating Easter the entire month of April in this house because I've only had the decorations up for 9 days and I did not put all that effort in to only look at them for less than 2 weeks.

We hosted Easter dinner this year for the extended family and this week I kept so busy figuring out what to cook and going to the store and trying to make the house look somewhat acceptable. I got it in my head that I was going to make this lemon bar cheesecake. I saw it on the front cover of Southern Living and I just had to have it.
                                       
So the day before Easter we were busy boiling eggs and cleaning up and I started making this cheesecake. My goodness, it was such an ordeal. It had like 3 million steps. You needed the zest of 6 lemons and 2 cups of fresh squeezed lemon juice. Eveything needed to "chill". You roll the dough, chill for an hour. Make the curd, chill for an hour. The kids were helping but then they were like, "This is taking too long."

We had a huge shrimp scampi dinner and dyed Easter eggs and got the baskets ready. At 9 they were fast asleep. It was finally time to put the cheesecake in the oven. My husband was cubing cheese, I was doing dishes. We were working our buns off. We stuffed the baskets and I asked my husband to hide them. He was putting them under tables, places out in the open. "Honey, you have got to do better than that. Make them work for it a little." He was annoyed, "Why do you want to torture the kids on Easter morning?" "I don't want to torture the kids, it will be fun. We can give them tips. Besides, they torture us all the time." So I took over. I hid one on top of the fridge and I hung one on a hanger in the closet and covered it with a coat. I am a ninja at hiding Easter baskets. It was now 11 pm and I found myself outside digging up dirt so I could make some bunny prints in the house. I was so tired, I had no shoes on and still I was digging in the dirt and I thought to myself, "How long will we have to keep up this charade?"

Both my kids are super intelligent. Surely they cannot possibly still believe in the Easter bunny. They have to know that it is completely illogical for a giant bunny to come into the house in the middle of the night with candy to hide baskets and eggs. I don't care, as long as they pretend like they still believe, I will pretend to be the Easter bunny. They'll be home from college and wake up to bunny prints by the front door.

I chewed up some carrots and left them around for good measure. At midnight, the damn cheesecake came out of the oven. Approximately 9 hours after I started making it. It needed to cool on a wire rack for 1 hour and then be wrapped immediately and put into the fridge. I made margaritas for my husband and I and we watched some stand up comedy. It was awesome. I wrapped the cheesecake and then we climbed up to bed close to one. I was exhausted.

I drift into sleep and am awoken at what feels like a minute later, "Mom, mom - wake up it's Easter." I opened one eye, "What time is it?" My 8 year old said, "It's 5:30, it's Easter time." I groaned, "It's not Easter yet, wait until your little sister wakes up." Half an hour later they both were standing at the edge of the bed, staring at us with crazy candy-seeking eyes. I nudged my husband, "Get up, it's Easter time."

The kids hunted for baskets, we made them work for it but they found them and dug right into the candy. They each got new jump ropes and proceeded to jump rope in the kitchen while we made breakfast. The rest of the day was a whirlwind. We went to church, came home and prepared more food. Guests came and went. We had an Easter egg hunt. We ate and ate and ate.

Afterwards, I cleaned the kitchen. My husband fell asleep on the couch and the kids watched a movie. We went upstairs and the kids climbed into bed with me. We all stared at the ceiling in a food coma. "Did you guys have a good Easter?" They nodded. "What was your favorite part?" My oldest said, "Going to church." My youngest snuggled close and said, "Just being with my family." And all was right with the world.