Eleven

Happy 11th Birthday, Owen! You've reminded me all week that you're only 6 days, then 5 days, then 4 days (and so on) away from being eleven.   In the whole of your young life, this is the first time I remember you looking forward to your birthday with anticipation. We (your father and I) spent a lot of time tiptoeing around your birthday in years past.  You were not a fan of getting older and couldn't understand why you had to turn six or seven or eight when you were perfectly content with being five or six or seven.  You also hated (hated)birthday parties and being the center of all that unwanted "blow out your birthday candle" hoopla.  As for the singing of the "Happy Birthday" song, from your fourth birthday on you have given me strict instructions that no one should sing that song for you. Ever. (As an aside, you were so very cute on your second birthday when you sat under the dining room table until the song was over and on your third birthday when you took the Thomas train right off the top of the cake and walked away before we could finish the song).  Of course this change in your attitude surrounding your birthday is just one of the many changes I've seen in you this year. There are the obvious things (you keep outgrowing the bottoms of your pants and the ends of your shoes) and there are the not so obvious too.  You have gained a confidence in your own abilities that you didn't have this time last year.  You're trying new things and it doesn't take nearly as much effort for you to move out of your comfort zone.  More times than not now, you can tell me why you are angry or upset rather than just storming off to your room and closing the door (although this still happens from time to time and since you're related to me, I fear that controlling that angry gene is going to be a lifelong endeavor for you.) I was talking to your Aunt Stacey about you recently and telling her that as difficult as parenting was (at times) during the early years of your childhood, this last year with you has been absolutely wonderful - I'm in the sweet spot of parenting these days. You aren't perfect, but you are, quite frankly, a joy to parent.   If I were to try to come up with a list of things I'd like for you to work on, it would be made up of such mundane items that it's really not worth taking the time to make the list (although I may nominate your room for an episode of "Hoarders" in the near feature - but you already know this).  I hope you believe me when I tell you how proud I am to be your momma - how lucky, how blessed.  And as sad as I am today that your childhood is flying by at warp speed, I'm looking forward to your future.  You, my sweet boy, are a great kid! I'd love to say "let's go eat some birthday cake!", but since you don't like cake all that much, maybe just a sugar cookie?  Or a slice of pizza? Or maybe a movie? Whatever you want, it is your birthday.

Define Good



"She's touching me."



     Last night the kids were getting ready for bed.  They were both upstairs brushing their teeth which is, more often than not, fraught with emotion and arguing and siblingness.  Why?  Because they both want to brush their teeth FIRST!  Or LAST!  I hear things like "Get out!" and "Move!" and the even scarier "words muttered menacingly under our breath so our parents can't hear what we're saying" on a regular basis.  But last night, I heard the following:

Owen: "Sarah, you're a good sister."

Long pause.  Water running. 

Sarah:  "What do you mean by 'good'?"

Owen: "I mean that I like having you for a sister."

Shorter pause.  Water still running.

Sarah:  "But you said 'good'.  What do you mean by 'good'?

What am I good at?"

Owen: (beginning to lose patience) "At being a sister!"

No pause.  Water still running.

Sarah: "But what does 'good' mean?  Am I nice?  Am a fun? What?"

Water is forcefully turned off.

Owen: (frustrated) "I'm trying to be nice to you, Sarah!

I'm trying to tell you I like having you for a sister!

Don't you understand that?"

Owen huffily walks to his bedroom.

Sarah: (calmly) "I guess. I still want to know what you mean by 'good'?"

Me: (from downstairs, laughing).  "It's a compliment, Sarah. 

Just say 'thank you' and go to bed."

Sarah:(responding from the top of the stairs)

"Okay.  Thanks, Owen.

 I guess you're a good brother too. Goodnight."

Owen: (from his room) "Whatever."

     When the two of them are home together Sarah spends 85% of her time trying to get Owen to do things with her, 10% of her time complaining to me about the fact that he's ignoring her or being mean to her, 3% of her time playing happily on her own, and 2% of her time engaged in activities that can best be summed up as poking her brother with a stick.  I firmly believe that 2% is the most fulfulling part of her day.

Perspective. It's What's In My Cup.

44 OUNCES!

I discovered last week that Sonic has a 1/2 price drink happy hour every day from 2pm 'til 4pm.  It's one of those things that I'm going to look back on in the years to come as life-changing, I know it already.  For years (YEARS!) I've been driving myself to Starbucks and paying too many dollars for really good coffee because I had decided that Starbucks was my go-to beverage on the go. Going to work? Stop at Starbucks first. Going on a trip? Stop at Starbucks first. Going to watch a ballet/gymnastics /basketball/soccer practice/game/recital? Stop at Starbucks first.  But here's the thing, even though I always ordered a VENTI (which is Starbucks speak for LARGE), the 20oz. drink just didn't seem quite VENTI enough, you know?  Enter the Sonic Route 44.  It's 44 ounces of drinking pleasure.  In a handy styrofoam cup. Made to order (which this week has meant diet cherry flavored everything). And if I can manage to get myself to Sonic between the hours of 2pm and 4pm, it only costs me one dollar and thirty-five cents.  At that price, I can hand the server (who's on roller skates for goodness sake! nobody roller skates at Starbucks!) two dollars and let her keep the change and still come out spending roughly .47 cents less per trip than when I go to Starbucks.  I  also get to feel like a big tipper and I like feeling like a big tipper.  It's a fancy sort of feeling, you know?

    I had some time to think about the meaning of the word perspective last week when I spent several days laying on my couch with an ice pack cemented directly to my face trying to do anything and everything to alleviate the excruciating pain radiating from one of my teeth.  Slight back story - at a routine dentist appointment on March 29th, my dentist mentioned that I had a cavity in a tricky location very near a nerve that might require a root canal.  Root canals are expensive, and they're root canals.  Given the fact that I wasn't in any pain, I took the Scarlett O'Hara approach to his root canal suggestion and decided to think about it tomorrow. Tomorrow showed up around lunchtime on April 11th. A return trip to the dentist got me a prescription for an antibiotic (for the abscess. ick) and some pain killers (that never really killed the pain) and a confirmed appointment with an endodontic dentist on the following Monday - a day that was many many painful days away. During those long drug hazed hours spent on the couch, my perspective shifted from "oh no! not a root canal!!" to "I wonder if endodontists make house calls?"  No price is too high for pain relief.  Also, that saying about an ounce of prevention being worth a pound of cure? Totally true.

Made in America

    And because today is Art Club Wednesday, I thought I'd share Sarah's latest creation. The photo on the right shows a pair of flip-flops that my daughter made during art club this afternoon.  My first thought as she proudly wore her handmade flip-flops around the house was, "Seriously?  My Filipino baby made shoes as part of an extra-curricular enrichment activity at the school that I pay tuition for her to attend?" The number of politically incorrect thoughts that were bouncing around inside my head were almost too much.  I won't share them here, you know, because of the political incorrectness, but goodgollymissmolly, sometimes the universe just hands you the funny. Sarah's already working on a redesign using duck tape . . . because it's more colorful and durable than regular old masking tape.

Irises Are Everywhere

My Grandmother's Irises

April is a tough month. It makes me sentimental and homesick and some days it makes me downright meloncholy. I do what I can to stay on the bright side of April. Keeping busy helps, which is why I spent the first two weeks of the month redecorating my living room and kitchen. There's nothing like a couple of gallons of paint and large expanses of yet-to-be-painted walls to chase the blues away. The last few days have been tough though. I was waylayed by a rogue tooth infection and after spending several days laying on my couch in unbearable pain, my mood was sour. My spirits were brightened somewhat when Joel brought the mail in on Saturday afternoon and handed me a birthday card. I've always loved birthday cards (and no, this is not a plea for people to send me birthday cards, I'm just explaining my lifelong love of them). When I opened the card however, I was surprised to see that the person who sent it had neglected to sign it. There was just a blank card inside the envelope. I realize that it could have been an oversight on the part of the sender, but the thing is, it doesn't feel like an oversight - it feels kind of personal (not vindictive personal, more like "I don't care enough to make sure this card is signed before mailing it to you and sending this card is the absolute least gesture I can make anyway"). My initial reaction was to get angry - really angry. The whole thing made me so angry, in fact, that I managed to get up off the couch for the first time in two days and start cleaning the living room (because thanks to my Irish temperment, anger trumps pain any day of the week). When the anger wore off and the pain set back in, me and my favorite icepack returned to the couch and tried to think of appropriate ways to respond. An email? A phonecall? A blank "thank you" note sent in reply? What I finally came up with was to just let it go - all of it. This "letting it go" includes both not responding to the card and deciding that I'm no longer going to invest any time to maintaining this relationship. The charade of acting like everything's alright when this person is around (which isn't much, so there's that) over the last few years has been physically exhausting and mentally draining and no matter what the situation, it seems like I always end up looking like the bad guy. So, enough is enough. I am done with it. And free! So, what does any of this have to do with Irises? I don't know. Have I mentioned my tooth pain? Have I mentioned the large volume of pain killers I've been taking? My thoughts aren't all connecting cohesively tonight. What I do know is that the whole month of April and birthday cards in general and the sight of irises everywhere make me think of my grandmother and our shared birthday. My grandmother's yard was full of beautiful old-fashioned irises and they were always blooming in April. As I've driven around Nashville the last few weeks I've noticed that there are Irises blooming all over the place and even though my grandmother isn't here to celebrate our birthday this year and even though I can't drive out to the country to see her irises blooming for myself, I'm enjoying seeing these happy reminders of her all over town.

Irises in the Kitchen

Irises About Town

Irises in the Neighborhood

Easter Bunny Support Group

     The jig is up. The cat's out of the bag.  Today was the the day that this sweet child put two and two together and figured out the truth about the Easter Bunny. He was bummed.  Lucky for me, I was able to capture the less than magic moment on film.  (Sigh.) It's true, the Easter Bunny was careless in covering her his its tracks this year.  There was the Tennessee Museum Store bag that was inadvertently left in the back of the car, a stray comment here and there, and the fact that at almost eleven the idea of a giant bunny leaving candy and small gifts in baskets seems implausible to him.  After his early morning suspicions were confirmed, we sat on the new couch together and he asked me two questions. First, he wanted to know if this meant he wouldn't be getting an Easter Basket next year.  I guaranteed that he absolutely would have an Easter Basket waiting for him when he wakes up next year and the year after that and the year after that.  The second question he asked "So, what about all the other characters in the commercial, are they like the Easter Bunny too?"  The commercial he was referring to is the Diet Dr. Pepper commercial where the Easter Bunny and Santa and the Tooth Fairy are attending an "I Exist" support group.  I didn't hesitate at all when I answered "No, it's just the Easter Bunny that we're talking about here.  Only the Easter Bunny."  He seemed relieved.  Neither one of us were up for a bigger reveal today.  

     Because I've been painting the kitchen for days, I thought I'd share a photo of the new kitchen wall color. The room looks enormous now!  When my brother-in-law walked in today he asked if we'd knocked down a wall. I'm still figuring out the furniture placement and I'd like to get some crown molding up, but I'm in love with the gray paint color. And that was Easter 2012.

Hey Dawn

    Do you remember that time that we got on a jet and flew to Washington, DC because Jon Stewart invited you to come to that Sanity Rally and while we were there we walked into a store that billed itself as "The White House Gift Shop" and we both bought those commemorative posters and we decided that since I had the BIG purse we'd roll all four posters up together and I'd just hang on to them until we got home and then I would give your two posters to you?  And then do you remember how I never gave them to you? Well, today I decided that it's finally time to get your posters to you (before I lose them again) but since I've had them in my rolled-up possession since October 2010, I thought that it might be nice to put them in cute frames because I'm sure you would have had them framed by now and hanging in your house because they're Jon Stewart Sanity Rally Posters for goodness sake!!  And also because of the guilt - framing eases guilt.  I know this to be true because I tried it today and it worked for me. So, long story short, your [framed] posters are here at my house. We need to get together soon so that I can finally return them to you.  Give me a call. Or text me.  Your posters are ready!

http://adayinthelife-julie.blogspot.com/2010/11/sign-sign-everywhere-sign.html

Just Another Saturday Night

In case you can't read what's written in the photo above, it says

"CONTRACT you will do what I say for one year and not

complain about anything you have to do."

It's Saturday night and the children are downstairs watching a movie.

Child A is very involved in watching the movie.

Child B sees an opportunity and draws up a CONTRACT and asks Child A to sign.

Child A takes the CONTRACT and without reading it, almost signs said document. 

Child A decides that before signing, it might be best to read the document.

Child B insists loudly that Child A doesn't need to read it (!).  Child A just needs to sign it (!!).

Child A reads the CONTRACT.  Child A refuses to sign.

Child B crumples up the CONTRACT and laughs.  

This is how the children of attorneys pass their evenings.

Contracts and negotiations.

Child A may grow up to be a great attorney someday (although Joel hopes for better).

Child B has the makings of an evil genius.