Christmas Unwrapped

Since Christmas Day our house has looked as though a nuclear Christmas Bomb went off inside it.

Anyone who knows me very well will be tempted to shake her head and mutter bullshit ”yeah, right” under her breath, because they know how I typically keep house. Um, can you say OCD? But really, I swear. My life has been buried under a sea of gift wrap, garbage bags, game parts and cookie crumbs. Until yesterday. The garbage man finally came and took it all away and life can get Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Programming. Until Monday. When we take down the Christmas tree. Ack!

Now that the clutter has been temporarily removed from our home, and also my brain, I have had a little time to think about my favorite moments from the holiday. So here they are, in no particular order, some moments etched in my memory as special….

• the oven element going bad and having to be repaired to the tune of $240 dollars two days before Christmas and then rushing to make Christmas cookies, in an abbreviated form, so that we had some to leave for Santa since Allison practically had a heart attack when I suggested we use store bought ones
• watching Trent so carefully roll Peanut Butter Buckeyes into 42 different sizes and sprinkle sugar on the sugar cookies, and after telling him what a great job he did, watching him beam
• hearing my two year old nephew, Ryan, say my name clearly for the first time in the most incredibly adorable little voice ever
• listening to the kids beg Brett to save the life of the lobster, which they lovingly named Henry, that he planned to use to make Lobster Bisque for Christmas Eve and hearing them complain for days that dad “killed Henry” when he boiled him anyway (yummy….)
• snuggling in bed on a very rainy Christmas Day after waking at quarter to six (involuntarily) to open the loot
• watching Trent and Allison pool their money together to buy “secret” gifts for me and Brett
• taking Trent shopping so he could buy a gift for Allison just from him, which turned out to be, in his words, ”a girl shirt” with a glittery heart on it and hearing him say that he picked it “because we love her, Mom”
• playing Christmas Bingo on Christmas Eve with our family and working very hard to be sure that the littlest among us definitely won at least once so no one would cry and then Trent bursting into tears because “Daddy didn’t win” and then finding him in his room three days later in tears because he “just had a remembery that Dad didn’t win Bingo on Christmas Eve”

Okay, can someone please tell me how to bottle up a five year old somehow so I can keep him that way forever??

High School Musical Chairs

When I was a preteen there was a movie that came out that I absolutely loved. I swear I must have gone to the theater to see it about fourteen times. It was a musical, and I knew all the words to all the songs, and I would sing them into my hairbrush at home while I dreamt of how cool it would be to be Sandra Dee with her blonde bob in her poodle skirts and tight black hotpants and be kissed by John Travolta. *swoon* It’s also where I learned what the term “bun in the oven” meant, what virginity was, and that girls actually sneaked out of their houses to meet boys. (What was my mother thinking letting me watch this movie??)
Let’s just say that “Grease is the word, is the word, is the word……….”
If you do not have a ‘tween or preteen in your house these days you might not know about modern day’s answer to “Grease.” It lies in a TV movie on Disney Channel called “High School Musical” and I swear, Allison is as hooked on it as I was on Grease, only she’s probably watched it twenty-eight times. And I get the pleasure of watching her sing into her hairbrush and dream of how cool it would be to be Gabriella with her long brunette wavy hair in her cropped tops and sparkly dresses and be kissed by Zac Efron. (I’ve seen this movie and I don’t think she is learning anything too inappropriate from it. I mean, it IS Disney after all, right?)
Apparently the rest of the tween and preteen population is equally as obsessed by the movie as Allison, because they came in concert this week and it created quite a stir among her friends.
The fun started about a month ago when we tried to buy tickets. It was like next to impossible. We went on the Ticketmaster website at exactly the moment they went on sale and we still were only able to score level three tickets, which if you know anything about these seats at the St. Pete Times Forum could also be called Two Rows Away From a Nosebleed And Don’t Lean Over Too Far Or You Might Land in Level Two Seats Without Even Taking The Stairs seats.
But just scoring the tickets at all was enough for Allison, even if the cast looks like somebody kicked an ant pile and we have to watch the entire show on the giant TV screens just to get a glimpse of them. And we went to the concert with my sister and my niece, who is eight, and the girls were so excited!
Oh and before I forget, here is a little tip for the guys out there. If you are looking to meet some women, this is where they are. Lots of women. Lots. Single dad with a daughter? You could score big time here.
So anyway, we get to our Level Three Nosebleed Seats at the concert and no kidding, we are like three rows from the top, and we watch the opening act, which looks a lot like one ant scurrying around with a microphone.
But I am thinking, well, at least we are not like the people over there who have hockey banners hanging in front of them and can’t even see the one ant scurrying around on the stage. But my sister? She starts to panic. Because the cotton candy guy is coming this way and of course my niece wants one, and she cannot figure out how she is ever going to get one without a nosebleed or falling face first into the level two seats. And apparently she cannot handle high places very well because she starts to feel sick. Which makes her panic even more. So she gets up and says she can’t handle sitting here anymore and that she is not going to.
So I am thinking we are so screwed because we are totally going to miss the start of the show since if she is getting up then we all have to. We go out to the concession area and she stops an usher and explains the fear of heights and they send us to Guest Services. Who send us to the box office. Who tell us for just ten dollars more we can have seats like ten feet from the stage. Four of them. All together. In a row.
Hello? Where did THOSE come from? And why the hell couldn’t I buy them online? But whatever….just give them to us already because we are totally going to miss the start of this show!
So we race to the section of the new seats and the girls just about had a heart attack. It was like you could reach out and touch the stage. And we totally did not miss the start of the show, because it started just as we sat down. They loved it. And for a fleeting moment I felt a little old being the parent bringing her daughter to a concert instead of the being the kid going to the concert, but it was really fun to see all the girls screaming and singing and dancing.
How we ever managed to get the great seats I will never know. It was incredibly lucky, but sharing the concert with Allison was a memory I will never forget. And hopefully she won’t either.

Conversations with Kids

Trent: Dad! Dad! (from the shower)

Me: Whaat?

Trent: I need Dad!

Me: Dad’s busy. Whatcha need? *appearing in doorway* I can help.

Trent: Mom, what is this called? *grabs testicles*

Me: Dad!! Come quick! Trent has a question for you!

Dad: What? *annoyed*

Trent: Dad, what is this? *grabs testicles and squeezes them*

Dad: Oh….um, those? Those are your testicles. You call them your balls. *laughing*

Trent: Oh, your balls. Okay. I know! Like basketballs and tennis balls and golf balls…..

Dad: Yeah, just like that….. *smiling*

****************************************

Mom: Did you finish your homework?

Allison: Yes, I just had history. I had to look up all the answers to these questions on the internet.

Mom: Good. Boy, you got that done fast!

Allison: Yeah, it’s so easy. You just type it in to google and you can find it.

Mom: Man, you are lucky you have the computer to help you. When I was growing up there were not many computers and no internet.

Allison: NO INTERNET?? How did you find anything out?

Mom: We went to the library and looked in the card catalog for a book or we looked in the encyclopedia.

Allison: Wow. THAT must have sucked…….

****************************************

Dad: Wow, the Christmas lights in our neighborhood are pretty weak this year. There must be a lot of Scrooges this year.

Mom: Either that or a lot of Jewish people.

Allison: My friend gets to celebrate Hanukkah and Christmas because her mom is Jewish and her dad is Christian.

Trent: Allison, what are you?

Allison: Christian.

Trent: Mom, what are you?

Mom: Christian.

Trent: Dad, what are you?

Dad: Christian.

Allison: What are you, Trent?

Trent: *pauses* I am Jewish.

Allison: Well, if you are Jewish then you celebrate Hanukkah. You light the menorah and you get one present a day for eight days. That’s it. So are you Jewish?

*long pause*

Trent: I think I am Christmas!

A True Story

Once upon a time Trent asked if he could try celery.

His mom and dad were surprised because, well….celery is green.

His dad put peanut butter on the celery.

Trent bit the celery.

He chewed the celery.

He SWALLOWED the celery.

The celery stayed swallowed.

Trent’s mom passed out from the shock.

They lived happily ever after.

THE END.

Mini Milestones

When you are a mom, all kinds of things happen in the lives of your children that can be classified as milestones. There’s the big ones, the ones you expect, like walking and talking, and then sometimes something happens that you didn’t see coming. Something that truly makes a difference in your child’s life and just appears. Or sometimes it might be something that you knew would come eventually, but maybe not so soon.

Either way they are the “feel good” moments that parenthood, and childhood for that matter, are all about. And they ususally bring a smile.

We had two of these this weekend.

Last month, I wrote a post about Allison and the girls in her class. Um, can you say frustrated? I think that’s what you could have called us.

Well, Friday night we had a sleepover and it was a blessed event. Allison had two girls come from school and we made pizza and cookies and they made a beauty mask out of honey and bananas and watched Hannah Montana in their pj’s and made up a newscast that they acted out for us the next morning and they were NICE. They were average ordinary eleven year old girls doing what average ordinary eleven year old girls do and loving it.

There were no worries about cell phones, instant messaging accounts, or what other people thought. There was genuine laughter, smiles and fun, just the way it should be when you are eleven with your girlfriends on a Friday night. There WAS some giggling about some boys here and there, but again, totally normal. And it was precious.

And when they left, Allison said, “I had such a good time!” And so did I, watching her enjoy herself. It was because she invited the nice girls, and that’s her speed, and she was comfortable. It’s who she is and she discovered it. For both of us, that was a milestone, to be sure.

And the second thing?

Trent is learning to spell!

Now, he only just turned five, and the connections start to come around now, but this was the first time he tried to put sounds together by himself to spell a word. Usually he is incessantly asking, “How do you spell this?” and we are forever calling out letters to him to spell some ridiculously long sentence that takes two years to spell.

Yesterday? He colored a picture and wrote the name of what he colored on it. All. By. Himself. And what did he spell?

Are you ready for this?

SUBRMN.

Do you get it?

It was Superman. And I about fell out of my chair in disbelief. I mean, is that genius, or what? He tried to spell Superman. Not dog, or cat, or mom or dad. No, not any little measly four letter word. Not MY kid. He spells Superman.

Amazing.

God, I love my kids.

The One About the Mean Girls

The other day, Kim from After the Ball, wrote a list of characteristics of people that she might not be compatible with as friends. The number one item on this list was mean girls and I found this to be interesting, since um……me too. Alot. Especially lately.

It seems that recently I have been chosen to participate in a test of patience called See How Long You Can Tolerate the Bad Behavior of the Snotty Girls in Your Daughter’s Class, also known as Reliving Your Junior High Years.

It sucked the first time through. I really didn’t need a refresher course. And I saw the movie. You know the one? It’s called Mean Girls? And they were. Mean, that is. But to live it out, through your daughter’s eyes? It’s just downright painful.

The difference is, though, that she is not in Junior High. She is in fifth grade. These girls are 10 or 11? And yet, they are just as bad as their 12, 13 and 14 year old counterparts. They say and do all the things that mean girls say and do, and it hurts me just as much as it hurts her.

This Mean Girl business started up around the end of last year, in fact, and it has escalated to a point where I don’t know what to do, or if there is anything that I CAN do about it. It seems that there is one Queen Bee in particular that is running the show in Fifth Grade. And she has her little Wannabes in a group that follow her every move. This girl will TELL you that she IS the MOST POPULAR girl in fifth grade. That might be because her sidekicks are telling HER that all the time. She walks like she’s “it”, she talks like she is “it”, so I guess that makes her “it’? I don’t know.

She and her posse are cooler than cool, and feel that it is their job to imform everyone else that they are not, if they are not part of the clique. You should see these girls trying to fit into this group! They BEG their moms to invite Queen Bee to sleepover, etc. And the moms cave to the pressure. It is sick.

One thing I do know is that I am so glad that Allison talks to me frequently about this. I see it at school when I am subbing, but I get the inside scoop from her. She is not part of the posse. And I am glad. (Because if MY daughter ever…….well, you get the idea…)

Now you might say “Sounds like sour grapes to me.” And I can see why you might feel that way at first blush. But really, here’s the deal. Allison really has no desire to be friends with these girls. And I love that. I see these other girls who are willing to do anything to be part of the group and it scares me. And Allison, she is not interested. She never has been a follower. I am so thankful that she knows who she is well enough to know that she does not want to be around girls like that. But….and there is a big “but” here…..she does not want to be embarrassed by them anymore. And it’s not just her, lots of other girls, too. And they should not have to be.

I have spoken to the teachers and have gotten no results. The general feeling is that this is how it is at this age. Not reassuring at all, I might add, and very frustrating. So we have resorted to encouraging Allison to resort to making remarks back when they belittle her about being “so flat” as she dresses out in the girls’ room for P.E. class. (um, hello…..you are supposed to be flat when you are all of eleven years old) And it pisses me off that any girl should have to endure that kind of pressure about her body. I know. I have felt it myself. It. Sucks.

So I am not sure that I am doing the right thing, but for now spending lots of time talking to her about it helps, I guess. And I guess that it will get worse before it gets better.

I just love her so much. I want to protect her. And I can’t. So I guess I have to empower her.

It WAS Hump Day after all

Last night I am cooking dinner and Trent comes and says this to me.

“Mom, when I was in Spanish class something funny happened”

Me: ”What was that?”

Trent: “Senora Toledo just DID NOT know what Tomas was doing!”

Me: “What do you mean? What was he doing?”

Trent: “He was humping.” (laughs)

Me: “WHAT? He was doing WHAT?” (concerned because how the hell does he know what humping is?)

Trent: “Humping, Mom. Like this!” (hums loudly)

Me: “OH! Humming! You mean humming!” (relieved)

Trent: ” Yeah! Humming!”

Thank GOD!

The Battle of the Beans

I say it’s the beans, but actually it is vegetables all together. The beans took center stage tonight however. Trent hates them. All vegetables. Hates. Did I mention that he hates them?

To work around this little dining issue we have had to sort of compromise. Instead of forcing the vegetable issue every night, I substitute the vegetables that the rest of us are eating with one of the three fruits that Trent will in fact eat. That would be apples, strawberries or bananas. Or applesauce. Usually this works out just fine, but every once in awhile I get a wild hair and decide to stage a vegetable challenge.

I don’t know why I do this. I really should have learned my lesson by now. I know that I never, ever win at this game, and yet I persist. This kid is stubborn with a capital S an no matter what I cannot ever pull one over on him.

I have tried hiding the vegetables. I have tried disguising them. We’ve tried bribery. We’ve tried enticing him with a dancing party if he eats them. We’ve said that we will sing. Brett makes funny faces. We tout how big and strong he will get. We beg. We plead. We beg some more. We threaten to take away dessert. *ouch*

And he pouts. Clamps his damn mouth shout even. And it always ends up miserably.

Almost every time, without fail, there is gagging. And at least one time the whole dinner actually came up, making me reluctant to pursue the issue further, because well….who wants to a) be responsible for making your kid throw up and b) be responsible for cleaning up the aftermath, especially during dinner? But it’s the guilt that I can’t stand. I did this. I MADE him do this. BAD mommy!

Tonight I warned him ahead of time that I would be placing one green bean on his plate and that I expected him to eat it, or at the very least try it or there would be no dessert, and he pitched a fit right away, announcing loudly in a rather defiant tone that he WOULD NOT be eating it, that beans are yucky, and he HATES them. Did I mention yet that he hates them?

WIth one look I recruited Brett and Allison into helping the cause and they launched into all the ways you could make them taste better, and that they really were good because mommy cooked them with bacon and you love bacon. And besides you’ve never really tried them. How do you know if you like something or not if you haven’t even tried them?

There was not one iota of interest.

I could see this was going to be a battle, so we doused them in butter, a favorite of Trent’s. He would eat the whole stick if you let him. And nope. Nothing.

Stinker!

And then I had a brainstorm. Ding, ding, ding! Money. I know, I know. You’re thinking, you didn’t! Next to using candy,it has got to be the most shameful way of coercing a kid to do something that I can think of, but I was DESPERATE to win this time. I kept thinking if I can just get the damn bean in his mouth he’ll like it and then I’ll never have to do this again and he’ll be begging for beans all the time!

I whip out my wallet and wave a dollar in front of his eyes.

“I’ll give you one dollar if you eat that bean.” Bingo! I had his attention!

“Really?” he said with reluctance, but a twinkle in his eyes that said I had his interest piqued.

”Let’s make it two dollars.” I said. Eyes open wider!

“Hmmmm……” he says.

“Three.” I add.

“Three dollars AND dessert!” he countered. What the hell is this? Let’s Make a Deal?

So I agree to this little arrangement.

He picks up the bean, still loaded in butter, and holds it in front of his mouth with apprehension, and yet he wants the money. So he pops it in his mouth.

I’m thinking YES! This is it! This is the moment! I am SO smart!

Yeah. WhatEVER.

The bean is not even in his mouth all the way and the gag starts coming. And out pops the bean into his napkin and the tears start.

“SEE!” he shouts at me, “I HATE beans!”

And I lose again. And there is the guilt, because he really didn’t get dessert. And I feel mean. But I can’t break the number one rule of parenting: Never, ever go back on a threat. I threatened the dessert. I had to follow through and I hated it.

But do you know what he said to me?

“I don’t want dessert anyway. I’m not hungry anymore.”

Bad mommy…..*sigh*

Table Talk

Actual conversation over dinner at our house tonight:

Allison: What kind of fish is that you are eating?

Me: Tilapia.

Allison: What kind of fish is that?

Me: The kind that you eat.

Allison: Where do you fish for those?

Brett: They’re farm raised.

Allison: They grow them on a farm? And then they KILL THEM TO EAT THEM? That’s so mean!

Brett: That’s what they do with chickens and cows.

Allison: Oh. Yeah. It just seems so mean. I would hate that job. Killing fish. Being a fisherman. How do you know when they are old enough to kill?

Brett: When they get big enough.

Trent: Hey, when you turn 100, you die.

Nice, huh?

Treasures

When Allison was Trent’s age shopping could be a drag. For everyone involved. Even other customers around us at the store. We would go to the store because Mommy wanted to and then Allison would wait impatiently for Mommy to look at some boring stuff and make up her mind about said boring stuff while fussing at Allison to stop touching things and crawling under the dressing room stall door. It was never an experience that either of us looked forward to.

Finding ways to entertain herself while waiting for Mom at the store became a creative endeavor that Allison attacked with vigor. There was a whole repertoire of activities that could make Mom crazy enough while shopping that she might just cut the whole trip short. There was Mirror Dancing, Crawling Under Clothing Rack Tunnels, Cart Climbing, Tag Pulling, Icee/Toy Begging, Fragile Item Touching and my personal favorite: Trash Collecting.

Of the myriad of choices to pick from Trash Collecting was without a doubt the one thing that could produce a reaction resulting in a quicker shopping experience and Allison used it often. There’s lots to look at in a store for grown ups, but for little people the fascination is not what’s for sale. It’s what’s on the floor. And there’s lots there folks. Lots.

As we made our way through the store, I’d be looking up and Allison would be looking down. Like breadcrumbs in the forest, the items she saw on that floor would lead her places I did not appreciate her being led, distracting me from my mission. She would find buttons, paper clips, price tags, sequins, plastic, fuzz balls, thread, pennies. You name it, it was probably there somewhere and she would find it.

We’d get in the car and her pockets would be chock full of department store trash and she was beaming. She loved it. And me….I was scowling. I would say, “Allison, why do you HAVE to pick up that garbage?” And one day, smiling, she stopped me in my tracks by saying, “Mom, it’s not trash. It’s treasures! I’ve got treasures!” She would take them home and put them into some little box and save them until the next treasure hunt when she could add to them again. I never called the things she collected anything other than Treasures after that. The name stuck, and when I thought about how it kept her occupied while I hunted for my own Treasures, the expensive kind, I could look at the trash as something I almost appreciated in a wierd kind of way.

Shopping with Allison is a totally different experience now that she is almost eleven. We are usually on the same mission these days and she has outgrown her own Treasure Hunting days. But fighting us every step of the way, no matter where we happen to be, is the newest treasure hunter in our midst. Trent. The difference is he is a boy and he is much louder and more active about it, which makes both me and Allison nuts at times. And the hunting isn’t limited to stores. His Treasures are rocks, stickers, acorns, feathers, sticks, seashells, snail shells, a tiny statue left behind in the sand at the beach, sand FROM the beach, broken toys and beads. From ANYWHERE he can find them. And he keeps them all lined up on the windowsill in his room, a proud assembly he refers to as My Collection. But no matter how annoying it can be that he is always clutching some little piece of the world to save, after learning from Allison,we have always praised and encouraged his Treasures and he cherishes that Collection.

And every time I see them there on the windowsill it reminds me to stop and look at the little things….the moments that make me crazy….the trash that accumulates in my life at times….and consider whether they might just be Treasures after all.

And I learned this from the best Treasure Hunters I know. My kids.