clickmom

sharp

I am pretty bad at giving the kids chores and making them responsible for stuff around the house. Which really isn't working for me since I end up doing everything all alone and getting all resentful about it. The one chore I have been making Evan and Matt do themselves is packing their own stuff for trips. At first I gave them lists to refer to for packing thoroughness but somewhere along the line, I just gave the boys a whole lot of credit and started saying something vague like "pack for three days and two nights". How's that working for us? Yeah, uh... that's been what I have been asking myself these past couple of days.

You be the judge.

Three things Evan did pack for utopia:

1. the wood carving knife lil sis got him for hanukah
2. his swiss army knife
3. the fisherman's utility blade I found on the side of the street while walking the devil one day last April. I brought it home and gave it to Evan.

Three things Evan did not pack for utopia:

1. pajamas
2. socks
3. underwear

I'm thinking I might have to revert back to the detailed list method here.

manly

Matt kept me company when I went to the pet food store the other day. After I paid for the 28 pound of diet dog food I pointed to the friendly dog food bag toting clerk and let him know that my strapping young son would be carrying the dog food bag for me. Matt awkwardly grasped the 28 pounds of dead weight dog food, carried it the short distance to the car in his special kind of ungainly way, and tossed it through the rear window. When we got home Matt, like the future good husband I am trying to train him to be, went back to the back of the car to fetch the anvil/dog food. I ran for the door since it was drizzling, and stood inside listening as Matt grunted and groaned as he struggled to lift the leaden parcel up and through the open hatch window. I thought to myself that Matt was sounding rather weakish and maybe even wimpy-ish.

Eventually Matt got a hold of the bag and made his way into the house. I gave him the "I heard your cries of distress look" as he breezed by me and then with out skipping a beat he very casually said in his smooth baritone voice "Did you enjoy all of my very manly sound effects?"

glare

We went and took grandma out to eat last night. There is a chain restaurant near the new nursing home and I thought that this could be our weekly venture. (disclaimer: the food was so inedible that we might have to just take her over for some ice cream and not the whole meal, I am not at all kidding) Anyways, turns out Wednesday night is clown night. (And a very sarcastic....) Woo Hoo to that. Not. There was a 4 year old birthday party. Talk about VOICES! It's a wonder I didn't bolt.

As a seasoned parent that I am, I know going in that clowns just bring out the (crazy) naughty in mostly the naughtiest of kids, and other people's naughty kids are not what I had in mind when as I wheeled my still quite confused and totally weak grandmother down the street. Nothing like tons of background noise to confuse the hearing impaired! So, we get seated, and having the wheelchair bound grandma, we did not have any choice regarding seat location as the place was pretty full and we were an always awkward amount of people, a party of 5.

Eventually the clown works his way to our end of the crowded little "restaurant" (because, the food? Yech. Did I mention the "food"?) And wouldn't you know the little raised by wolves/lives in a barn/in need of some actual parenting young boy at the table next to us goes into sensory overload and just loses any resemblance of composure. The kid approaches and kicks the clown, he hits the clown, he tries to swat, using the balloon animal from the clown, at the balls the clown is juggling. The mother barely sees the kid. This goes on and on. I am saying a silent prayer that the clown snaps and gives the kid the punch in the face he deserves. The mother occasionally looks over her shoulder and casually says "Stephenopolous don't" and then turns away from the kid and goes right back to her conversation. FInally, the young future criminal grabs a crayon off of the table and tries to scribble on the clowns big clown shoes. The damned clown still won't drop kick the kid! The mother makes a move to drag him away from the clown. He then takes his balloon animal, stands behind Evan, and begins balloon tapping Evan on the shoulder. Obviously his biggest mistake of the evening.

We have made a half hearted attempt to ignore the brat this whole time, but at the curious balloon tapping Evan makes eye contact with me. I whisper "It's the kid". Evan slowly rotates around in his chair and locks eyes with the boy. They stare. After a long minute the boy cautiously takes a few steps back. After another minute the boy steps sideways towards his own table. After another long minute the boy slides into his seat and appropriately hangs his head. He does not move. Evan turns back to our table, demonstrates his glare technique (learned from the master, ahem) and we polish off our banana splits with out fear. Both the clown and my family are naughty boy free for the rest of the meal. Evan gets even more of my undying gratitude.

Also, you should know that when he wasn't visually disciplining the way ward youth of a neighboring town, he was doting on grandma, encouraging her to eat, making her smile, and being as awesome as he could possibly be. (I am pretty sure he did it to make me happy) Score Evan.

swell

Dear Evan,

You have no idea how much my heart swells with love and adoration for you when you make Josh and his friends laugh by doing your famous daring swing dance for them at the playground.

They think you are the best too.

Love you,
Mom

toothy

Dear One Day You'll Be Grown Up Josh,

When you were a little boy your two front teeth came all the way in before the teeth besides them fell out. For the longest time your big front teeth stuck out all by themselves. When the teeth next to them finally started coming in I remarked to you that your teeth were finally coming in. You looked at me so sad and you reached up with your hands and started pushing on those teeth as if to push them back into your head. I asked what you were doing and you told me that you didn't want those teeth to come in because you liked looking like Sponge Bob.

I love you more today than yesterday,
Mom

NO! the origins story

When Matt was little all us earthy crunchy granola moms used to sit around discussing the most heated of parenting subjects. One of the hot parenting trends of the moment was to eliminate the word NO from your vocabulary when speaking to your child. This is how it would work: Let's say that my cute little baldy boy Matt was being held captive hanging out in his high chair and I gave him some paper and some crayons except he thought the crayon would look much nicer on the arm of his high chair. And I stopped yacking on the phone long enough to register observed Matt graffiti-ing drawing on his restraining device high chair. I would not, as instinct would dictate scream NO! and angrily grab the crayon out of his hands screaming about how much the chair cost or how his daddy worked so hard to provide him with nice things he didn't have any respect for, instead I would calmly approach my child and say in a sing song voice "Crayons go on paper" and then I would demonstrate the proper use of crayons on paper and Matt would imitate scribbling with crayons on paper and I'd clap my hands in false only for toddlers excitement and say "Yay! Crayons go on paper! That's right Matt!" sigh. Those were the days of my unlimited patience, I have to tell you, I fear I would barely recognize myself. But that method did work like a charm, especially for Matt who was born eager to please, much like a good quality pure bred german shepherd puppy. Woof!

So, this is how I did things back in my youth, and this is how I got the best baby of all time, and I never ever once told Matt NO! and I was pretty proud of that. I figured (hahahaha) he would never say NO! to me either.

Now, Matt was a tall baby and if you have a tall baby people tend to think he is older than he is and they completely ignore that he is toothless, drooling, fat like a baby, and completely bald and they start to ask him questions that he can't answer yet. So I would stroll around Brooklyn with my tall for his age year old baby in the stroller and nice friendly well meaning folks would bend over and ask 1 year old Matt "What's your name?" or "How old are you?" and before I could tell the annoying stranger they were talking to almost still an infant baby Matt would scream out NO! and for the first 27 times I could not for the life of me figure out where in the world Matt got the NO! from. Pretty much Matt's response to any question was NO! I had never told him NO!. I was sure of it. I was dumbfounded. And then one day I was thinking about the NO! as I walked the dog with Matt. And when the dog went to sniff something indescribably gross I said "NNOOooooooo" and when the dog was about to bark at a passing by dog I said "NNNOOOooo" and when the dog tried to cross the street on his own I said "NNNOOOooooo" and as if the heavens parted and the angel beam of light shined right on my head I realized that Matt must be talking to dogs when he says NO! to every probing stranger question.

This did not explain why Matt used to crawl around our living room with a ball in his mouth, or enjoy a playful game of fetch before dinner, but at least I knew where he had gotten the NO! from.

not what it seemed

I have kind of secretly been taking guitar lessons since September. I didn't keep it secret because I keep secrets, I just didn't mention it because I didn't feel completely committed. Progress has been slow for me since I never manage to make the time to practice. I can't get better if I don't practice! I knew that going in, but truthfully because of my crazy schedule and also because of the ongoing neck injury that makes it painful for me to lift my arm over the back of the big acoustic guitar, and also because I always save practice for the end of the day and then when I have to choose between sleep and guitar I head for bed, I just never do it. And then this past week I grabbed Matt's (who has also been taking lessons since September but practices every single day and is playing awesome already, his teacher says he learns in a week what other kids master in a month and I am as jealous as I am proud) smaller thinner electric guitar, and discovered I could play and play with no neck/shoulder/head pain at all! Now I have been playing and playing Matt's guitar and tonight the fingers on my left (chord pressing) hand are not enjoying typing at all. Pretty much the whole left side of the keyboard is a big ow ah ooh ouch.

Anyway, I went on line and found some songs that I played when I was 8 and 9 and took half assed guitar lessons in my NYC public school's inner city underfunded not destined to last for very long after school program. Man, was I a child of the 70's! Leavin on a Jet Plane, Blowin in the Wind, If I Had a Hammer, House of the Rising Sun, etc.... I was trying to remaster Puff The Magic Dragon because I thought Josh would really love to sing along that song with me when Evan came into the living room, took a seat and listened to my heart felt singing and "playing" of Puff. He smiled through sealing wax, frolicking in the autumn mist, and traveling on a boat with billowed sail. But when I got to a dragon lives forever and the one grey night it happened Evan sat up in alarm. He gripped the chair as I sang along until he finally pleaded with me "Who died? Was it Puff? Was it Jackie Paper? Wait, it sounds bad, what happened??" So in between words I said I'd tell him when I finished. I made him listen to the whole song. I totally hammed it up. I sang with feeeeeling. Evan was so adorably concerned. And then I told him the truth. And he who hung on to and memorized every single word out of the DARE officer's mouth, said "Oh, I get it! Puff! Hahaha."

matt wants a beard

Matt thought that this over manipulated Andy Warhol inspired shot of himself might help me to finally see just how handsome he would look with the thick and lush beard of his dreams that he desires so intensely if only I did not make him with my cruel authoritarian motherly ways shave those 23 scraggly chin hairs he actually has growing down there every three weeks or so.

Once you stop rolling on the floor laughing, check out Matt's twisted version of his beloved little brothers.

2 questions

Evan, inorder to complete his homework, had to call a (friend-type) classmate for the spelling words the other night. While they were on the phone, Evan asked the boy if he would like to come over Friday for a play date. The mom, with whom I have had some very nice pleasant chats and am interested in getting to know better, called me back an hour or so later to tell me that the son could not come to our house he had a scouts related activity that day. And then she said, with some kind of uncomfortable that I just couldn't place in her voice, "Can I ask you a couple of questions?" And my heart kind of twisted into a knot (because Oh No What Did Evan Say/Do? What kind of Freak Family does this woman think I am part of now?Oh! Evan!) and then I, despite the fright stomping on my chest, (deep breath) casually said "Sure!"

She hesitates.

Then finally.

"Were you .... bit by a shark?"

"Yes I was!" (relief!) Whew, I'm sure that seems unbelievable to the average suburban garden state house wife. Okay, that was easy, chit chat a little, share a little, is there something (gulp) else?

pause

more pause

I begin to sweat.

tick tick tick

"Were... Were.....Were you a Hooters waitress .... and did you wear a studded dog collar?"

??????????????????

WTF??

Thinking.....

Still thinking .......

Wheels turning....hmmm that does sound familiar.....

"Oh No! That wasn't me! That was Evan's Aunt, my little sister! Yes! But not at the same time! Hahahaha!"

Evan wrote a poem

Evan's assignnment last night was to write a poem using 10 of his 25 spelling words. He wrote this completely on his own and came to me with the finished product. The idea was his own and the words are all his too. I always thought he was secretly a grown up in a kids body. I love the way he writes.

Postcards oh postcards. Those little delights. They take you away from your boring old lives. Working on essays maintaining companies and massaging the everlasting headache. A glimpse of paradise is all you need to let your mind loose to set it free! As the excitement bubbles inside yourselves you examine the features of the postcard. You see a forest, lush with plant life, alive, moving, but most of all you see paradise. As the backgrounds sink into your head you are jerked from behind. You look up from your newly found paradise to see businessmen with Rolex watches. You see people bumping in to each other and yelling out hallow apologies. All this time you were still in the city experiencing the hustle and bustle of daily commute. But in your mind you were white water rafting in the Amazon, and panning for gold in California. You might even have been riding a scooter around Greek ruins. You’ll remember where you want to be more than where you are.

Moral of the story: It doesn’t matter where you are. All you need to do to go away is set your mind free.