Tag: Kids

sexy abraham lincoln

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The other night we went out, as adults, with other adults. It was very sophisticated. Of course we ran into even more adults including some who were dressed up for a night on the town. Costumed up, I should say for some apparent pre-Halloween festivities. We’ve all seen the selection of women’s Halloween costumes right now….sexy nurse, sexy prisoner, sexy race car driver, you get the idea. So imagine my surprise when there, in the middle of the crowd, was sexy Abraham Lincoln. Black blazer, black mini skirt, white blouse, fish nets, pumps, top hat and yes, Abraham Lincoln beard. Not just any Abraham Lincoln beard, a sassy supermodel-type Abraham Lincoln beard.

I’m not a natural Halloween person, though through the years, I’ve tried really hard. As a kid, I was the one who always got a fever the day of, or alas, threw up at school ten minutes before the costume parade (it was 2nd grade. Of course, my mother had spent a month working on a Revolutionary War period costume for the occasion that would not see the light of day.) I did rock the Mickey Mouse in ’77 and Princess Leia in ‘78 complete with homemade buns (thanks again mom). There were the unfortunate off years where “jogger” or “girl in wig” had to suffice.

My sad attempt at replicating my brother’s infamous “blind date” costume– the sight impaired glorified raisin that had skyrocketed my brother’s status to that of Halloween legend — fell appropriately flat when I kept having to explain it.

College, right? College Halloweens had to be epic. I had pretty high hopes going in. I won’t bore you with the sad details. They are not even funny sad, just sad sad. So I suppose epic is still appropriate if you are talking about the level to which they were ho-hum. As was my first crack at homemade Halloween treats. I tried to guess the recipe for sugar cookies. That, my friends, is why I cook, and do not bake. I can guess the recipe for a lot of things, but with baking I now know, there is stinkin’ science involved.

I did put my all into pumpkin carving when they came out with those handy kits. I loved picking the most complicated pattern, and it would take about 4 hours for me to finish one design. Those tiny little haunted house windows are tricky. I’d be sitting at the table, tongue out, brow furrowed and glistening with the perspiration of pure determination, moxie, and chutzpah! I’d eventually look up and I’d be sitting alone nursing my wrist and looking for the beginning signs of carpal tunnel syndrome, while everyone else had retired to the couch with a beer having finished their elementary designs of “funny ghost face” or “bat.”

Then I had a baby, and I could not get through trying to cut the hole in the top without having to stop 11 times to feed and change and bounce and soothe. That’s when I decided that pumpkins were even more attractive and longer lasting when you did not have to cut them open.

Jake did however breathe new life into my Halloween efforts. I cried when I saw him in his baby pea pod suit. He hopped all over my office as a frog, put on my heart and soul when he slipped into the airplane costume I made for him, and wore around half our monthly food budget in his sharp looking and fully legit NASA flight suit.

He also spent one year as “the kid with the fever” with Zach taking his turn with it two years later.  

We do have high hopes for this year. I may have failed on the cookie front again, but the costumes are shaping up nicely.

Zachary is the most detail-oriented dresser-upper you’d ever lay eyes on; last year in his Indiana Jones satchel, where nobody could see, you would have found jewels, a journal, a whip and a snake that helped him get into character. This year, he has taken it upon himself to meticulously grow out his hair to achieve the fluffiest, featheriest Mark Hamill ‘do this side of 1987. It will go perfectly with his x-wing fighter suit. Let me just say that again. It’s a 5-year-old growing out his hair to replicate Luke Skywalker, circa 1977. He is nothing if not dedicated.

After lamenting costume options for weeks with Jacob, including an ill fated Justin Bieber idea, yesterday we walked into a local Halloween store and asked for beards. The girl cocked an eyebrow at me – “Brian Wilson?” I nodded sheepishly, with the confirmation of what I expected. Prepare yourself Bay Area folks – Brian Wilson will be visiting you… a lot. I really would have felt like a Halloween rock star if I could have honestly answered, “No thanks, show me your sexy Abraham Lincolns.”

huddle

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The other night, I went to pick Jake up from his football practice. I was so very ready to go home. It had been a long day of work; no homework had been completed; dinner had not been eaten; and Zach was hell bent on scaling the one part of the park’s play structure that looked so dangerous, it had to be an illegal engineering mistake. But alas, practice was not over. Jake and his buddies were now huddled around in their team meeting, looking very worn out and very serious. Like tiny little SWAT teamers doing a recap of some big operation.

Assured that Jake is currently where he is supposed to be, huddling with the other SWAT teamers, I shift my focus to Zach who’s back on the scary and forbidden play thing, only now while also pointing at his own eye with a stick. That’s when I hear a very familiar voice call out… “Mom. Mom. Mom. Mom. MOM!”

I look over, and there is my eldest, non-discreetly summoning me from the middle of his meeting. He sees that he has my attention, and hits me with his emergency. “What’s for dinner!?!?”

Granted, he does not have a lot of experience being in meetings. But I give him the abbreviated version of my laser eyes, and the universal hand signal for “turn around and listen to your coach, focus, and by the way, I have NO idea what is for dinner.”

Other than “how did I get out of your tummy?,” “what’s for dinner?” is probably my least favorite question. I know the answer about 25% of the time. Within that 25%– noodles, chicken nuggets, pizza, Subway and tacos really are the only place where there is any overlap of excitement from both boys, which comes to about 10%. I’ve already exceeded my math aptitude here, but that leaves a lot of stink faces, and “I don’t like that” and “can we please have macaroni & cheese or Subway or tacos or noodles?”

Sure, I’m frustrated and kinda harried and cranky looking on the outside, not to mention slightly distracted by a 5-year-old daredevil with a stick, but at the same time, a little relieved on the inside. Jake’s still 10, not on the SWAT team, and him knowing what’s for dinner currently trumps all of his other worldly concerns.

The disturbing  thing about watching major league sports is how many of these guys look like little boys. I mistook an Atlanta Braves pitcher and a pinch runner for bat boys, and I have a hard time believing that the Giants’ beloved Buster Posey has started shaving yet. The old men in the sport are a couple of years younger than John and I. Please notice, I include John in this to keep me from feeling so alone out here in the mid-thirties.

sunrise

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Two nights ago, I posted this as my Facebook status update:

“I drank an Orange Julius today. It tasted like 1983.”

Without mentioning anything about where exactly I drank that Orange Julius in 1983, a slough of people tapped into exactly what I had been thinking about all day: Sunrise Mall.

Maybe you had a Sunrise Mall. Maybe your Sunrise Mall was Sunrise Mall. John’s was Magic Valley Mall, and his eyes gleam as he waxes poetic about being dropped off there on a Sunday with a pocketful of quarters. But the mall – your mall, my mall – was a special, magical place. Especially if you were lucky enough to be a patron in the ‘80s and early ‘90s. Kids weren’t looking for $300 handbags or hitting each other over the head for $200 shoes. It was big big, epically big hair and Pac Man and Orange Julius. You know… the good ol’ days.

I saw Breakin’ Two, Electric Boogaloo there for pete’s sake, with my parents on a Saturday night. Only now, writing this, do I realize what a sacrifice this was on their part. They were probably scared to death. Of the clientele? Maybe, but I’m guessing, mostly of my aspirations. Thank you Mom & Dad!

Sunrise Mall held a world of possibility. Say you’re, oh… I don’t know, 13, and it’s oh… I don’t know, 1987. You’ve got $25, and 4 hours to spend it before your mom picks you up in her giant grey Chrysler Cordoba. You have no idea who you are going to run into, or what feather-haired hottie you might meet. Maybe something’s on sale at Miller’s Outpost or Chess King (if you’re a boy in the market for Z Cavariccis)? Maybe you want to get another inflatable Palm Tree at Zanzabar? Maybe you and your giggly friends will window shop for Swatches at Macy’s or cruise the Esprit section at Weinstock’s. Will it be Sbarro or Taco Bell or McDonald’s or Orange Julius? Where do you go first? Contempo? Wet Seal? Waldenbook’s? The hook rug store? (There was a hook rug store. I’m not kidding.) The candle store? See’s candies? Sadly, we never did go in the pipe shop or the wig store, Merle Norman, which now I see as missed opportunities.

When I put the Orange Julius post up, again with nary a mention of the mall itself, Erica who I met as an elementary school girl, was the first to reply wistfully, and from England, no less, “Oh Sunrise Mall…” Staci, who I met somewhere around kindergarten, remembered the octagonal benches that were outfitted in that signature orange and burgundy tile, where she liked to people watch. Then there was Laurel – one of my middle school go-to shopping friends, with whom I even traveled to our version of Mecca – the Esprit Outlet in San Francisco – while sporting matching striped shirts, Keds and permed hair. Anyhow – she remembered the Orange Julius crinkle fries with her mom and the fountain that held center court, where people would throw their change, their wishes, and their Orange Julius cups…yes, the fountain was the crown jewel of Sunrise Mall.

I look at my own kids and wonder if they are so overwhelmed with cool stuff and places and experiences, that the mall could not possibly hold the level of fantasy and coolness that it once represented for us. I used to daydream that I lived in, and went to school in the mall. I thought the most sophisticated people lived in the apartments at the edge of the parking lot. That the people revving the engines of their Z28’s outside, were forces to be reckoned with. Could the modern mall hold the same allure for my boys? Perhaps.

As I sat sucking down the classic Orange Julius that did in fact taste like 1983, I couldn’t help but enjoy how much the boys were enjoying our mall. They loved the Silly Bandz kiosk, nay, pavilion, that was the whole reason for our visit. There was a Mini Cooper parked on display by the elevator. Johnny Rocket’s has a patio that makes it feel like you’re sitting outside, when really you’re about 15 feet from Sears 2nd floor entrance. Two stores in a row have the same display of pillow pets. And then there’s the wonderment that comes with the fact that there’s a Wetzel’s Pretzels on one level, and an Auntie Anne’s pretzel shop exactly one floor down! And I know, without him saying anything, that Zach always has one eye out looking for Paul Blart.

You know what? Sunrise Mall is still there, but I refuse to go. I like it frozen in time in my head and memories. I like that I can go right back there when I see a Camaro, or acid wash, when I smell that intoxicating scent that is a mix of new clothes, perfume, hairspray, floorwax and nacho cheese, and of course, when I run across “Here I Go Again,” by Whitesnake.

persuasion

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The boys want a dog. Like really bad. What boy doesn’t want a dog, I guess. And when I say boys, I mean all the males who live in my house. Here’s the hitch: they’ve teamed up, and I’m fearful they are using their collective cuteness and unparalleled persistence as their secret weapons.

Frankly, I don’t feel that I’m ready for a dog. Two human boys? Sure, I can handle that. Well, sometimes, I can handle that. But a dog? With fur and paws and stuff? I don’t know. Frankly, I don’t know how good of a job I’m doing right now with what I’m already responsible for.

I’ve been casually interviewing people on the street about how their lives have changed since the dog. It’s hair, and shoe chewing and “surprises” in the hallway. I saw Marmaduke this summer while we were on vacation in Las Vegas, which as it turns out, was the only redeeming quality of the movie. On top of it being a simply awful cinematic disaster, it did not help the boys’ argument for the dog. There was a lot of slobber, and passing gas, and the guy losing his job because of Marmaduke’s terrible terrible behavior (I hope I didn’t spoil any critical plot points.)

Of course, I’ve had a few people tell me it’s been the best, most wonderful thing that has happened to their family. John is consistently reminding me about those people. I turn around and cite the few souls who flat out told me, “don’t do it, just have another kid.”

I’ve had dogs. Well, I think it would be more accurate to say that my brother had dogs, and I lived at the same address as said dogs. Scott & Mugsy shared a close relationship long before I was ever born. I mean for years. Mugsy went to doggy heaven when I was still little. Through the years, the story of how he’d shown up abandoned on our doorstep one 4th of July when Scotty was a tyke became family lore. Apparently, he was the world’s most perfect dog. He had the body of a full size canine, and the legs of a tiny one. He stepped over toys, and slept in front of our bedroom doors as our guardian and never chewed anything and would let my brother and the neighbor kids dress him up when they played cowboys, spacemen, and army. (Um, my brother was a kid in the 60’s. I played Charlie’s Angels, Wonder Woman and Remington Steele).

Zeke was also technically my brother’s dog. We got him about 2 months before Scotty left for college. Zeke and I were cordial to each other but we had drastically different interests and schedules.  He was a Brittney Spaniel, a hunting dog with a lot of energy, and my parents had to add 2 more feet to the back fence because he could jump out of the yard flat-footed without even trying very hard. He stayed outside and had his own little house, and when Scott would come home from college he would breeze in the front door, say hello to us, and head straight out the back to hang out with his furry little buddy.

Yes, a boy and his dog. That is what my boys envision for themselves. Every essay that Jake writes, if it’s not entirely about a fictional dog, or the general greatness and amazingness of dogs, or the emptiness he feels because he does not have a dog, includes at least a sentence proclaiming his untamed desire for the animal. He does in fact look like a kid who should have a puppy. Overalls, a fishing pole, and a loyal canine companion. He’s got freckles, a sweet smile and floppy hair that hangs in his big brown eyes (See?? I can’t even get my kid a haircut – how can I have a dog?)

Zach’s on the same page. He has a legion of stuffed puppies who, he reminds me are not real, but he takes very good care of them, and gives them interesting names that only kids can come up with (“Salad the Dog” anybody?), and softly tells the stuffed puppies that he will still love them even if he gets a real one someday. He even wakes in the night to make sure they are all accounted for.

And then, of course, there’s John. Every time John is on his laptop lately, I peek over his shoulder, and there are all these sappy and adorable photos of full grown dogs, and little puppies in need of good homes. I’m pretty sure he got a good sense of where I am emotionally when he peeked over my shoulder this afternoon, and saw a screenful of fall boots that are also looking for a good home.

I get it. I understand the allure. Dogs are cute, and they look interested in what you are doing. And I know they are loyal and amazing companions. But, when I greet a new dog, I usually keep my hands to myself, look down at them and say, “hello there.” I’m not trying to be rude, but I’m not looking for anything long-term. And I’ve seen people talk to my kids that way, so I really don’t feel very bad about it.

Honestly, I’m trying to be responsible and realistic. In fact, I’m pretty sure I thought less about the consequences of having human children, than I have about adopting a dog.  We keep weird schedules, and we’ve tried the “kid contract” where our eldest signed a non-legally binding piece of paper outlining our expectations regarding the much smaller pet rat. That did not go awesomely.

But then there are the big brown, yes, puppy dog eyes (John’s included) that are constantly trying to change my mind. And of course, societal pressures! Peer pressure! Corporations who want me to think that I’ll be a better patriot and mother if I get a dog! The Man! Big Brother! And probably, my actual big brother too. And even though I effectively ended the discussion this afternoon when I pointed out tall black zippered walking boots with juuust the right amount of slouch, I know the conversation is not over.

Because, I haven’t exactly said no. Hey wait, I have said no, and nobody seems to be taking that seriously. As it turns out, I am weak when it comes to puppy dog eyes. Especially the human kind.

atrophy

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Atrophy. If school wasn’t starting in two days, it certainly seems that would be the word of the week, and I wouldn’t be able to tell you how to spell it.  Looking around the house, it is essentially a time capsule from June of 2010. The backpack is slumped in a corner where it was dropped on the last day of school. The fool-proof organizing system of boxes and document holders with which I am continually tinkering, still spews papers from the top, mocking my good intentions.  Feeling entirely too much like an adult, I had to take pause this week and wonder, where did my summer, once so full of promise and untold delights…yes, THAT summer, go?

The last week of August already tends to be one of mixed emotions. The kids have dissolved into mini-delinquents whose sole purpose for punching each other is force of habit, but they shyly admit that they might indeed just be ready for regular school stuff. And while I fancy myself fairly footloose and moderately fancy free, I’m pretty stoked about having some structure reintroduced into our lives.

Faced with the reality of summer’s end, Jake shimmied out of one of his beloved baseball tees and into a collared shirt for school pictures this afternoon, followed by a peek into his new class. The glimmer of joy came when he realized he scored one of two air conditioned classrooms.

The glimmer disappeared with the school supply shopping. It should come as no surprise that when you’re shopping for pencils and paper, the biggest smiles are on the parents’ faces. You’ve seen the commercials. It’s totally true. Grown-ups chipper with anticipation, happily checking off otherwise mundane items from their lists.

 “3-ring binders? Theeeeere they aaaaarre!” …this from a smiling cherubic woman with a Blue Tooth headset firmly in place and the lilting sing-song voice of Snow White. She was followed by a wincing teenager whose hands were shoved defiantly into his pockets.

 All over the store, parents were holding up items, saying “which one?” enthusiastically trying to sell kids on the luxury of choice that they have in the color of their binder, their notebooks, their pencil case –  offering perhaps a semblance of control in a situation where essentially, young students have little. Jake haphazardly pointed at the red, the blue, the black. It seems he would have been happy if we were picking out a leather office chair or fax machine…that’s where his attention was.

 But now, as my tall funny fifth grader, and my cuddly sweet last-year-of-pre-schooler are not punching each other and tucked snugly into bed, I’m having a heck of a time being excited about launching into a new year without a firm grasp on what happened to the last 12 weeks? Where have we been that I didn’t finish the recipe project or paint the living room? How cute is it that I thought that I might?

Let’s see, the DVR sputtered out its last CSI weeks ago – dead of fatigue.  (Killing your DVR with overuse doesn’t result in the prideful feeling you’d think it would.) When that noble piece of technology finally went, it took about 18 hours of stored treasures that I had reserved for the summer programming drought. So aside from the recent delicious start of Mad Men, I wasn’t near the TV like I usually am. Hmm…the evenings were too cold to lounge around outside and spray down the boys with a hose, though there were moments I considered it. And I’m just as far into The Girl  With the Dragon Tattoo as I was in June.

Even my personal magazine pile has doubled. Have I really been that behind on Entertainment Weekly? Well, not entirely. I almost forgot to feed the boys dinner the day the fall movie preview issue arrived. And all those issues of The Economist? I did take the time to toss those, so that’s good.

So I did an exercise to get to the bottom of this mystery. Please, please, please don’t stop reading when I say this. OK, it involves Twilight, but it has a point. During the 9 hours of special features on the DVD that I watched as happily as I did the actual movie, the screenwriter, Melissa Rosenberg said she read the first book in a single sitting, focused on the scenes & images that stood out from this initial read – and then structured the screenplay around those. So I did the same thing, but to rediscover the highlights of a season past.

 Melodramatically closing my eyes…I flitted back to the ill-advised but glorious Dunkin’ Donuts breakfast in Las Vegas. The 4th of July fireworks over Disneyland. Sitting in the theater watching Eclipse with my friend Margie and a gaggle of really rowdy and inappropriate mothers. My friend Megan making me dinner in my own kitchen, and having a mom talk with the little one when I was just too tired to do it myself. Jacob jumping himself silly on a trampoline for his 10th birthday. Trying and failing to get our hands on chocolate covered bacon at the State Fair. The butterflies in my stomach when my handsome husband appeared on the escalator at the airport, finally home from Zimbabwe. The sinking feeling I had when I realized the gifts he brought the boys were two vuvuzelas. The plotting of where I could accidentally lose two vuvuzelas. A couple of great end-of-summer parties with old friends, and new friends, and many many appetizers. And then there was starting this blog, which during the nail-biting hemming and hawing stages of discernment about it, felt kinda self-indulgent, overly revealing, a little brave, a tad silly, and maybe a little bit cathartic.

And so now I will post this piece, walk by the backpack and filing system, and hop into bed with the triumphant posession of a summer well-spent. I suppose there are worse things than atrophy of housecleaning.