Family Fourth

Finally sleeping in on a Saturday after the run of 6 a.m. mornings this week, all of the kids are home for the first time in weeks. It’s the fourth and we’re together and even if they’re growing like weeds I have them here now — and we’re going to do some home movie-making … we started doing that 18 years ago but we’d just tuck them away and tuck them away and tuck them away … didn’t look at them again until … yesterday. Yup. And we huddled around the kitchen table and watched movies from our kids’ babyhoods. We laughed … and I cried a little. Great way to celebrate being a family on the fourth! Now go and light up those fireworks from the Fireworks Superstore!

What a Mess! Welcome, Summer!

Our pencils are nubs without erasers, the white-out is dried up, the kitchen drawer that houses paper, crayons, glue, stencils, graphing paper and other school supplies is loaded to the gills with everything but school supplies … overflowing … I just stuffed it all in there, cram it as best I can, and wedge it shut … ignoring it like the crazy attic its become. My home is a shambles — especially the playroom where every single good intention of mine to keep tiny toy pieces in separate bins has gone to pot.  My home is a blender on high speed!  Everything is mixed together now that it’s the end of the school year and I am giddily racing toward the last day of school for relief from the end-of-the-year push! Then I’ll have all summer long to get re-organized, re-sorted, re-structured and re-supplied for another school year.  Come August we’ll be all tidied up and spic and span again but for now, I am dreaming of a blue summer … blue like the water of a swimming pool … just like the one I used to know!

Cover Kids ALL!

There were so many, many adorable kids who came out yesterday for the first segment of Cover Kids 2009 that it seemed impossible to land on 2 from each group. But with three judges (myself, Chad Young and Cassie Chapman from The Dan Agency) it was amazing how many times — without looking at each other’s scorecards — we landed on the same kids. Time after time we’d match up on the top score a child can get — a 5. But the truth is, ALL of the kids could be cover kids … You can take any child and get a great photo of him … So my heart would get heavy at times … and my eyes can just suddenly fill up with tears. I know that sounds dorky, but it’s just true. It does a heart good to see so many loving parents with their children in this capacity. I LOVE COVER KIDS!

Amen?

I got up to monsoon-like rain at 5:30 a.m. to head to Bellevue for my son’s 7:30 a.m. soccer game. How are we supposed to go to church? We’re not. That’s not happening this weekend because after the 7:30 game there’s a 10 a.m. game … They say that churches started providing Saturday night church as an option for busy people who couldn’t make it on Sundays … that, and because the church was making an effort to serve more people. While my husband’s out of town with our 10-year-old at a tournament in Louisville, I’m flying solo with our other three. So there’s not even an available parent around to take our other two … So here I go to slog it out in my rain gear and folding chair to watch soccer in a monsoon. Don’t get me wrong: I love watching my boy play soccer … only I like it in the sun and I like it on Saturdays or Sunday afternoon after church. The only choice you have if you want to go to church of any kind on a regular basis is to give up select soccer. Select soccer tournaments take place on a variety of weekends in the spring covering Friday, Saturdays and Sundays — organizers do not take into account the day of rest so to speak …  if a tournament game is happening … well, THAT’s church.  In fact, if you choose to attend church with your family rather than a Sunday morning game for a tournment you’re a part of your child will be penalized!  Not “officially,” but in playing time on the field the next time he’s put in.  So you go.  You go to soccer over church.  And there’s the miniscule, albeit authentic chipping away of religion in America that news magazines are giddy to be yammering about.  In order to serve more people and in order to accommodate busy lives, Wednesday night church started up years ago … But no!  Many folks can’t get to that service  … because of BASEBALL!

war games

My young sons and our neighborhood boys like to play war in our backyard. They love running around with pretend guns, hiding, making popping sounds and whizzing across the yard stealthily. They are strong and powerful when they do this … and while a part of me doesn’t like the idea that my boys like to play war … it is their rite of passage, not mine. I will not tell them what they can or cannot do in all innocence — even in the face of my own discomfort with what I know is a nightmarish reality. It’s true that 9/11 happened. And it sometimes feels to me like we grownups are once again allowing our minds to slip about it … again. Good and trusting parents raising children have a way of doing that … forgetting … denying … trusting our inherent rights to pursue life, liberty and happiness as we peel the potatoes for dinner, butter the bread.  But it’s possible that we have become naive again, lacking in imagination.  Bad things do happen.  I’m reminded of this while watching my sons play powerfully in the backyard.  Their imaginations are in full bloom. They are upright and brave. They are in self-protection mode and vigilant in the face of danger. With all that’s going on in the world right now, we can’t forget as parents that we too need to be like this … for real.

mom magic

Forget Disney, it’s moms who make the world what it is.  I know, I know, I love men as much as any woman can.  I mean, I love the father of my children, I suppose as much as any woman can … but man, oh, man, put a bunch of women together and they can literally do anything and everything better and bigger than any group of men.  We do the laundry we cook we clean we do the clothes for all the kids in all the seasons, we wipe the noses and teach the shoe tying and we get up at the crack of dawn.  We’re the last ones to bed at night and the first ones up and we know who has soccer or baseball or piano or trumpet every day of the week on top of their regular schedule and on top of the regular check-in on homework and grades.  On top of that, we can get together and assemble a massive amount of kids and get them into orderly fashion for a school play audition and wrap it up on time.  All while our cell phones are ringing and our dearly beloveds are calling in.  Disney ain’t got nuttin’ on the power of a mother!

Movie Mama

Every year I look forward to it: Oscar night!  From the time I was a little girl to now whenever the Oscars are on TV I get a hankering to make California Onion Dip (Lipton’s Soup Recipe) and enjoy a root beer float.  It’s a tradition my mother started and one I continue.  I even print out ballots for everyone.  I think going to the movies — not just any movie, mind you — but good, outstanding filmmaking is one smart endeavor.  I love ‘em.  I don’t even care that Hollywood is so Hollyweird today.  I just like going to the movies.  We buy big boxes of movie candy at Walgreens then usually spring for some popcorn and soda.  Sometimes I sneak in my soda, too!  I could care less that the movie concessions want to sponge my wallet — I don’t want them to!  Tomorrow night we are looking forward to see Wal • EE win best animated picture of the year.  I understand Slumdog Millionaire is the front runner for Best Picture.  Dunno.  Haven’t seen it.  But I’m going tonight!

Teenagers! Stop the World I Wanna Get Off

“So, did you dock the phone?” I asked my teenage daughter, “Cuz I don’t see it in the kitchen …” She was brushing her teeth at the bathroom sink. “I don’t know where it is!” She said too defensively through a mouthful of toothpaste. “You don’t know where it is??? Didn’t YOU take it?” She spat. “No! I don’t know where it is!” She said diverting her eyes. My instincts stood on the edge of a cliff, poised, keen, ready … “Where’s the phone?” I said firmly not letting her go. Her gorgeous deep-blue eyes held my gaze. “In my drawer,” she said, pointing to the knob below her hand …
Sigh. And that’s what happens. Is something wrong here? No. This is a teenager. A full-blooded absolutely normal teenager. “Give it to me, honey,” I said, holding steady — inwardly proud that she’d come around. I didn’t know what to say on the spot. So I went down the stairs and whispered loudly to the mound of my husband already asleep in our bed. “She lied to me! Right to my face! She docked her phone then snuck it away and she pretended that she didn’t know where it was!  What do I do?!” He garbled a foggy command from La La Land. “Take it away. She can’t have it for a week and she has to earn it back …” So back I went to be Dad’s mouthpiece. “You’re losing the phone for a week,” I said as she watched me in an enemy encounter. I wanted to hug her though. I wanted to have a grown-up kind of heart-to-heart with her. I wanted to be sage, helpful, loving, great. But sometimes you just have to hold the line. Sometimes you have to be unpopular.  And the mother/daughter complications are entering in because she has to let ME go.  She doesn’t want to hug me.  She doesn’t want to need me.  She doesn’t want to SEE ME! Where’s that little girl?  She’s there … this is her … my little love …  Stop this world, I wanna get off!   Meanwhile, the worst thing in the world for a child is for them to walk around feeling lousy inside about something they’ve done that’s wrong. She doesn’t need that guilt. She needs to live in the light and take the consequences of her actions. But thinking back to all the shenanigans I pulled as a girl … a teenager … she’s only just begun to LIVE!

Start Runnin’!

OK ladies, we’re cooked.  Enough of the hanging around with the kids and nibbling on left-over chocolates (come on, you know you have your secret stash!), it’s time to get back to the grind and I DO mean grind.  Early morning rise, gulps of coffee, lunch-making, clothes organizing, washing and drying, the school-work paper trail and homework keeping-up and bedtime routines, keeping up with dinners and activities and oh, the housework, the dreaded housework.  But guess what?  The daily grind is the BIG PICTURE.  There’s no BIG EXPECTATION attached to the BIG PICTURE, it’s not a rehearsal all gearing-up for the BIG DAY, it’s the REAL THING.  The holidays ARE a daze of holly, tinsel, wrapping paper, over-spending, over-eating and a mass of expectations topped off with one of those jumbo bows you can buy for your I-hope-he-leaps-for-joy-when-he-sees-it purchases.  It’s time to roll up your sleeves, tie back your hair, clear the decks, put the sneakers on and start running.  The screeching halt the holidaze bring is over and it’s time to … ya ready?  And a-one, and a-two, and a-three — Do THE GRIND!

the most wonderful time …

This is it:  The most wonderful time of the year.  Christmas morning has come and gone, and it’s the Saturday after.  There’s a new ping pong table, an xbox 360, treats to polish off (keep that See’s chocolate away from me, would ya?), and another week to go before the kids have to return to school. We are in full-swing holiday  here.  We saw Nannie and Pop Pop off in their car home bound for New England at 6 a.m., then I poured a hot cup of coffee from my new Cuisinart 12-cup press-and-go coffee maker they gave me and curled up on my sofa in my robe to watch … can you believe it … “Love Story.”  Totally girled and comfied out in my heat-inducting slippers and Pier One Christmas throw, I sipped my coffee, thought about the Christmas I had thrown and wished that I’d put out at least one more appetizer!  After a few days, when you still have hungry company around, you’d better be ready or you have to dig up what you can.  Big tip:  If you’re hosting family for the holidays, be sure to stock up plenty of appetizers, chips, dips, nuts, cheeses and assorted delicacies — this will make or break your Christmas!  In quiet repose on my sofa, I thought about Nannie and Pop Pop driving away as my husband resumed snoring again having returned to bed … and our kids, ensconced in the xbox zone upstairs.  A whole, wonderful, lazy day is splayed out before us.  Tonight, Stewart and I will resume our backgammon tournament and maybe play a ping pong game after a homemade taco fiesta with the kids.  Lots of sour cream. Love the holidays.  It’s the most wonderful time of the year