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I Need An Elementary School Fairy GodMother

September 23, 2009 by 23 Comments

I sat at my son’s school last night alone.

I watched Moms congregate to other Moms. The really well dressed ones. The hipster ones. The entirely ready to conquer the PTA ones.

And instead of picking a group. I sat alone.

Sure I introduced myself here and there, made some small talk so as not to seem like the one crazy Mom in the corner…but when it came to finding a tribe, I was a bit lost.

I’m still intimidated by the Elementary School atmosphere. I know. I know. I talk to the White House, yet here I am intimidated by navigating public school.

But it’s chaos. The millions of committees and pamphlets they send home. The forms. The ENDLESS FORMS. Permission slips and volunteer sheets. Bake sales, fundraisers, after-school enrichment.

I’ve been helping out the school when I can. Setting up a computer, volunteering my husband and I for the pumpkin patch bake sale. But I feel like, as a 1st grade Mom who should be a veteran…I am clueless.

Lost.

What’s today? Where are we supposed to be? Does he have his snack? His lunch? His permission slip? Is today that field trip? Did I send the box tops? A sweatshirt? What time is pick-up again? Is there that PTA meeting today or tomorrow?

It just keeps going.

So I sat last night alone. Overwhelmed. And wishing for an Elementary School Fairy GodMother.

Filed Under: Feeling YaYa, Stepford Crazies

Watercolors

September 17, 2009 by 38 Comments

Watercolors by my 6-year old

Sometimes it’s not the change that throws you for a loop, it’s that you didn’t see it coming in the first place.

I can count the number of times in my life change has blindsided me. When a moment like that occurs, you are never the same and the world around shifts to find a new place.

What was black is white. What was up is down. And so on. And so on.

Most of these moments have for me been in relationships. Maybe because I have terrible intuition or because I don’t pay as close of attention as I should. Maybe because in a relationship, you can’t control the other person.

Maybe just because.

This morning my son’s teacher explained to my husband and I that our 6-year old really enjoys painting.

A rather mundane comment, right? A kid that likes to paint. Big deal.

But it was a big deal to me. Not only had I never seen my son take any interest what so ever in painting, coloring, drawing, even chalk, but whenever I asked him to do any of these tasks he would instinctively shrink away.

As it turns out, he spent a great deal of time on that painting above worrying over colors and fretting over blending. He was upset you can’t see the clouds he made. He was upset he couldn’t make the green MORE green. And he focused his attention on painting this childhood masterpiece so he could take it home to his mom.

And suddenly. Just like that. It all made sense.

This is the boy who, yes, builds robots and takes apart my DVD player and leaves strewn screws and nails all over my floor. But he’s also the boy who turned to me while we were flying across the country to show me how beautiful it was when the sunlight hit the clouds.

This is the boy that told me of how he nearly cried at school yesterday, because the music his teacher was playing was so sad and lovely.

This is the boy that holds my face and says ‘I just want to look at you, because there you are.’

And this is the boy that will now sit, focus, and paint because he has the soul of an artist. A soul I recognize in his father and only slightly in myself. But it’s there indeed, and it blindsided me.

Black is now white. Up is now down. And the world is in a new place.

Filed Under: Count Waffles, Feeling YaYa, Stepford Crazies

Raising a Geek Boy

August 25, 2009 by 20 Comments

My little geek in training

Sometimes I worry that my husband and I are a bit too geeky, and that’s leading to uberGeeky kids. Why worry, you ask? Because I know how this world operates. And how it treats the boy who prefers watching the Hawking Paradox over Monday Night Football.

How it treats the boy uninterested in signing up for t-ball but can’t wait for invention camp.

How it sees the sensitive male hell-bent on saving a tiny caterpillar over squishing it into the ground.

But I’m proud. I love the people my children are turning into. I just wish I could stop the worry.

Filed Under: Count Waffles, Stepford Crazies

For My Mom

August 22, 2009 by 9 Comments

See… if I just pull up my shirt and keep my hair down, no one will see. We tested it in a tank top too…barely showing. I swear.

Good night

Filed Under: Stepford Crazies

Family Is Hard

July 29, 2009 by 43 Comments

Family is hard.

We’re in West Virginia visiting and I think we’ve fought 90% of the trip. Granted, we were recently in Detroit and we fought there too.

Several weeks of family and I’m realizing the stark differences in the way my husband and I were raised and what we find “normal.”

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For instance, in Detroit my mother would happily give my kids cake for breakfast. To me- this is entirely normal.

Going on a boat ride with my uncle, where he has a beer and the kids sit in ill fitting life jackets- totally normal.

Here in WV, my son touched a gun, was shown the closet where guns are kept, and family wants to take him for a very slow ride up the mountain in the back part of a pick up truck. My husband thinks this is all normal.

To me, it’s not only abnormal, but unsafe.

Family. Is. Hard.

I feel like I am a visitor in a foreign land and every time I question or shake my head at a “custom” I am told I have disrespected the elders. Apparently I don’t “trust” and should just let things go.

I spend my visits here usually in a semi-state of panic the entire time. Because if I open my mouth I’m distrusting and rude, and if I keep it closed my kids are put in situations I, as their mother, am uncomfortable with.

I am the mean helicopter mom. I am the party pooper. I’m the big jerk who thinks family would put her kids lives in danger.

It’s a complicated conversation here. And there are no winners.

It’s not as if I seek out to ruin their “traditions” or fun, or they seek to make me have panic attacks and fill me with anxiety.

It just is.

I can see why this country is so very deeply divided just by visiting other parts and talking to people who live very different from myself. It’s not as simple as “what you believe” and what I believe. It’s strangers in a strange land. It’s cultural. It’s akin to showing up in China and expecting nothing but hamburgers and apple pie.

I’m doing my best to be respectful and thankful that my children get to experience many different cultures. However it is hard.

I do not understand the way of life here just as easily as I don’t understand the way of life in Iran or China. That doesn’t mean the Iranians and Chinese aren’t amazing people, with amazing lives and stories and traditions.

I’m stepping out of my comfort zone today to go camping. In the rain. I expect to encounter about a million things my husband finds “normal” and I don’t. I expect to have anxiety, I expect to be unhappy. I also expect I will have a good time. Hopefully.

Family. Is. Hard.

Filed Under: #suckit, Stepford Crazies

I Will Turn This Car Around

June 29, 2009 by 5 Comments

I just drove 5 hours with the kids and nothing went wrong.

Everyone was great. No one complained. No one had to pee 59 times. In fact only once did I hear “Are We There Yet?”

I’m not really sure what to make of all this, and am rather confounded. So just look at this cute photo of my daughter while I shake my head.

Oh, she’s saying “Daddy, Oh…hi Daddy. Yes, we’re here. Yes, Mommy drove fast. Yes, it was silly. Ok, bye.”

On our way to dinner and this one calls dad on her princess cell

Filed Under: Stepford Crazies

She Will Marry A Hootin’ And Hollerin’ Construction Worker

June 20, 2009 by 17 Comments

I said look at me. And whistle. Yes, I said whistle. I SAID TO LOOK AT ME AND WHISTLE because LOOK how pretty I am.

Ham

That’s exactly what my daughter was saying as this photo was taken.

Hand on her hip and angry, she wanted a boy’s attention and she wanted it with a cat call.

I was horrified.

Of course we then had a discussion about wanting attention because we’re smart, not pretty, and that whistling was actually quite rude.

My daughter’s reaction? To sigh heavily like a 16-year old, throw her Hello Kitty purse over her shoulder, and then roll her eyes at me.

Uh huh.

My son, on the other hand, refused to participate and then repeated to her what I had said when she, again, asked him to give her a cat call.

Who’s child is this? Because she can’t possibly be mine.

Ok, Ok, maybe in the ‘wanting attention’ department she might be mine.

Ok, Ok, maybe she thinks gaining the attention of boys is..um…good. And maybe she learned that from….

ahhhh. Fuck.

Filed Under: #suckit, kill me now, Princess Peanut, Stepford Crazies

Poop

June 10, 2009 by 14 Comments

I’m not a fan of toilet humor. Call me a snob, I don’t really care. It’s just never been what really gets me laughing. 

This is not to say I am mature by any stretch. I giggle when the hockey announcer says ‘5-hole’ and I lose it entirely when Sarah tells me about her neighbor’s having ‘back door friends.’ *

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However the fart and poop stuff wouldn’t rank as #1 (or #2..get it? get it? oh shut up) on my ‘make Erin spit wine’ list. 

So the news of my son’s recent Kindergarten ‘bad day’ was not received very well on my end. 

As I have mentioned, the kids are in the process of presenting their end-of-the-year projects, and my Letterman wannabe decided it would be hilarious to yell out ‘POOP!’ during other student’s presentations. 

Mortified doesn’t even cover it. 

He has been punished, rest assured. He has also made very large and drama filled apologies to teachers, parents of said students, and the students themselves.

However this MOM can’t seem to let go of where she CLEARLY FAILED HER CHILDREN. 

Maybe I’m overreacting but I’ve banned Spongebob for a bit. I know damn well that’s where he read, laughed, and re-read POOP. 

I’m also realizing how often we’re crass around here. We are a sarcastic bunch at this house. There are too many fart jokes. Too many poop jokes and too many OTHER jokes he’s going to realize are jokes very soon. 

Which leads me to no other conclusion, given my allowance of certain shows and my use of words like ‘crap’…that this entire episode is all my fault. 

Mine. 

All mine. 

I mean you think kids realize after you say 45 times ‘you are NOT allowed to say that at school’ that they really ARE NOT allowed to say that at school. But they don’t. They are kids. And I am a stupid, stupid, stupid parent. 

Time to buckle down around here. With POOP as my wake-up call. 

*Sarah is also not allowed to homeschool my children and neither of us should be trusted with yours. Or maybe we should just start our own commune and homeschool all the kids and they can run around yelling, reading, and writing POOP all damn day. 

Filed Under: Stepford Crazies
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