Archive for August, 2009
Wanna Sleep Over?
Posted by: | CommentsWell, my girls made it through their first sleep over. Wait. Scratch that. Becca made it through her first sleepover.
My friend up the street had some girls over for the night. They started out with a tent outside, a craft and a campfire. There were lots of kids (from 2 years old up to 9 or 10 years old) at the campfire. I had a feeling that Chloe wouldn’t sleep over…and I was fine with that. I told both of the kids that if they wanted to come home, no big deal. I’m only three houses away. Chloe is the kind of kid who, when she gets tired, she just wants her bed.
Around 10:00 or 10:30, there was a knock on my back door. There was Chloe with one of the other moms from the neighborhood. She announced that she was ready to come home. She was fine, though. As soon as she walked into the house, she burst into tears. “I missed you, Mommy!!!!” ::swoon:: I was secretly happy that she missed me. Don’t get me wrong, I was enjoying a little bit of ‘me’ time. I did some work on the laptop and watched Dexter (something I DEFINITELY can’t watch when the kids are around!!!). Anyway, Chloe came in, cozied in on the couch and fell asleep watching an episode of Spongebob.
When Chloe came home, I called to check on Becca. Now, she told me that she was going to stay the whole night. She was pretty determined. By this time of night, my friend brought the girls inside to watch a movie and set up shop in the family room (we ALL knew they wouldn’t sleep in the tent all night!). She said that Becca was doing just fine, and I told her to call if there were any problems.
Well, no calls. There were four girls for the sleepover (the girl who lives there (5), Becca (6) and two other girls, ages 8 and 9). I did get a call around 7:45 in the morning. They called to invite Chloe down for breakfast. Down we went, and it was just super-cute. There were fuzzy slippers, robes, and messy hair. The girls stayed down there for an hour or so while I came home. After they came back into the house, Becca sat next to me and was just…well…bitchy. I chalked it up to lack of sleep (turns out they didn’t go to sleep until about midnight, and woke up at 7:00). I calmly told her that if she is going to be crabby every time she comes home from a sleep over, that maybe we shouldn’t do sleep overs. Then it came…
“But Mommy!!! I missed you!!!!!”
Awwww, shucks. I have to admit, as they were eating their pancakes that morning, I felt sort of sad that Becca didn’t need me. But that crying, the crying that usually makes me cringe?
That made me feel secretly happy.
Sssshhhhhh, don’t tell 
Motherhood Demerit
Posted by: | CommentsDear Woman Behind Me in Line at the Science Center Gift Shop,
Do you realize that when you talk to your child like he’s stupid, you are killing any bit of self esteem he might have? While you had your little ‘moment’ telling your kid that it wasn’t a good idea to spend the six bucks on the plastic slinky, it wasn’t the words that you chose, but your condecending tone. When your child went back and got the metal slinky, did you reassuringly tell him it was a better choice? No. I’m not sure if you saw my kids staring at you while you snipped and scoffed at your son. My girls looked at you like deer in headlights.
I understand that EVERY mother has her moments. I’m not saying that I don’t yell at my kids. But seeing that you did this in PUBLIC with everybody watching made me wonder what you are like at home. I wanted to turn around and tell you that you were being a royal bitch.
But I didn’t. Instead I wrote this.
And we made funof you in the car on the way home. And my kids said “Mom…you’re a fun, nice mom.” When they were acting up later in the day, I told them that I could be as mean as that lady in line. That worked, and they started behaving.
I really hope that you were just having a bad day, and that you’re not like that all the time.
Liar, Liar Pants on Fire
Posted by: | CommentsThere are many moments in time when my kids just plain crack me up. There are other times when I’m just amazed at how their little brains figure things out. This little snipped is about when both of those things happened simultaneously.
The other day, our friends’ kids were at the house playing. They live just a few houses away. I’m not sure if the paretns are comfortable with me slapping their names all over the internet, so let’s just call them by their initials. “C” is a girl, five and a half, and is about to start kindergarten. “B” is a little boy who turned three in June. The four of them were out playing in the yard and swimming (well, the girls were swimming. B was hitting golf balls). After a while, B decided that he wanted to come into the house with me. I was cleaning up toys, so I told him that if he helped me clean up, he was more than welcome to come in. He was a great helper, and just super cute. (He was trying on Halloween masks. Something about a body that small with a latex zombie mask on is just uber adorable!)
Well, all of the kids ended up coming inside. The girls all had their MP3 players. B doesn’t have one. Becca is pretty good at taking care of her stuff, and she put hers into her little purse. Now B is three, and a boy. Needless to say, he can be a little rough at times. And, he’s curious. He wants to check everything out. He headed over to Becca’s purse, obviously wanting to check out the MP3 player.
You could see the fear in Becca’s eyes. She loves her MP3 player, and you could see the scene playing out in her head. In that split second, her quick thinking little brain said to B, “B, you don’t want to go in there. There’s poop in there.” Her big, beautiful eyes looked up at me. You could tell she was proud of herself for coming up with something so ‘original,’ and proud of the fact that it worked. But I could also tell that she was looking for approval.
B said “Poop?” So, I went along. I told him “Yes, B, poop. Becca likes to walk around with poop in her purse.” The giggles poured out, even from B. With that one sentence, I helped keep B away from Becca’s precious MP3 player AND gave her my approval.
After the fact, I wondered if that was the right thing to do. I’ve always told Becca that she shouldn’t lie. But her I was, pitching right in. We haven’t sat and discussed the whole situation, but I’m still gonna stick with the fact that this lie was OK. That’s what my gut is telling me to do. So, I guess we’ll be discussing the fine subtleties of fibbing. But not tonight, because tonight is…
SLEEPOVER NIGHT. Or at least that’s what they both think. They’re headed up to the neighbors to sleep out in a tent. The adults all expect that the kids will be coming home, and not sleeping out all night. But if they DO decide to sleep out all night, that’s fine. (My poor friend has offered to sleep in the tent with them, if they DO sleep out there). Chloe has already asked me if she can come home if when she misses me. Becca, however, has told me that she’s going to stay all night. We’ll see how that goes
I Didn’t Marry Him For His Money
Posted by: | CommentsAny relationship goes through ups and downs. Tony and I are definitely on an upswing. Life was a little crazy with having kids and buying the restaurant. We really didn’t have too much time for each other. But the restaurant craziness is settling down, the kids don’t need us EVERY second of EVERY day and we’ve actually gottenn to have real conversation the past few weeks.
I’ve always had fun with Tony. And, of course, I think that’s the most important thing when it comes to being with somebod for the rest of your life. You’ve gotta have fun together. He’s not a rocket scientist, he’s not wealthy. But he’s a genuine person with a good heart and a great sense of humor.
A few years ago, right around Christmas, I told him that it didn’t matter what he got me for Christmas. A sweater, some slippers, whatever. I DID say that after the holidays, I wanted to finally buy a new faucet for our kitchen sink and a ceiling fan for our bedroom. (Our craptacular Maronda house came with a faucet -no sprayer- in the kitchen sink, and has the electrical box for the fan in the Master Bedroom, but no fan). Those things never came.
After about a year, I started giving him shit about it. Not in a fighting, confrontational way, though. I would be cleaning out stuff in the sink and I would ‘gesture’ like I was using a sprayer. I’d add my own sound effects and everything. Of course, I would sarcastically say “This sprayer is AWESOME!.” When we would go to bed, every once in a while I would turn on the switch for the “fan” and state “This is broken!” Tony would innocently ask what was broken. And I would continue to say that the ceiling fan wouldn’t turn on.
Well, the other day there was something (I can’t remember what) that Tony wanted me to do. I told him that I would do it as soon as we got the sprayer and ceiling fan. After three years, this had become just a fun game Well, when he came home from work on Tuesday, there were two boxes on my dining room table.
Ceiling fan and faucet with sprayer.
He installed the faucet yesterday. I’m so happy. Having a sink without a sprayer really sucked. The ceiling fan will go in this weekend. He’s a good egg.
But now, what am I going to hold over his head?
Damn.
Hey…I got my hair done yesterday, and I’m back to a red head. Me likey
Have a great day!
I Took A Bite Of Apple
Posted by: | CommentsWell, after many mini-debates with myself in my head, I went ahead and got an iPhone.
I lurves it.
Through and through, I’m a PC. I’ve never had an Apple anything. I have mp3 players, not iPods. My laptop runs Vista (which was a pain at first, but all good now), my desktop runs Windows xp. My father and brother can build computers. They’ve never been Apple people.
So, I sorta felt like Eve taking a bite.
My brother got an iPod touch from his boss for Christmas. I was playing with it a little last week (I think my brother only broke it out of the box recently. I don’t know if he was having his own Apple issues). Anyway, it was way cool. I had already been thinking about a new phone, because we were due for an upgrade. After playing with the iPod touch, the (Apple) seed was planted. (I crack myself up. Apple. Seed. HA!)
I got my new iPhone on Friday, and it’s awesome. I haven’t even really had a lot of time to put a ton of apps on it. First off, the sales guy at AT&T was great. His name is Geoff, and he gave me a quick crash course on the phone. While I was there in the store, we set up one of my email accounts, installed the Facebook app, The Weather Channel app, Pittsburgh Traffic and Twitterific. (All free apps, by the way). I’ve since added a couple on my own. A couple of games for the kids (they love Monkey Bash on the megatouch, so I found that), and a couple of games for me (Bejeweled 2 and Scramble – both of which I play on Facebook). And, since I don’t have an iTunes subscription (PC, remember?), I got the Pandora app. I already use Pandora on the laptop, and I really like it.
Will this turn me into an Apple lover? I don’t think so. But this phone IS my favorite material possession in the world right now. And the best birthday present Tony ever got for me. Even though, like my Mother’s Day present, I told him that he bought it for me after I purchased it.
