Posts Tagged ‘family’

6 Feb

Running Bases

Posted by I suck as a parent in boys, children, family, kids, parenting, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , .

“I started my friend on a run today,” my 12-year-old told me as we made our way past the deli section at our neighborhood grocery store.

“A run?” I asked. “What do you mean?”

“With a girl he likes,” he replied.

“I don’t get it,” I said.

He looked at me, eyebrows raised, a knowing smile playing across his face, “You know, running to first base, second base, third base…”

WTF??

I was frozen to the spot and not because I was in the ice cream aisle.

He’s 12!

And I’m his mom!!  Who says that to his mom??!

There is no way he understands what he just said, I thought. No way that my baby would be so intentionally crude in the frozen food section of the local grocery store.

“Do you know what that means?” I asked him as I reached for the ice cream (I couldn’t look at him and besides, I was going to need a lot of chocolate if his answer was yes).

“Of course,” he said.

“Where did you hear that?” I asked. I’m going to ground his older brother for life!! 

“TV,” he responded casually, not at all aware of the visions his comments were forcing me to have.

What kind of TV is my husband letting him watch??!

I turned to face him.

“Do you know what all the bases stand for?’ I asked.

“Whadda ya mean, stand for?” he asked warily.

“Sex,” I spat, probably a little louder than I intended because at least three people turned in my direction and glared at me.

“Sex?” my son repeated.  Now more people were staring.  “No, no,” he stammered. “It’s not sex. It means dating. It’s a homerun when the girl will go out with you.”

“No, it’s about sex,” I said matter-of-factly.

“Stop!” he yelled, covering his ears. “No, no, no. Stop talking about it!”

He raced ahead of me to the check out line.

Whew!  I thought. My kid isn’t a clueless little creep after all.

Despite the embarrassing stares from the toddler-toting set picking up their last-minute dinner supplies I felt pretty good about our little chat. And then it hit me…I just gave him something to think about! He was probably going to ask me what the bases were!

I put down the chocolate bar and headed for the wine department. This would definitely require something a bit stronger.

22 Jan

Oh, Christmas Tree!

Posted by I suck as a parent in children, kids, parenting, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , .

It is January 22 and our Christmas tree is still in our living room. Although it is no longer standing (my husband laid it on its side yesterday – I think he thought he was hiding it from me) it has yet to be moved into our basement where it is stored for 11 months out of the year.

The problem is that every year since we bought a fake tree, I have been the one to bring the tree out of it’s storage closet, lug the parts up the stairs and assemble it in our living room. Then, in early January, I take down all of the ornaments—alone, take apart the tree—alone, drag it down the stairs—alone, and put it away – al (well, you get the idea).

But not this year. I already hurt my back taking off a cowboy boot, who knows what would happen if I had to stand on my tip-toes and try to pull apart our fake Fraser fir. I’m not risking it, so there the tree sits (although I did manage to wrest off the top portion of the tree which has been sitting on the floor since January 14).

photo

Of course, everyone wants to join in when we are decorating the tree but no one, surprisingly, wants to help with the clean up. And no one, surprisingly, notices that something needs to be cleaned up.

How is it possible that am I the only one who notices a 7-foot tall Christmas tree in the middle of the living room nearly a month after Christmas??

Still, I refused to demand that someone help me. I refused to yell and threaten and scream. I actually wanted to see how long it would take before someone in this house would ask why the tree was still up (or hiding behind the coffee table as the case may be).

photo

I was even starting to get used to it. If it wasn’t for my 12-year-old’s guitars that had migrated to the family room when the tree displaced them, I could probably live with the tree in the living room for a few more weeks. I even joked with a friend of mine that we should just leave the tree up and decorate it for every holiday.

There were so many possibilities! I could print out pictures of Martin Luther King Jr. and hang them like ornaments on MLK Day or hang dragons for Chinese New Year or hearts on Valentine’s Day or even make copies of my left hand on National Left Hander’s Day and hang those up.  Would anyone notice the tree then??

I was cracking myself up so I told my 16-year-old about my idea. “Geez mom,” he said. “I’ll take the tree down.  All you had to do was ask!”

Funny. I was so busy not yelling and threatening and screaming at my kids that I forgot to ask them.

Lesson learned.

27 Nov

Bathroom Humor

Posted by I suck as a parent in boys, children, family, kids, parenting, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , .

I’m writing this from my bathroom.

No, I’m not actually using the bathroom–I’m hiding.

It’s the only place in my house that I know that none of my boys (my husband included) will enter for fear that I may actually be using the space for its intended purpose (well, our dog always tries to come in, but he knows no boundaries).

See, I need my own space (especially during a long holiday weekend) and this is something that my men folk just don’t get. My job is to always be available for them and therefore, I should never be too far or too occupied to fulfill my duties as a doting wife and mother. But everyone needs a bathroom break so that’s my excuse. Of course, no one needs as many bathroom breaks as I pretend to—at least not without a serious medical issue—but they haven’t caught on yet. (Or if they have none of them is willing to take a chance.)

I don’t even have a very large bathroom to stretch out in. Our master bathroom is not the largest bathroom in our house and there are no oversized ottomans or attached walk in closets with comfy seats for me to perch on for extended periods of time. No, if I want to read or write or simply be alone I have a small stool (no pun intended) to sit on. This plays into my husband’s hands because if I was too comfortable he knows that I would never leave.

My husband has his home office (and his head because he is able to tune out everyone no matter where he is sitting), my kids have their bedrooms and the basement and the loft and who am I kidding, they have anywhere they happen to be sitting because that’s what kids do- they take over. But me? I can’t find a quiet spot in my house to call my own.

We don’t have an enormous house but it certainly isn’t a studio apartment either so you would think that if I wanted to have a phone conversation while standing in the kitchen my boys could find another spot in which to fight over the chocolate-covered popcorn. Apparently, they can’t. So I move.

But they follow me.

Even if I try to hide in the walk-in pantry or the laundry room they follow me (I thought they would avoid the laundry room on the off chance that I would make them help with the laundry but, apparently, that threat is not enough of a deterrent). The only place that they can’t (ok, won’t) follow me into is the bathroom.

So here I am. In the bathroom. Hiding.

Virginia Woolf wrote about the importance of a room of one’s own if a woman wanted to write. I don’t think she meant the bathroom but she would probably agree that it’s better than nothing.

So after I finish this I think I’ll do some Cyber Monday holiday shopping. I still have a few more minutes before they begin to suspect anything.

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6 Nov

Parenting Disconnect

Posted by I suck as a parent in boys, children, family, kids, parenting, payphones, reading a map, teaching. Tagged: , , , , , , , , .

Of all the things that I thought I would need to teach my children, using a payphone never broke the top 500.

Why would I need to teach them to use a payphone? Doesn’t the phone have instructions written on it? Who doesn’t know how to use a payphone?

But then I read an article in the Wall Street Journal about how New Yorkers needed pay phones due to the spotty cell phone service and lack of power in the wake of Hurricane Sandy’s recent devastation. Apparently, many 20-somethings had never used a payphone before and they weren’t sure what to do.

I was appalled at first but the more I thought about it the more I realized that I have not needed to use a payphone in over 20 years so why would someone 20 years my junior need to?

And, more importantly, why would my kids need to use one?

In the time it would take my kids to find a working pay phone they could ask someone to use a cell phone unless, like the people in New York and New Jersey, there was no cell service or no electricity to charge their phones.  I know that my kids would figure it out but it made me realize that what I needed to explain was the finer points of making a collect call (because, really, who has change for a call anyway?).  I don’t think my kids have ever needed to call an operator or even know what an operator does.

To test my theory, I just asked my 12-year-old how to call the operator:

Me: “If you needed to call the phone operator what would you do?”

My Kid: “Why would I need to call the operator?”

Me:  “Humor me. What would you do?”

Kid: “I guess I would push ‘O’. But why?”

Me:  “What if you didn’t have any money but you needed to make a phone call?”

Kid: “Why would I need money to make a phone call?”

Me: “What if you didn’t have a charged cell phone?”

Kid: “I would ask someone if I could borrow theirs.”

Me: “What if you weren’t with anyone and you needed to use a payphone?”

Kid: “Where would I find a payphone? Couldn’t I just find a store that is open and ask them to use the phone? I’m a kid, they would let me.”

At least I know he’s thinking.

All of this made me wonder about all of the other things that I never thought that I would need to teach my kids. I don’t mean programming the VHS recorder or slicing a mango with just a knife,

I’m talking about skills that I never thought my kids would need given our technological advancements but maybe I should teach them anyway. Here are just a few:

  1. How to read a map. My kids think that GPS is all you need but there have been plenty of times when the very pleasant voice on my phone is telling me to turn left but doing so would land me in someone’s front yard. Besides, as we all know, cell service is not a given.
  2. How to use an encyclopedia (and do research) that is not on-line. I know this is something they should learn at school but I swear I haven’t seen my kids go to the library to do research since 2nd grade. Besides, I love encyclopedias. I used to read them for fun (seriously). Using a microfiche machine would also fall into this category.
  3. How to use a phone book. My kids probably don’t know where they are or why they would use one when they have access to computers, smart phones and tablets. But what if they are stuck at a diner/gas station/truck stop in the middle of nowhere and they need to use a payphone to call for a hotel room/ tow truck/food delivery? Yes, they can read so, yes, they could figure it out but forcing them to look up a number in the phone book might not be such a bad thing.
  4. How to use a fax machine. My 12-year-old and I were watching the movie, Air Force One, and one of the characters used a fax machine to send a message to the White House because the fax machine was on a separate line from the phones. My son asked whether anyone uses a fax machine anymore. My mother and father-in-law still have one but we don’t.  I just scan, .pdf and email. I have, however, needed to fax something so maybe the kids should know how…just in case they find themselves without the ability to scan, .pdf and email.
  5. How to start a fire without matches, a gas-powered cook top or a lighter. No power. No gas. Freezing temperatures. Enough said.
  6. How to sit at dinner without pulling out your smart phone. Ok, this one is not an actual skill (or maybe it is) but it is a necessity. I was at brunch with my kids the other day and neither one of them could sit still and have a conversation without texting or having a screen in front of them. Granted, the adults eventually pulled out their phones but I’m sure the adults could engage in conversation even if they didn’t have an app to fall back on (at least I hope we could).

What would be on your list of skills that you thought you would never have to teach your kids?

 

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21 Oct

Strike Back

Posted by I suck as a parent in boys, children, family, kids, parenting, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , .

Have you heard about the mom who went on strike? For six days, Jessica Stilwell, mother of three girls, refused to pick-up, clean up, or otherwise wash anything for her daughters in the hope that they would simply do it themselves. Sure, they eventually broke down and cleaned the mess but only after six days of forcing their family to live in squalor. Who wants to live through that??

I’ve often dreamed of going on strike except in my dream I run away.

I run away to a beautiful tropical island where I don’t have to look at six days worth of dishes in the sink or clothes on the couch. If I’m going to teach my kids a lesson I might as well do it in comfort.

But, alas, fleeing to a tropical locale is not always a realistic option. That’s why I’ve come up with a new solution: throw out your back!

 

No plane ticket required; just a lack of mobility and a hefty doctor’s bill (unless you’ve met your insurance deductible for the year, then your golden).

Sure it’s painful; but it has an upside: even if you want to clean up, you can’t. Ms. Stilwell had to fight her natural impulses to scrub, organize and scream. I get to escape to my room and lay on the floor, no questions asked.

I really can’t push a vacuum cleaner or empty a dishwasher and, although, I suppose I could assemble a meal (or at least pick up the phone to order one) why would I do that?

I don’t want to give them hope.

Which reminds me; don’t let them see you doing ANY housework. Don’t wipe down the counters, or let the dog out or even fluff a pillow. They are looking for signs that you are improving. If you can put away the cereal box, then obviously, you are well enough to do the laundry. Don’t give them hope (this, by the way, applies to your spouse as well).

If you opt for this plan, however, make sure at least one of your children sees you writhing in pain. There is no substitute for this. If they only see you limping around or moving slowly, they may know you are in pain, but it may not be enough pain to prevent you from making them lunch.

Unfortunately, only my youngest saw me injure myself while taking off my boots. (Yes, taking off my boots did me in, and, no, I’m not 80-years-old). My subsequent screams were enough to reduce my 12-year-old to tears. Now, if he sees me lean forward to get something or I simply ask him to do something he jumps to my aid.

My oldest, on the other hand, missed the show. He came home after I was already tucked in bed at 8:30 at night. Although that did seem disturbing to him, it clearly wasn’t enough for him to really understand the extent of my pain. The following day I actually had to text him from my prone position on the family room floor to get him to let our barking dog in.

He was sitting 15 feet away.

Yelling for him didn’t work because he had his ear buds in and the music was so loud that even I could hear it. Now, normally, if I need him to do something and his ear buds are in I have two options:  walk up to him and yank an ear bud out or—as is more often the case—I simply do whatever it is myself. This time, however, I didn’t have much of a choice. So I sent him a text.

I saw him lean around the corner to see why I was texting him from 15 feet away. I looked him in the eye as I reached for my back and moaned. Unfair, I know, but, come on! I’m on the floor!

He only bitched for a little of the 20 foot walk to the door.

At that moment I actually considered recreating my back spasm so he, too, could witness the extent of my injury. One pull on my cowboy boots or a quick twist to the right and bam! Maybe that would be enough to make him stop complaining. But, no, even I’m not that much of a masochist.

Or aren’t I…

Did I just hear my youngest mutter that he doesn’t have any clean clothes to wear? Where are my boots?

27 Aug

Freaky Friday

Posted by I suck as a parent in boys, children, family, kids, parenting, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , .

This is a five-minute segment of texts from this past Friday night:

9:25:What time am I picking you up?

9:27:??

9:28:Why aren’t you picking up your phone????

9:30:Where are you?

Couple those texts with three missed calls during the same five-minute period and it seems like a typical Friday night exchange between parent and teen. Only these texts and calls were from my 16-year-old to me.

So uncool.

Let me rewind a couple of hours.

I went to a party at a friend’s house Friday night and I mentioned to my son that he might need to pick me up. I didn’t want to drive to the party because I wanted to be able to have a glass of wine with dinner and my husband was out of town. With no designated driver my options were limited to bumming a ride home with someone who would probably be drinking (not a good idea), calling a cab (which seemed silly for a two mile drive) or walking the two miles home which would normally be fine only my friend’s house is in an area that is on a stretch of winding road with no sidewalk.  It’s scary enough to drive there at night let alone walk that area.

That’s when I had my epiphany: my 16-year-old could pick me up. What good is having a built-in designated driver if you can’t take advantage of him?

I knew that he wasn’t doing anything terribly exciting that he couldn’t tear himself away from for 15 minutes so why not. Right?

Fast forward a few hours…

I had been at the party for a couple of hours when I finally heard my cell phone ringing.

 

“Where have you been?” he yelled into the phone when I finally answered.

  Shit. I’m going to be grounded.

I swear that was my first thought. That’s how much he sounded like my mother.

“I thought you wanted me to pick you up,” he continued in the same raised voice.

At no point did I want to snap at him and tell him that I was the parent and he couldn’t tell me what to    do. Instead I was thinking, Whoa, dude, chill. I’m at a party and you are ruining my fun.

I had to  suppress a laugh.

“Come get me in a half hour,” I finally responded. I hadn’t planned to stay at the party very long anyway and I figured it was the least that I could do since my oldest had let his little brother tag along to his friend’s house.

37 minutes later.

I felt my phone vibrating and I saw this:

10:04 – “Mom, please come up. I can’t be parked where I am.”

10:05 – “?”

10:06 – “Are you coming up??”

10:07 – “We’re coming down to get you.”

Whaddya mean you’re coming down to get me??

I turned just in time to see my youngest son coming down the stairs to the party.

I was a bit mortified. People were looking. How embarrassing!!

I shooed him away, said my goodbyes and reluctantly marched up the stairs to the waiting car.  My son was now rolling down the passenger window and glaring at me.

“I’ve been waiting for 15 minutes,” he said as I climbed into the car. “And he,” jerking his thumb at my youngest in the back seat. “He needs to go to bed. He’s been yawning.”

OMG! My son had morphed into the parent.

There are times when I look at my mom and wonder when she became the child and I became the adult. I didn’t expect my son to step into the role of parent until he was at least 30. And, yet, here he was, lecturing me the whole way home about how he had to wait for me and it was late and his little brother needed to go to bed. I felt myself sinking lower in my seat, suddenly feeling like a teenager who broke curfew.

Which is why I didn’t call him the following afternoon when I needed a ride after my post-pedicure birthday mojito. He can be such a buzz kill.

15 Jul

Separation Anxiety

Posted by I suck as a parent in Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , .

Three days ago my oldest son landed in Costa Rica. I thought that it would be the first time—ever—that he and I would go more than a day without communicating. Everyone told me that cell service was basically non-existent in the cloud forest. There was also no WiFi in the rooms where he was staying so if he needed to communicate with me he would have to email me from the student area.

He does not send email.

He considers anything longer than a six-word text essentially writing a novel, so, I had prepared myself for limited communication.

And then I got this email:

“I’m not in the same room as [the kids I’m traveling with] but that’s ok, I’ve made other friends…There’s no WiFi in the rooms so this is the last email that I am going to send. Love you! Bye”

It was like a knife through my heart. That’s it? I won’t get anything for the rest of the trip? He’s never been away from me for two weeks and certainly we’ve never gone two weeks without speaking. And now, nothing? I forwarded the email to my friend and wrote: “I’ve lost my baby…” (Very dramatic, I know).

I’d gone through this with my 12-year-old when he went away to summer camp but at least at his summer camp the counselors made him write home – even when he didn’t want to. And, they posted pictures of the campers so I could see if he was smiling and, most importantly, he was in this country.

My 16-year-old was in a jungle in Central America without me.

I was a bit shocked by his ability to separate from me so easily. This is the kid who checks in with me all of the time, the kid who has never wanted to be away from home for an extended period of time, and, yet now, he’s gone. Just like that.

I wallowed in my sadness for a bit but then I realized that this was what I expected and, most importantly, what I wanted.

I settled in with my book for the night when I heard a call coming in on Skype.

Really? I had just accepted the fact that I wasn’t going to hear from him and now he’s Skyping?

I almost emailed my friend to say: “Never mind. He’s back.”

He wanted to tell us about the giant tarantula in the common area and the scorpions scurrying around the rooms. You’re in a jungle, I wanted to remind him. Instead I said, “That’s so cool! Now go to bed.”

An hour later…

The phone rings.

WTF! (It’s amazing what a difference an hour makes.)

This time he wanted to tell us that he had switched rooms because there was a scorpion the size of a baseball cap in the other room.

Creepy? Without a doubt. But still, not an emergency.

I tried to remain pleasant—he was nervous about sleeping in a bed of scorpions—I get it, but I ended the conversation with this reminder: “You really shouldn’t be calling me. It’s very expensive. If it’s an emergency call me, but if not, send us an email. You’ll be fine.”

Nine hours later:

“Hi mom! I got some sleep.”

Remember when I wanted him to call? Well, now I didn’t.

I want him to be independent. He’s going to college in two years and I really don’t want him to have to call me every day. I want him to NOT want to call me – even if I want him to call me. Get it?

When he hung up he was mad at me for reprimanding him about calling. I chose the tough love approach. If I don’t shove him away, will he ever be ready to leave?

Twelve hours later…

Nothing.

I checked email, made sure I was still logged in on Skype and checked my texts.

Nothing.

Remember when I said that I didn’t want to hear from him? Well, I was wrong.

He can’t even send a text? I know that I told him not to call but he never listens to me; why would he start now?

I know I sound crazy but I’m struggling with my need to let go and my desire to hold on for dear life. I know that my job is to teach my kids to be on their own. I do not want them living in my basement when they are thirty but the alternative could be that they are living somewhere else and I never see them.

How do you navigate that fine line? How do you get your kids to want you around but not so much that they can’t function without you?

An hour later…

I hear the beep of Skype.

Damn, I really thought he wasn’t going to call.

Ah well, here we go again…

 

 

 

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30 Jun

What Were They Thinking?

Posted by I suck as a parent in boys, children, kids, parenting, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , .

As my youngest son and I were driving to the doctor’s office in our local hospital we began reminiscing about the time that I was racing to catch up to the ambulance carrying him to the same hospital after he hit his forehead at a local swimming pool (see #1 below). This got me thinking about some of the other, perhaps not as urgent, moments in my two boys’ young lives that resulted in injuries. I laughed a little as I looked back at these moments because these particular injuries were really just so ridiculous. I can’t imagine any girls being injured in the same ways (Maybe I’m wrong. Please tell me if I am).

Of course, I blamed myself for every one of these injuries (“If only I had been there when he decided to sled down an icy stairway!” “If only I had taught them that metal chairs hurt when you land on them from a high vertical jump!”) But, I realized after reviewing this list, that all of the lessons that they’ve learned and all the nagging that I’ve done wouldn’t have prevented any of these injuries because boys do mind-boggling things. I was simply “letting” my boys be boys.

So, here is my top ten list of stupid things that my kids have done and the resultant injury. And, just so you know, I was only present for two of them—#2 and #3—and I couldn’t have stopped either one of them if I tried:

#1 – Running into a pole in the middle of the kiddie pool. (result: 5 stitches. Also, the club has now banned anyone over the age of 5 from the kiddie pool);

#2 – Running in the house while looking behind him and turning just in time to meet the corner of the door jamb (broken nose);

#3 – Jumping up for no apparent reason and landing chin first on the back of a metal kitchen chair (3 stitches);

#4 – Sledding down the neighbor’s ice-covered front stairs. The sled continued on but his head stayed behind and hit the concrete stairs (CT scan, no concussion);

#5 – Playing soccer in the street—barefoot—and kicking at a ball that was right along the curb (broken toe, lost toe nail);

#6 – Playing soccer in the 3 1/2 foot wide upstairs hallway—barefoot—and kicking at the door jamb instead of the ball (broken toe);

#7 – Getting shot point-blank in the ear with a high-powered water gun during a water gun fight (punctured eardrum);

#8 – Lying across the top of a large ride-on truck and pushing himself straight into the dog’s elevated metal water bowl (broken nose);

#9 – Getting shot in the neck while playing paint ball without a neck guard  (a lot of bleeding and a big scar, physically and probably emotionally as well);

And, my personal favorite:

#10 – Shooting himself in the leg with an air-soft gun to prove that air-soft guns don’t hurt (they really do and, they leave a mark).

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