My Teenager

I write blog posts in my head everyday that never get typed.  I didn't realize how long it had been until I went to upload some pictures and found these from Andy's birthday and realized the last post I wrote was before that.  A long time before that.  Sorry, I'll try to get better.  I probably won't, but I'll try.

In the meantime, here are some pictures from Andy's birthday.  What an amazing kid he is.  Yes, he has very little tolerance for his sisters and is not very nice to them, but he is smart and funny and has a great sense of humor otherwise.  He can be grumpy, as all teenagers can be, but overall I would take him over most of the kids his age.  I can't wait to see where this kid goes in life, but will truly enjoy the next five years we have with him before he flies the coop.

Happy Belated Birthday Andy!

Nobody Wants To Be The Donkey

When I was in high school, like most high schoolers do, I said "me and" a lot.  My parents always corrected me and told me I sounded ignorant, but I didn't care because I was in high school and thought I was awesome.  Oh, now I know where Andy gets some of that ridiculous level of confidence from.  Anyway, it wasn't until I was in college and then an adult that it really drove me crazy when people used that incorrectly.  We don't have that issue with Andy that much, either because he never does anything with other people or he actually says it correctly, but the girls are always together and talking about each other and "me and Sarah" or "me and Amanda" is always coming out of their mouths.

I had tried and tried to get them to say it correctly, but nothing took.  Until Charlie taught them a little phrase he learned when he was in elementary school in Mexico.  Whenever they would say me first, the teacher would say "el burro por delante" which means "the donkey goes first".  Now, the girls never want to be the donkey, so they quickly started putting the other person first and then adding themselves to the end.  They still have trouble with the me and I part, but they are getting much better.  In fact, the other day we were in the car with my friend, Theresa, and her girls, Kelly and Sarah (yes, it's very confusing to have a sister Sarah and a good friend Sarah).  Amanda and Theresa's Sarah were sitting in the middle row and Sarah said something about "me and Kelly" and Amanda corrected her and told her that it was "Kelly and I".  I couldn't help but smile and give her a silent atta boy!

Party Planner

This week Andy had a social studies homework assignment where he had to interview an adult on, well, how to be an adult.  He asked me questions such as how do you get into college, how do you do your finances and what do you do to relieve stress.  The last question he asked me was what do you do for the family?  Oh son, I could go on and on, but I basically said that I did the dishes, cooked meals, made sure the kids got to all of their activities, kept the house picked up and did all the crazy behind the scenes errands.  That was it, pretty simple.

Well, yesterday was Charlie's birthday.  Amanda, who is six and never really gets a real birthday party because she has a summer birthday and she's the third child, insisted that we throw Charlie a surprise birthday party.  So this week I ran around town ordering and then picking up balloons and birthday plates, getting streamers and hanging them up, getting a birthday cake and a fancy dinner to prepare (but we had steak so he had to cook it!) for his suprise.  Unfortunately in the end the surprise was on her because he was flying home from a trip yesterday and was able to catch an earlier connecting flight so he got home at 3p instead of 6p and got to see the surprise before she got home and had a chance to yell "surprise".  Regardless he was surprised and the girls were so happy to have a decorated kitchen.

Last night as I was sitting in the office next to Andy I told him he could add one more thing to that question on his homework assignment that asked what I did for the family.  Party Planner.

A New Beginning

It's been a long time since I've written.  A really long time.  Holidays have passed, trips have passed, the kids have been in and out of school and back in.  I feel bad.  Bad for not writing, bad for not keeping everybody current on what we are up to, bad for not putting all the stories down.  But here's the thing.  When I started this blog it was because I needed a place to vent.  To tell all my crazy stories of the things that the kids did.  Stories that wouldn't be important in six weeks or six months or six years, but were really important to me at that time.  I was drowning in diapers and babies and pysical therapy and doctor visits and trying to fix everything all while being sleep deprived and not understanding the joy of lattes.

Now that Amanda is in school full time my perspective and frustration level has changed.  The kids are older and a little more mature and sometimes I can even reason with them and they have empathy and everything is flowing harmoniously most of the time.  Yes, they still drive me crazy on a weekly basis, but it works itself out so much easier and occasionally they recognize what they've done and apologize.  And yes, Charlie still travels more than I would like because I miss him and love him but now the kids can get themselves dressed and brush their own teeth and get their own breakfast and I'm kind of there to assist rather than do it all.

I was telling Charlie last night that I like my 40s so much more than my 30s because now I can rediscover who I am and I'm not in crisis mode all the time and we can just all work together as a family.  So I've been quiet over the last month or so because I don't have a lot of crazy stories to tell and we've just been enjoying time together and because other than May, December is the most crazy and time consuming month of the year for me, making all the Merry happen, that at the end of the day I don't want to sit down and write about it.  Sometimes I want to write about it in the middle of the day or when I'm in my car, but by the time the kids are in bed and everything is quite I don't want to get off the couch and tell you about it.

So I've sat.  For over six weeks.  But now I'm sad that I don't have a recount of what we did, besides enjoy our time together, because I hope that one day the kids (when they have kids of their own and have an excellent perspective) can look back at this blog and understand me a little better and everything I did for them and with them.  To understand where I was coming from and realize how much I truly love them, no matter how much they drive me crazy.  This thought, as well as the fact that Andy only has five short years left with us, gives me a renewed interest in sharing our stories with you and getting them out there.  As well as the fact that every time I talk to my mom she tells me how much she loves my blog.

Even though I hate recaps, I will just say that we had a very busy, but lovely, December.  As always we had a fantastic time seeing family and friends in Miami over Thanksgiving and are so glad that we have that time with them.  We wish we could see them more.  We came home to a decorated house, which relieved a lot of stress for me, and jumped into baking and gift creating for all the elementary school teachers.  Andy's teachers got shut out this year now that he's in middle school, but I am okay with that.  We got a little crafty this year and the girls and I made ornaments where you pour paint inside and swirl it around.  They turned out great and we kept a few of our favorites for ourselves and gave even more away.  I took Sarah on a fun and amazing trip to New York the second weekend of December.  I took Andy when he was seven so Sarah was way past due.  It happened to be an unseasonably warm weekend for December so we walked almost everywhere and we had a great time seeing the Rockettes and a Broadway show (Matilda) and visiting the Empire State Building, the Peanuts windows at Macy's and the top of the Rockafeller Center.  We also got a bonus day with April from New Jersey and got the meet the newest addition to their family, the adorable Alara.  Hopefully it will be a weekend Sarah never forgets.

We didn't do anything else spectacular in December, just hung out, had Hanukkah and Christmas at home and then Christmas with my family in Michigan.  We came home with a few days to spare, rang in the New Year with friends and the kids went back to school last week.  December in a nutshell.

So I will make more of an effort to share, the good and the bad and the boring, so we will have a little record of what goes on in our lives.  All I can tell you is that right now I feel very blessed with where we are in our lives, with our family and friends and where we live, and I hope the shit doesn't hit the fan.

Jumping the Gun

We went over to a friend's house on Thursday for a Girl Scout meeting and I saw that she had her Christmas decorations up already.  I started to give her a hard time about it, and then she told me how they are never home for Christmas, they are leaving to see family on the 19th, and that her kids are little and she wants her decorations up as long as possible so they can enjoy them.  That rang home with me.

I thought about it more and more and how it applied to us.  We never put our decorations up before Thanksgiving.  On the years we come home on Saturday we may put them up the Sunday after Thanksgiving, but it's usually the weekend after and it's never long enough.  For the first year in I don't know how long we actually had no plans the weekend before Thanksgiving so we decided to take the plunge.

We put the tree and inside decorations up on Saturday and were going to wait on the lights, but the weather can be unpredictable here (two years ago we never put our outside lights up because it was always freezing and snowy on the weekends and then it was too late) and yesterday was beautiful so yesterday afternoon Charlie, Andy and I took care of the outdoor lights while the girls rode their bikes.  See, unpredictable.

As a result, I have a little less stress and we get ready to leave for Miami for Thanksgiving, and one less thing to worry about when I get back.  I've got my Christmas cards ordered too, now just to write that letter...

Entrepreneurs

On Monday night we got about eight inches of snow.  On Tuesday the kids had their first ever Snow Day.  They've had snow days in Texas before that were really ice days, no snow but you can't get anywhere because it's too icy, but never a true snow day where there was actually snow on the ground and you're stuck at home.

Andy came into my room just after 7a while I was trying to enjoy the fact that I didn't have to get up for anything that morning and asked if he could shovel the driveway for $20.  I immediately said yes, because I didn't want to do it and Charlie was out of town.  I started thinking about it a little more and realized that when I was 12 years old, or now for that matter, my dad would have never given me money to shovel the driveway.  It was just expected, I was told to go out and shovel the driveway and I did.  I grumbled about it, but I did it.  But here's the thing.  Last year at the beginning of the winter when we had our first big snow a kid about Andy's age came to the door and asked if he could shovel our driveway for $20.  Again we did not want to do it so we happily gave that kid $20 to do it.  Andy was a little miffed and we decided that if we are willing to pay someone to do a job for us, why not keep it in the family and let him do it for the same amount?  I'm not sure that jives with the "contributing to the family" thing or whatever we are supposed to be teaching our kids these days, but I think things have changed from when we were kids.

Anyway, the snow was heavy and thick and the job wasn't as easy as he thought it would be.  They don't keep those kids home from school for just anything!  He got about 3-4 rows shoveled and then decided it was too much and came in.  That would have been it for him and I would have seen myself outside shoveling until Sarah decided that she wanted some money and she was going to do it.  Man that kid is growing on me.  So she got on all her gear and went out to shovel which made Andy go back out there which even got Amanda out there for a bit but I'm not sure if she made more of a mess or helped them.

In the end, my driveway did get shoveled and all the of the kids got some money.  A win-win for everybody.

All I Want For Christmas

I've been trying to get the kids to put together their Christmas lists, but they haven't been very interested.  This morning I got an email from my sister-in-law asking what they wanted so I thought I would try a different approach.

Me:  Kids, Aunt Nanci sent me an email today asking what you wanted for Christmas.  What should I tell her?

Amanda:  Candy.

Me:  No.

Amanda:  Money.

Me:  No.

Amanda:  Bounce House.

Me:  No.

Amanda:  Van.

Me:  No.

Amanda:  Unicorn.

Me:  No.

Amanda:  Trampoline.

Me:  No.

Amanda:  Pool.

Me:  No.


Looks like someone will not be getting anything for Christmas unless her list gets a little more realistic.