Friday, November 26, 2010

Pumpkin, mmmmm......

Pumpkin Pie Scent-what it does to men




Ok back to the 16 year old....

So we're watching tv yesterday, the news.  And they, like everybody else just before Thanksgiving, is doing this pumpkin pie scent story.  They started saying, "the scent of pumpkin is an aphrodesiac...."  So my son says, "cool!"  ??  hmm?

I stop typing long enough to to look up at him, incredulous.

"No, not cool!....what do you think that word means?"

"Uhh....I don't know....it makes you more awake?"

<chuckle>

"No darling, it means it makes you more horny."

<Mom laughs!>

<16 year old tries to climb between the sofa cushions>

"Oh...."

Saturday, November 13, 2010

You Have a Few Clothes to Put Away....

So yesterday, it all starts with a sock.  Three, actually. 

My husband comes in, "I only have three socks left.  Where are all the socks???"  <cringe> 

My 16 year old son has been doing the laundry now, pretty much exclusively, for around a year.  This isn't just to teach  him responsibility and give him his fair share in the household's chore distribution, but also because of some problems I have had related to some back "issues."  Not that it would be child abuse to just make him do it on its own merit, considering we're rounding the corner on 17 and not much closer to a JOB....even though he is quite attached to his car ownership status.   But don't get me started on that....

"Well, I don't know what to tell you, sweetie.  Have you checked the sock graveyard?"  The sock graveyard is where all the single socks go to die while they wait for their mates.  Kinda a sad place, really.  You would think that some of them would eventually hook up with each other.....out of boredom, or necessity...but no.  Sadly they all insist on waiting for their soul mate.  Yes, plenty of pun intended.

Three minutes later, hubby comes back yelling blasphemies about his lack of matching socks and the abundance of single socks available.  I try to calm the baby down who is convinced all the yelling means SHE is in trouble.  (Not THIS time sweetie...but don't get too comfortable...)

I know we're in for trouble when he comes back down the hall after a ten second look inside my son's room.  "Are those clothes piled up on his chair CLEAN?"  Define "clean." 

Actually this is the perpetual clean clothes pile that sits on the abandoned "gaming chair" (you know, the ones that look like executive chairs without legs, and that kinda rock on the floor and have speakers built in that never worked?), just inside his bedroom door.  I've trained myself to not SEE this chair.  Most of the time.  Only because I value my sliver of sanity they haven't robbed me of.

An hour later and after I have cursed at the middle of the room and yelled the DESERVED blasphemies-this time-at baby girl who has found every imaginable way to get into trouble, I get brave enough to leave the den for the long, dark trek down the hallway to see what exactly he has been doing in my son's room.  I've watched him make forty-five trips between the house and the garage, carrying all manner of wiring and power tools and miscellany.  When I enter, he is down on the floor, behind my son's dresser that he has pulled out, using his power drill around where the cable/electrical outlets are on the wall. 

"What are you doing?"

Wrrr!  Wrrrr!  "Undoing what I just DID."  Wrr.  <Evil look tossed behind the shoulder>

How badly do I want to know.....well, I always was a little more curious than was good for me...

"What is it that you DID?"

"Turned the power off to his room....."  He knows I've discouraged doing this for a while now.  Not as much because I worry about my poor baby not having a light or his Wii to keep him warm (in the 80 degree November we are having).  But more because I would rather throw a few pages or a chapter than the whole book at him, because then we are left holding nothing with which to attack or defend.

The next few minutes are spent with my dear husband and precious, inquisitive three year old baby girl, sitting in my son's room, discussing the difficulties and challenges of parenting teenagers these days, and how age and physical disability add to the hardships, as well as what things children deserve and/or are entitled to.  A rousing, lively discussion between two rational, college-educated adults.

That ended with me dumping my son's entire room and closet onto his bed.  Which wasn't made.  And I don't BELIEVE the sheets had been washed in three months regardless of what he told me.  With my daughter stealing whatever bits of old toys she could scavenge off the pile and bits of rubble on the floor.


Several hours later, when my son got home from school, he came to visit me in my office as he does every day when he returns home.  Being a much more mild-tempered child than his mother, his reaction both surprised and didn't surprise me. 

"Hi."

"Hi baby." <cheerfully>

"So, what's up?"

<Swivel in chair to face him> 
<Incredulous yet dramatically-feigning-ignorance grin>

"Oh, same old, same old.  What's up with you?"  <large, toothy grin>

"Yeah."  <looking nonplussed> "What's up with all the stuff in my room?"

No, seriously.  He actually does this.  Deadpan face, monotone voice.  Complete absence of emotion.  I often have to scratch my head and wonder where he actually CAME from....and if he didn't share my own passion for analyzing people's grammar and criticizing their vocabularies, I would swear they had switched him at the hospital.

I try to wipe the look of disappointment off of my face, that his reaction wasn't bigger in response to all the work I had put into scraping out the candy wrappers from under his bed and 4th grade papers from his closet and managing to get it ALL in one general spot, in an effort to dramatically "plant my flag" and show that indeed, though I may APPEAR to be ridiculous and completely insane, I was in fact, rather, his MOTHER.  The woman that has cared for, and carried, and nurtured, and defended him for sixteen LOOONNNGGG years....despite being met with abject defiance over nearly every issue....particularly my repeated requests for a little care and competence to be taken in performing daily chores and basic maintenance tasks (such as cleaning one's room).   I try to suppress the lecture, wanting the scene to speak for ITSELF.  Instead, I want to appear cheerful, as though a weight has been lifted from me, and just crazy enough to make him worry what I might do next. 

He continues to stare at me blankly, waiting for an answer.  I smile.

"Oh, yeah.  I was just trying to find a sock...."

Sunday, September 5, 2010

Noggin Purgatory....

More from Facebook:

TRUE STORY: k, so we're both sitting here at our computers and baby girl is hangin' out eatin' all the pretzels on the sofa. paul stops, looks at me, "is that your phone??" (my ring tone= X-files theme). me: looks around, looks in pocket, "no...that's WONDER PETS."





Sherri Martin:  Wonder Pets, Wonder Pets were on our way to help a baby animal and save the day. Skye has Ming Ming she skates around on the floor helping save the baby dolphin. I want to knock her down sometimes.

Amy Walker:  omfG mcafee---I HATE WONDER PETS!!!! but---and i DARE anybody to give me a better example--there IS NO WORSE out there than wow-wow-wubzie. WHAT A BRAT!!!! omg!!!! whiny bratty little #^*$#_$&*%

Sherri Martin:  Wow Wow wubzie Skye likes but does not have to watch like Wonder Pets, Jacks Big music show, Blues Clues, Yo Gabba Gabba.

Wendy Stevens Justice:  I feel your pain, Amy...

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Don't tell them, SHOW them

Another story off Facebook:

i LOVE the somewhat "stilted" speech of 3 year olds...so it's bathtime, and i realize kaelle has gotten a bug bite on her back. we get out and i put some medicine on it. she's very upset. she runs to her brothers' door and starts yelling to tell them what happened: "JACOB! CODY!! BITE ME!!" while bending over, butt... facing their door to "show" them..... (out of the mouths of babes...)

Pocoyo

This is a story stolen from my Facebook wall, months ago:

Me: (to friend John who recommended the below Pocoyo video to me) LOL! ok john...u win! this is cute....techno british cartoon...kewl


Pocoyo-Dance Off


This is an awesome episode!!! The creators or crew must be clubbers :) Check for the different musical styles.. I Love the Aphex Twin Stylee and B52's

ME:  omg john....tonight am sitting here w kaelle watching some noggin crap and cody (almost 16 yo) sitting w us...mentions, "well, what about that poyoco? some show, has been on here before..." ! i said, i JUST heard about this LAST NIGHT! spooky...

(I had honestly never heard of it before...after watching 16 hours a day of Noggin with my 3 year old...)

Sunday, August 29, 2010

My Baby is Growing Up....

Some times in one's life, one says things that one immediately wishes they could take back.   I wish I had the time right now to write this story properly and give it the comic justice it deserves, but alas, dinner is fast approaching.  (I may come back and edit later...)  So here it is.

I'm sitting here on the sofa with my baby, my 16 year old son, firstborn, heir to the throne, apple of his mother's eye.  He's such a good boy.  Straight A's in school, just got his first car and first job, worked a 6 hour shift in/outside in miserable weather today, only to come home to rest and shortly after find that 3 year old little sister has COVERED his brand new car in dirt, thrown with her plastic shovel (which she was cleaning off in the cat water).  But did he get angry?  Did he even think to yell or vent?  No...he said to me, "I thought it was something serious, from the way you were yelling at first."

Sweet, sweet boy.

Right so we're sitting on the sofa.  Discussing his day, how work went, etc.  I had on, in the background, the NFL channel because I had been enjoying a pre-season game earlier, to get myself into the football spirit.  All of a sudden, my darling son glances at the TV (which I'm paying no attention to) and blurts out, "what is that thing?  Some kind of masturbation device?"

<pause for dramatic effect>

Shake Weight for Men




Yes, mothers of little ones.  This too will happen to you.  And when it does, I hope you will come back and tell me all about it!

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Read a book to me

Alex, Could you read that book to me? "No I can't read yet" Well just try to piece together the words. Alex, It says "Parents need to read books to kids" lol