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More Travel Excitement

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Let's see -- where were we?  Something about traveling, Italy, noses...

Ah yes -- nosebleeds on parade.

Cupcake's nose can erupt like Mount Etna if you just look at it; it's a special power she has that we try to devote only to good.  So when my father hugged her and inadvertently touched her nose, the gushing recommenced. 

Now That I Think About It, The Nonstop Coughing Wasn't So Bad: Travel Crises

Some kids are chess masters.  Some excel at skateboarding, music, basketball or writing.

My kids are World Class Nosebleeders.

There are clear advantages to being the parent of an experienced nosebleeder.  Such as...

for example...

ummm...

Wait!  I know!

If someone you're with has a nosebleed, you'll know exactly what to do. 

Ta da!

A few years ago I had their noses cauterized.  I had to; our carpets gave the impression that our hobby was axe murdering.  Both have had to have the procedure repeated, and Cupcake more than once.  I try to remember to have them slosh Vaseline in their noses, with "try" being the operative word.

So we're on a plane to Rome two weeks ago. The flight is long, the plane cramped and inhospitable.  Five hours into the flight, Cupcake sneezes.

Watching Baseball

Robespierre (watching a baseball game):  "Aw.  Carpenter was throwing a perfect game and now it's ruined."

Me:  "What a shame.  What's the inning?"

Robespierre:  "Second."

Me:  "..."

Robespierre Has A Job

Robey's school provides each student with a laptop to use through the academic year.  Every year the teachers and administrators get new laptops, and theirs from the previous year are passed on to the seniors, who pass theirs on to the juniors, all the way down to the sixth graders, whose laptops are held together with duct tape and bungee cords.

During the summer break the IT people (yes, the school has its own IT staff, but these days most schools probably do) run diagnostics on each laptop and load new software.  What with new computers coming in and old ones going out, 900 laptops will need to be assessed and prepared by the end of the summer.  The school offers internships, some paid but mostly volunteer, to any students who care to participate, and Robey applied.  Since his position is volunteer, he can come and go as he likes.  He'll be there every day this week, then we leave for a trip, and after we return he'll work another two weeks until leaving for a month of camp.

I'm proud of him for his motivation and willingness to work.  In addition to the experience and goodwill he'll accumulate, he'll have a tidy resume decoration, which never hurts.

No humor or witty conclusion today -- just pride for my guy.

Except: I forgot the meaning of "IT" and had to look it up.

I May Not Be The Soccer Mom, But I'm Okay With Being The Running Mom

Or, to put it more precisely, the Mom of a Runner.

Last year I described my deplorable lack of enthusiasm at watching my kids participate in sporting events.  You can't really blame me.  I was never a star at anything that could remotely be described as a sport, unless you count 1970s-sitcom-theme-song-memorization, in which I would have been a medal winner.  I'll never forget one gym class when I was in seventh grade, on a day when we had a substitute teacher.  We did whatever activity we were doing at the time and at the end of the class the teacher gathered everyone into a circle, pointed at me and commanded: "You.  Do what you were doing before."  So I did whatever it was, and then she turned to the class and warned: "Did everyone see what she just did?  Don't anybody do that."  Consequently, although this was by no means the only incident (merely the most memorable and insulting), I hate exercise, and will do it only under the most perfect of circumstances.

We Didn't Get The Memo: Vacation Is Supposed to Include Relaxation

Vacation: a period of suspension of work, study, or other activity, usually used for rest, recreation, or travel; recess or holiday.

    Dictionary.com

Here's how we spent Monday, the first full day off school for the summer:

• Drop the pups off at day care for a bath, fluff and nail trim.
• Dentist appointment for the kids.  Cupcake's allowed to eat again at 10:15, so she holds my cell phone and announces the passing of each minute and second until precisely then.
• Bank deposit: boring
• Bed, Bath, Kitchen, Back-to-School and Plastic-Stuff-by-the-Register Store: Blankets for Cupcake to take to camp
• Military Surplus Store: We buy everything you could imagine might be useful or lustworthy for a nine-year-old and a 12-year-old to bring to a month of summer camp, including sleeping bag thingies, hiking socks, folding chair thingies, backpacks, wetpacks, and even freeze dried ice cream, because everyone has to try it once even though it reminds one of chewing Styrofoam.  We gingerly give a wide berth to guns; enormous and toothy knives; dead animal innards-taker-outers; and various devices intended to help you relieve yourself and then hide the evidence in the wilderness.  Robespierre insists he needs a backpack with a built in drinking pouch, so he won't strain himself by turning around to grab a water bottle while hiking or canoeing.

Image here

Wordless Wednesday, With A Brief Explanation

Cupcake's class spent a month preparing for their Market Day.  They learned about businesses and economics, business plans and partnerships.  Each team was given a loan of up to $60, with which to purchase advertising and lease retail space in the third grade rooms.  They planned, manufactured, and priced their merchandise; everything had to be made from recycled materials.  There were bookmarks, banners, autograph books, jewelry, even miniature paper kites.

Last Wednesday the market was open.  Cupcake and her partner manufactured and sold out of cardboard flag keychains; just before closing time she managed to sell the strips of denim on which the merchandise had been pinned for display.

This sign caught my eye, posted on the booth across from Cupcake's:

 

Well, I say bravo for them!  Every store has to have rules, and this one makes way more sense than restricting bathroom use to employees.

I Hate It When They're Sick

Robespierre's been droopy all day; I finally took his temperature with a real thermometer instead of my hand, and the real thermometer indicates that he has a real fever.  I should have guessed: hypochondria is more fleeting than the real thing.  He's in my room now, sleeping, with a trashcan next to the bed and the baseball game playing on the radio.

Good thing he managed to get out with my dad yesterday to play golf, since it's also been raining all day.

Grammar Girl Gets The Language Arts Homework Done First

Cupcake brought home her getting-ready-for-4th-grade summer homework packet yesterday.  The school year ends next Friday.

The language arts section?  Finished, proofread and corrected.

The math packet?  Unsullied by human hands.

She's so much like me.

Happy Birthday To The Love Of My Life

Today is Robespierre's 12th birthday. 

My boy is 12. 

His hands and feet are bigger than mine.  He's almost as tall as I am, and he weighs more than I weighed when I graduated from college (but not more than I weigh now).  He can pick me up.  He's taller than his 13-year-old cousin.  In the fall I bought him extra-roomy shirts; they don't fit him any more.  He outgrew an armload of new boxers so quickly that he never even wore some of them.  He eats constantly.  He snarks at me but still calls me "Mamma."  In a crowded room he'll look me in the eye and purse his lips just so slightly in a kiss that's undetectable to anyone but me.

I love him more than I can express, but you get the idea.

Happy Birthday, Robey!

PS: Happy birthday also to Mr. T, Cher, Joe Cocker, Ving Rhames, Al Franken, Ronald Isley.  If you're lucky, there's someone out there who adores you nearly as much as I adore Robespierre.

Sign Here Please: In Which Cupcake Braves A Lightning Storm To Meet The Author Of The Lightning Thief

Rick Riordan came to town.  Pronounced "RY-or-dun," not "ree-OR-dun," or "REAR-dun."  He's the author of The Lightning Thief books, but his appearance didn't seem to have been particularly well-publicized; it was mentioned on the public library website and on a poster at the library entrance.  Of course, I don't get out much, and I have little patience for our newspaper and the TV news, so for all I know there were commercials and fliers and billboards and lawn signs and skywriting that I never saw.  The swooning excitement of my daughter and her friends might have tipped me off, however, or the note on the sign that said doors would open at 6:00 and the program would commence at 7:00.  It didn't really matter, though, since I had to be at Robespierre's band banquet at the same time, so I'd arranged for the Cupcake to attend with a friend.  Her friend's mother brought all three of her kids, and mine, each toting a couple books to be autographed.

Overheard At The Car Wash: The Things Kids Say

Tween Boy to his mother:  I know how I'm going to celebrate my 21st birthday.

Mother:  How's that?

Tween Boy:  I'm going to a baseball game and I'm going to buy myself a beer.  Then I'm going to drive to the East Side (seedy area) and drink it in an alley.

Mother:  Would you like to know the real reason people go to the East Side?

Tween Boy:  Yeah.

Mother:  They go there to see strippers.

Tween Boy:  Really?  BLEAH!!

Mother:  It's true.

Tween Boy:  I don't care.  I'm still going to drink my beer in an alley.

Bystander (whispering):  You should write this down.

SOO Proud Of My Puppy: Dog Training And The End Of The School Year

After less than two weeks with us Little Miss has learned to sit down in front of me or the door to let me know she wants to go outside.  When I ask if she wants to go potty she wags her little piglet tail and then dances for the door.

She's still a little shy, which can certainly be forgiven for a tiny creature who spent the first six months of her life in a cage, but she's getting better.

In other news, the end of the school year is nigh, which means:

• Field Day this past Monday: the kids and I spent much of Mother's Day slicing 20 watermelons and piling them in huge buckets with ice
• Band Concert Tuesday night: Cupcake and I rushed to a craft store in between dropping Robey off and the start of the concert to pick up dolphin stickers for the...
• Animal Research Expo: Cupcake researched and wrote about the albino bottlenose dolphin
• Band Banquet and Sleepover: my choices are to pick up Robey between midnight and 1 am on Friday night, or by 6 am on Saturday.  Which would you choose?
• Author Rick Riordan's book tour visit to our public library to read from his latest book.  This event occurs contemporaneously with the previous event, at opposite ends of town.
• Girls On The Run: Cupcake is running with my sister because hello?  I don't run.
• Three baseball games in a row: Saturday morning, right after the band sleepover; Sunday after Girls on the Run; Monday evening after school
• Robespierre's 12th birthday.  My baby!  My baby's turning 12!
• Third Grade Market Day: Cupcake and her partner are manufacturing and selling cardboard keychains in exchange for 3rd grade scrip
• Third Grade End-of-Year Party: we're holding a car wash; the kids (dressed modestly, I pray) will be washing parent and faculty cars out in the parking lot and then sloshing popsickles.

And you were wondering why I've been out of touch?

It's Time For Some Change: Kids And Money

Today both of my kids coincidentally had concerts.  Cupcake performed with our city's children's choir on a recruiting and community service tour of schools and a children's hospital.  Robespierre performed with his school band at our local Overpriced Amusement Park, after which the kids got to wander around the park for a few hours before the bus came to take them home.  All the kids in both ensembles wore black pants, white shirts and black shoes; they looked like little waiters.

Cupcake packed a lunch and a water bottle, but Robespierre was on his own for lunch at the Overpriced Amusement Park.  Admission was charged to his school bookstore account, but lunch, drinks, snacks and entertainments were on him me.  I gave him $50 just in case; I expected about $20 back.

Here's what he brought home:

Don't Hate Me Because... In Which I Get To Cuddle Babies

...I'm beautiful I got to cuddle nine-week-old babies all morning.  Really, you should feel sorry for me because, do you know what a burden it is to cuddle multiples?  My morning consisted of:

• Picking up one baby for cuddling and rocking,
• Picking up another baby and having to cuddle and rock two,
• Putting one down and rocking it in the car seat while still holding the other,
• All this while listening to nonstop lullaby music.

Meanwhile, I had to change a wet diaper, caress tiny heads, and smell that milky baby smell that compares only to the aromas of fresh coffee, mowed grass, new car and puppy breath.  I could barely stand it when one of them found a tiny hand and went to sleep with knuckles in its mouth.

Sheesh.

Pity me.  I have to do it again tomorrow.

Love Notes: Telling The Kids I Love Them

A precious girl and a precious boy passed away last week.

I emailed both of my kids simple love notes; nothing more than "I love you.  Love, Mom."

Robespierre insisted I not do that; his excuse was that my emails slow down his computer, but I know the real reason is that he's afraid his friends will laugh at him if they see emails from his mother.

I don't care.  I'm doing it anyway.

I love you Robey.  I love you Cupcake

Into A Nearby Telephone Booth: I'm A Hero Because I Heard Rick Riordan Is Coming To Town

They screamed.  They squealed.  Their eyes practically popped out of their heads.  They held each other's hands and jumped up and down.  Were there tears of joy and ecstasy?  Swooning?  Rending of garments?  Quite possibly.

What brought on this frenzied display of emotion?  Was school canceled for the rest of the semester?  Had the entire class won the lottery?  Was Paul McCartney dropping in for a private concert?

It was my announcement to the Cupcake's third grade class that Rick Riordan, author of The Lightning Thief and the rest of the Percy Jackson series, is coming to our public library on tour for his newest book (the last in the series).

For that brief moment I was a superhero.  Who knew it would take so little to impress them?

Too Soon To Tell: The Effects Of Limiting Television

Since the Grounding of the Television happened only last week, it's too early to know whether there's been any lasting benefit from the move.  Strangely, the kids seem to have accepted the sequestering of the telly without much resistance; on the advice of my sister I've allowed an exemption for the occasional baseball game, which made Robey happy but seemed not to impress The Cupcake, although she has willingly and surprisingly participated in our Let's Learn Baseball background lectures.

In the past couple of years, since homework and after-school schedules have become more demanding, we haven't had much opportunity for quiet dinners at home, and the temptation of television has made obtaining family time that much more more challenging.  Since the exile of the television, though, we have had a few more real dinners, along with some enlightening conversation.  One theme last week was "When I grow up... "  We must have been discussing the parameters of the television embargo and I asked them what rules they'd impose when they have their own kids.

Cold Turkey: Cutting Off Television

I took away the television.  Completely.  Open-endedly.

It wasn't anything having to the do with the television per se.  At the moment I took it away the TV wasn't even on, although it had seen some action earlier in the day.

Robespierre and I have been butting heads lately on issues of manners and empathy, completely typical for a mother and a 12-year-old boy, yet still distressing for me.  I understand that he wants to assert himself by the way he dresses or the language he uses.  I know it's totally uncool to kiss your mom goodbye in the morning (although, could he spare a wink or a thumbs up?  Sheesh).  These are not the things that keep me awake at night.

What does keep me awake is my concern that he might drift away from the persona I've tried to help him establish as a kind, thoughtful human being, a mensch.  It's okay if he wants to dress gangsta-ish or goth-ish; to him dressing goth is little more than wearing black and he looks good in black, so what do I care?  It's okay if he feels like cursing after stubbing his toe; I feel the same way.

Shlepping Kids

Originally published October 21, 2007

Jane at BabySquared writes about intentionally dehydrating herself before a long drive with her twin pre-toddlers so she wouldn't have to stop for a bathroom break on the way:

"This was the first time I've attempted a road trip of any length alone with the girls... I was careful not to drink too much water before I left, and though I would have liked a cup of coffee for the road, it was just too risky. I didn't bring a stroller, which meant that there was pretty much no way I could have stopped to go to the bathroom... I tried to imagine what I would do if things got really, really desperate. I decided that I could:

1.) Pull up close to a gas station with a convenience store, look inside to see if there was a sane-looking woman working there and, if there was, run in and beg her to go out and keep an eye on the girls while I peed. (No offense, guys, but it just wouldn't be cool to ask some random man to watch my children. Probably not so cool to ask a random woman either, but if I had no other choice....)