K1: My 100 Pound Puppy

July 14, 2008 – 11:47 am

At some point, my rambunctious little boy transformed into a 5 foot 5 tall, 110 pound rambunctious puppy. He bops around and rolls and bounces into things, and now he can be heard coming down the hall with the footfalls of the Jolly Green Giant.  It’s like Clifford the big red dog has arrived and I’m not quite sure where to put him.

His bark has changed from a yap to a boom.  Long gangly legs and arms swing like a tail and knock things over unawares.  There is still the occasional tantrum, but the volume and range of destruction has increased.   Sometimes he unintentionally breaks a glass or knocks over a lamp, but he is as surprised as the rest of us when it happens.

This puppyhood continues on a personality level, too.  One moment he is riding his bike to school, turning in his homework without reminders and watching his sisters.   The next moment he needs someone to help him find his mitt, kiss his owies, inform he that he’s not allowed to kill his siblings, and call his teacher to tell her that he can’t find his essay that is due for tomorrow.

Sometimes I lean in for a kiss and he leans as far away as possible to avoid it.  Other times he bounds towards me and throws his arms around me, forgetting that he weighs a lot more now and we both fall over on the floor in tackled football player fashion.

When our collie-lab cross had grown big quickly, she hadn’t learned how her newly sprouted body fit into the world.  I remember those awkward days fondly.  Now, I look at K1 and all I see is this big puppy.  Still cute in that puppy way, but well on his path to becoming a young man.  I’m hoping he will someday learn the skill of hugging his mom without knocking her over.

By Mermaid | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (0)

Why The Auto Flush?

July 10, 2008 – 11:01 am

I really don’t get automatically flushing toilets. What exactly is their purpose in life? Do the potty powers that be not trust the general public to flush after themselves? I’m not disagreeing, just trying to figure this out. Is it meant to be more efficient at saving water or reducing waste somehow?

My personal experience is that is does none of these things. Nine times out of ten that flush goes off as I am attempting to lay down my sanitary protection, taking that thin layer of paper with it and thereby requiring me to start the process all over again. This is particularly annoying when I am trying to help my youngster who inevitably is in somewhat of a hurry to sit down.

What I find most puzzling of all is when I finally successfully accomplish the task at hand and am actually ready to leave the stall, nothing happens. Often, I am forced to locate the sensor and flush manually. After which I squeeze my barely average sized body out of said stall and attempt perfect placement in order to wash and dry my hands at the technologically advanced no touch sink and towel dispenser.

If only they could come up with a device that wipes the seat after the person before me, who either couldn’t be bothered with seat protection or just got tired of trying. ( The automatically replacing plastic seat covers don’t count because they are just CREEPY ). Throw in some automatic doors whose handles you don’t have to touch and at the very least you’ve cut down on the germ factor. Works for me.

By blondeshell | Posted in Blondeshell, Uncategorized | Tags: | Comments (1)

Night Camp

July 10, 2008 – 7:50 am

About 5 p.m. last night I birthed the brain child of Night Camp.  Spending quality summer time with your angels seems like a good idea in early summer or even earlier in the day, but by 5 p.m., aren’t you and your kids ready for Night Camp?

Tired from the long day?  Exhausted from running your kids willy nilly to playdates and random half day camps?  Just broken up your millionth sibling fist fight of the day?  Cleaned up another spill of something sticky all over the kitchen floor?  Confiscated the Guitar Hero guitar and kicked your kid’s off the computer or Wii again?

Drop your kids off at Night Camp.  It opens as early as 4:30 p.m., just about the time you are contemplating another caffeinated drink or your first glass of wine.  Drive up in your car and we’ll meet you at the passenger’s side door and whisk your children off to a land where you don’t plan the activities or figure out where their next meal is coming from.

Our counselors are all under the age of 15 with lots of energy.   Our camp motto is simple: if your kids are still alive when you get back, then we are doing our job.  You don’t have to worry, and at 5 pm do you really care?  Night Camp will be all your kid’s desires wrapped up in endless movies or computer time or video games, they will love it and you will be oblivious to it under the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell program.

Bars and fine dining are conveniently located down the street.  We will even deliver you kids home and tuck them in, if you need to catch a movie, or a nap, and not be disturbed.  If your kids are anxious about night camp, have them read below.  It won’t take much for all parties to declare this a win-win situation.

Kids!  Parents driving you crazy?  Come to Night Camp and play Guitar Hero til your mind is numb and your fingers are blistered and cramping.  No one will nag you here.  At Night Camp we allow endless behavior that would make your parents cringe.  Watch YouTube unsupervised with your friends or just watch the same iCarly episodes over and over and over.  Come on, you know you never tire of watching the same episodes more than once.  Get rid of your parents, eat pizza and candy and ice cream with no one constantly monitoring your every move.  Kids, you need Night Camp as much as your parents!

Day Camp: $450 a week.  Night Camp: priceless.

Who’s with me?

By Mermaid | Posted in Worst Mom Ever | Tags: , , , , | Comments (2)

Blondeshell’s Summer …Week Five

July 8, 2008 – 11:17 pm

Summer vacation…week five already! Here’s how it’s going so far… 

Week one: 

Stayed home with the kids for the first couple of days coming down from the end of the year activities. Way too much T.V. but lots of bonding time with the new kitten. Spent a lot of time trying to determine it’s sex and come up with a good name. ( He’s a he and the name is Ziggy ). My son finished up his baseball season FINALLY. A fair amount of sibling rivalry and fighting over who got to hold the cat.

Week two:

Sent my son off to adventure camp and spent quality time with my daughter at a variety of places such as Cost Plus, Costco and Whole Foods which was evidently NOT FAAIIRR! Tried to buy her a wetsuit which she refused to try on but promptly changed her mind about. After we were home again.

Packed up the car for a weeks trip to the beach which included the necessities for my birthday party as well the basics for a good time. Crucial things like the fire pit, ( which was against regulations as it turned out. Oops.) an extra table and chairs, 4 bikes, 2 scooters, two surfboards, beach chairs, cooler, food, candles, board games, wine, beer and tequila. Oh, and duffel bags with clothes, towels and wetsuits. We took two cars.

Week three:

The birthday party was perfect. Supreme ambience, great people, delicious food, excellent libations and a lovely cake. I couldn’t have asked for more. The rest of the week was all about relaxing and recovery. We were in a smallish, but very cool, beach house with 5 kids so relaxing is a relative term but there were some bike rides into town, kayaks down the lagoon and guilty yet delicious stolen moments with Season 3 of Weeds and bags of chips. The weather was amazing and there were plenty of crabs to be had if you were so inclined. Not my cup of tea but I was happy to sit back and watch kids with nets and partake of Mermaid’s margaritas.

Week four:

Packed my son off to sleepover camp for 2 weeks. House got quiet really fast. My daughter went to morning art camp while I went to the gym, paid some overlooked bills and drank coffee with Ziggy . He didn’t actually drink the coffee but apparently got a contact high, racing through the kitchen at top speeds  then madly pouncing at my ankles. Then there was the annual 4th of July parade with following BBQ and fireworks     ( seen at a distance from my deck which is great for parking and crowd control ). Ended the week by going back to yoga after a year long hiatus ( injury related…another time ). Very satisfying.

Week five:

Here we are. Son is still away and my daughter is going to afternoon pony camp which means we can lounge about all morning and play with Ziggy. This is the most relaxing week yet. The house is still quiet…there is a distinct absence of screeching and ” You’re not the boss of me” s. In fact, what I am hearing the most is the sound of my own voice.  ” Please be gentle with the kitty” and “The kitty will love you more if you don’t squish him”. The tormentor is away this evening at a friend’s and rather than seeming relieved I do believe the cat misses her! Ah, the peace and quiet. If it weren’t for the contractor and the painter and the housekeeper I might be down right lonely around here.

My son is due back Saturday and we hop a plane for New York on Sunday. He is going to see the Home Run Derby as well as the All Star game at Yankee Stadium with his grandfather. I am the glorified travel agent/chauffer who has planned the family’s summer around these events. That kid has got THE LIFE. At least I will get to see a Broadway show. The Little Mermaid. Oh yes, and a trip to the American Girl Doll store. Someday I am going to New York without my kids and doing grownup stuff.

Week six:

A week at my in laws with my kids. Will include ice cream, fireflies and a fair amount of spoiling. Let you know how that turns out.

By blondeshell | Posted in Blondeshell, Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , | Comments (0)

Emergency Dismount

July 8, 2008 – 10:13 pm

I was recently having a conversation about safety and the sport of horseback riding. My experience with horses didn’t have a lot to do with safety.  I’m probably lucky to be alive.  

This particular mom turned to me and said she heard a cry that the horse with her daughter on it was going down.  The horse had hit a soft patch in the arena and was getting ready to roll, saddle, rider and all.  The mom raced to the arena and someone asked if her daughter knew the emergency dismount.

Emergency dismount?  Isn’t that just getting off the horse as damn fast as possible?  Dismount, but do it super fast.  Sometimes we’d call this a bail if the horse was running away with you at breakneck speed and doing motorcycle turns.

Actually, we did a lot of things in general when I was a kid that would be frowned upon now, if not grounds for arrest as child neglect or endangerment. Remember riding your bike without a helmet?  Sitting in the back of a pick-up truck, cool breeze blowing through your hair while going 65 or more on the interstate?  

Growing up on a farm, we had a lot of  freedom with our chosen activities. Frankly speaking, we could do a lot of things if no one was looking, and tattling was an unspeakable offense.  Our days were filled with endless, dangerous possibilities.  

 We could walk the cross beams of the barn, 50 feet off the floor, like a gymnast’s balance beam (yikes! could have fallen and broken my neck!).  We played in the quick sand of grain in the grain bins (yikes! could have suffocated!). I even was buried alive once, sort of.  A big 4 by six foot hole was dug for some reason or other and my cousins thought it would be funny to dare me to stay in there with a board covering the entrance/exit. There I go, could have suffocated again.

My adventures with horses were pretty much unsupervised.  We road bareback and galloped across the fields.  I was bucked off, thrown into fences, side swiped on trees and posts and more.  The death-defying adventures of my childhood causes the present day parent in me to break out in a sweat.  Good thing I knew the common sense emergency dismount that I still use today–if things look bad, bail fast.

By Mermaid | Posted in Midwest Girl, The Way We Were | Tags: , , , | Comments (2)

Husband PMS?

July 6, 2008 – 1:44 pm

I’ve noticed lately that my husband’s cycle is coinciding with my own.  We both have stretches of unexplained grouchiness and irrational behavior.  Has anyone looked into this???

By Mermaid | Posted in Mermaid | Tags: , , , | Comments (2)

What My Parents Did To Me

July 2, 2008 – 9:30 pm

*Cool as a cucumber

*Vegetarian

*Calm

*Shy

*Soft Spoken

*Hot as a firecracker temper

*Outgoing

*Talk to anyone about anything for hours

*Meat Eater

These are qualities of my parents in no particular order.  Some qualities they share, such as the willingness to help anyone who needs them, strong sense of justice, generous, kind, thoughtful, but the list above represents their complete polar opposite personalities.  What do you get when you mix them all into a kid smoothie?

You get:

1.  A mostly vegetarian kid who doesn’t eat seafood, or lot of meat, but can’t pass up a thick, juicy medium rare steak or chocolate.

2. Someone who is too shy to pick up the phone at times or to speak in large groups or does the opposite and prattles on and on in loud volume (no mic needed).

3. Someone who might walk away from a fight or who goes in swinging with a lot of self-confidence and a hefty dose of temper.

4.  Someone who can either be a wallflower or big time chatterbox depending on situation and mood.

5.  A girl who can appear as calm as a cucumber or a girl who can be b*****ing out the Burke Williams Spa manager about her crappy massage in firecracker verbiage and volume.

6.  A girl that can blow her stack in anger and be ready to throw rocks through your window one minute and then ten minutes later be ready to forgive, forget and forge on.

7.  A super loyal friend who has EXTREMELY high expectations of her real, true friends.

I guess I’m a little unpredictable.  I like to try most new things, I can be brave and chicken sh*t on different occasions or at the same time.  I can find myself acting as either one in surprising situations.  You never know who is going to show up to the party…my mom or my dad.

This is what you get when opposites attract and they make a child.

By Mermaid | Posted in Mermaid, parenting | Tags: | Comments (0)

Additional Gratuity: To Insure Prompt Service

June 30, 2008 – 11:21 am

Returning home from a trip to NYC with my husband,  I’ve had a couple of days to contemplate many things. My most favorite thing to do on a vacation is sleep.  It occurred to me, as I sat in my catbird seat high above the city, that I could be having this experience closer to home at a Ramada Inn.  I hauled my butt out of bed and headed for the streets.

Deciding to explore on foot, I skipped the cab line and thought about how much money I’ve dropped just in gratuity in the last 24 hours:

1.  Tipped the curb side check in attendant–note that the fee charged by the airline does not cover any gratuity for the people slinging the bags.  

2.  Tipped the cab driver.  On the cool new screens they even automatically calculate 20, 25 and 30 percent gratuity–you just need to tap and it’s automatically added to your total.

3  Tipped the bellhop who took our bags from the car and brought them to the room.

4.  Tipped room service an additional 5 bucks on top of the room charge, 18 percent gratuity and delivery charge already added to my $45 eggs and toast breakfast.  

5.  Tipped the doorman who hailed the cab.

6.  Tipped the guys at Starbucks.

7.  Tipped (?) the guy playing the steel drums in the blazing hot heat near the Statue of Liberty Ferry Boat. 

8.  Added more tip on top of the tip already charged at dinner because we had a group of 6.

9.  Added a tip in the tip line of my credit card reciept at a gelato shop.

It seems like everywhere I turned, there was a plea for additional gratuity. There was even a box to put money in for donations to Lady Liberty.  Afterall, aren’t some of these things listed above just donations?  Not in fact tips?

As a veteran waitress of 14 years, I am very aware of the tipping scene..  I am a fair tipper.  If you give me good service, you will get a good tip, at least 20 percent.  This applies across the board.

If you give me bad service, I adjust the tip accordingly.  If you give me horrible service, you might get no tip and a little note.  Hear me now people working at the mercy of tips–which I have done–you do not automatically get a tip because I show up–you need to show up, too, and fulfill your end of the service bargain.  You need to earn the tip.  

When tips jars started showing up at coffee shops and ice cream parlors, I was wondering how much these people get paid.  When I was a waitress, I got paid $1.65 an hour.  The tip portion of my job was to bring my hourly wage up to the minimum wage.  I’m guessing you must get minimum wage as a ice cream scooper–so I have a little problem with that theory right there.  

Of course I want all of these young kids to go to college. Of course I feel guilty if I’m stiffing someone.  Of course, I feel like service has gone way down.  I hustled, I smiled when I could of spit at nasty customers, I did my best to do my job right and to make the experience enjoyable.   

I think a 30-40 percent tip is too much to ask.  I am all for paying what I owe, but let’s be honest about what we are charging.  I’d rather know that my latte costs $5.00 up front and that it will cost me $20 to have someone carry my bags to my room.  Give me the bottom line, don’t keep me guessing.  I do want you to go to college, I do want to contribute to the ‘Girl’s Nite Out Fund’, but how much is too much?

Maybe I should just have stayed in bed.  I had already paid for the room.  Sleep is both free and gratuity free.  Shoot, forgot that I left the housekeeping service a tip!

 

By Mermaid | Posted in Mermaid | Tags: , , , , | Comments (2)

Thelma and Louise Summer Camp for 6 Year Olds

June 25, 2008 – 11:19 am

It’s day 5 at the beach house, and we haven’t seen Thelma and her sidekick, Louise, for days.  As soon as we arrived, Mermaid K3 and Blondeshell K2, BFFs, disappeared into their self titled “dorm.”

The mini mighty amazon girls settled in Kid Animal-House-Style: clothing everywhere, snacks hidden under the bed, a big jug of spring water and bedding in a twist.  They were stocked and locked like they were in a bomb shelter.  The biggest battle for these warriors?  Brothers, bed time and lack of sugary snacks.

Seriously, these girls could be on Kid Survivor.  Once in a while they pop up asking for a dry towel or a new dvd, but they are mostly locked behind their self-made, masking tape posted sign on the door that says:

NO BROS ULOD IN ThE GRLS CLUB 

When they o.d. on movies, spring water and bananas, we might catch a glimpse of them–hair snarled, still in pjs or bathing suits.  K2 is the voice of 9 year old reason and keeps a sisterly watchful eye, but for the most part, the 6 year olds are running wild.

If they happen to clean the windows with Shout, at least it’s good, clean, fun, right?  That’s what makes the most excellent summer memories, good times, good times…

 

 

By Mermaid | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (0)

Life’s A Beach House

June 24, 2008 – 8:09 am

The husbands melded back into the work world and left the moms and kids to fend for themselves at the beach rental house.

Wonder Women that we are, we fixed the dryer, did laundry, made and tidied breakfast, fixed the collapsed shower curtain tension rod, made and tidied up lunch, fixed the bamboo Ikea blinds and found ourselves sitting in front of the biggest challenge yet of our vacation:  turning on a dvd for the tired, cranky, fighting kids.

I was personally called in for my technical expertise…and you know when two preteen boys call you in to figure out an electronic algorithm, it ain’t gonna be easy.  Seated on our rented couch, I had no less than 7, yes, seven, 7, SEVEN!, remotes in front of me.  We even tried calling the dad-folk for advice, but we struggled our way through, matching controllers to their same-named devices and finally figured it out.

Triumphant,  we continued to sort piles of discarded clothing, tidy common areas, halt two six year olds who were making off with a bag of all of the shampoos they had collected from all of the bathrooms in the house, pumped up bike tires, located misplaced books, made and served snacks, folded laundry, fielded phone calls about the fact that we brought a fire pit and used it one night down on the dock (yikes, that was a BIG MISTAKE)…

Finally, exhausted, we flopped down on the dock with a bottle of red wine and a bowl of chips and salsa. The kids were quiet and happy and the dog snoozed at our feet.  The sun was setting golden pink over the rippling water as the husbands returned home to this scene of luxury and tranquility.  First question, you guessed it, with a little sarcasm, “What have you girls been doing all day?”

By Mermaid | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (2)