what's more fun

than a giant cardboard box?







I was just about to make dinner reservations for me and Laundry Dad because it was so big, they couldn't get OUT of the box so a babysitter really wasn't necessary, when they figured out how to tip it over by slamming their bodies against the side of it.

And then that was lots of fun until the box ripped and Cheer barfed.

au lait

Wow, it's been more than a week.

I still haven't really adjusted to my schedule this year. I'm not sure that I ever will. My day has been broken up into awkward chunks of time ever since Tide started preschool 10 years ago.

This year is more challenging because Shout goes to afternoon kindergarten. So by the time I get my 2.5 hours of free time, I have to dash home to eat lunch, try to run any errands, clean up... you know the gig. But at 11:30, there is a lot more TRAFFIC. There's NO PARKING at Starbucks. And Target at 9AM is a dream. At noon, it's a nightmare.

Couple that with a nefarious government plot to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels by tearing up EVERY. SINGLE. FREAKING. ROAD. IN. AMERICA. at the same exact time, and it leads to me spending at least an hour of my 2.5 free hours sitting in my car.

I can't TELL you how annoyed I am by all the construction. One day, it took me 15 minutes of circling my neighborhood just to figure out HOW TO GET INTO MY NEIGHBORHOOD. Every road in was blocked by construction. New water pipes. New sidewalks. New gas lines.

Can we afford all this?

Aren't we in a recession?

I'm wasting SO. MUCH. GAS. (Yes, a few more months of this and I will probably take to my bike. Except remember we had 4 feet of snow last winter? And I have a carpool of 6 kids. Biking will be a challenge, but it's that or a helicopter.)

They also just conveniently passed a law that you can no longer talk on a cell phone while you are driving.

And honestly, I'm all in favor of that. I live just down the street from a college campus and have been nearly killed on a weekly basis by distracted college students, talking on cell phones, waving to their friends and applying mascara all at the same time.

But if I'm going to spend HOURS in my car every day (and I AM), I need something to do. I can't talk on the phone, I can't text. I'm pretty sure blogging is also illegal. (Maybe not specifically, but implied.)

I do have a Bluetooth and I don't know if it's me or the device, but every time I touch the damn thing, it calls my friend, Julie. She finally got sick of getting my calls and asked me to stop using it.

I need to get a regular old plug-in headset, but OF COURSE, my phone has some weird headset connection that requires a special trip to the Verizon store. Except the Verizon store (while only about 3 miles away) is 4 construction projects from here. Which means MORE HOURS IN THE CAR. I just can't take it.`

It's not all bad though.

My schedule does afford me mornings of hanging out in my pajamas with Shout, drinking coffee until 10 o'clock. Not everyone has a gig like that. It's probably the last year of my life I'll be able to pull that off (and not feel like a COMPLETE slug), so I'm trying to look on the bright side. Because what are we without our bright side? (Grouchy and stuck in traffic, that's what.)

turn, turn, turn

Fall's crispness is finally in the air. The leaves are just beginning their annual encore of color. Pumpkins, scarecrows and mums dot every house.

And it's the season of Catholic high school open houses.

(That sound was my heart dropping into my feet.)

Gah.

How did we get here already?

Tide is in 7th grade, so we have another year of middle school ahead of us, but come next fall, we have to decide to WHICH high schools he is going to apply, which means we need to visit them now. (He can visit two schools on his own next fall on "Shadow Days" where he'll spend an actual school day with a student. I still remember how unbelieveably nervous I was on my Shadow Day 10 years ago. Ok 20. (Or maybe more.) (Ok yes, MORE.) (Sheesh.))

So today, we went to our first (of OMG x 4 = soooo many) high school open house.

And I do believe I may have been the ONLY parent in the beautiful chapel with the soaring arches and the gigantic stained glass windows who started tearing up during the welcoming speech.

Poor Tide. It's bad enough that he has to appear in public with his parents for these gigs. But to have the only mom who is surreptitiously wiping away TEARS while they're talking about the National Honor Society?

Mortification.

He just looked so small next to those tall lockers. We walked the manicured football field and I can't even imagine him running the whole way around its track. We saw the student parking lot. Dear God, could he really be pulling a CAR in there in a few years?

I'm going to need some plugs for my tear ducts to get through this process because I'm all welly again just thinking about it.

everything but the kitchen sink

When I first started writing here, it was partially for therapy.

I've gotten so much more whiny and introspective since then. As much as I hate the term, I am launching full swan dive into my personal mid-life crisis. Or, more accurately, my mid-life re-defintion.

Who am I? Why am I here? What am I supposed to be doing with my life? Sounds like I'm 20 again, right? Except with way less alcohol and a lot more responsibility. And the addition of "Who are these kids and why do they hate me?" (I'm supposed to run out and buy a car, right? Can I get my MINI Cooper now?)

I've shared little blips of this over the past few months and debated on how in depth I want to get here. And I've decided, not very much.

I like things light, funny and a little crazy here. So I think I'll keep it that way for now.

In order to work out my personal angst, I've started journaling with a PEN! In a notebook! I know, right? It's a good way to work out my crazy without making a permanent record on the internet for my kids, relations, and future employers to find.

I've never been very good at keeping a journal either. Right now, I actually have two going. One is my Mother's Journal that I'm keeping along with reading Writing Motherhood. The other one is the journal I'm keeping with the fall Dream Lab. (I mentioned before that I wanted to try this, but couldn't spare the tuition. Last week, in a bizarre twist of fate, I saw a tweet that I never would have seen that they were running a 24 hour special discount that made it possible for me to do it without any much guilt or angst.)

I've gotten way off track, but every now and then, I'm going to share something from my journal. This one is from an assignment in my Mother's Notebook. I had to write about a class I took or advice I got while pregnant.

When I was pregant the first time, we took a class through the hospital... Getting Ready for Baby or something. I remember the nurse who taught the class talking very disapprovingly of bathing babies in the kitchen sink. (Due to the Food/Poop, Never the Twain Shall Meet Rule.)

I had never thought about the contamination issue before. I actually have very vivid memories of taking baths in the huge cast iron farm sink in my grandmother's kitchen. I probably would have done the same thing with my babies.

But because I had to learn to be a mother and start thinking about germs and food safety and such, I never did bathe my babies in my sink.

And you know what? If I got a do-over? That is something I would change. There's nothing cuter than sticking your baby in the sink, right in the heart of your home, and scrubbing him down.

And bleach will kill any bacteria that may come along.

Did you/Do you bathe your babies in the kitchen sink?

money can't buy you love

But it does buy a great kindergarten.

I can't tell you how amazing Shout's kindergarten is. It is the Best Possible Place for her.

She LOVES it. It's challenging for her. There are 9 kids in the class. (NINE! And two teachers!) The dynamics of the kids are obviously a fluke, but they are working out great.

I'm thrilled.

I still don't know where she'll end up next year, but for now, I'm going to enjoy this year.

Yesterday, she counted to 30. THIRTY! At this time last year, she could only count to THREE. She does skip a few numbers that she doesn't care for, but she completely gets the concept now. Something I was TOTALLY unable to teach her.

She can even add any combination up to 12. You wanna how know her teacher did it?

Craps.

Or something like that. She's been coming home teaching everyone dice games and yesterday, there was permission slip for a field trip to Atlantic City in her backpack.

You know what I say to that?

Brilliant.

She has them memorizing sight words by putting stickers all over them. They're learning the days of the week and the months by singing crazy songs over and over. (I gave up trying to teach her that stuff ages ago.)

They're doing science experiments and cooking lessons and current events. They read the Washington Post together.

And they even get almost an hour of recess in a 1/2 day schedule.

The suckiest part about the whole thing? They don't have 1st grade. Because I would keep paying big money to keep her in this environment if I could. It's exactly what she needs.

so she's not an ashkenazi jew

Whenever you go to a pediatric specialist and your kid has something about them that is really messed up (like chromosomes or heart valves or kidneys or platelets apparently), one of the questions they ask you is whether or not you and your husband are related.

The first time, I was confused.

"You mean married?"

"No. Blood relatives."

Huh? Of each other?

Uhhhhh, NO, we are not blood relatives of each other.

It seems like a really random and unlikely question, but they all ask it. So obviously, there's something there.

I know that interbreeding can cause chromosomal problems and birth defects, but are there really crowds of people walking into Childrens Hospital who are siblings and have children together?? Ewww.

And even after I say NO, when they send Dr. Everything Will Be Alright the report of our visit, it's almost like they don't believe me.

"Mother denies consanguinity."

Denies. Like I'm on trial. Or taking a lie detector test or something. I'm not just DENYING consanguinity, I AM NOT CONSANGUINITY. OK?? I'm not a practitioner, not a fan, I wouldn't even Like it on Facebook. Can you just put that in the record somewhere and stop asking me about it already because it creeps. me. out.

I'm starting to get a complex. Like maybe I completely forgot I had this long lost brother and somehow I accidentally married him and NO ONE TOLD US and OMG(!!!) now, look what we've done.

So Dr. Blood asked too... trying to be subtle... "You and dad? Related to each other at all?"

"No! No! No! No! We are not RELATED! It's that whole "denies consanguinity" thing, right? No one believes us. We couldn't possibly have a kid with this many issues if we weren't from the same branch of some effed up family tree, right?"

Seriously, people.

So I've been doing a little research on Shout's bleeding disorder. There's not much out there, because apparently not many people have it. But I found a case study of three people in Switzerland who have it. And you'll never guess what...

They're all products of consanguinous relationships.

army of women - are you in?

It's National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. While AWARE is good, ATTACKING is better. We've got our eyes on breast cancer, now let's get our science on it.

Get your mammogram. (If you're old enough. A baseline one before you turn 40 and (right now) one a year after you turn 40.) The place I get mine is right next to DSW, so every time I get a mammogram, I buy myself a pair of shoes. (Ok, yes, and a handbag.) Make your appointment and go buy yourself something in celebration of your healthy tatas.

And if you haven't done it yet, join the Love/Avon Army of Women and join the scientific assault on breast cancer. You don't have to have breast cancer, or be at greater risk or anything. Just be a woman. (Sorry, my men readers. You'll have to start your own army.) Sign up. It may perhaps be the easiest thing you do today. Buy yourself some shoes after, if you must. (Or, a handbag.)

The goals of the Army of Women are to recruit one million healthy women of every age and ethnicity, including breast cancer survivors and women at high-risk for the disease, to partner with breast cancer researchers and directly participate in the research that will eradicate breast cancer once and for all AND to challenge the scientific community to expand its current focus to include breast cancer prevention research conducted on healthy women.

(I said it before and I'll say it again...) Breast cancer's a bitch, but it's no match for an Army of Women.

Give yourself a shout out in the comments if you're in the Army.