Ha! Happy Effing New Years!

(I actually wrote this on New Years Eve, but naps, sick husbands and iffy internet connection kept me from posting until today.)

I cannot believe I am spending the second New Years of my life sick in bed. The New Years Party got cancelled, because of my kids getting sick, not me, and then I woke up this morning with a little sore throat. By 9am I have a full blown migraine. Two Motrin and three Excedrin later, I get in bed. I think I will do some writing, but holding my head up hurts. So does light, and noise. I fell asleep and bitchslapped Paris Hilton, so at least that wasn't a total loss. I was sure when I woke up I would be fine. I was wrong. I could actually hear my eyes opening. They creaked like the head of that giant statue Clash of the Titans. I finally got out of bed around 5:30 and washed my face and brushed my teeth. I thought I was fine to go downstairs and spend a quiet evening with my family. Oh.....that's right.....five year olds don't care how much pain they cause you when they talk, they will keep talking. And ten year olds? They take it personally if you keep saying "Quiet voice, please!" Roser made my Nana's sauce, with his own spin on it, (Oregano and meat) and it was delicious. Unfortunately, my family doesn't know the first thing about being quiet. To be fair, they've never had to. I am not given to migraines, or even regular headaches. When I do get a headache, I take some Motrin and it's gone. This totally sucks! Why am I being punished for wanting to have a New Years Eve party?

My Love Affair with S.E. Hinton

I discovered S. E. Hinton when I was around 13 years old. I read all four of her books in a row, and then I went back and re-read them. I read The Outsiders maybe twenty or more times over the next two or three years. I had the book memorized. I read That was Then, This is Now nearly as many times.

My own ultra-feminine XX13 was assigned The Outsiders as an English class reading assignment. To my surprise, she loved it! She got the same look on her face when she talked about it that I used to get on my face. She loved the boys in the book, and got a little crush on Ponyboy. (That ended when she saw the movie, as, after you see Rob Lowe in nothing but a towel, there really is no-one else for you but Soda-Pop.) She is such a fashion minded, giddy gossipy girl, that I never expected her to be so invested in the lives of boys from early '60's Oklahoma. It is even more astounding when you consider she is not much of a reader. She averages one to two books a year. When I realized how much she was enjoying it, I bought her That was Then, This is Now. She had to finish another book that she had been working on since February. She started reading it yesterday, and she couldn't put it down. Wow. I can't even tell you what that means to me.

She came in to the bonus room where I was sewing and curled up on the couch to do her homework. She finished her math and said,

"Now I can read my book." I have never heard, nor have I ever expected to hear those words out of her mouth. She would stop every once in a while to tell me how much she liked the way S. E. Hinton wrote. She laughed out loud, and would read passages she liked to me. She became almost giddy when Ponyboy, from The Outsiders made an appearance.

"It's like seeing an old friend," She said. Of course I knew exactly what she was talking about. It's like introducing my daughter to my old friends, the ones who were there with me and for me. These old friends have been frozen in time, held as teenagers, able to give my daughter the gifts they gave me. I wish S. E. Hinton knew what she has done for me. First, when I was a teenager, already an avid reader, and now, she has ignited a love of reading in a girl whom I never thought would love reading. Thank God for her.

Sugar Toast and Sprite

About eight years ago, Roser and I decided to host a family friendly New Year's Eve party. We set up the garage for the kids, and bought the food and the booze. We had invited about fifty people, (Around twenty families) and then I got one of the worst cases of the flu that I can remember. It lasted about four days, right through the proposed New Years Eve bash. Roser is not the type to do that sort of thing on his own, so he had to call everyone at two in the afternoon to let them know the party had been cancelled.

The other night we were at a small Christmas celebration, and one of my friends recommended (insisted) that Roser and I host a New Year's Eve party. We finally agreed. We came home, and XX5 woke up in the middle of the night, sick to her stomach. She was in my bed, throwing up everything, and then, nothing, for twelve hours. I mostly stayed close by her in bed, since I got no sleep the night before, and tried to get her to eat saltines, and drink flat Sprite. I thought maybe the mere commitment to a New Years party is enough to encourage the plague to visit our house.

Right now, I have Spiderman 3 on in the background. "Why?" you might ask, "Why, on a Monday morning would you have an action movie aimed at ten year old boys on in the background?" That would be because my ten year old boy is sitting here beside me, with the barf bowl, and a can of Sprite. Yep, another one has been felled by the stomach flu. I am pushing on with the party, in the hopes that I will not be barfing when the time comes. Wish me luck!

Cook Books

Last night, my good friend gave me a copy of "Mastering the Art of French Cooking". I received it last year at a Book Club book exchange, and she stole it. I barely even remembered that she took it more than once or twice a month. I sat on my porch and read the introductions and forwards. There were about eight of them, two from Julia Child herself.

Cook books are something special to me. They combing my two great loves, cooking, and reading, more specifically, books. I had a childhood, lacking in all forms of tangible manifestations of love. Perhaps due to some genetic memory in my French and Italian lineage, I have long equated delicious food with feeling loved. It is by no accident that my best child hood memories took place in the kitchen or at the dining room table of the most amazing cook I know to this very day, My Aunt Liz. She is a loud, exotically beautiful Brooklyn born Italian. She oozed love like essential oil, but not a flowery oil, a garlic and pepper infused oil. It was a love that was not about making you feel good about yourself by telling you how wonderful you were, it made you feel good about yourself because it took care of your needs. It was a love that could tell, just by looking at you, that you need a sandwich and a glass of milk. Her house always had the lingering smell of the red sauce she made weekly, and a cookie drawer. A drawer, designated for nothing but cookies! Oh, and she always had Pop-Tarts. That was as good as it got when I was little.

This was very different the house I grew up in, on the same street as Aunt Liz. Family dinner in my other aunt's house was an infrequent affair, tense and not very tasty. The aunt who raised me just wasn't a very good cook. I don't know if she wasn't able to taste well, or if she was missing that certain generosity of spirit and patience that I think is necessary to be a good cook. Our house always smelled like cigarette smoke. Aunt Torm pretty much gave up cooking around the time I was ten. I began making dinners for myself out of Top Ramen, hot dogs, and fried eggs. Not all at the same time of course. I would roast the hot dogs over the gas flame on our stove, and I drained the broth off the noodles in the Top Ramen and add canned Parmesan cheese. none of these are particularly original ideas, but at ten years old, it was the best I could do. The point is, I was tweaking, and working, and trying to make mediocre food taste good.

When I moved in with my dad at sixteen, my step-mother had several cookbooks. She was a busy pastor's wife, and it often fell to me to cook dinner for the family, and what ever members of the congregation we had for dinner that night. I never felt this was a burden. I loved it. One of the recipes I discovered in one of Ruth's little church based cookbooks is a recipe I use to this very day. (Heavenly Chicken)

Somehow, over the years, I have amassed a collection of about 60 cookbooks. I have at least skimmed through all of them. Many of them I have read cover to cover, like a novel. Ann Hodgman is my favorite, both for entertainment value, and recipes. Many of my cookbooks are old, from the 70's or earlier. The old ones give me a sense of history. I think about older dinner parties, where there was no goat cheese or sun-dried tomatoes. I am also grateful, that we are no longer expected to eat things covered in Jello and call it fancy.

Mostly my cookbooks are like "how to love" manuals. Food, to make my family feel love, feel actual physical love, in their bellies. Waking up the smell of bacon, popovers whipped up when we have unexpected guests. Their favorite meal, whatever it may be, for birthdays, or first jobs, or other special days. My kids joke with me,

"You can't solve every problem by making a sandwich Ma," they say. Well, I disagree. There are very few problems that cannot be made better by a lovingly prepared meal.

Roser's Family, or, The Side of the Family we Don't Hide the Knives From

Thursday night was my niece's 11th birthday. She is Roser's sister's daughter. I love her and have since the night she was born. Literally, I was there. Roser's sister, 'Rosie' was married, twice to the same jerk. Not the beating on her kind of jerk, the sitting on his ass stoned, screwing around on her, jerk. The only good thing he ever did in his life was contribute genetically to my two nieces, J and M. Rosie and Jerko were high school sweethearts, and Rosie is still close with Jerko's family. His sister and her two girls were at my nieces birthday. Rosie married an man she had known for many years, and she now has the kind of husband she deserves. He gives more, much more than he takes, and he loves her extended family. He treats her parents with love and respect, and her daughters like they are his own. He has two daughters who were 18 and 20 when he and Rosie got married three years ago. His daughters have loved Rosie's girls, and referred to them as sisters, (never using the word step) from day one. They have taken J and M to get pictures taken altogether for Father's Day and Christmas.
There was a large amount extended family at J's party. Good husband's mother is staying with Rosie and her family. Her girls call her Nana. As I said, Jerko's sister was there, and good husband's girls with their boyfriend and husband. It was just a mishmash of people, young and old, who in some ways loosely connected, but who consider each other family. It was wonderful for me to see my kids around these people whom they've known for so long. I love that my sister-in-law is the type that stayed friends with her ex sister-in-law, and that her husband is the kind of guy that is okay with it. I love my kids knowing that there is this group of people with values and morals, who care what happens to them. I am convinced that my kids are who they are partly because of this stable consistent love and support they have gotten from family who is not Roser and me.

Buying Clothes my Children will Hate

Roser started a new job recently. For the first time in about nine years, we have a company Christmas party. It is a family Christmas party. I didn't even try to talk XY17 into it, and we gave XX13 the choice to go or spend the night with a friend. XY10 and XX5 were not given a choice. We tend to be a pretty casual family, with spotty church attendance, so at any given time, the closest my boys have to dress clothes is black Dickies, and tennies that their toes aren't poking through. I had to go all out and buy XY10 a full dress outfit. My daughters are easier, as they just naturally dress up more. Still, I had to get XX5 a fancy dress. Oh, and joy of joys, I had to buy a ginormous pair of pants to cover my fat ass. Oh yeah! Yesterday was a great day.

I decided to go with comfort in mind for the kids. XY10 got twill pants instead of full on dress pants, and XX5 got a stretch velvet dress, with no taffeta, or netting, or anything stiff or itchy anywhere. I had a shirt picked out that I thought he and Roser would like, cause Roser cares about that stuff. As I walked through the store with the shirt, I realized I hated it. I went back and picked the one I liked, and decided to just bear the anger of my boys. I went to four different stores to find a pair of dress shoes that would not make the boy bleed from the eyes and call on fire from above to put him out of his misery. The shoes were the most expensive thing I bought, and if I'm lucky, he will wear them, maybe six times. Sigh.

When I got home, XY10 and several similarly mop haired 10 year olds were waiting to go cause havoc at the park down the street. I showed him the stuff I bought him, and when he saw the shirt, I was rewarded with a "That shirt's sick!" If you are a unfamiliar with 10 year old boys, that means he liked it. A Lot.

Moments that Make a Mother Proud

We were all sitting at the dinner table, (Spaghetti Carbonara, with extra cheese) when I brought up, what I thought was an amusing little anecdote about a quasi-celebrity. It seems Kellie Pickler was on Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? and totally embarrassed herself.( http://youtube.com/watch?v=juOQhTuzDQ0 ) I told my family the question, "What European country is Budapest the capital of? First of all, NO ONE! in my family of six knew the answer. Most of their answers came from Asia. Everyone was surprised that it was Hungary. To be fair, it took me a long time to get that too. It just sounds like the capital of Mongolia or something. Anyway, I went on to the part where Miss Pickler thought Europe was a country. We were all laughing (except XX5, she was trying to sneak more cheese) and I didn't notice that XX13 had a quizzical look on her face.

"I guess I kinda thought Europe was a country too."
"Oh Baby, No. You don't know the continents."

"No, I'm really bad at geography."

Come to find out she is really bad at geography.

She could not name one continent without the help of XY10. Xy10, little history freak that he is, could name them all. She further, could not name the three countries that reside on the North American continent. Oh, It gets worse....She thought maybe Indiana might be one. Yeah... Indiana. And, ummm....is Hawaii a country? I was horrified. Laughing, of course, but horrified. How did I the trivia enthusiast of the world, the one who gets her daily endorphin boost by getting all the answers right on Jeopardy. How did I raise a kid who, in 7th grade, can not name one continent. Who thinks, maybe Hawaii is a country. I mean, she's cute and all, but, Seriously?

I don't even know what to say. Do you all think this is evidence that I never should have reproduced in the first place?

What a Weekend pt. 2

My family is a little fuzzy on boundaries. My dad was a pastor of a nondenominational church in downtown Las Vegas when I was a teenager. It was not at all uncommon for him to bring home homeless people. I spent time in my teenage years sharing my room with ex-hookers, and recovering drug addicts. We had a large house and at any given time there were up to six non-family members sharing the house with us. I can, and will at some point, say all sorts of true, horrible things about my dad, but in spite of his many, many faults, he is completely generous, and hospitable. Since I have lived in California, Roser and I have had an open door policy for my family. Sometimes it caused a little tension, like the time my dad called me to tell me that my then 17 and 19 year old brothers were on there way with 4 friends and would be at my house in about an hour. That was a little stressful because I already had 2 out of town guests staying with me. My guests and I left when I got the message from my dad, and when we returned a few hours later, my home had all the evidence of a full scale invasion. We tripped over gigantic shoes near my front door. There were duffels stacked in the front room like it was basic training, and the house reeked of boy sweat and cheap cologne. The actual boys, all six of them, were out, getting lunch.

In spite of the inconvenience, and annoyance, I loved the noise and chaos they brought with them when my brothers and their friends came out. I loved feeding all of them. I loved the vitality that filled the house. I just would have appreciated a little warning.

Roser, on the other hand, is one of 2 children. His father was never a pastor, and he never brought hookers home, at least not that we know of. Roser's extended family is mostly tucked safely away in Indiana, and would never dream of dropping in on anybody. His family is identified by its sense of propriety, and consideration. It has been a very easy family to be a part of because of these things. Roser has been amazing with my family, that is so different from his, and is loving on the days that I want to go after all of them with a hammer. None of this has made the Italian invasion from the north any easier to deal with.

Now that my family is local, they are dropping in, A Lot. I still kind of love it. Roser, not so much. He is very protective of his time with the family. I would love to have kids over all the time, but I need to balance that with Roser's need for time alone with us. We were supposed to go to a Christmas party on Saturday night, the one that got cancelled. When my dad found out were going, he asked me to ask the hostess if he could attend. When the party got cancelled, Roser and I decided to have a family night and put up the Christmas tree. When I told my dad this, he was hurt. I figured he would not be coming around for a while. I was wrong.

He showed up on Sunday without calling, as Roser and I were on our way out to do some errands. He settled in, even though we were leaving, and let us know that my brother, his wife, and my sister (the tattooed) would be coming by. I got totally forced to offer to make dinner for everyone. Roser was livid. He does not want to have no control over when people come over. Because it is my family, I don't care. It feels like the house I grew up in, and the type of house I always wanted to have.

I made baked rigatoni with spicy Italian sausage and green beans with garlic, olive oil and Parmesan cheese. My sister-in-law's little brother, who is a very good friend of both my own Xy17 and SibXX16 came over and ate too. I was really happy. Until 9pm, when they were showing no signs of leaving. My dad had been at my house for 13 hours, watching TV, reading the paper, hassling me about my weight, (sweetly though, if you can imagine it,) and I was done. It took a full hour to get them all out of there. An hour and tons of hints. I am not the girl I was. Apparently, I need time with just my immediate family too. Roser has rubbed off on me.

What a Weekend pt. 1

What a weekend! XY10 had his football banquet this Saturday. We were supposed to go to a Christmas Party that I was looking forward to, but it got cancelled due to my friend's little XX getting the stomach flu. Unfortunately, I, nor any of my family members got the stomach flu, so I had to go to the football banquet. With the football moms. And the football dads. Usually the football moms and dads are the best thing about Pop Warner football, but this year they were all snooty, and by snooty I mean not willing to be fascinated by me. In years past, the football parents have been a rowdy, flirty, friendly bunch, but this year they must have thought they were signing up for little league. It was one of the coldest days of the year, with a high of about fifty-three degrees. I'm sure for a lot of Americans that is down right balmy, but her in So-Cal, it was arctic. It was held at the home of one of the coaches, and the entire thing was outside. The festivities started at 12 noon, and they didn't even start handing out trophies until 3:15. There was a picture montage set to music, all very sentimental, and/or rousing, and there was not one! picture of XY10. Not One! out of about 400 pictures, and a thirty minute montage, Not one! And my kid didn't suck at football, so I don't get it.
When we first arrived I noticed a book sitting out on the counter. It was called, I think, The Pale Blue Eye.( http://www.amazon.com/Pale-Blue-Eye-Novel/dp/0060733977 )It was a 19th century murder mystery, with Edgar Allen Poe as one of the characters. I assumed it was the woman of the house who was reading it, but I couldn't figure out who the woman of the house was, so I finally asked the coach that lived there who was reading it. Turns out, it was him, Coach S. I was very impressed. We talked a little about books. I went back inside, and noticed a complete CD collection of David Sedaris.(http://www.barclayagency.com/sedaris.html) Wow! This guy was not the type of guy I would expect to be a David Sedaris fan, you know, being straight, and a football coach and all. I know, I shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but I do. All the time. Those were the slightly bright spots in a cold miserable day.
My family came over on Sunday, but I need more time to digest that. I will probably write about that later.

Was I unreasonable?

I have a sister who is sixteen years old. Her mom left when she was four, leaving her with four very rowdy brothers, and a father, who is bi-polar. Loving, and dedicated, but bi-polar. I have been as much of a mother figure to her as I can be, as I have tried to be with all six of my siblings. Yesterday, she, my oldest brother (25) and my dad came over for a few hours after dinner. As they were leaving, my sib, we'll call her SibXX16, stretched her jacket went up a little and I saw something on the lower right part of her stomach, right above her jeans. At first I thought it might be frayed threads from her jeans, so reached over to pull her jacket up to see. She pulled away from me, so I knew my suspicion was correct.
"Come on upstairs," I said, "I need to show you something in my room." She followed me obediently, and sheepishly.
"Okay," I said, "Let's see it."
She reluctantly lifted her jacket to show me a small graceful treble clef inked on to her lower abdomen.
"When?"
"A couple of months ago."
"With who?"
I already knew the answer, but I needed her to say it. I knew it was her boyfriend of about a year and a half. By all evidence he is a perfectly nice boy from a good, close knit family, but I don't like her being in a serious relationship at such a young age.
"Are you mad?" She asked in a very small voice. This is a tough girl who for all intents and purposes raised herself, so it meant something that she cared if I was mad.
I sighed.
"No, mad is not the right word."
"Disappointed?"
"Yeah, disappointed. I wish you had talked to me first. I would have tried to talk you out of it. I wish that this tattoo was not a link to your boyfriend, but it could be a lot worse."
"Really?"
"Yes, at least it is small and well done, and you know, not your boyfriends name."
She hugged me and thanked me for not freaking out and left my room. As we left my room I made another comment about it not realizing that XX13 was coming out of her room.
"Oh, my mom found out?" She said to SibXX16
"What?! How long have you known?" I spun around and asked. She immediatly realized her mistake.
"Not long," she said evasively and scurried down the stairs. I was on her heels repeating the question. We got down stairs and stopped talking about it because my dad was there. As soon as they all left I started grilling XX13 again.
XY17 was in the kitchen and said,
"Oh mom found, oh... never mind." He went back to the food he was preparing five seconds too late.
"You knew too?!"
"Crap, the second the words were out of my mouth," he muttered looking down at the cheese.
All of the reason and calm that I had shown with my sister was gone. I was practically yelling at them. I was so upset that they didn't tell me.
"We found out the same way you did," they both told me.
"It's not like it was something dangerous," XX13 said, "And besides, she's my aunt, it would be disloyal."
I was irate. I left the room for a minute. Almost instantly I felt like I was being unreasonable. Did I really expect them to come running to me to tattle on SibXX16 for getting a tattoo? They are both very close to her. They all grew up together. I have always encouraged the loyalty and closeness XY17 and XX13 share. I know they know things about each other that Roser and I don't know about them, so wouldn't it make sense that they would extend this loyalty to their aunt, who is really more like a close cousin?
The reason I was upset was because I felt that if they could keep this, pretty big, thing they could keep other things from me. The other reason is because we have recently had a problem with XX13 keeping important information about one of her friends from me, so I saw this as part of a pattern. She tried to assure me this was not the case.
"If it was a friend, I would have told you. Haven't I been honest, even about the bad stuff lately?" I had to admit she had.
The clincher is, I did not, and have no intention of, telling my dad. I am not sure exactly why. There are many reasons, and maybe none of them on their own are a good enough reason not to tell him, but all together, they make me feel justified in not telling him.
Now I am asking you. Was I wrong to get upset? There is a poll on the upper right corner of my blog. Please tell me what you think.

"What do I need to do to gain Weight?"

I made the huge mistake of getting on the scale yesterday. It goes with out saying that I will not be sharing that ginormous number with you, but I will say that when I was pregnant with XY17 I put on sixty pounds and at the end of that pregnancy I weighed less than I do right now. In case you had any delusions about just how shallow I am, I feel like crying right now. Seriously, I am not saying that for comedic effect.

Apparently, this was not cruel enough on its own. As I walked up the stairs XY10 asked me what foods he can eat to gain weight. His nickname is Skinnybone Jones. He plays football and needs to put on quite a bit of weight in order to play at the level he wants to next year. Did I mention he doesn't have much of an appetite, and has to be reminded to eat? Did I mention that I have to be reminded not to eat?

Anyway, he asks me what foods will put weight on him. I could answer that question so fast, I practically talked gibberish. I was like Alvin and the Chipmunks.

"Peanut Butter, bread, whole milk, pasta, cheese, bananas, beans, ice cream, fried chicken, fried food, canned ravioli, cream soups, macaroni and cheese, chips, cheez-its...." It was easy, I just rattled of all the off all the foods that I either avoid, or feel guilty eating. I have for years had to buy food that would put weight on my kids, and not on me. I refrained from mentioning all the sugary food that would put weight on him, 'cause, I want to be a good mom. Besides, if I included the sweets that I avoid/feel guilty about, he would have been standing there for an hour. Sigh. I will work on getting him bulked up, and since I can't afford new clothes, so I will spend more time avoiding certain foods, and less time feeling guilty.

Fight Hangover

Yesterday was a complete waste of a day. Roser and I had a fight the night before, and even though we made up yesterday morning, I had a "fight hangover" all day. I didn't get anything productive done, although I did beat my best score on Test Twist. That will happen if you spend four or possibly more, hours playing a game. The down side of spending a day doing nothing is that I keep thinking of Bette Midler's character in the horrible remake of "Stepford Wives". If you were lucky enough to not see it, she plays a writer with horrible homemaking skills. Her house was a wreck, and her kids were independent, not because she raised them that way, but because they had to be to survive. Because of yesterday, I have been thinking about how cliches become cliches because they are true. The breakfast dishes from yesterday morning are still in the sink. I don't have to worry about dinner dishes, because last night was 'fend for yourself night'. It should go without saying that I didn't touch my niece's quilt. Proud me. Today I will clean enough to keep CPS from taking my kids, work on the quilt, possibly do a phone interview for work, and, blessedly, go to book club tonight.

We read "Like Water for Chocolate". I have read it at least twice, maybe three times before. I love the magical aspect of it, and of course the passionate, sensuous food descriptions. Very little of the discussion tonight will center on the book. We will talk about Thanksgiving, and our relatives, our kids and our husbands. We will get bawdy and personal. We will eat delicious food, and I will walk away feeling like I got an IV of some wonderful combination of Prozac and Ecstasy. Honestly, I don't know what I did before Book Club. It is such a consistent calm port in the hurricane that is my life. Even though I only see the Book Club girls once a month, I love them and I'm grateful for them. I have to go and try to cross as many things off my list as I can today. Wish me luck.

For my own curiosity, what is on your to-do list today? And...does anyone else get fight hangovers?

Busy Day, Peaceful Night

I am taking a break from sewing. I got too hungry to go on. I would have loved a turkey sandwich, but, well you know.... Anyway, XX5 was coughing soo much this morning, and I didn't want to leave her here to go to church, so we all stayed home. XX5 is doing a lot better now, and she has a friend over. XX13 has a friend over, my dad is here, and my 16 year old sister. You Know, just a typical peaceful Sunday afternoon at home with the family.

Last night, after working my poor fingers to the bone, I was looking forward to some TV time with Roser. I just had to wait until the game was over. By the time the game was over, Roser was asleep, at the late hour of 8:30. XY17 was at a bonfire at a friends house, and XX13 was at the mall, (her mothership). XY10 is sort of a loner, and likes to watch TV up in the bonus room. He had been outside playing and skateboarding for hours. I assumed that was what he would do, and I looked forward to a night with a cheesy or horror or foreign film. XY10 surprised me by not leaving the family room. I hinted a little, but he wasn't going anywhere. He knew I wanted to watch a movie so he offered to play a computer game with his back to the TV. I wound up watching re-runs of Twilight Zone and House so he could watch TV with me. He didn't exactly snuggle up to me, but he did share blankets with me. It was nice, because he has always been Such! a Daddy's Boy, that any affection he shows me, I am grateful for.It was not the night I looked forward to in any way, but it was a very nice evening.

The Wrong Kinds of Leftovers

Saturday, after Thanksgiving. We are finally getting back to what passes for normal here. I was right to be worried about the turkey. We have no, none, nada, zippo leftovers of turkey. I have enough rolls and cranberry to make lots and lots of the turkey sandwiches I love so much. Rolls, cranberry sauce, mayo, and no turkey. I was right about the turkey, but I was wrong about something else. Pies. I told everyone to bring a pie, and I bought two. Most families brought two or more desserts, including one very impressive looking toffee spice cake, and a huge tray of some amazing thing called 'Pumpkin Brownies'. There was no chocolate in them. It was a layer of spiced pumpkin custard over a layer of butter cake. Oh Man! So good. Well the end result of this was that even with some people bring some of their desserts home, we are loaded with leftover desserts. No turkey, and six pies. I love apple pie and coffee for breakfast more than anything, but this morning I looked at the beautiful bounty of pies and I said,

"I think I will have eggs and toast for breakfast." I pretty much never say that, but I had so much sugar yesterday, I couldn't even think about pie for breakfast.

Now that Thanksgiving is over, I will be doing the minimum amount of writing I have to do to keep my job, and all of my time and attention will be on the quilt I will be making for my niece for Christmas. I should have had it done a really long time ago. I will try to keep up on my blog, but I will be sewing, and not doing much else. Lot's of pizzas for my family for dinner.

What will be taking up your time over the next few weeks?

Thanksgiving Eve

It is 10:24 on the night before Thanksgiving. I have made the stuffing, (no chicken livers or sausage,) and I have the red sauce made for the stuffed shells. I got worried about the size of turkey Roser picked out, so I am making a tray of Ricotta stuffed shells to go with the Thanksgiving dinner. We will be having a total of twenty people including my nuclear family. This is the smallest Thanksgiving, I think, we have ever hosted. My sister-in-law will be bringing many dishes.

With me, in the kitchen, is the spirit of my Nana. She is always there for the big occasions. She was the most amazing bombshell of a grandma ever. She always wore false eyelashes, and low-cut blouses. She was the kindest, least cynical person I have ever known. In spite of a shockingly difficult childhood and marriage, she always saw the best in everyone. Many of the recipes I make are from her. Oh, did I mention? She was a phenomenal cook. I strive to be like her. The vacuum she left when she died, about eight years ago, can never be filled, but I am always motivated to try.

Tomorrow my home will be filled with family members and close family friends. There will be laughter, and dramatic shows of emotion. We are Italian after all. There will be stress and I will get pissy. That's my own personal tradition. I will be exhausted at the end of it, but more than anything else, I will be grateful.
Grateful that my extended family thinks enough of me to come to my house for Thanksgiving;
Grateful that my family and my husband’s family get along, not only get along, but love each other and enjoy spending time together.
I am grateful for the abundance in my life, abundance of love, abundance of food, abundance of stubborn, over-bearing, often controlling people, who love me and my family enough to give me their not often asked for opinions, their seldom asked for support, and their always needed belief in me.
I am also grateful, ultimately grateful to God, from whom all blessings flow. I am humbled at the path my life has taken. I deserve no more than anyone else, and yet my life is filled with comfort and love and support. I cannot express my thanks to my Father in Heaven, and I do not try often enough.

The Me and Mine Meme 100

I was checking out another "Mom" blog, and I found this information. This blogger is trying to find and promote other "mommy bloggers" Click on the title of this blog to be linked there.




1.) State the name of your blog, your real name or your online name, and link to your "about me" page:
I am Becaro
My Blog is 'Thrinving in Chaos' at http://owningchaos.blogspot.com/
My about me link is: http://www.blogger.com/profile/01191877004978673498

2.) Say you want to be profiled on BlogHer as a family blogger and link back to this Me and Mine 100 original post, http://www.blogher.org/mommy-and-family-bloggers-promote-yourselves-me-and-mine-meme-100. I do, profile me, Pleease!

3.) Tell how long you've been blogging. About 6 months.

4.) Pass this meme on to three other bloggers that you think should be profiled/interviewed, and ask them to do the meme. (Kindly link to the bloggers you select.)

Thanksgiving Advice

I have hosted many Thanksgiving dinners, in my over twenty years of being a grown-up. I enjoy Thanksgiving, and I enjoy wine. This has resulted in the occasional misstep, when it comes to cooking with wine on Thanksgiving. I would like you to avoid any missteps, and so, I present to you: My list of dos and don’ts when cooking Thanksgiving Dinner.

· The night before Thanksgiving, as you are doing the last minute preparation for the coming celebration, is not the time to open and sample all the wines you have chosen. After the second or third glass, it seems like a great idea. After the fifth or sixth glass, seeing if the turkey will fit in your son’s cabbage patch doll’s clothes also seems like a good idea. By the seventh glass, the reddish pink juice leaking out of your turkey will seem hilarious to you and your equally drunk co-horts. It’s not the turkey’s period, it’s disgusting and unsanitary.

· Mimosas are wonderful, a great excuse to drink wine with breakfast. If you are responsible for cooking Thanksgiving Dinner, you may want to stick to coffee on Thanksgiving morning. If your Step-mother makes egg-nog like mine does, slightly creamy rum, definitely stick to coffee. If you sampled the wine the night before, make it coffee and Motrin.


· Martha Stewart is an inspiration to us all, but I suspect she does not personally try every single recipe she puts in her magazine. When I was a new bride, and trying very hard to impress my in-laws, I took Martha’s advice and marinated my turkey in a brine that included a lot red wine. This sounds good, in theory. That is why I did it without doing a dry run. Frankly, turkeys are too big to do dry runs anyway. Well I should have. If I had, the very first turkey I ever cooked for my in-laws would not have been puce. So, don’t marinate your turkey in red wine, unless you think puce is an appetizing color. My in-laws didn’t. They hosted Thanksgiving the following year.

· I have a beautiful cousin who has always had a beautiful if somewhat busty figure. She is young, and dresses like she is going to a dance club all the time. She is sweet, and a little naïve, but very eye-catching. She recently got a boob job. I did not warn my brother-in-law. He saw her at a summer family event and choked on an olive. Roser had to do the Heimlich, and he ruined the artichoke dip with the expelled olive. I’ll be warning the rest of the family before Thanksgiving.


· The five inch high stilettos that perfectly match your outfit are going to make you grumpy if you are cooking dinner. Drinking more wine will not make you less grumpy. Oddly enough, more wine will make you more grumpy. Just take off the shoes.

· Let people drink the wine they want to drink. Let brother drink White Zinfandel and call it Rosé. Let your dad bring a case of Two-Buck Chuck. Smile and accept it graciously. And whatever you do, do not march over and snatch a glass of French Chardonnay out of your mother-in-laws hand when she attempts to add ice. She won’t understand. She won’t think it’s cute. Believe me.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Line Dancing?

I am very close to my 39th birthday. It is November 19th, which is tomorrow. I am not one of those, "Oh, I'd rather just skip my birthday this year," or "I don't like the attention". I love the attention, and I would hate it if people skipped my birthday. The annoyance of getting older (fatter, wrinklier, worse taste in music) is offset by having a day or three entirely about me.

Last night we went out with long-time friends, two couples, to dinner and drinks. The couples we went out with have been friends for many many years. One couple lives out on the coast, the other lives here in the same town I do. One of the women, on of my closest friends, has a birthday four days earlier than mine, and the six of us celebrate together every year. I look forward to it every year. We always have fun.

We live in a small, not very cosmopolitan town, so our restaurant choices are a little limited. We went to a local steak house that Roser and I have been to, but none of our friends have. Seeing it through my friend's eyes, this steakhouse that I had thought was just fine before looked small and a little cheesy. Their dinners were fine, I picked a not great bottle of wine, and I had horrible lamb. Roser picked Halibut. In a steakhouse. Halibut. Guess how that was. Right. Horrible. The six of us usually go to a wine bar that I used to work at, but we wanted to try something different. Someone mentioned a cowboy bar, down the street from where we were eating dinner. Dancing sounded great to me. I could tell Roser wasn't that excited about it, but he went along with what everyone wanted.

I had never been in a cowboy bar before last night. I knew that there was a mechanical bull, and whenever I drove home past it, on my way from the wine bar, there were always about a million marines waiting in line to enter. I figured the crowd would be a little young, but that wouldn't be a problem, there would be dancing, and to country music. I couldn't wait to get out there and shake it, feel the freedom that only came from being out in the middle of a pulsating dance floor, dancing with, but not really with, hundreds of other people. I love being in a crowd of people moving and swaying, just getting lost in my own world.

We paid the eight dollar cover charge, and walked in. The first sign of trouble was, I couldn't see the dance floor. There was a huge mechanical bull, right at the entrance, and a long bar, but no dance floor. I asked Roser to get me a Diet Coke, (I would need energy for all that dancing) and went to find the dance floor. It was allllll the way in the back. That was not the surprising though. What was surprising was the way people were dancing. There was a group of people doing some sort of choreographed dance in the middle of the dance floor. The outer edge of the dance floor was separated from the middle by a metal rail, placed about hip or waist high with breaks so you could get to the middle. Around the outer edge, couples were going around, in a sort of rhythmic, gliding, with twirls and turns, but never breaking the rhythm of the circle as a whole. I was mesmerized. I had not seen anything like it since the days of the roller-rink. I was suddenly dying to make out with a seventh-grade boy. I watched until the end of the song, figuring it was like the Macerena, and the real dancing would begin with the next song. Nope, more choreographed dancing. I went back to Roser.

"Why didn't you warn me?" I hissed at him.

"You wouldn't have believed me, and you would have said it was your birthday, and you want to dance."

He was right.

I did not care about the eight dollars we paid to get in, I wanted to get out. I tried to find out how the other two girls felt about where we were. They not only didn't mind very much, they didn't understand my surprise at what was found there.

"It's a Cowboy Bar," they said with exaggerated patience, "You know, a Country Bar. This is what people do in a Country Bar." How in the hell! was I supposed to know that? I've never seen Urban Cowboy.

"You've seen line dancing, haven't you?"

"I saw Coyote Ugly, they danced in a line on the bar."

When I couldn't get any one else to budge, I finally conceded to having a Jolly Rancher Watermelon Shooter. That was really what it was called. And really what it tasted like. And it really did not help make the cowboy bar experience more fun. What it did was make me laugh louder at the sight of these very straight looking men sashaying around the dance floor. There were all types, of men them straight looking, all of them performing these strangely graceful synchronized dances. I am used to seeing women give it their all when dancing, but my own sweet Roser exemplifies what I expect to see when men dance. The white man's overbite, feet cemented to their spot on the dance floor, not moving for any reason, and shoulders, arms and hips moving with no sense that they are all moving to the same song, or for that matter, even belonging to the same person. This is the type of male dancing I have become comfortable with. I suppose if I had not been so peevish about wanting to dance myself, I may have admired what I was seeing.

I heard the beat change, and a hip-hop song came on. I immediately stood up and started heading for the dance floor. By the time I got there, I realized it was another choreographed dance song, "The Cupid Shuffle"I was so disappointed I almost cried.

I kept thinking about people who are stuck out in a life boat in the middle of the ocean. They are parched, and surrounded by water that they cannot drink. I was surrounded by dancing that I could not, and would not, participate in.

In the midst of all this, I was texting my brother who was going to meet us at the wine bar we usually go to. I was letting him know where we were and he was not responding. I couldn't figure out why. I was being a big whiny baby, but we were also celebrating another birthday, so I couldn't stamp my feet and play the"It's my birthday, get me the fuck out of here" card. I just pouted long enough to make everyone else miserable enough to finally want to leave. By this time my brother was calling me. It turns out he doesn't have text-messaging!?! and they had no idea where we were. They had been waiting for us at the wine bar for over an hour.

We lost the couple who had to drive back to the coast. The remaining couple went with us to the wine bar. By the time we got there, it was closing. My old boss allowed us to buy a bottle, which the four of us drank in record time, as my old boss and her helper were obviously eager to close up and go home. I gulped down the last couple of swallows in my glass, and suddenly the wine got into a fight with the watermelon shooter, and I was green. My brother and sister-in -law seemed irritated, the other couple seemed irritated, and I was seasick. And so the celebration was ending.

Roser and I headed home. As we turned around the corner toward our house, through our glass front door I could see the outline of our larger dog waiting to greet us. We walked in to our house, where both of my boys were awake. Thank goodness there was a pizza box on the stove. Roser and I each grabbed a piece. We flopped down on the couch and turned on MadTV. Thanks to the damn writer's strike, the already re-run plagued SNL is permanent re-runs. XY10 grabbed a blanket out of the closet for the two of us to share, and I slipped of my heels. I ate my pizza with XY10's head on my shoulder, and we roared with laughter at the comic that was performing. It was a pretty good way to end the evening.

Emancipation Proclamation

Last Night, (Monday) is one of the less busy nights of the week. Between XX10's football and XX13's horseback riding and my school schedule, and the job that XY17 will be getting any day now, we have few opportunities for decent family dinners at normal dinner time. We can have canned soup and biscuits at either 4:30 or 8:15. Last night we had an actual cooked from scratch dinner at 6:00! (Chicken and dumplings if you're curious) About halfway through the dinner XY17 calmly announced that a kid that we have known for fourteen years is becoming an emancipated minor.

We have known, and in the past been very close to this family. I was so shocked I could barely finish eating. I have a rule to under-react when my kids tell me things that are happening with their friends. The reasoning is that if I don't over-react (my natural reaction) my kids will feel safe telling me things. Well this bit of news challenged that rule. The kid getting emancipated is 17, only a couple of months older than XY17. I knew that he was not getting along with his mom. Ironically, his mom, a dear friend of mine, and I, had a severe falling-out over an incident in which I told her I thought he was disrespectful and had terrible manners. I was judgemental and pissy about the falling out until last night when XY17 gave me the news.
I went outside and had a cig, (my normal reaction to any news) and thought about it. Like I said, I know this family well. I spent most of my friendship with this woman being fiercely jealous of her... wait for it... parenting skills. She is the type of mom who decorates her kids rooms so they look like advertisements for pottery barn. She gets up and makes them breakfast, as opposed to my normal morning routine, of coffee, paper, and "Don't forget to rinse your cereal bowl." She bakes, and has the whole family's schedule, including chores posted in her adorable vintage kitchen. Her boys got haircuts at regular intervals, something mine never got. I think XX10 is growing his hair out because it is easier than trying tho get me to take him to the barber. He has just decided to just own it. Lets call my friend Polly, I always compared myself very unfavorably to Polly. I always thought if I were more like her I would be a better mother. I really have self-recrimination down to an art. I suck at organization like you would not believe! I am about as consistent as, I don't even know, think of the least consistent thing that exists. It is more consistent than me. I have tried to be and do the things that I think a good mother should be and do, but I fall short more often than not. Her creativity and organizational skills blow mine out of the water. XY17 loved being at her house. It was always clean and smelled good. XY17 may walk into his own house at the end of a school day and have it clean and beautiful, in which case he will immediately ask who is coming over. He make walk in to the smell of something baking or cooking, there may be sewing supplies everywhere, or the house may be exactly as it was when he left that morning, with the blinds closed and the breakfast dishes in the sink because I decided to read all day. XY17 likes consistency. He chose badly when he chose me for a mother.
Here we are though. Polly and her husband are done with their son, and he is done with them. I am horrified, almost to the point of tears. I truly don't understand. My kids have been accusing me of not understanding for years. Well, this time they are right. I don't understand. I have always felt that my kids got the fuzzy side of the lollipop when it came to mothers. I know what my strengths are, but oh Lawdy, Lawdy, I know my weaknesses. Now, I find out, maybe I am not so bad. after all, I am still talking to my kids. Loudly sometimes, but talking. We forgive each other, and try to protect our relationships no matter what. I realize that something in my two older kids personality makes them easier to raise. They are both what would be classified "good kids" but I also know that Roser and I had a hand in it. As inconsistent as I am about housekeeping, I am adamant about what kind of home we have. I have never allowed name calling, there is no hitting, but even further than that, I have tried to create a home where the members feel safe. I always wanted a home where, upon entering, the members could breathe a sigh of relief, and set down what they have been carrying. I have been at least somewhat successful. Not perfect, but, my kids are not dying for excuse to leave the house. We try most nights to watch a TV show together. Yeah, I know, it's not family game night, but it's Our thing. I act happy to see my kids, whenever I see them, after school, in the morning when we wake up, whenever we have been apart from each other. I sign my text messages with 'love you' or xoxoxox. I guess these things have made up for the spotty housekeeping, or the extent of a chore chart being me yelling, "I can't do everything, I need some help here!" Just to be safe though, I got up and fixed the kids breakfast this morning.

Fall Morning Confessions

I am most aware of how bad a mom I am during school programs and children's sporting events. I hate them. My kids used to go to a small private school, and they had two programs a year, a holiday program and a spring program. The programs ran about two and a half hours. I am pretty sure if for some reason, my theology is wrong and I go to hell when I die, it will be an eternal school program, complete with uncomfortable metal folding chairs, and a squirmy baby that I am responsible for.

I have wonderful kids. Witty, interesting creative kids. I do not have kids that get the solos in the school programs. This does not affect my view of my children at all, but it does make the school programs unbearable. If I am lucky, my kid might be the one to mutter some unintelligible thing about when, or where or why Thomas Jefferson was born, or married, or died, or something. I am sitting through these things for no pay off whatsoever! All around me are proud fathers with video cameras, and mothers with shining eyes beaming up at the stage, hand clasped over chest as their offspring begins to mutter. I am looking at the program they handed out at the door, desperately trying to figure out where exactly we are, and how much more time is left until I can burst out of those heavy gymnasium doors and breathe in sweet freedom.

Second to school programs for parenting induced misery are sports. XY10 is a passionate, apparently talented football player. In spite of careful, nay, maniacal planning on my part, I have not been able occupy every single Saturday from September to ummm....like...January I think, so I have to go to Pop Warner football games every now and again. Today was one of those days.

The game was about fifteen miles north of where we live.

It is not a nicer area.

I was very concerned about the weather. November tends to be warm in Southern California, especially when you are sitting in barren high school football bleachers at 10:00am. I was concerned about the heat because I was wearing one of XY17's old jerseys from when he played football. Spectacularly flattering, especially the tight band around my upper arm, squeezing the fat all around. Mmmm, nice. I needn't have worried, the weather was beautiful. The sun wasn't too strong and there was a breeze. There was a down side to the breeze. The unidentifiable, unpleasant smell it brought. I complained to my husband, Roser. As you all know by now, I am not the type to suffer in silence.

"It smells a lot worse about 1o miles north of here, where the cattle farms are."

"Yeah, but at least up there you know what you're smelling. That's a huge improvement over not knowing what you're smelling." By now he was ignoring me, looking down at the field, so I was left to ponder on my own, how nice it was to have a cool breeze, and how disconcerting it was to have no idea what I am sucking into my lungs via my nose.

Sitting with me, enjoying the experience nearly as much as I am is XX5. She sat still for....let me see....zero minutes. I for some reason let her bring two small teddy bears. It was a terrible idea, because she wanted me to play with her, because, like I said, there were two. When I finally convinced her that, no, I wouldn't play with her, she wanted to bounce them up and down all over the bleachers. I was getting dizzy thinking about all the germs and what people brought on their shoes and deposited right where she was playing. She wasn't excited about waving her teddy bears around in the air. So she didn't.

XX5 has a little bit of a bug phobia. By little bit, what I mean is, when she sees butterflies, XX5 says, "Ewwww...."

Today, at the football game she had that exact reaction to a butterfly going by. We started talking about different bugs and which ones are harmless. She asked me about dragonflies. She just happened to be wearing a t-shirt with dragonflies on it, so I said,

"There are two on you right now." I didn't even get a chance to point to her shirt. Her eye got huge and she started screaming, jumping and frantically brushing herself off. She spent very little time on the ear-splitting scream, and then went to wailing as though she had seen the specter of her own death.

"That wasn't very funny," XX13 said, dragging her eyes away from the field for a moment to look at me with contempt. She made no attempt to help me breath, as XX5 was now wrapped completely around me sobbing into my neck.

"I wasn't trying to be funny," I protested weakly, "Just a little clever." It didn't matter, I was being ignored again.

After I disentangled myself from XX5, I began wishing I had brought the November issue of "Food and Wine" with me. I know it's rude to read in the stands, but football game are just a little longer than I find bearable. I was honestly trying to follow the game, but football is not a very straight-forward sport. Plus, I don't care. All I know is if my son's team wins, he will be happy and chatty in the car on on the way home, if they lose he will be sullen and quiet. So I hope they win. I haven't had much coffee, and I don't trust the snack bar coffee, so maybe losing wouldn't be so bad. No, No! I don't mean it. I hope they win.

XX5 says,

"I don't like this, this is no fun at all." Then, in case I didn't get it, she repeats it.

"Mommy! This is no fun for me!"

Really? Cause it's a hoot for me.

As we were leaving, I asked XX13,

"Did you have fun? Do you understand football?"

"Yeah, it was fun. I pretty much understand football."

Traitor.

Post Halloween Blues

And so, here we are, the day after Halloween. I am exhausted. This only has a little to do with Halloween. I am usually the queen of Halloween. I make homemade costumes for my kids and do elaborate face painting. I once dressed XX13 as a little clown in a bathtub. We have had mummies, Martians, pirates, and one very fancy fairy princess. I have tried twice to have Halloween parties, but both were failures. My stinkin' friends (No offense if you are one of them) don't get into Halloween like I do. The truth is, Roser doesn't get into it like I do. That is why the second party was a failure. Roser felt a little out of his element dressed as a natty pirate. This was years before Johnny Depp made pirates the go-to sexual fantasy for Gen X women.

Anyway....I spent most of the month of October being horrified and pissed off that the Halloween costume industry has been taken over by "Toddler Fetishes R Us". A French Maid costume? Really? For little girls? Ummmmm......Okay, that's not creepy at all. Above are just a few of the lovely examples I found. The pirate girl is really great, although, I think when Amy Winehouse saw her she said,

"It's pretty, but dontcha think you went a little heavy on the eye makeup?" Well, at least they classed the outfit by adding PVC knee-hi boots and a sassy choker. How about that devil? I bet her daddy is sooo...proud! I also bet he wonders why his drinkin' buddies want to drink at his house now instead of the bar down the street. My favorite though is the baby bat. I mean, it takes commitment to your way of life to resist the urge to dress your seven year old like a pedophile's dream. Kudos to you for not taking the easy way, and listening when your daughter tells you she wants to be a princess, or a witch, or a fairy. Forget about weather appropriate while you are throwing age appropriate out the window. It's not Halloween unless your second-grader is in fishnets and boots. These girls are lucky, really! I didn't understand the power of fishnets and boots 'til I met the strippers that worked near the marine base.

XX13 and I went to Party City and she grabbed a costume, and said,

"How a bout a 'Punkish Witch?" i thought that was okay, so I looked at the costume. It was actually a costume for a witch who isn't making quite enough money through potions, and needs to sell a little 'sumpin sumpin' on the side, including, fishnets, a choker, a corset, and a slutty asymmetrical skirt.

As much as I want my daughter to be ambitious, I prefer her career aspirations to not include carrying KY Jelly in her purse.

I know everyone noticed the slutty costumes for little girls, even Tom friggin' Leykis, the world's foremost misogynist, or woman's advocate, I'm not sure which. I've read several essays on it, but I'm still pissed. When I discussed it with my friend, she said,

"They market what sells. At some point someone realized after Halloween, the sexy costumes were sold, the scary or cute or ugly costumes weren't. And you have to remember, it's the parents who buy them, not the kids." I paused to see if I could remember why enforced sterilization was bad.

My second battle was with my XY10. He wanted to be something bloody and menacing, preferably with body parts falling off. Well, XX5 is an easily spooked child. So is XY10, but I guess having a scary mask would empower him. He had to settle for a light-up hockey mask a-la Jason of Friday the 13th. Some Halloweens are better than others. This was not one of the great ones. Thank goodness we get candy. That's right, We! Long live mini-Snickers bar.

The real problem with Jessica Seinfeld's cookbook

So, I am in Barnes and Noble, or as my family refers to it, My real home, and I spy a cute-as-a button cook book. I love cook books, and by several new ones a year. I am not capable of passing by one that looks even slightly interesting. This one was definitely interesting. It had kind of a retro 50's look to it, with an old fashioned looking drawing of young woman, hair up in a perky pony-tail, winking at the viewer as she held some sort of platter or plate. I picked it up and browsed quickly through it. I realized very quickly it was one of those gimmick cook books to get kids to eat disguised vegetables. So not for me. I don't have time to make box brownies right now, there is no way in hell I am gonna whip up a batch from scratch just so I can throw some spinach in them. I put the book back and continued my shopping without much more thought about it.

After B&N I went to Costco. Why, yes, I did go through the book department. Sure enough, there was Miss Saucy Pony Tail and her tray of I'm guessing slightly slimy brownies.

"That's odd," I thought. B&N and Costco almost never push the same cook-books. Still, didn't think much of it. When I saw the book at my grocery store, my brow crinkled a little. Being an aspiring author myself, I really admired her marketing department.

When I came home from the gallivanting, I put away all my stuff and watched Oprah, or as I like to call her, "The black Dina Lohan". Guess who was Oprah's featured guest? Jessica Seinfeld. Why Jessica Seinfeld? Well, it turns out, Jessica Seinfeld wrote the cute cook-book.

Hmmm....who knew? I settled in to watch it, and found my self agreeing with some of what she said about kids resistance to eating vegetables. A lot of what she said makes sense. And she is just as cute as her cook book. I can totally see why Jerry Seinfeld left that fourteen year old he was dating to take Jessica away from the guy she was married to while she was on her honeymoon. Any way, the whole thing was kind of cute. I was a little dubious about this Jewish American Princess being down in the trenches every night feeding her kids. I started to buy it though when she relayed her peaceful Sunday nights, catching up with Jerry while she steamed her veggies and turned them into puree. I could picture the scene of urban domesticity. I pictured a mostly white well lit kitchen, with Jerry on the other side of an expansive counter, as they talked about the triumphs and challenges of their prospective weeks.

"See," I told myself, "The rich are just like us, except for the wife stealing and borderline pedophilia." I was happy about this in a weird sort of way. Something about the triumph of maternal will over materialistic trappings. I was happy to think of her taking responsibility of her children's meals, not just picking them, but the actual act of cooking it. I was surprised because most mothers I know would hire a chef to at least help out with the cooking, if not take it over completely, if they could afford it. This includes me, and I love to cook.

I was buying it, like I said, until a couple of days later, when Oprah showed the audience Jessica Seinfeld's 'Thank You'. Twenty-one pairs of shoes. Twenty-one pairs of very expensive, high end shoes. That just blew the whole facade wide open. No woman who can afford a Forty-two shoe thank you is going to risk her three hundred dollar blow-out steaming vegetables for her kids, when she can afford to buy someone to do it for her. No, I didn't mean pay someone. So what's the point? Jerry Seinfeld got paid, um....682 trillion dollars for the syndication of 'Seinfeld', and he still does stand-up most weekends. He had that gig with American Express, and now he is in a kid's movie. I mean, I'm pretty sure she's not thinking about going back to work to ease up a little of the financial pressure on him. I am also pretty sure she doesn't even know where her kitchen is. There is nothing that rings true about Jessica Seinfeld sneaking veggies into her kids food. Maybe they are a close knit family, maybe they even eat together, but I can not imagine that they are eating food prepared by the sweat of Jessica's pretty unlined brow. I applaud her self-promotion, and at least it is something useful, and potentially good, rather than potentially harmful, (Please note, Britney Spears' mother is writing a parenting book.) I just wonder why. I have to admit, I wish I did believe it, but I don't. Apparently she has a great cook, and a caring one. One who cares enough to sneak vegetables into her kids food.

Breathing Underwater

I saw "The Abyss" many years ago. I didn't particularly like the movie, but there was a scene in there that I have thought of many times. The scientists in the movie made a way for the explorers in the movie to breathe water. The person had to get over there natural resistance to taking water into her lungs in order to be able to breathe. At the time, when I was about 18 years old, I thought of how hard it would be to fight that urge. Everything in you would fight taking the water in, but for these people, it was the right thing to do. Much of parenting has been like that for me. From the time my kids were little, throwing fits in the grocery store because they wanted gum or candy, I have had to fight what was natural to do what was right. My natural response to my kid crying is to...Stop the crying! If my child is unhappy, every cell in me wants to make them happy. Of course, this is a bad idea. It is a terrible parenting strategy to never allow your child to be disappointed. But it is not natural. I have to fight some pretty strong urges to tell my child no.

I thought it would be easier when my kids got older, but it's not. It is much harder. Now I am not only dealing with my child's disappointment, but I like my older kids, and I want my kids to like me. When I disappoint them by telling them no, I run the risk of losing their admiration and affection. They are also able now to tell me with their completely backwards logic how my decisions show my lack of trust in them. This is the ultimate betrayal to my teenagers. How dare I not trust them. I always say I trust them, but How do I explain to them,

"I don't trust the environment we live in. I don't trust that your friends parents love their kids as much as I love you. I don't trust your youth and inexperience. I don't trust your ability to make a good decision every single time. I don't trust the risk taking genes that I passed on to you. For my XX13, I don't trust your ability to blend in. You are too beautiful, and you attract too much attention. XY17, I don't trust how easy-going you are, and how much you don't want to disappoint anyone."

Yesterday, XX13 asked to go to a Halloween party at a friends house that I don't like, with a group of friends I don't like. I gave a soft no. You know, "Aw, Honey, I'm not sure, we'll have to see. We can talk about it tomorrow." I hate that. I want her to go, I want her to be happy. But I want her to be good. I don't think these kids are good. Ultimately, I guess it is true. I don't trust her. I don't believe she can be who she needs to be with these kids.

Same day. XY17 has been out with his friends. I expected him home around 12 o'clock, but at around 11:45 He calls, asking if he can spend the night at a friends house whom I barely know, and whose parents I have never met. If I say yes, I will get, "I love you Mom, good night." If I say no, I will get a curt accusation of lack of trust. He will get off the phone, possibly with out even saying good-bye. Just as it is unnatural for me to express my love for my children by disappointing them, it is unnatural for my children to accept it as love. I know what is right, but what is right is not, in this, or any other area of my life, what is easy. I have to believe that somewhere deep down, my kids know that this is love. I hope, and I really mean, hope! that my XY17 is secretly grateful that I delivered him from possible temptation. I think that kind of thinking is less likely for XX13. The scariest thing about my girl is, I don't think she wants a way out of temptation. I think she wants to stand right on the edge of it, like a campfire, feeling the warmth of it on her face, feeling a thrill when a flame flickers close enough for her to feel uncomfortable heat. That scares the Hell out of me! And because of that, I will continue to try to breathe underwater. I will continue to risk anything to be a good mom and keep my kids safe.

Ummm.... That last post ended abruptly. I finished it, but I don't know where the ending went. So any way.....Go back to it, I added on.

OK, so here is another thing. If you are sick of hearing about my mother/mothering issues, read another blog. I am working through some things.

My mother-in-law, who is about a 7.5 on a scale of 1 to 10 wanted to take XX5 today. We didn't know when MIL brought it up that the kids would be home from school today because of the fires. I agreed, assuming XX5 would be thrilled to spend the day with her grandparents. Even when I found out the kids would be home, I still figured she would be happy. The X's and Y's and I would just be cleaning, and I get a little testy when I clean, so I figured she would be happy to be out of the line of fire. In the words of the Grinch as portrayed by Jim Carrey,

"WRONGO!"

She was at first calmly resistant.

"Aren't they coming over to spend the night tomorrow?"

"Yes, Baby, they are."

"Good, I'll just save up all my happiness for seeing them then."

She didn't even look up from her book. I explained that we would not be having any fun at all. I was sure this was true, because, like I said, cleaning.

"I don't care. I want to stay here."

As I kept trying to talk her into it, she began to realize it was less than optional. Then, she began to get upset. Really upset. She started crying like she was going off with strangers. My MIL's phone wasn't working, so I couldn't even call her. She was on her way to pick XX5 up. In desperation, I turned to Xy17, who is XX5's super-hero.

"You have to talk to her," I told him, sure he could make her excited to go. He did. She would do anything for him. I should have known it would be a short lived victory when, while looking through some old pictures she came across a picture of a dog that we owned before XX5 was born, she started crying and saying she missed him. Actually, I did know, but I was hopeful. She was wiping her tears when the Grandparents walked in. She seemed cheerful, and was fine when I put the car seat in their car and strapped her in. I walked inside and started barking orders at the other X's and Y's. Thirty seconds later, MIL came in and asked,
"Can you please unstrap XX5, she doesn't want to go.
Apparently, as soon as I left her sight, she began crying. My MIL does not take rejection well, so I was expecting Hell to pay.
I was pretty irritated, but I didn't want to make XX5 feel bad. As promised, we did nothing but clean and yell at each other. As the day dragged on, I looked at XX5 and thought,
"I bet she's sorry she stayed home," but as soon as I thought it, I knew it wasn't true. She would rather be here with me on a boring day, than with anyone else on any other kind of day. This is just one of the many things I don't understand. I know it is normal, but it is not normal to me. I would have happily marched off to a play date with Joan Crawford and Michael Meyers, machete in his hand, to get out of the house I was raised in. I remember, one time, Evil step-mother commenting how I always wanted to spend the night away. Well of course I did! Between the Always Drunk Father Figure, and the Always Screaming and Cussing Mother-Figure, I would rather have been anywhere else.
And so, when my baby wants to be with me, I think I have done something wonderful, to raise a daughter that wants to be with me, but deep down, I know that is not true. Deep down, I know that my extraordinary is everyone else's ordinary.

I have a headache today.

I hate cleaning. I love writing. I love reading. I hate paying bills. I hate being the grown-up. I hate being responsible for the house being clean and dinner being on the table. I hate when my 17XX acts like a sarcastic buttmunch, I have to say,

"I understand and am happy that you are individuating, but you must treat the members of your family with respect." I want to say,

"Pull your head out of your ass, you spoiled little shit!"

When my 13XX wants her friend to come over because it 'so important' to her friend that I like her, I want to say

"If she didn't have such a trashy mouth on her MYSpace page, maybe there would be a chance in Hell that I would like her." but instead I say,

"Sure, she can come over, I'll find out what is important to her, and she'll see what's important to me, and we will get along fine."

The truth is 13XX deserves better. But I can't tell her that. She will take the trashy mouth's side.

When my kids are bitching at each other, I want to join in and scream the loudest. Sometimes I do.

I hate how often I want a glass of wine around 11 o'clock in the morning.

I hate that 10XY is a puzzle I can never figure out because the rules change daily. Sometimes I am not supposed to come within 18 inches of him. Other times I offend him because he sat next to me on the couch and I don't pull him over to me. I love him so much, but I don't think I love him well.

And now, I must leave beloved writing for hated cleaning. If I won the lottery, the first thing I would do is hire the most anal-retentive live in maid in the whole world.

Books

I am a reader and a writer. These things are as much a part of who I am as my heart, and kidneys. My earliest and best memories are of book. A set of Disney books, four large volumes, divided by category; Fantasy, Nature, American History, and Tales from Other Lands. Hundreds of stories were safely kept in those volumes. There were also 'Little Golden Books'. The pictures of Eloise Wilkins made me imagine a better life, a life wear daddies wore sweaters, and mothers were kind. Children were apple cheeked and dogs didn't bite when you pestered them too much. I graduated to Phyllis Whitney's books, written especially for young people. I was proud, because they didn't have pictures. They took place in Scotland, or on a boat, or in the desert. I read constantly. My aunt would laugh and say that I was the only kid she'd ever heard of that would bring a book to read while she watched Saturday morning cartoons, and I did. When I say books changed my life, I mean it. They exposed me to a world I didn't know existed. You can't desire what you don't know. The stories gave me something to desire.

It is the same today. My definition of 'story' has expanded to include good movies. When I read a good book, I'm gone, I'm in another world. I don't read nearly as much as I want to, but I still read at least two or three books a month. That is quite a bit less than the two or three a week that I would like to read, and will when I am an eccentric old lady.

Tonight, when I got home from class, Roser told me I had the night off. He would put the XX5 to bed and take care of homework. I came upstairs and ran a bath and grabbed the newly purchased "Paint it Black" by Janet Fitch, the author of "White Oleander". She is unbelievable. She is the type of author that makes you curse sleeping, and children who need to eat at regular intervals. Her books are dark and bitter and satisfying, like the burnt piece of fat on a grilled steak. She makes me want to write, just to have something in common with her. I want to stay in her sad bleak world. I want to create a world for someone else, and have them want to stay there, to give that gift that I have been given so many times.

Nobody told me....

So, tomorrow, XY16 becomes XY17. It should be a time of dewy-eyed reflection, of the mourning of the passing of time that has turned the soft contours of my babies face into an unfamiliar landscape. How I want to be sentimental and romantic, but instead I feel like a big fucking failure. Having two teenagers in the house and going through peri-menopause can do that to a mom.

XY16/17 was born 3 weeks early. I was painting the room we would briefly share. I didn't finish it.I haven't finished anything since. I tried, after I got home from the hospital, but he kept needing to be fed, or held, or changed, or something. Sigh. I was single when he was born. I was really super single, starting what would be a three year falling out with my family. I had one friend, who was there at his birth, but was no help at all when it came to what exactly I was supposed to do once he came out. I was 21 years old when he was born, and I wasn't really a mature 21. I was idealistic about what kind of mother I could be, and what kind of a person he would be. Luckily I was always a big reader, so I read parenting books like crazy. I had a well formed idea of what my parenting style would be. All of these things helped, but it has been a rough road. He and I grew up together, along with my husband, who fell in love with both of us when XY16/17 was XY7months. We were all just kids together, not even like a real family, but more like three buddies who really liked each other. It wasn't until XX13 came along that we even started feeling like a family. I am extra protective of XY17, because he is my first, and because he is far too much like me. I passed on to this one a messy gene that even corrupted my formerly anal retentive husband and caused a three month rift between myself and the aforementioned best friend. I also passed on ADD, with no hyper-activity, which causes him to be sedentary and dreamy. The ADD also allows him to hyper-focus, but unlike me, he focuses on computer games, not reading. I have also passed onto him enough intellect that he always feels a little like Charlie from 'Flowers for Algernon', smart enough to know what his shortcomings are, and not smart enough to know how to work around them. Not smart enough to not become frustrated. He has what is to this day, the strongest sense of self-preservation of anyone I have ever met. He is completely missing the risk-taking gene. Thank God. Seriously, Thank You, God! He is a good boy, and I trust him. He loves his family. I forget that sometimes. He is easily irritated lately. I am scared that I have not done what I need to to equip him to be who he needs to be. I am so scared that I have screwed up. I have never wanted do-overs so bad in my whole life. I didn't have any appreciation for what it meant to raise a human being. No one should have ever trusted me with this job.

If love was enough, I would be the best mother in the world. If love was enough.... It's really not fair, that love is not enough. It's not fair that being a good mother takes consistency, and perseverance, and self-sacrifice. It's not fair that you can love your kid so much you would gladly cut your arm off for them, but not realize what they need is more of your time and attention. It is not fair that I, who crave time by myself like other people crave water, would get a kid who needs my company more than anything else to feel loved. It's not fair that I didn't figure it out until he was almost ten years old. It's not fair that I don't get do-overs.

So here I am on the eve of my oldest child's birthday. Tomorrow I will be all smiles. I will joke and make his current favorite meal. (Spaghetti Carbonara, no vegetable, Cherry Cake with Chocolate frosting, in case you were wondering) I will talk about the night he was born, and how he was the coolest baby ever. I will talk to him about what kind of a little person he was. I will remind him how he never tried anything until he was sure he could do it well. It will be a silly celebratory day, with family, and food. But I will be remembering how I got the most impossible job in the world, I will be asking God what he was thinking, entrusting me with this one, this baby. He really was the coolest baby in the world. He was the coolest kid, and he is showing signs of being an incredible man. He deserved the best mother in the world, but he got me. Not only me, but me with no experience, no patience, and for a good portion of his life, no Prozac. I hope that he is able to understand that I have always wanted to be the best mother to him I could be, and I hope he is able to forgive my shortcomings.

Motherless Mother

"Mommy, will you be with me the whole day tomorrow?'

My 4XX asks as I put on her barely pink cotton jammies, that have been washed to otherworldly softness. Her question is a common one, asked by 4 year olds everywhere. But this innocent question settles in my chest. Her love for me is a book that I am not quite smart enough to figure out. She is going through a stage that all my children have gone through to one degree or another. She wants me around all the time, but with her it's different. With her, everything is different. She is an intense, bright child. XX13 was never me, she was herself. She is the me I aspire to be. She asks for what she wants. She believes she is great, and accepts that the world will love her. She is always right, on both counts. She is perfectly proportioned, physically, never dealing with my narrow sloping shoulders, or too short upper body. I wear V-necks to make my neck look longer. If her neck looked any longer she would resemble those women who wear the brass rings around their necks. My role with her has always been clear, though never typical. She is a natural born caretaker. I walk unsteadily in my relationship with her. I used to wonder if I would have been like her if I had not lost my mother at such an early age. When XX4 came along I got my answer to that question. I could never have been XX13. She is my husband's, my sister-in-law's, my mother-in-law's, never mine. She loves me, but it is a patient, tolerant love. She thinks I am funny, and an acceptable fashion consultant if no one else is around, but she is her own, and her father's.

XX4 is Mine. All mine! Her wavy hair, her short neck, her dimples and deep-set eyes. She can't be still unless she is drawing or reading. Her temper often gets the best of her. She talks non-stop, and always wants to know the 'fancy' word for everything. 'Parched', not 'Thirsty'. 'Starving' not 'Hungry'. 'Exhausted' not 'Tired'. Oh yeah, she's all mine. She loves me with an intensity that makes me a little edgy. I have no experience with this type of mother/daughter love. Often, like tonight, it feels like a cool breeze blowing across an open wound I forgot I had. Why? I always want to ask. I do not have a point of reference for unconditional mother love. I need to be reassured all the time. I need her to have a mother, and be who I could not be. She is who I could have been. But she is also who I can never be. I will continue to be the mother I am called to be, but I will always feel the absence of the mother who wasn't there.

Back to School

And so...It is my 13th year of first days of school. XY16 is starting his senior year of high school, and XX4 is starting her first year of pre-school. Yeah, planning ahead was never my strong point. So I take XY10 to his first day, because I didn't find out ahead of time who his teacher was. I have had a child in elementary school for thirteen years. At first I was one of the younger mothers, unsure of myself, and insecure in my role, as a 25 year old mother of a kindergartner. I thought there was some value to what people thought of me. I tried to fit in with the other mothers, and was mortified that I couldn't be one of the classroom helpers because I had a little one at home. I didn't have a sensible haircut, and I didn't have sensible shoes. I did not have my sea legs as a housewife yet. I tried to make friends with the right women. Ooohh, it irks me to think of it now. Yuck! What a different experience it was this year. As I looked at the PTA moms with the sensible haircuts and the comfortable shoes, I thought, "Thank God". Thank God I now know who I am. Thank God I appreciate the mother I am. Thank God I have latched on to my own value system, realized it works for me, and been faithful to it. I know that there are mothers who think if I am not volunteering to be the class mom, the team mom, the driver for every field trip, that I must not be a very involved mom. They are soooo wrong. I am very close to my kids, but my relationship with them is up for neither display, nor judgement. Damn! It feels great to say that!

Happy Birthday Prettyface

My best friend. The one who knows me and loves me anyway. I met her the day after Thanksgiving in 1985. I was loud, she was quiet. I was confident, she was shy. I had never been loyal to anyone. She was loyal to me. I revealed myself to her slowly, waiting for her to leave, to see her loyalty was wasted on me. She never got the message. She thought I was great. But, she made me great. Her expectations of me are always so high. I break my nails and bloody my knees trying to meet them. She met someone who wanted to be her best friend. He had to settle for being her husband instead. When I met someone who could handle me, she had to sign off on him. When people hurt her, I want to hurt them. When she was hurt badly, I thought the pain would kill me. I wanted fly to her, to be instantly by her side, to fix it. Instead, I sat on my back porch, and smoked and cried. I love her, I have to. She owns part of my heart. A very important part, a part I can’t live without. She has cared for it very carefully. I have tried to care for hers as carefully. I haven’t always been who I should be, who she deserves as a best friend, but I have loved her, every day, since the day after Thanksgiving, in 1985.
Happy Birthday, Prettyface. You are the best thing Sandy ever did, and the best thing that ever could have happened on August 16.