Thursday Tidbits

The MIL chronicles are about to begin anew.  Long-time readers of this blog may remember when MIL and Pa came to visit us in Hawaii four years ago. 

MIL is arriving on Friday for another month-long visit.  Zeke hasn't seen her in four years, and Josie has never met her, so it will be nice for them to get to know their other grandmother.  And for J to spend time with his mother.

A month is a long time.  We do not have a big house (though we did create a guest room/office by moving Josie and Zeke into the same room, which they enjoy).  But at least I won't have a 92-year-old man sleeping on an air-mattress in my hallway this time, because Pa isn't coming for this trip (and I am not knocking Pa - he is a lovely man and I would welcome him). 

I have vowed not to be an asshole about this.  Everything will be fine.

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Josie's pink frilly dress phase appears to have been short-lived.  My mother and I spent a frenzied week loading up her closet with cute little dresses and skirts, which she happily wore until last week.  This week she has insisted upon wearing pants to school. 

I can't win.

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Yesterday after school J took the kids to Monkey Bizness.  While jumping around and playing, apparently some kid pushed and/or kicked Zeke in an effort to get him off of some piece of equipment.  Zeke went over to J, who told him that he hadn't seen what happened, but that Zeke would have to work it out with the kid.

Zeke went over to the kid, who was a lot bigger than Zeke, and shoved him hard on the shoulder, knocking him down onto his butt.  The kid left him alone for the rest of the night.

I'm not sure how I feel about this.

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Another good month for my Beachbody business.  This month I gave myself a 60% raise over what I made in February, and am now covering one of the kids' daycare payments.  If you want in on this deal, let me know - it's incredibly fun and rewarding, not to mention lucrative.

Speaking of, I've got another challenge group starting April 16.  Celebrate getting your taxes filed by getting in shape for summer with a 60 day challenge.  In recent challenges, I've had people do so well that they not only lost tons of weight and felt great, but got off of thyroid and diabetes medication.  Pretty powerful stuff.

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Tomorrow is a flex day.  I was going to go skiing (even though we've had such a shitty winter, snow-wise, that conditions are not good at all), but told J that I would stay home with him and get the house immaculate for his mother's arrival if I could go on Saturday morning instead.  Deal.

Happy Thursday, all!

Snips and snails and puppy dogs' tails

My experience as the parent of young children is that much of it is an exercise in perseverance - trying to endure the difficulties of a particular time, waiting for things to get better.  And I don't mean this in a bad way - I love my children to pieces and I enjoy my time with them.  But the early years, especially with two of them, are stressful and exhausting (not to mention expensive). 

I don't find the experience of caring for newborns to be particularly rewarding, so when they're tiny little blobs, and their existence is made up of naps and feedings and diaper changes, you're waiting for them to get a little bit older and start smiling and cooing and sitting up. 

Then you're waiting for them to crawl. 

Then you're alarmed by the fact that they can crawl, because this means that they can get into your shit and you can't just stick them on a blanket on the floor, leave the room, and expect them to be in the same place when you come back 3 minutes later. 

But, life is about progress, so then it's the walking.  Which is exciting, but with walking comes constant vigilance and covering of electrical outlets and worrying about stairs and open doors and skinned knees. 

Or you're waiting for them to learn how to talk.  Or to use the potty.  Or to stop whining all the time.

And then they turn 4.  Or more accurately, 4 1/2, which, as far as I can tell based upon my own experience, as well as the input of my friends who have children, is the Greatest Age Ever.

Seriously, if I could bottle the essence of what Zeke is like right now, it would be a powerful inducement for people without kids to abandon efforts at birth control and hop on the procreation train.  Because he is so unbelievably awesome right now I can hardly believe it.

It came on kind of suddenly.  In October, he was going through this emotion stage during which his behavior at school was occasionally so severe that it prompted his teacher (who I really like and who I do not think is an alarmist quack) to suggest that he might require an evaluation to determine if he might be eligible for special education.  As a special education lawyer, I know enough about disabilities that I didn't think there was any basis for that level of concern, but still.  Not a fun thing to hear about your kid.

Then, all of a sudden, maybe around December or early January, everything changed.  His daily reports from school were not, "oh, he had an OK day," or "the day was mostly fine," but rather, "he had an amazingly awesomely perfect day."  "Great day."  "Wonderful day - played nicely, got a lollipop from the teacher for being a great helper, was sweet to the new kid in class." 

Since that change, whenever it was a few months ago, Zeke has not had a single day at school where the report wasn't glowing.

It's been the same at home.  Not that he hasn't had his moments here and there -- he's still a little kid after all -- but overwhelmingly, he has been sweet and affectionate and funny and hilarious.  Bedtimes have been less stressful.  He is incredibly kind and helpful with Josie, who is 2 1/2 and going through her own drama.

Like this morning, Josie was fussing about what to wear.*  She kept going back and forth between this dress and that dress and that t-shirt.  Then she was fussing because she wanted her baby.  Then she couldn't find her cup of milk.  Then she wanted to wear her dinosaur shoes, then she didn't want to wear them.  Basically, she was being a massive pain in the ass and making us all late for school and work.

Zeke could see that I was getting annoyed and that Josie was starting to cry.  So he stepped in to save the day.  "Hey, Josie, want to brick it?"  He held out his fist so they could share a terrorist fist jab.  She blinked through her tears at him for a minute, and then held up her little fist and bumped it with his.  He gave her a smile and she started to giggle, and they did it again a few more times and all was right with the world.

Later at school, she was standing in her classroom door, crying because she felt we hadn't given each other sufficient cheek kisses before I left her room to go say goodbye to Zeke (we have a very European ritual, with the cheek kisses on each side).  Zeke's class was in the hallway, lining up to wash their hands before breakfast.  He saw Josie crying, and went over to her, put his arm around her neck, and pulled her head to his shoulder.  She put her arm around him and gave him a hug, and he kissed her cheek before going back with his classroom.  "It's OK, Josie.  I'll come visit you later."

I about plotzed.

I have the kids' school pictures up on my Facebook profile, and I was online chatting with a friend about how resoundingly my NCAA bracket sucks, when I clicked on the picture of Zeke.  He's got the biggest freaking shit-eating grin on his face, like his head is about to explode from happiness.  And it made my heart skip a beat, because that picture?  That picture is exactly what is so wonderful about Zeke.  It totally sums up every part of his 4-1/2-year-old awesomeness.  His enthusiasm for life, his sweetness, his cheeky rascally nature (every other word out of his mouth is still "toot" or "poop" or "fart"), the goodness of his soul.  And that's the part that's so important to me, that gives me so much naches -- that he is genuinely a kind person.

I want to stop the movement of time and keep him at this age.  Like Superman did in the movie, when he made the earth turn backwards to save Lois Lane from dying in the ditch that her car fell into.  (And speaking of, we re-watched that movie recently because it's on streaming Netflix. I had fond memories of it, but it is a seriously cheesy piece of shit -- it was very disappointing.  But I digress.) 

With Zeke, I don't have that feeling that I'm so used to having, of "Jesus, can we just get through the Terrible Twos?" or "is he ever going to be toilet trained?" or "does he have an emotional disability?"  I want him to stay the way he is, for at least a little while, because he's so, so great right now.

But of course, he could get even better, so I guess I should welcome the passage of time.

In any event, he's a keeper.**



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* The "pink dresses only" dealio lasted about a week and a half (long enough for her grandmother and me to load up her closet with frilly dresses), and now it's hit or miss. Two days ago, it was a pink dress. Yesterday, it was a pair of leggings and a t-shirt with a dinosaur on it. Today, it was another pink dress, and a pink shrug because she was chilly.

** And so is his sister.  She just has the disadvantage of going through the Terrible Twos when Zeke is at the Greatest Age Ever, so she's suffering by comparison.  But she's still an adorable, funny little monkey and I love her like crazy.

Sugar and spice and everything nice

Josie has probably worn a dress 2 or 3 times in her entire life.  I think dresses on little babies that aren't even sitting up or are still crawling are kind of silly, because the end result is this big wad of fabric up around the baby's armpits and either skinned knees or ripped tights from crawling.  So she never wore them as a baby.

Then at some point last year, I had a pair of cute winter tights that someone had given her, so I was getting her ready for school and put her in a little jumper and some tights.  She was so incensed she practically ripped my face off, and immediately started pulling off the tights and tugging at the dress like I had tried to put her in a straitjacket.

I figured, great, that's one less item of clothing that I have to worry about buying.  Plus she's such a tough little monkey, having her wear jeans and leggings and t-shirts kind of fit the tom-boyish vision I have of her in my head. 

My mother, however, was deeply dismayed.  There are few things she enjoys more than buying cute clothes for her grandchildren, and the "no dresses" dealio severely limited her efforts.

Anyhoo, Josie's standard uniform is a pair of jeans (skinny or straight leg) or leggings, with a short sleeve t-shirt over a long-sleeve t-shirt, and a pair of sneakers.  That's what I put her in this morning.

Then as I was puttering around drinking my morning smoothie and getting Zeke ready for school, I noticed that Jo had taken one of her little toddler-bed-sized fitted sheets and was draping it around herself. 

"I'm a girl, Mama!"

"You are a girl.  And is that your pretty dress?"

"Yes, I wear a dress!"

"Well, you look very nice.  That's a beautiful dress."

She twirled and pranced around.

When it was time to go, I took the sheet from her and started to fold it up to put it back in the laundry basket.

Josie lost her shit.  She cried and cried and cried.

"I want my dress! I want to be a girl!"

A light bulb went on over my head.  I kneeled down and gave her a hug and a kiss.

"Honey, do you want to wear a dress to school?"

"Yeeeesss..."  she sobbed on my shoulder.

"OK, then.  Let's go find you a dress!"

Luckily, I had a couple hanging in her closet that were the right size (I'm assuming they were gifts that people had sent or hand-me-downs from friends, because God knows I didn't buy them).  She was wearing a pair of dusty pink skinny jeans and a light pink long-sleeved t-shirt, so I found a cute little pink dress with butterflies on it and put it on over what she was wearing.


She's still recovering from the trauma at this point and wiping away tears, but the beginnings of a smile are starting to show.  Plus the light in the hallway is bad and she rarely stands still long enough to snap a picture that isn't blurry, so this was the best I could do.

The transformation in her appearance and her demeanor was immediate.  Suddenly she just looked so pretty to me (not that I don't think she's gorgeous, but she looked girly-pretty), and she was so, so happy.  She kept twirling and checking herself out in the mirror and grinning from ear to ear, saying, "I'm wearing a dress!"

"Well, let's get you to school so you can show all your friends your pretty dress!"

When I told Jessica, her teacher, about it, she said that Josie has been playing a lot of dress-up lately, and saying that "she wants to be a girl" and wear a dress.  So I guess that's where we're headed.

Which is fine with me.  Maybe she'll even let me do something with her hair.

And of course, my mother is thrilled.

I'm actually not too dismayed by this limitation in their career prospects

My kids are lovely, sweet and relatively well-behaved.  But bedtime remains a struggle.  Josie will go to sleep at a reasonable hour, about 8:30 or so, but getting Zeke to bed is not an easy task. 

I think much of the problem is that his circadian rhythms naturally skew late, just as mine do (and my dad's, for that matter).  I vividly remember being a little kid and wondering why I should go to bed at 8 or 8:30 when I wasn't remotely tired then.  Luckily, my parents were pretty lenient about it, and let me stay up as long as I was chilling out and reading or listening to music in my room.  My dad tells me that he used to stay up reading until midnight as a young child, and never understood the point of being forced to go to bed before he was ready.  So I think Zeke comes by it honestly.

And it's even worse when he's excited about something. 

This past weekend my parents came to visit.  And the kids adore Mimi and Papa.  They've been talking about and anticipating it for weeks. 

Their visit did not disappoint.

On Friday night, they both had a sleepover with my folks at their hotel.  My parents both fell asleep before Zeke and Josie did, but luckily no significant damage was done.  When they woke up, they found the doors covered with stickers, but in the grand scheme of things, no big deal.

The four of them also hung out Saturday morning while J and I had a ski day together.  Super fun, plus I don't even remember the last time J and I had a day on  the mountain together.  The rest of the day we hung out, they went to the bookstore, went for walks, played, bounced on the beds.  And still, Zeke and Josie didn't go to bed before 9.  When they did, they passed out like they had been on a bender, but it was still an effort to convince them that they actually needed to sleep and that Mimi and Papa would still be here when they woke up.

Sunday we went to Jump Street, a local indoor trampoline park.  The kids bounced nonstop for an hour and a half.  Josie napped when we got home, but Zeke couldn't bring himself to lie down and potentially miss something.  That night we had good friends over for dinner, and the children ran around and played chase and stayed up as long as they could, because Mimi and Papa would be leaving early the next morning.

Yesterday I was home with the kids for President's Day.  We went to the indoor pool and swam for 2 hours.  At home, we played and bounced on the beds and played monster tag and built trains.  They still went to bed late.

The nice thing is, they sleep later than most kids do.  Our friends who have young kids all complain that their kids are always up and rousting them out of bed by 6 in the morning. 

That doesn't happen in our house.

The children had another day off today (teacher inservice day), so J stayed home with them and I went to work.  We were hanging out in the kitchen, drinking coffee and chatting, at about 7:30 this morning.  Both kids were still sound asleep.

"Well, we know that our kids will never have jobs working in a coffee shop," J observed.

"Why not?"  I asked.

"Because they open at 5:00 a.m."

Go shawty, it's your birthday, we gonna party like it's .... well, your ordinary Wednesday night, actually.

Zeke and I were talking last night as I lay with him at bedtime.  I said, "you know what?  Only three more sleeps until Mimi and Papa come!"

"Only three?  That's so cool!" he said.

"And you know what else?  You know what day tomorrow is?"

"What?"

"It's my birthday."

"It's your birthday?"

"Uh-huh."

Suddenly he sat up.  "What day is it tomorrow?  Is it a school day tomorrow?"

"It's Wednesday.  It's a school day."

"But I don't want to go to school!  I want to go to your birthday!"

He was very upset.

Because to him, all birthdays involve big outings to museums or trampoline parks and parties with cake and ice cream and goodie bags.  And he didn't want to miss out.

"Honey, you're not going to miss anything.  I have to go to work and you have to go to school, so maybe we can do something after school.  Would you like to bake a cake with me?  We can have birthday cake and blow out candles."

"Can I eat the cake?"

"Sure."

"OK."

So I'm 42 today.  And I'm not having a big party with trampolines and balloons or anything, but I'm having a lovely day nonetheless.  I have received over 80 emails and/or Facebook messages wishing me a happy birthday.  My friend and co-worker took me out to lunch.  Zeke and Josie and I will make cake tonight.

And I'm doing the little things that I love and routinely do on my birthday.  I'm wearing a snazzy amethyst cocktail ring that belonged to my Grandma Ruth - it's my birthstone and it makes me feel closer to her.

My mom and I had our annual telephone conversation in which she told me about the day I was born.  My dad and I talked about it as well, and he told me how much he loves me and how he's been over the moon for me since the day I was born.  My children were sweet and relatively compliant this morning, and J called to wish me a happy birthday and, as an added bonus, told me about how he pulled a woman from her truck this morning after she lost control and it flipped on the highway and landed upside down.  She was miraculously unharmed, but understandably freaking out and couldn't take off her seat belt or get out of the upside-down truck, so he crawled in, got her out, and carried her to his van and waited with her until the rescue vehicles came.  My husband, the hero.

And life feels very, very good.  Work (my 9-5 job) is going great.  My Beachbody business is going great and is so much more fun and rewarding than I ever would have thought possible - tomorrow I will advance in rank in the company and I'm making more money every month.  My kids are healthy and happy.  J and I are healthy and happy.  Both physically and emotionally, I feel kind of awesome (and loving the juicing, by the way!).

Life always has its crests and troughs.  Right now feels like a crest. 

Even without a big birthday party.

Thursday Tidbits

• We got a juicer.  

Over the weekend, J and I were chilling out on the couch and started watching Sick, Fat and Nearly Dead, a documentary about Joe, an Australian guy who goes on a 60-day juice fast when he finally reaches a breaking point with his shitty health - he was 300 pounds, exhausted, and had some sort of auto-immune skin disease that caused him to break out in itchy rashes all the time.  He films himself doing the fast as he travels across the U.S. talking to people about health and healthy eating, and by the end of the fast, he's lost a shit-ton of weight (something like 90 pounds), feels amazing, and has been taken off all the prednisone he was on for his disease because he's no longer having flare-ups.  Along the way, he meets Phil, a truck-driver who weighs 420 pounds and is a cheeseburger away from a heart-attack, and Phil is inspired and decides to follow Joe's lead and starts his own juice fast and healthy living plan (all of this is under the supervision of a doctor).  By the end of the movie, he's lost almost 180 pounds and his life is transformed.

I eat this stuff up.  My fitness business is all about getting people to just *start* living healthier, and take it a day at a time.  So I was truly verklempt watching Phil's transformation, and J and I were so inspired by the whole thing (plus, we're totally lemmings) that I had gone onto Amazon.com and ordered a juicer before the movie was even over.  Neither of us needs to go on a 60 day juice fast, but we're going to work homemade fruit and veggie juices into our diets, and do 3-5 day juice fasts on a regular basis, maybe once a month or so.  We signed up for a CSA delivery that starts on Monday, and I'm off to the grocery store with a list that includes kale, beets, ginger root, celery, apples, and all kinds of other stuff that we'll be juicing.

And yes, I know I'm a geek. 

• Josie has hit the Terrible Twos. 

Zeke never really went through the Terrible Twos.  His were more the Terrible Threes.  So when Josie suddenly went from being a sweet, agreeable little monkey to a whiny, bossy asshole, we were a bit taken aback. 

In her defense, she's not an asshole all the time.  Just a lot of the time.  Fussing, bitching, throwing things, crying over nothing.  But, it'll pass.  Zeke, conversely, went from being a moody asshole to an absolute delight (except for the constant poop and fart talk, but I'll deal).  I guess it's the universe's way of balancing things out.

• Zeke is headed to big-boy school (sort of).

I submitted Zeke's application for pre-kindergarten a couple of weeks ago (he'll be 5 this year, but because his birthday is after the October 1 cut-off, he'll start kindergarten when he's nearly 6).  I look at him and he's not a baby or even a toddler.  He's a kid. 

I don't understand how this happened.

• The light at the end of the tunnel.

The move from Hawaii put us in a HUGE financial hole.  Huge.  I had to cash out a 401(K), then I fucked up the taxes on it so we were slammed with a $10K tax bill 2 years ago.  Our tenants in our Hawaii house then abandoned their lease early, so we had to stop paying the mortgage 14 months ago.  We're trying to get rid of the house in a short sale, but we've been under contract twice and twice the buyers have walked away for various and sundry reasons.  I'm hopeful that third time will be the charm (and that we'll manage to close before the HOA forecloses as they've been threatening to do).  Plus we've had (and still have) about $2K a month in daycare expenses, J had hernia surgery then lost his job, one of our cars kept breaking down, our pipes froze last winter, the A/C broke in the summer, etcetera etcetera.

But.  The huge weight I've felt in my chest is starting to lighten.  Last year's tax refund paid off the previous year's deficit, and this year's we actually get to keep!  And we're selling one of the cars.  And my Beachbody business is starting to earn me some real money (not enough to quit my job - yet - but enough that it can make a difference in our lives and our financial stability)*.  So we'll be able to pay off two loans altogether, and start paying down another debt, and maybe actually start to save a little bit. 

It's so nice to have a little bit of relief after feeling for over 3 years that we were drowning.

• Vegas, baby.

I'm going to Vegas in June for Beachbody's big annual coach's convention.  The money I'm making from the business allows me to afford the trip.  I will be rooming with my friend Ferreh, who is hilarious.  If she and I lived in the same city, we would get in a lot of trouble together.  And I've never been to Vegas. 

Can. Not. Wait.

I've got a flex day tomorrow, so I will be hitting the slopes on my new skis.  Have a good weekend, all!

*Seriously - if you're unemployed, underemployed, looking for a side gig to provide some extra cash flow, email me.  Not only is there money to be made, but it is so much fun to help people get healthy. 

Economy of language

Every night, I put Josie in her bed and I sit in a little chair next to it and read her stories.  Lately The Snowy Day and Llama Llama Misses Mama have been in heavy rotation.

The Snowy Day is one of my all-time favorites.  I read it to my children a lot, and every time I do, I find it magical.  I never get tired of it.  I love the illustrations, the way the book conveys the beauty and wonder a child finds in heading out to play in the snow, and the simplicity of the language.  (Plus, it's very free-range -- Peter lives in the city and goes out to play all day long by himself, though he's obviously fairly young -- too young for snowball fights with the big boys, after all).

Well, Josie may have one up on Ezra Jack Keats in the simplicity department.  Lately she has taken to reading the books to me ("Mama, I read it!").  This is The Snowy Day, Josie-fied.

"There's a boy.  And he's outside and there's LOTS of snow!"

"Crunch crunch crunch! He walk in the snow with his toes."

"Whee!  He goes down a hill!"

"There's his mother!"

"Night Night!  The end."

She slams the book shut.

"Song, mama?"

I turn off the light and sing.

Everybody's got a random

Sometimes in maintaining a blog, I get too into the notion of themes -- of telling stories that have some overriding point, or of depicting life in a way that betrays some grand plan. Because it makes for more interesting writing (and reading).

But truthfully, I think that's all bullshit.  Most of life is totally random.

Like the other day I was on the bus coming home from work.  Sitting across the aisle from me was this huge guy that looked a bit vagrant-ish.  Not quite homeless, but certainly someone who has seen brighter days.  I got the sense that he spent a lot of time riding the bus and striking up conversation with people, just to pass the time.

Which, whatever, ya know?  More power to him, I guess.

Except that I am not one for idle conversation with strangers.

Every once in a while the planets will align and I will enter into a conversation on a plane or whereever with a seatmate, and it will be genuinely interesting.  But this is an exceedingly rare occurrence, and not something that I actively seek out.

So this guy across from me on the bus has been bothering some poor guy who was in a Navy uniform, so Almost Homeless Dude starts in with the, "oh, you're a Navy man, eh?  Did you know [some obscure fact about the Navy that may or may not have been true, but was a way to ingratiate himself with the dude in the uniform] blah blah blah." Navy Guy humored him for a while, but finally reached his stop and practically flung himself off the bus, he was so overtly happy to be free of Almost Homeless Dude's conversational stylings.

I could practically feel Almost Homeless Dude searching around for some new shlub to talk to.  And eventually he settled on me.

I stared straight ahead, and then was stunned to be smacked across the face with a scarf, which Almost Homeless Dude had flicked at me, like a 10th grade boy smacking ass in the communal shower after gym class, in an effort to get my attention.

I whipped my head around and glared at him.  He sort of chuckled and said, "oh, I'm so sorry," as if it had been an accident.  I frowned.  He tried to talk to me, saying things like, "oh, I see your ID badge, where do you work?" but I grunted one-word answers until I reached my stop and got off the bus.

And there isn't any grand point to this story. It's just an example of a random encounter that is a part of commuting on public transportation.  One that I would never remember, if I didn't record it for posterity here  on the internet.

And the day had been sort of random like that.  I spent the day going from meeting to meeting, never quite getting my bearings with a big project -- just small encounters and questions that were unrelated.  I felt kind of disjointed and off-kilter all day.

The day ended randomly as well.

I was lying in bed with Zeke, snuggling with him to help him get to sleep.  He had been quiet for awhile, so I thought he was settling down and falling asleep.  But I should have known better.  My mother once remarked that when she thinks about Zeke she's reminded of those machines that measure brain activity -- the red areas show areas of heightened cerebral activity.  She envisions Zeke's brain as all red, firing on all cylinders at all times.

I don't disagree.

We were lying there in the dark, quiet and cozy.  Suddenly, he lifted his head and exclaimed, "Mama!"  He sounded very excited.

"What is it, honey?" I asked.

"Mama!  Have you ever heard of the number 139?"

I chuckled.  "Yes, I have heard of that number."

"You have??"  He seemed incredulous.

"Yes.  I've pretty much heard of all the numbers."

"Oh."  He sounded skeptical.

He put his head back down on the pillow, his little brain continuing to fire away.  I put an arm over him and pulled him close.

Eventually we both fell asleep.

Me love you long time

Let me start by saying that my mother is a highly intelligent, sophisticated, worldly individual.  She is extremely well read and has traveled all over the world.  I would never describe her as naive or sheltered.

Which makes this story that much funnier.

She's been away on business the past few weeks, traveling in China, Vietnam and Cambodia (there might be other places, but I don't remember). Mostly she worked, but from time to time she and her coworkers had a few hours here and there to do some shopping and sample the local culture.\

She arrived home and immediately called me. We usually speak on the phone at LEAST once a day, and we had only a brief 5 minute chat the entire 2 weeks she was gone, so we were jonesing for that mother-daughter connection. She was telling me about how the trip went, some random friend of my dad's that she ran into in the hotel restaurant in Cambodia, and the various tchotchkes she bought for the kids.

"Oh, and I got the cutest t-shirt in Beijing!"

"Oh, yeah? What does it look like?" I asked.

"It says 'I love BJ' on it, you know, with a heart. In honor of your dad."

Before your head explodes, let me clarify that my father's initials are "B.J."

"You bought a shirt that says 'I love BJ' on it?"

"Yeah, you know, 'BJ' for Beijing. Only really for your dad." She sounded very cute and proud. It made me sad to have to break it to her.

"Mom, if you wear that shirt in the United States, do you realize what people are going to think it means?"

"What? Uh-oh." Her voice took on a somber tone.

"'I love blow-jobs.'"

"Oh, no! Really? Come on!"

"Really."

"Dammit!"

"Yeah. But hey, you would have been really popular if you had worn it out in public!"

"That's really what it means?"

"I'm afraid so."

"Shit. I guess I'll just use it as a sleep shirt."

I think that would be best for everyone involved.

Or maybe I'll just get my dad one of those super-classy "Free Mustache Rides" shirts, and set them both loose on society.

Give me an earworm, toot suite!

There's a lot of talk about tooting in my house.  We're all quite adept at it, and we all think it's funny.

Immature, yes.  But funny.

"Mama, I tooted," is uttered by one or both of the children multiple times a day, followed by giggles and exclamations of "that stinks!" from the non-perpetrator.  I generally join in the giggles.  And I've discovered that a sure-fire way to get my kids to pay attention and mind me in the morning is to talk in an accent like Borat's.  I get far fewer objections and grumbles from them if, instead of saying, "come ON, for the fiftieth time, PUT ON YOUR UNDERPANTS!" I say, in a silly accent, "Come on-a, now, Meester Zeke, we need to put on your-a underpants (pronounced, AHN-dare-ponts), we need to-a cover up a-your tooty-booty."

Go ahead.  Say "tooty-booty" in a vaguely Eastern-European-mixed-with-Father-Guido-Sarducci accent.  It's fucking hilarious.  The children giggle their butts off -- and are amazingly compliant.

So there's this song by Breathe Carolina, a local Denver band, that has received quite a bit of airplay in these parts.  I have no idea if it's popular elsewhere in the country, but their song Blackout is on, like, all the time.  And it's kind of catchy.

I spend virtually no time in the car, save for the 4 minute drives to drop the kids at school and then go back home to catch my bus.  So I'm not really up on what's on the radio.  But J does a fair bit of driving and generally pays more attention to what's on the radio than I do, so he's up on what the kids are listening to.*  And one day when after he picked the kids up from school, they were driving around and Blackout came on the radio.  It has a chorus that goes like this:

I’m only getting started, I won't blackout
This time I got nothing to waste
Let’s go a little harder
I’m on fire, I won't blackout
I’m on my way

So J, being J, cleverly replaced the lyrics thusly:

I think that Josie farted, she backed one out
It smells like poop in here
I think that Josie farted
She farted, it came out of her butt
We've gotta get away...

They proceeded to sing this for the next 30 minutes.  They gleefully told me about it when they got home, and taught me the song as well.

It has now become something of a family anthem.  When we hear the song on the radio, we automatically replace the lyrics.  Quite honestly, I prefer them to whatever they're saying in the song. 

The kids have even started singing it when they toot.  The other day Josie was in another room.

"Mama!"

"Yes, sweetie?"

"I tooted, Mama!"

"That's wonderful, honey."

Then she starts singing.  "I think Josie farted, she back one out, it smells like poop in here...*giggle giggle*"

That's my girl.

For your listening pleasure...and by all means, sing along and change it to the toot version.  It's much more fun.


_________________________________________________________
*Not our kids, necessarily, just kids generally.

The Real World: Colorado

This is the true story...of 4 people (well, mostly 3 of them) in a family...are forced to spend time together, all day, every day, for 10 days...here's what happens when people stop being polite, and start getting real.

[Various shots of Denver in rapid sequence, finally settling on a crooked shot of a dilapidated Victorian in Congress Park.  LMFAO's Party Rock Anthem plays over the sequence]

Day 1:  Everyone is happy and in a good mood.  Whee!  We're on vacation!  We're heading to the mountains to see our cousins!  We've never been to Carbondale!  It's pretty! Yaaay!

Three hour car ride proceeds uneventfully.  Kids sleep through much of it.  We admire the scenery driving through Glenwood Canyon.

We arrive at the cousins' house, and Zeke and Josie reunite with the cousins' 2-year-old and everyone plays and has fun.  We go for a walk down by the river.  The children throw rocks and run around.  We have the traditional Jewish Christmas eve dinner of Chinese food.  Cousins are alarmed by how much J eats.  "Welcome to my world," I tell them.

Cousins are slightly horrified by my childrens' bedtime habits, or lack thereof.  Their kid goes to bed at 7:30.  Our kids are still up and partying like rock stars at 9.  I make them go to bed and we watch Bridesmaids.  Josie and Zeke keep popping out of the room to try to join us.  We finally get them to settle down.

[Shots of mountains, the town of Carbondale, and Aspen, especially women in ugly fur coats, leggings and boots, and horrifying plastic surgery.  Pink's Stupid Girls plays.]

Mt. Sopris.  Pretty.

Day 2:  Christmas Day.  As Jews, we do nothing to commemorate the holiday except to say, "hey, it's Christmas! Merry Christmas!" and then go about our day.  The children play nicely.  The guys take the kids into Aspen to go to a park.  Cousin and I get some quiet time (she's 7 1/2 months pregnant and could use the rest).  I exercise.  We drive into Aspen to meet everyone.

Josie is fussy.  Zeke is obnoxious.  The guys seem harried.  Aspen is vulgar.  We go to lunch at a diner.  We manage to contain the children long enough to scarf down a turkey reuben (me) and a club sandwich (cousin).  The guys go skiing/snowboarding, and we take the kids home.  Cousin's kid naps.  Mine don't.

We walk by the river again.  Kids play and wear themselves out, but the lack of naps means they are acting like assholes much of the time.  We light Hannukah candles.  We make lasagna for dinner.  It is yummy.  Zeke proclaims it to be the best thing he's ever eaten.  Everyone is, again, astonished by J's ability to inhale ridiculous amounts of food.  "Tell me about it," I say.

Bedtime.  Cousin's kid passes out at 7:15 without a fuss.  At 8:00, Zeke proceeds to have a total meltdown.  He loses his shit.  I lie down with him to try to calm him down and we all fall asleep at 8:30.

[Shots of kids sleeping, then slowly waking up.  Shots of toys all over the floor.  More mountain shots.  Chorus of Rocky Mountain High plays.]

Day 3:  Everyone wakes up happy, having gotten lots of sleep.  The children play nicely together.  Zeke tells his little cousin, "you're a really nice baby!"  Josie pushes her doll stroller around.  I take Zeke down by the river again so he can throw rocks and sticks.  He digs this.  We see a bald eagle flying around, which is really cool.

We pack up the car and head home.  I can tell the cousins are happy to be rid of us and our noise.

The kids sleep on the drive home.  The rest of the day we chill out, unpack, watch movies. 

So far, so good, mostly.  But the true test starts tomorrow, when J goes back to work.

[Shots of traffic on Colorado Boulevard, people walking in and out of the coffee shop on 12th Avenue, finally settling on the crooked shot of the dilapidated Victorian.  Drake's Unstoppable plays.]

Day 4:  Everyone sleeps in.  We get up, have some breakfast, and watch some Pink Panther episodes on Netflix.  We don't have diddly in the fridge, so I load the kids into the car and we go to Target to go grocery shopping.  Josie sits in the seat part of the grocery cart, Zeke sits in the basket because all of the double-kid-seat carts are taken.  He is remarkably good natured as I proceed to bury him in groceries, no doubt helped by the fact that I buy his cooperation with animal crackers and little mini boxes of goldfish.  And a new box of crayons. 

We head home and have lunch, then the kids are sent to their rooms for quiet time.  Josie naps, Zeke hangs out on his bed and plays Angry Bird on his new Kindle Fire (a present from my mother -- doesn't every 4-year-old need one?), and I exercise.  The day is going well.

Later we color and play with trains, then a friend of Zeke's stops by and invites us to go sledding, so we put on our snow gear and head out to the sledding hill.

We go home and light the Hannukah candles -- it's the 8th night so the menorah is full and beautiful.

Everyone is happy.  I feel like a success as a mother.

Day 5:  I've still got some tricks up my sleeve.  We go to the indoor community pool, the one with the big water slide.  Josie, who thinks she can swim even though she really can't, requires all of my attention, so Zeke ends up swimming much more independently than I would otherwise be comfortable with.  He ends up going down the big water slide by himself a number of times and then swimming to the side of the pool alone - the first time he has ever done this.

We make it out of the rec center without anyone drowning.

[Neighborhood footage.  Overcast skies.  Eminem's Things Get Worse plays.]

Day 6: The wheels start to fall off the wagon.  Everyone is getting tired of being around everyone else.  I try to rally the kids to do something -- anything -- but no one will get dressed and everyone is whining and no one wants to do much but lie around, watch TV, play on the Kindle and make a mess.

Both children are going through very bossy phases, particularly towards each other.  At one point, Zeke is annoyed with Josie because he keeps telling her to do something and she won't.

"You're not her boss, Zeke.  She doesn't have to do what you want.  Stop ordering her around," I tell him.

"Go away, Zekey. Leave me alone," Josie says.

"Josie, stop telling people what to do!" Zeke yells.

He clearly has an under-developed sense of irony.

By late in the afternoon, I'm losing it.  I'm supposed to go to a retirement party for a coworker, but J gets called out on an emergency job so I have to stay home with the kids.  The one thing that I'm clinging to is J's promise to take the kids to Jump Street when he gets home so I can have my weekly banjo lesson without the monkeys interrupting me.

He walks in at 5:45.  "Oh, man, I guess it's too late for Jump Street," he laments.

"Nooooo!  Please! You have to take them out of here!"  I'm practically in tears.

He does me a solid and hustles the kids out the door in under 15 minutes.  I have a good lesson and I get some peace.

I'm all Scarlett O'Hara, thinking, "tomorrow is another day."

[Shots of cultural points around Denver - the zoo, City Park, Mile High Stadium, the Museum of Science and Nature. Howard Jones's Things Can Only Get Better plays.]

Day 7:  Determined to avoid the disaster of the previous day, as soon as the kids are up and fed, I hustle them off to the science museum.  We go see the real dinosaur exhibit, then look at the wild animal dioramas, then we go to the kids' center.  They run around and play hard for 3 hours, then go home for lunch and a rest. J gets off work early, and my time as a stay-at-home mom officially comes to an end.

That night, one of the daycare teachers comes over to babysit and J and I go see The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  It's really great (the movie, too!).

Day 8:  I had been planning to take a solo ski day, but the weather is shitty -- crazy gale force winds that end up forcing most of the ski resorts to close their lifts -- plus my uncle and his family are in town and invite us to have lunch with them at the Four Seasons.  We take the kids and manage to eat and get out of the hotel without anyone getting injured or summoning the fire brigade.

That night it's New Year's Eve.  We had been planning to go up to Frisco for the weekend to stay in a friend's condo, but the condo is under renovation so we can't use it.  We go over and visit some friends in the neighborhood around dinner time, but go home at 7:30.  J and I are asleep by 10:30.  Woop-dee-freakin'-doo.

We do, however, manage to take a picture of us kissing for the cover of our 2011 yearbook.  Every year since we've been married, we have made a yearbook and the cover shot has always been one of us kissing. This year, we had never taken a kissing shot, so we got it in under the wire.

[Interior shots of a messy house.  Toys on the floor. Crumbs on the floor. Garbage pails needing to be changed.  Matchbox 20's How Far We've Come plays.]

Day 9:  Another write-off of a day.  Nobody has slept well.  Everyone is tired and grumpy.  I try to clean the house.  I spend all day cleaning, and every time I turn around, a child is making a mess behind me.  Even when they're ostensibly trying to help.  I clean the kitchen 3 times and it's still a mess.

I manage to get out of the house to pick up my new skis, which have been in the shop getting bindings put on.  Come hell or high water, I am taking a ski day before going back to work.

[Shots of the Rocky Mountains and cars driving on the highway in the early morning.  The end of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech, where he says, "free at last" is playing in a voice-over.]

Day 10:  I leave the house by 6 and get to Copper Mountain by 8.  I have a cup of coffee and head out to the lift when it opens.  I proceed to ski my ass off for the next 3 1/2 hours.  The lift lines are non-existent and I rarely stop to rest, so I'm just going up and down and up and down the mountain.  My new skis are awesome.  I'm flying.

Heading up the Super Bee lift.

My legs turn to jelly by around 12:45, so I head back to the car and go home.

I'm happy to see my children again.  We go for walks and watch football and get to bed early, ready to begin the new year in earnest.

[Shot of the kids under closing credits.  Louis Armstrong's What a Wonderful World plays.]

Join me in getting my butt in gear (and smaller)

One of the things I'm been trying to build my coaching business around is the concept of motivation - how to help people form healthy exercise and nutrition habits and to stay motivated to stick with them.  I go through periods of struggling with motivation as much as the next person.  My "down" periods tend to coincide with my depression cycles, so they're actually more difficult to battle because they're so chemically based.  But at least I'm at the point of being able to recognize how I'm feeling, and I've developed strategies to help me push through the depression until the cycle passes.

Something that seems to help is to be very short-term-goal oriented.  And I think people generally respond well to short-term challenges, so I've been putting together regular fitness challenges, every month or so, to help people focus on reaching their fitness goals.  Some of them I participate in, others I just guide.

The next big one is one that I'm going to be doing along with my challengers - a 90 day New Year's resolution challenge involving a fitness program and replacing one meal a day with Shakeology.  I've already filled up one challenge group of five participants, and I've got a couple of others on a waiting list -- if I get a few more, I'll do a second group.

I'm going to be doing P90X2.  It's the follow up to P90X, and it's based on training techniques that the pros use - core and pelvic stability exercises, developing agility and explosive power.  Becoming not just stronger and leaner, but a better athlete, with better range of motion and greater protection against injury.  I figure it will help me become a better skier.  Plus it's always fun to try a new program.

So I'm putting the word out here as well as on my coaching blog -- is one of your New Year's resolutions to get in shape?  Would you like to give it a shot with the benefits of a structured program, a group of like-minded people encouraging and supporting you, and a coach (i.e., me) guiding the way? It's a proven formula -- everyone knows that exercise and proper eating are the keys to fitness, but what people don't often realize is that having the support of peers is equally important.  People to cheer your triumphs, encourage you when you're feeling unmotivated, support you when you need a lift.

If you're ready to give it a shot (and really, if you don't do it now, when will you?), let me know.  I would love to help you succeed.

You can't have everything... where would you put it?*

We've reached that time of year when I'm hyper-aware of being different from the rest of society.

Not because I'm Jewish and I don't celebrate Christmas.  I got over that a long time ago.  In fact, I'm not sure it ever really bothered me at all. 

No, it's because I hate the whole focus on buying shit and giving gifts. 

Honestly, the last thing most of us need is more stuff. 

I don't need chocolate or candies or baked goods wrapped up in celophane.  I appreciate people's thoughtfulness, but I don't eat it.  It goes in the office breakroom or in the trash. 

I don't need tchotchkes or jewelry.  I don't wear jewelry.  I don't put out tchochkes (with a few exceptions -- love my Romanian pottery, mom!). 

My children don't need more toys or electronics.  (Clothes are a different story - they grow like weeds).  They already have obscene quantities of *things* and they barely play with the stuff they have.  Most of their toys end up with missing pieces or sit languishing in the bottom of a box. 

Don't get me wrong.  I'm not an ascetic.  I like nice things and I am actively trying to grow a business so I can make more money.  I'd like a newer car.  Nothing flashy, but something that is newer than 11 years old (we don't have a car newer than that), so I'm not always waiting for the next thing to break and cost me a shit-ton on repairs.  I'd like to be able to replace the windows on my house, because the old ones are ancient and barely functional.  I'd like to get out of debt.

But the main thing I want is more time.  More freedom.   Time to read, time to practice my banjo, time to ski, time to spend with my children and my friends and my family.  Freedom to travel or take classes or volunteer.  I'm getting there, bit by bit, day by day.  Not there yet, but I will be.

On that note, Happy Hannukah, all!  I wish you health and happiness and joy and love and music and dancing and fun.  Not so much on more stuff.

What about you? Do you get into the holiday gift-giving spirit, or are you a scrooge like me? 

*This quote is from the comedian Stephen Wright.

Talk to me so you can see, oh, what's going on...

"Hello... [tap tap tap] ... is this thing on?"

It's been a weird month or so.  For a while I felt very fragmented and unfocused, largely because of depression cycle that I went through.  But I powered through it and it passed, followed by a period of great clarity.

was 

Like Thorough at Walden Pond, I'm trying to live deliberately.  Which is great, in terms of my desire to focus on my goals and tackle them, and in particular build my coaching business.

But kind of boring in terms of any interesting resulting blog posts.  I go through periods when every little thing that happens to me brings to mind a funny (I hope) or engaging way to tell a funny story in this space I'm occupying here.  But right now is not one of those periods.  

I did have a kickass ski day up at Copper Mountain last Friday.  I was 10 minutes away from the mountain when I realized I had forgotten my ski boots.  

"Fuck it, I guess I'm renting today."

Then I thought about the fact that my skis are 8 or 9 years old -- dinosaurs, in terms of the advances that have been made in ski design and technology lately.  "Hell, if I'm going to rent, I might as well demo some new skis and see what all the fuss is about."

So the nice young hippie working at the ski shop fitted me out in a pair of brand new K2 Superburnins.  And I proceeded to have the time of my life, while realizing what the fuss is indeed all about.

It's about precision and control.  

I am a good athlete, and I am a decent skier, particularly given that I didn't learn how to do it until I was 28.  And what I really like to do is go really fast down steep inclines.  But I've always felt that notwithstanding my willingness to let myself fall down the mountain the way I do, I haven't been exactly safe -- I've had the sense of skirting a very fine line between fast, fun skiing and crashing horribly out of control.  

No longer.  On these skis, I was still really fast, but totally in control and carving turns in a way I've never been able to before.  It was a totally different skiing experience.

I obsessed about the skis all day Saturday, doing Google searches and finding last year's model (which is essentially the same ski) for sale at a number of different places.  Including one retailer in Seattle that was having a close-out on the skis in my size, which I guess isn't that popular a seller because I'm such a shrimp.  What started out as a $850 pair of skis was eventually marked down to $370, by the time they took all the discounts at checkout.

So I bought them.  

And was able to afford them because of my new-found focus on building my coaching business.  I'm really, really determined to grow it to the point that in two years, I will be able to pay off all debts, fix up my million-year-old house, and no longer have to work full time if I don't want to.  I've signed a bunch of new coaches recently and am very excited about helping them build *their* businesses so they can achieve their goals as well.  It's pretty cool.  And it's working - every month I earn more than the previous month, so I'm chipping away at my target, bit by bit.

You can read more about it here.

So that's what's going on with me lately.

Six years ago today...

According to the interwebs, the traditional 6th anniversary gift is candy or iron.  Random. 

Or perhaps not.  Because after 6 years, marriage can be sweet, or it can be very, very hard.  Or both.

Free ranging right off the farm...

I definitely subscribe to the parenting school of thought referred to by my friend Lisa as "benign neglect."  I love my children, I care for them, I make sure they go to a good school, I feed them, I take them to museums and the zoo and the park and all that good stuff.  But I do not hover.  My kids can be upstairs when I am downstairs.  They can be in the bathtub without me in the room.  They can play in the back yard without my supervision. They can go to a friend's house or a birthday party without me staying.  When they are 6, they will be allowed to fly unaccompanied to go visit their grandparents.

But the prevailing parenting ethos these days is very much counter to this philosophy.  There seems to be a trend towards infantalizing children, insisting that every move they make be monitored and tracked and supervised, even for kids well into their teens. 

And then people wonder why kids get to college and are incapable of fending for themselves or taking any responsibility for their actions.

I follow a blog called Free Range Kids, and the more I read, the more I resolve to allow my kids appropriate levels of independence, the freedom to explore and make mistakes and learn from them.  It's how I was raised, and I firmly believe that it's the way to go.

I'm kind of bummed that I wasn't awake during a recent episode which might have tested my resolve.

My parents live on a decent-sized plot of land set back from the road in a very quiet and safe neighborhood.  And the weather in DC last week was lovely -- a bit rainy and damp early on -- but perfectly suited to playing outside, especially if playing in the mud is your thing.  So the kids played outside and enjoyed accompanying us on walks around the neighborhood, including a very short loop that leaves via the front of my parents's house and then follows the sidewalk around to a quiet road that goes along the back of their property, where you can cut back into the yard.

Zeke was allowed to play outside by himself to his heart's content, with the caveat that he needed to tell us where he was and stay in the yard (which is huge, so this was not an onerous request).  But he was really enjoying being outside by himself and having all that woodsy space to roam in (we live in the city, so our yard is postage-stamp-sized and mostly covered with brick patio stones).  So knowing the little out-the-front-of-the-house-around-the-sidewalk-in-the-back-yard loop, he took a little stroll.

But didn't tell anyone where he was going.

I was taking a nap with Josie at the time, so I missed all the hubbub.  But J kind of freaked.  Zeke was home shortly thereafter, being "escorted" by a neighbor who was driving by -- the neighbor wisely didn't invite him into the car, but ascertained where he was going and then drove alongside of him as he walked.

Everyone told me about it afterwards when I woke up, and I guess they expected me to be all upset.  But I really wasn't.  I talked to Zeke and told him that he needed to tell a grownup before he goes outside, and definitely if he's going to go for a walk, but my immediate thought was that Zeke isn't stupid (and in fact, he's both incredibly smart AND very cautious and thoughtful with regard to his own safety).  The neighborhood is quiet and safe and there's virtually no traffic, and he knew where he was going and was never in any danger. 

Yes, four is a little young to be going off on walks alone, if only because he is not quite able to control his urge to throw things into the street (like rocks, which could hit cars, which could cause damage and piss off drivers).  But I was secretly kind of proud of his desire for, and enjoyment of, a little bit of independence.

When I was little, I walked to school by myself at the age of 6 (and was responsible for escorting my 5 year old little brother).  All my other friends did, too.  It was not a big deal at all.  I flew alone on an international flight when I was 5.  Throughout my childhood and my teens, I was given enormous freedom by my parents, who raised me to have common sense and then trusted me to use it. 

I would like to impart that same gift to my children, the judgment of the helicopter parents of my generation be damned.  The world is a much safer place than most people are willing to acknowledge.  And life is much more fun and enjoyable when you don't approach it with the assumption that there is evil and awfulness around every corner.

Are you a "free range" parent?  Do you think I'm nuts?  What were you allowed to do as a kid that you would never let your kids do today?

The goats in the vicinity were disappointed

Our Thanksgiving travel last week provided an unexpected - and much welcome - glimmer of the light at the end of the tunnel.  Since having children, and particularly since having two, the mere thought of navigating an airport and getting through security and surviving a plane ride has filled me with dread.  First, there's the sheer amount of stuff that you have to take - diapers and wipes and toys and books and sippy cups and snacks and car seats - that is overwhelming.  And then you're dealing with one kid running one way while the other runs the other, or someone doesn't want to sit in the stroller, or someone decides they have to go potty when you're in the middle of a 25 minute security line, or someone runs around the scanner and causes a TSA agent to have a stroke, or someone jumps on the luggage carousel because it seems like the fun thing to do.  Either that, or you're waiting for one of things to happens - so the kids could be perfectly well-behaved but you're still all stressed out because the other shoe always feels like it's on the verge of dropping.

But Josie is now two, and her language and socialization are both developing at an amazing pace, so I can give her an instruction and she a) understands me, and b) knows how to comply.  And Zeke is a full-on, intelligible, semi-rational person, particularly in his response to threats and/or bribery ("if you don't behave on the plane, we're not going to the Air and Space Museum tomorrow").  So all of a sudden, traveling with them isn't so terrible.  It's still not great -- there's still all the stuff, and there's always the possibility of a meltdown -- but we're getting closer to the point of being able to count on them to behave.

Plus, we were flying Frontier, which has individual TV monitors for each seat, and for $6, you can get DirecTV for the entire flight.

"Aw, pretty please?"

I said to J, "I'll happily pay $6 to get some kid's show that will keep them quiet during the flight."

"Oh, hell yes.  If it would keep them quiet and occupied, I'd blow a goat."

Lucky for J, such extreme measures were unnecessary.

The month in review; also, go the fuck to sleep

I know that I am in the minority in that most Mondays, I am thrilled to come back to work after the weekend.  I like the structure of getting up and having a schedule to maintain and someplace to go.  Because outside of work, life is very chaotic.  I am tired.

First I was sick.  Then I got better, but we had the kids' parent-teacher conferences.  Josie's went fine - she's right on track, everyone loves her, she's a delight to have in class, blah blah blah. 

Zeke's was more unnerving.  Apparently, he's smart as hell ("scary smart" was how the director of the school described it) and doing fine in all areas of development except for social-emotional.  The teacher is concerned because occasionally he has bad temper tantrums.  (Um, he's four?)  So she recommended I have him evaluated. 

First, this was a total surprise.  Sure, there have been days when the daily progress report was, "he didn't have a great day," but that's true of everyone from time to time.  Mostly, the reports are all good.  Second, I've been practicing special education law for 12 years, so I know a little bit about evaluations.

"OK," I said.  "What sort of evaluation should I seek out?  Do you think he has an emotional disability?  Should I take him to a psychologist?"

"No, I don't think so.  But I couldn't really say what kind of evaluation to get.  I think you should have him assessed by an occupational therapist."

"Why an OT?  Wouldn't an OT look at sensory issues or gross or fine motor skills?  I don't understand what an OT has to do with evaluating emotional or behavioral concerns."

She couldn't really explain it further.  So I went home frustrated and upset.*

Then we had the craziness of Halloween to deal with.  Which was awesome, but not exactly relaxing.  Zeke and Josie both decided to go as pirates (or rather, Zeke was a pirate, and Josie wanted to do what Zeke did).  So I'm all ready to go with their costumes for the Halloween parade at school, except that Zeke announces, "I want to be a gorilla for Halloween."  Mind you, this is maybe 10 minutes before we're ready to leave for school on Halloween day.

"No.  You said you wanted to be a pirate, so I've got a pirate costume for you.  I don't have a gorilla costume."

"Oh.  You don't have a gorilla costume?"

He has a habit of taking the last thing I say and turning it into a question.  "No."

"Why?"

This is also par for the course.  "Because.  Now here's your sword and your eyepatch."

I am nothing if not full of rational explanations.

So they put their costumes on and looked all adorable and then had an absolute blast when we went trick-or-treating that night.  Seriously, Zeke was so damned happy I thought his head was going to explode.  Josie was bored with her costume at that point, so she went sans.  But they still killed with the cute, knocking on doors and yelling "TRICK-OR-TREAT!" and then giggling and saying "thank you" 85 times.


Josie went as a beat poet.

Then two days later I went to Omaha, Nebraska, for a legal conference.  Which was fine, except that I've essentially been to the same conference twice already this year.  I mean, literally, the same presenters doing the same presentations with the same handouts.  But at least I got two nights in a hotel room to get caught up on horrendously bad reality TV (Braxton Family Values makes Jersey Shore look like Masterpiece Theatre) and sleep without anyone waking me up in the middle of the night or wanting me to snuggle with them so that their night-time pull-ups then leaked pee all over me. 

Then two nights later we were headed to IKEA to get Zeke's new big boy bed.  We drove the SUV and went down to J's office in Littleton to pick up the Civic, where he had left it because he drove his work van home.  We found the Civic and turned off the truck while J found his keys and we prepared to move a booster seat because Zeke wanted to ride with Daddy.  When I tried to turn the truck back on, it wouldn't start.**  So we all piled into the tiny little Civic and went to IKEA anyway, because Zeke needed a bed.  By the time we got home and I started to put the bed together (I am the designated assembler of furniture in the family, which is fine because I love doing it), it was 8:15 p.m.  And whereas most pieces of IKEA furniture are really easy to put together, this one presented more of a challenge.  So it was 11:15 by the time I was finished and Zeke and I could both go to bed.


Touche', Kura bed.  Touche'.  Fucker.

The one bright spot in the last few weeks was this past Friday, when I had my first Friday flex day of ski season.  Copper opened a couple of weeks ago, and only a few trails and runs are open, but it was still a blast.  I went with my friend Christin and her kids, and it was a beautiful day and the conditions were pretty decent.  I found that all the weight training I've been doing has made me really strong, so I had none of the initial wobbliness in my legs as I got used to using them on really steep inclines.  Christen even suggested that I enter some ski races. The truth is, I ski really fast because I'm not as safe as I should be -- I tend to skirt the line between being speedy and hurtling downhill out of control.  But I'm intrigued by the notion of entering a race, especially if it means I have an excuse to wear one of those funky racing suits that looks like it's covered with spider webs.

But then I spent the weekend being sick again.  The top of my windpipe is sore and tickly, so I'm constantly coughing and I sound all frog-y.  It would have been really nice to get a decent night's sleep before heading back to work. 

Alas, this was last night:

9:00 p.m. - I lie down with Josie in her bed (which is a junior bed, so it's both shorter and narrower than a twin) and we read Goodnight Moon.  Then we both fall asleep. 
12:20 a.m. - I wake up all achy because I'm asleep with my ribs pressing on the thin wooden frame on the side of her bed.  I get up to go back to my own bed.  Josie wakes up and starts to cry.  I figure, "sorry, hon, you're on your own," and I go to bed in my room.
12:45 a.m. - she's still crying.  I go into her room and she's standing in the middle of the room, in the dark, sobbing, "Mama!  Maaamaaaa!"  I pick her up and take her back to bed with me.  She promptly snuggles in and falls asleep.
1:30 a.m. - I'm still awake.  Zeke wakes up and starts crying, which is odd for him.  I wait to see if he'll put himself back to sleep.
1:50 a.m. - Zeke's still crying.  I go to his room and climb up into the bunk with him.  His bed's a twin, so there's actually room for both of us.  He puts his head on my shoulder and calms down a little bit.  "What's the matter, sweetie?"  I ask.  When the crying has diminished so that he can speak articulately, he says, "I neeeed a hu-u-uuug."  So I give him a hug.  He promptly calms down and falls asleep on my shoulder.  I nod off as well.
5:00 a.m. - J gets up and starts getting ready for work.
5:30 a.m. - I get up and start getting ready to exercise.
5:45 a.m. - Josie wakes up and starts to cry.  "Get up?" she says.  "No, sweetie, you need some more sleep."  "Snuggle mama."  So I bag my workout and get back into bed with her.

So, yeah.  I'm a little tired.  Thankfully, I work through Thursday, Friday I'm giving a short speech in the morning, and then I'm off for the Thanksgiving holiday.  We fly to DC on Sunday, where we will spend the holiday with my parents, my brothers and their significant others, and my nieces.  On the agenda are hockey games, visits with friends and cousins, the Day After Thanksgiving Pie, the Turkey Trot, football, and much fun and merriment.

Six more sleeps.  That is, assuming my kids allow it.
________________________________
*I emailed Zeke's pediatrician when I got home.  She said that she's never seen anything in him that gave her any kind of concern, and that she suspects that he's just highly intelligent and his maturity level hasn't caught up with the rest of his brain, which is not unusual for super-smart kids.  I love her.  I also talked to the director of the school, who agreed with the pediatrician.  Which begs the question of why I was referred to child find if no one suspects him of having a disability, but whatever.  In any event, I'll have him screened, but I think it's a load of bullshit.

**We got it back $1600 and a new fuel pump later...

My (admittedly lame) excuse is that my defenses were down

The past week has been kind of a nightmare, with some points of light thrown in, in the form of my parents' visit and Zeke's birthday party.  To which I forgot to take my camera and thus got no pictures.  Pfft.

So last Wednesday I was in the middle of doing a workout and holding 25 pounds weights in each hand while bending forward at the waist.  It's a hamstring exercise - you keep your back flat and let your legs do all the work as you lift and lower your torso.  And I was maintaining proper form, not even letting my arms dangle, but rather keeping them slightly engaged so as not to pull on my back too much.  But then all of a sudden I felt a little pull right in the middle of my back on the left side, about level with the bottom of my shoulder blade, and then the rest of my torso started to spasm and I couldn't move without excruciating pain. 

I put my weights down and managed to find an ice pack in the freezer and lie down on it on the couch.  J brought me a bunch of Advil and an Aleve, so I took them and waited for the pain to subside while I worried about how I was going to function over the next couple of days. 

Finally the medicine kicked in and I was able to get around without doubling over in pain every few seconds, so I showered and dressed and got the kids off to school.

The next two days were spent at a big annual convention for all of the state special education directors.  I gave a speech on Thursday, which went fine, but Thursday night I started feeling a tickle in my throat and Friday my tonsils and my neck glands were definitely acting up.  I went to the conference for a little while, but by around 11 a.m. I was feeling really shitty and I didn't really need to stay, so I went home.

My parents arrived a couple of hours later, to spend Zeke's birthday weekend with us.  Unfortunately, I spend the bulk of the time feeling crappy and lying on the couch, nursing a virus that mimicked strep in every regard -- extremely painful sore throat, swollen glands, and fever -- but wasn't *actually* strep, meaning that the doctor wouldn't give me any antibiotics for it.  Plus my strained back muscle was still acting up, so I was a pathetic mess.  I felt well enough to make it to Zeke's party on Sunday morning, which was really fun -- we went to a little dinosaur museum over in Morrison that has great hands-on exhibits and activities for kids -- but by the end of the weekend I was spent.

Monday I stayed home from work and slept and caught up on my DVR'd shows.  J went to work, but also had a court date at 1:15 in Jefferson County because he got pulled over a couple of months ago for having expired tags - I thought he had renewed them and he thought I had.  No big deal, right?  All he had to do was show up with the renewed registration and maybe pay a little fine.

Now, I've mentioned in the past that Australians in general, and my husband in particular, are notorious practical jokers.  And I grew up in a family of bullshit artists, so I tend to be pretty good at ferreting out the nonsense. 

But I guess I was tired.  And in pain.  And grumpy. 

And thus obviously unprepared when I received this text message from J approximately 5 minutes after he was due in court:  "$1000 and 10 days jail"

Because I freaked. 

If someone were telling me a story like this about someone else, I would have been all, "Oh, ha ha, good one."

But J has a history of getting kicked around by law enforcement.  So my initial reaction was, "NO!  WHAT THE FUCK??  REALLY??"  followed by furious efforts to call him.  But he didn't pick up his phone and I got more and more worked up and finally I just called the court.

CLERK:  Hello, Jefferson County Court, Criminal and Traffic Division.

ME:  Yeah, hi.  Uh, my husband had a court date this morning for a traffic ticket and I was just trying to find out what was going on with his case. 

[I give her the ticket number.]

CLERK:  Yep, here it is.  Looks like the DA dismissed it.

ME:  Really?  I'm so confused.  I got a text from my husband saying that he was assessed a huge fine and jail time, and I don't get it because it doesn't seem like failing to renew your registration on time would be a jailable offense.

CLERK:  Ma'am, I think he was just messing with you.

Ya think??