Jun 5, 2015 | trying to raise humans
Ah, lip gloss and laundry. A pair that was never meant to be. Two items, that when joined together equalled me having my first Den Flannery “Son of a B! Who left their Chapstick in their pocket and threw it in dryer?” moment. (But replace that “B” with the full word and potentially pepper the sentence with some other choice words. And then picture me or either of my brothers panicking, hoping it wasn’t us, and if we were the guilty party, praying it didn’t “ruin the dryer”, thanking God when the dryer was deemed in good shape, then re-washing loads of laundry in a row home basement in Philadelphia. Good times. Good times. I am still not sure if washing a Chapstick or washing tissues was a worse offense.)
I am sure, as it was when I was growing up, this is the first of many such laundry delights I will endure at the mercy of our children.
For some reason, I woke up with a little extra motivation on this fine Friday morning. So, I decided to strip the kids’ beds and wash their sheets. A little jump start on the weekend chores? Perhaps.
Things were humming along as planned. Until now.
I just removed Grace’s sheets from the dryer and this lovely ice cream cone of a lip gloss hit the floor.
Well, nuts.
It’s purple.
And sparkly.
And unlike the picture, it was open.
Sigh.
I started pulling sheets out of the dryer.
Yep. Small purple, sparkly dots adorned each and every sheet and pillow case that I had just washed.
Suddenly, my original “I’m so clever!” idea to wash both the Fall / Winter and Spring / Summer sheet sets all together to freshen up her Spring / Summer set before I put them on her bed seemed to scream “You fool!” Loudly. Very loudly.
So, I cozied up with my Resolve bottle and spent 30 minutes poring over every square inch of two sets of sheets in the hopes of obliterating any trace of purple and sparkles. And given the patterns, it was every bit as much of a good, fun time as you might imagine.
As fun as this real-world game of almost Where’s Waldo? proportions was, it also gave me plenty of time to think. And it finally hit me – why the heck is there a lip gloss in with her sheets? Is there a burning need for purple, sparkly, ice cream shaped and scented lip gloss in the middle of the night? Apparently so. Life according to Grace.
May 5, 2015 | moments & memories
This post is eventually about my dad’s take on Facebook, but first, I feel compelled to whinge a bit about my lack of blogging. (Enjoy. haha!)
The Lack of Blogging Whinging
How is it May? Seriously. And how have I not written a blog in two months? Ugh.
Thanks to an extraordinarily busy year at work so far, I’ve been absent on the personal creative front. I miss it. Very much. To be honest, this has extended beyond my “creative outlet” (i.e. this blog.) (i.e. the creativity piece is subjective). I’ve also been slightly hermit-ish and haven’t really spoken to family and friends a ton either. I’ve been slow to FaceTime, slow to answer emails and texts, slow to do social activities aside from a few meals that didn’t involve anyone I am married or related to. Basically, I’ve been a real all-around social peach, to put it nicely. (Yes, yes. Poor Kenny. And poor Gavin and Grace.) I feel as if I am literally living the adage “All work and no play makes Bridget a dull gal.” (Ok, so I paraphrased. But you know what I mean: I am working. A lot. And playing, only a little. Therefore, I feel dull.)
But not today. Today, I reached the tipping point of dullness, and need to take a few minutes to do something personal and sort of creative. I am eating my lunch while trolling through my hefty back log of blogs unwritten. Trying to identify a short, quick topic that I can type up and publish quickly.
And, I’ve found one. Woo hoo.
The Actual Blog: My Dad’s Take on Facebook
I particularly love this little gem.
It may possibly be the greatest summary of Facebook ever spoken. And I am not just saying that because these are my dad’s words.
My mom, dad and I were hanging around their house during one of my visits home. My mom was Facebooking, which is one of her newer favorite ways to kill time. (Sound familiar? haha.) She was informing my dad of the day’s latest – you know, things like Bob Smith* took his grandkids to see a movie, Jim Jones* was taking down his Christmas tree, and George Houlihan* was leaving tomorrow for a Caribbean cruise.
My dad, in a fashion that is uniquely his, deadpanned, “That’s great, Kath. The last time I saw George was when I walked out of Father Judge High School for the last time in 1966.”
And there it is. Facebook. Defined by a Baby Boomer. Virtual nostalgia. Or, if you’re like my dad, perhaps not so much.
*made up names for the purposes of this blog.
Mar 12, 2015 | yup, i really did that
This past weekend, I had the good fortune of traveling home to Philadelphia to surprise my best gal pal at her surprise 40th birthday party.
I’ve never really done a weekend “away from it all” since having kids – perhaps shockingly, perhaps not so much. I travel fairly frequently for work, so purposefully leaving the fam on the weekends never really seemed like the thing to do. Plus, and perhaps more importantly (?), most of my friends also have families and / or work full time, so you can imagine the days of grabbing a shore house for the weekend are *quite* few and far between. (And by few and far between, I mean it never happens.) At first – and I mean literally until the morning I left – going away alone for a leisure trip felt odd. But rest assured, dear readers, that I adjusted quickly, and, quite frankly, pretty much fell headlong right back into college-era behaviors.
Here’s how:
1) I stayed up late. Way late. I arrived in Philadelphia at 11 p.m. on Friday night. I stayed up chatting with my brother and sister-in-law until about 2:30 a.m. ET, at which point, my night-owl brother finally bailed on me. I stayed awake to catch up on a missed episode of Girls before finally hitting the hay myself.
2) I slept in. I slept until 9:30 a.m. on a Saturday. Yes, even WITH a 3-year-old in the house. And with said 3-year-old coming in to check on me to see if I was still sleeping.
3) I lounged on the couch. All day Saturday. Like literally with iPad in hand, occassionally discussing what fattening Philadelphia delicacy we were going to eat for lunch. I had not a care in the world except what time I had to start readying my old self to go out for an evening in (Fish)town.
4) I went shopping for post-party / post-bar snacks. We knew it was going to be a late night, so we stocked up on things that no almost 40-year-old should eat regularly.
5) I ate pizza. And cheese fries. For lunch. And pretended I had the metabolism and regulated stomach acid of my 20-year-old self. Since this was really linner (lunch and dinner), and because pizza and cheese fries like Philadelphia does ’em aren’t really a thing in Portland, I was OK with the calorie overload. And surprisingly, so were my jeans!
6) I went to a bar where the (Fishtown) cool kids go. It was full of beards, and tight jeans, and ear gauges and rainbow hair. And that was just the men. My hidden East-side Portlander / former Grunge + Deadhead self felt right at home, if not slightly wistful.
7) I shook my nonexistent groove thing to some old classics by Rob Base and DJ EZ-Rock. And I literally mean I stood there and shook my hips once or twice. But it was delightful – mostly because I was hanging with most of my old gal gang from high school, and feeling grateful that not much has changed in the 20+ years since we graduated. We see each other and get right back into the swing of things – no matter how long it’s been between get togethers!
8) I did shots. Ok, I did a shot. But that’s one more shot than I’ve done in recent history. And I discovered that I actually kind of like my grand pop’s drink of choice: Southern Comfort. Not bad with a some lime juice. Not bad at all. This right here must mean I am super close to crossing over the bridge to my twilight, right? I think so.
9) I experimented. Ok, so this was entirely accidental. A goodbye exchange went awry, and a gal and I accidentally ended up kissing each other on the mouth. Her dry, post-smooch summary: “OH! I think we just made out!” will have me (and those who witnessed the event) laughing for years. We’re old friends, but were only kiss-on-the-cheek close until Saturday. Now, we have a story for the ages. I am still laughing about this.
10) I went to the after-party. This really just entailed some shenanigans along Girard Avenue – including taking some fun pics of many things Fishtown (see blog feature pic!) as I walked back to the birthday gal’s house, but still. I stayed after the first car load left. In fact, I stayed out until…
11) 3:30 a.m. Yes, that’s right. I didn’t roll out until 3:30 a.m. Thank God for younger brothers who stay out with older sisters for safety reasons. And Uber. That is one genius idea, let me tell you.
12) I was locked out when we arrived home. And I was legit petrified that I was going to have to call my father to unlock the door to let us in. (My parents slept at my brother’s house after the party.) Phone calls after 10 p.m. were never my father’s favorite, but a phone call from his adult kids who were locked out after a night out? Shudder. Luckily, my youngest brother (who stayed out with me) panicked and ran around the back of the house and banged on the windows loud enough to wake my sister-in-law while I stayed out front and called the phones of everyone in the house. I was thisclose to having to call my Dad when she swung open the door and saved the day! Literally.
13) I ate Cool Ranch Doritos at 4:30 a.m. Right before bed. Right after a night of adult beverages. I was the last (wo)man standing. Granted, my internal clock is set to Pacific time, but still, once you become a mom, purposefully staying up until 1:30 is nothing to shake your fist at. Shockingly, I felt fine the next day when I awoke at…
14) 11:30 a.m. That’s right. I slept until 11:30 a.m. for the first time since college. For reals.
15) I lounged some more on Sunday. Before I went to my first-ever Sunday Funday. I met two friends for wine and food at the good old Drake Tavern in Jenkintown, up the street from our old house. We shared stories and laughs. Lots of laughs. So many laughs that I almost missed my train for New York, where I was heading for work on Monday.
Yeaaaaaa.
I pretty much reverted to 21 – except I actually felt I appreciated the fun more at 39. Funny how that happens, right? It was awesome – for a spell. 😉
I’ve always been glad I’ve had an older, wiser best girlfriend to show me the ropes. Even if only for a few months until I caught up. 😉 And as she turns 40, she didn’t let me down. We still got it. We can still hang. We have so much living left to do – and this weekend showed me we’ve got plenty of spirit left with which to do it. Cheers, Megan!
Feb 19, 2015 | trying to raise humans
Apparently the sweet little Hello Kitty motif of the sweater Santa gifted Grace for Christmas was not quite “fashionable” enough for our little Grace.
It needed something else.
Something a little extra.
Something to push the cute factor over the top.
Something that might swaddle tiny six-year-old thumbs in a soft fabric hug.
You know…something like thumb holes.
After she Billy Ray Cyrused her hair at the age of three, you’d think Kenny and I would have learned that access to scissors is not a good thing for our gal Grace. But nope, the trust creeped back in and we got lax.
And a sweater was her latest victim.
Grace asked to wear her Hello Kitty sweater and some comfy pants on a lazy weekend day. I obliged. After dressing, she came into my room to ask if she could go outside to play, and I spied what I assumed was a little hole in her sweater. I went to take her hand to inspect further. She pulled it back and made wide eyes at me.
I said, “What happened to your sweater?”
She said, “Oh, it got some holes.”
I said, “Ok, that happens sometimes. Let me see the damage.”
Grace shook her head as she said firmly: “No.”
Me: “Why not?”
Grace: “Well, the holes are big. I don’t think you’ll be happy.”
Me: “I can only see if it can be fixed if you show me.”
Grace slowly held out her arms. Not one arm. Both arms. Which revealed quarter-sized holes.
And yea, no. That can’t be fixed.
I was slightly amused, slightly annoyed. I had a sneaky suspicion on what went down. (And by sneaky suspicion, I mean I knew exactly what happened.) Very calmly, I said, “Hmmmm. How did this happen?”
Grace started to lie.
Great. We’re raising a mini Vivienne Westwood who is also a lying liar pants.
I stopped her and asked her to think about what really happened.
She started to lie again. (So you don’t think I am a horrible, untrusting mother: she has a tell – she won’t look at me and re-starts the story at least three times if she’s telling fib-a-roonie-doonies.)
I stopped her again and reminded her that you always get in less trouble if you tell the truth – even if you did something wrong. She said, “Remind me how that works again.” (Hahaha. Oh my. She is a clever little thing – weighing her options.)
I said, “If you did something you shouldn’t have, apologize and tell Mommy the truth about it, Mommy will only be upset for one thing. BUT, if you did something you shouldn’t have, and lie about it, Mommy always finds out the truth and then I will be upset for TWO things.” She nodded slowly.
She said, “OK.”
I asked her if she decided to make thumb holes in her sweater.
She nodded slowly and wouldn’t look up.
I said, “I am not mad.”
Shocked, she whipped her head up to look at me. I asked her to tell me what happened.
Finally, the truth. She said, “Wellllllllll, I like this sweater, but the sleeves are a little long. And I have small arms. Remember when Daddy gave me thumb holes in my soccer shirt? I thought they would be good for this sweater.”
I said, “OK, honey, that makes sense to me, but I don’t want you to change your clothes in any way unless you check with me first. ”
She smiled a small (mischievous?) smile and said, “But what if I can make it prettier?”
Good luck to us. Really.
Jan 12, 2015 | therapy fodder
Few things rile me up more than when I see or hear about kids getting bullied or picked on. You can imagine how that multiplies when it involves my own children – no matter what side of the equation they are on.
Gavin got off the bus today and ran over to me.
I could see his normally bright eyes were tinged red as he approached.
He walked right up to me, and I could now see that his red-tinged eyes were brimming with big fat tears.
I didn’t say a word, I just looked at him with sympathetic eyes.
He squeaked out, “Mom, some girls on the bus told my friends not to trust me because I have red hair.”
Oh no. No. No. No.
I bent down and told him that it’s not ok for people to say that.
He replied, “Yea. People shouldn’t say things about how other people look. It’s just how they are made.”
My initial sadness for him was buttressed by a little bit of pride – it’s always nice to hear parenting lessons you deem important repeated back to you in young voices. Lately, he’s been telling us about how some boys he is friends with are getting teased for how they dress and we’ve been encouraging him to stick up for those kids because it’s what’s inside that matters, not how you look or dress. Sounds like some of what we’ve been saying is sticking? Anyway, I’ll beam some more later – let’s get back to the hurt little copper-top standing in front of me.
I told him that it’s ok to stick up for himself and that he should defend himself – red hair and all. He said, “Yea, I know. But I don’t even know why they were saying that, so I didn’t know what to say.” I told him that a simple, “Stop it – you’re being mean.” would cover it. (Being brave and calling people out for being crappy never hurts, right?) He smirked and went about his after school unpacking routine as I stood there and thought to myself, “I don’t know why they are saying that either, buddy. It’s so stupid. In every sense of the word.”
Luckily, he recovered quickly and is now outside playing.
Thank goodness for their young, resilient spirits. And good friends who like you no matter what you look like.
I, however, am not ok.
I am so tired of people using words to tear other people down – young, old, big, small, whomever. It’s not ok. Ever. Whatever happened to, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, say nothing at all.”?! That should come back. In a big way. I’ll start.
As parents, I truly believe we can start to fix this together. It is SO EASY to gently remind kids – consistently – about the power that words hold. Written words. Spoken words. Words that are shouted. Words that are whispered. Words that are muttered. They all matter. They all have an impact. Even when you can’t see what that impact is. If someone sees those words or hears those words, they will absorb them, and reflect on them. Even if it’s just briefly. Those words will have an impact to everyone who comes across them – whether you realize it or not. Encourage them to choose wisely. Always.
It is SO EASY to consistently remind our kids to not make comments about how others look, or dress, or act. It is SO EASY to remind our kids that everyone is an individual who looks different, dresses different, acts different. It is SO EASY to remind them that these differences are what make this world awesome and if we all weren’t different, we’d live in a pretty boring place. And you can bring it home by gently encouraging them to think about how they would feel if someone said [insert tease] to them and ask them how that might make them feel. Sometimes just turning them on to the impact of their words can make all the difference – awareness is a gateway to understanding and understanding can breed compassion.
Even though they are in his grade, Gavin doesn’t know the girls who were teasing him and encouraging his friends not to be friends with him because of the color of his hair. It’s probably for the best. No real good can come from either of us knowing who is saying such hurtful things, right? Right. Without knowing, we can focus all of our energy on preparing Gavin to stick up for himself and not letting others erode his confidence.
As the mom of a red-head, I will admit that I’ve been waiting for this day. We’ve all heard the stupid ‘gingers having no soul’ tales and seen those memes all over the internet. It was only a matter of time that such stuff was applied to Gavin. I will say, however, that I am – perhaps naively – surprised at how soon I am having to deal with this. I question how second-grade girls know the repugnant social stigmas having red hair holds. And know them well enough to repeat them. It makes me sad. Honestly.
So, parent-to-parent, let’s make a pact to help our kids get over being harsh. Let’s teach them the value of words when they are used properly, and help them understand the sting they unleash when they’re not. Let’s help them build each other up, instead of tearing each other down for cheap laughs or other fleeting emotional plays. And if you see my kids being cruel or unkind to another child, call them on it. I promise I’ll do the same for you. Bullying is learned behavior – let’s work together to make sure every kids feels welcome in our world, in our communities, in our schools, in our neighborhoods. Even the gingers. Or in this case, perhaps, especially the gingers. And one in particular. 😉
Is this face really untrustworthy because it’s topped with a mop of red hair? Cut me a break.
