A few things I don't want to forget

Last week, upon starting her daily "besponsibilities", my daughter told me, "Just you wait, Mama, my room is gonna be as clean as a weasel!"
"You mean clean as a whistle?"
"No, as a WEASEL."
Not exactly the standard for cleanliness, but okay then.

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Yesterday, the kids were doing that thing again where they unknowingly impersonate Garth and Kat, and my seven year old asked me to take a video of them singing. (He clearly doesn't understand the future implications of putting any such video into the hands of his parents. Thinking ahead to the teenage years, the words blackmail and extortion come to mind.)

Anyway, we were in the car, so I said no to the video. His response was, "Well, then, we're going to keep singing crazy things for hours and hours until you take a video."

"Buddy, are you threatening me?"

"Oh yeah, and we'll do it, too." (Insert maniacal laugh, followed by the breakout hit "I'm Melting Like a Popsicle--and a Snowman...and a Snowman").

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Big brother says to little sister, regarding her progress in Spanish: "You're doing okay, but you really need to work on your pro-uh-ni-ation." (He meant pronunciation.) Oh, lo irónico!

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The people who say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery should've clarified exactly what's being imitated and by whom. My son has picked up on his parents' free-flowing use of sarcasm (What? Sarcasm is one of the love languages, right?), and is now throwing it regularly back in my face. He's even got the placement, intonation and timing down when he tosses in "Reeeeally?" and "Seriously..." Yes, this taste of my own medicine is quite delightful, thankyouverymuch.

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I've been dragging the kids to the gym this summer a bit too frequently for their liking, and they are officially bored out of their minds in the childcare area. Yesterday, when I dropped them off, the boy asked how many miles I was doing, did a bit of math in his head, and then called as I left, "You better run a PR and get right back here to pick us up!"

Speaking of PRs, my friend Laura ran a pregnant PR on Sunday to win our age group. If you don't have one of those people in your life that pushes you to do whatever it is you do better, then you need to get one. Because nothing makes you want to run faster than getting beat (twice) by a pregnant lady. We've run a few long runs together (since her normal racing teammates are temporarily too fast for her), and I'm learning a ton from her as I try to ride her coat tails to hard-core-ness.

I don't write much here about running (who I am kidding? I don't write much here about anything.), so if you want to follow along with the running stuff, look for me on Daily Mile. It's a fun way to keep track of your progress and to connect with other runners, joggers, or slightly-faster-than-a-crawl-ers, whatever happens to be your happy pace.

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My son has been looking for ways to earn money so he can build a theme park in the back yard. He just came up with a brilliant twist on the lemonade stand. He's going to go back to Nana's house, get her to teach him to sew, make like ten dress shirts--all different sizes--and sell them for $60 each. He figures he can get Nana to work for free, (and how much can the fabric and buttons really cost?), and he can pocket about $50 a shirt. That is, if he can keep distribution costs to a minimum with the road-side marketing approach. The wheels are always turning in his crazy brain. Nana, you've been forewarned.

The Entrepreneur and his Chief Production Officer

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Long before Martha Stewart began heaping inferiority complexes on mothers everywhere

Long before Martha Stewart began heaping inferiority complexes on mothers everywhere, before it was cool to bake your own bread, concoct your own granola and use zucchini to ruin a perfectly good pizza, lived my crunchy-before-it-was-cool mother.

She sewed clothes for us out of remnants and made entire summer meals from the produce of dad's vegetable garden. Judging by the jars of beans and peaches and salsa and tomatoes and jam, you'd assume she grew up in the Amish country and not on the shores of southern California.

My mother left her job teaching elementary school when I was a toddler. And so as long as I could remember, she was home, always home. Making that blasted granola.

Why couldn't we just have Lucky Charms  and wonder bread like the other kids? When she packed my lunch, it was raw veggies, raw fruit, homemade bread with homemade jam, and sometimes pretzels. Fat chance of ever trading any of that for Cheetos or a Twinkie.

For a very long time, I wanted nothing to do with this version of motherhood. I helped with the canning only when it was mandated, spurned the needle and thread, and schemed with my big sister about how, when we grew up, we'd "pick up pizza on the way home from work."

Yes, indeed, my crowning act of rebellion would be to buy Domino's Pizza.

But today, twenty years and too-many-to-count take-out pizzas later, I'm wishing I paid attention when mom was baking her famous sour-cream chocolate cake. Because tomorrow is my son's seventh birthday, and I'd rather eat crow than another Costco cupcake.

Mom, I love you, and I finally appreciate the hard, thankless work you did all those years. Also, can you come visit this week--and bring your canning jars? I have some tomatoes dying to be turned into salsa.

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So did you grow up eating Lucky Charms or granola? Wonder bread or homemade whole wheat? Has the way you grew up shaped how you do things in your family today, for better or for worse?

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Vaclempt

I just found this draft from a month ago. My mom and dad were visiting at the time, and I didn't have time to publish it. But I figured why not now...

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Sometimes I tear up for no reason at all.

It happened twice today.

Now before you assume it's just crazy mother hormones, I must say it's not that kind of tearing up. Trust me. I know that kind of tearing up, am quite familiar with it, in fact, and this is not it.

It's the kind of tearing up that might better be called welling up. I feel full to my brim, and it spills into my eyelids.

I hear my girl giggling at the surf. I see my boy chasing a seagull, then announce what he's just done using a perfect "G" sound.

I watch my Dad doling out underdogs to his grandchildren on the swings and overhear the squeals of glee from the backyard. I see my daughter take my mother's hand and pull her into the frigid ocean, yelling "C'mon NANA!!!"

And I well up. Spill over. Give thanks.

I have not always felt this full. And I know my future may hold hollowed days. But today, in these moments, I well up.

Since I'm vaclempt, perhaps you should discuss among yourselves. What did you well up over this week? Or perhaps last month, if you want to follow my not-so-late-breaking reporting schedule?

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In Which Vacationland Finally Decides to Live Up to Its Name

Caution: This post may (does!) contain endless drivel about our daily lives. Side effects may include boredom, jealousy, and general malaise. If you are prone to disappointment or suffer from Attention Deficit Disorder, this post may not be right for you. Please consult your Browser to find potentially more appropriate reading.

The sun appeared early Thursday morning along with some old friends from Northern Virginia, and we've been going nonstop ever since.

We started our morning at Fort Williams. Note how Caed took charge as the tour guide for the little ladies:


You can blame Kelly for requesting a walking tour of Maine, which will likely be forced upon you in this and the posts to follow. The first order of business is to ensure you know what we mean by Fort Williams.
Yes, that is our very famous lighthouse, referred to as the Portland Headlight. You might also be interested to know that it is a rubbish free park. So be prepared to drive home with those poopy diapers in tow. (Again, just keeping it real --telling you what the mainstream tourbooks won't.)

Friday we joined the entire state of Maine (not to mention a fair bit of Massachusetts) at the beach. After enduring the darkest June since 1903 and the wettest ever on record, I dare say I've never seen so many happy New England faces in one place. This face was no exception:


Saturday morning we said reluctant goodbyes to our friends a couple of hours before we welcomed Nana and Papa to Maine. Then, after serving up a round of catnaps on the house, we set off to Freeport for LL Bean's summer concert series, featuring Dan Zanes.

And again with the smiles....Sheesh!
(I interupt this tour to tell you that Nana and Papa totally rock. They danced through much of the concert with their grandchildren on their shoulders. If that isn't a legacy worth carrying on, I don't know what is. Dance like no one's watching, and like you don't have 35 pounds of dead weight squirming atop your shoulders.)

Sunday was another gorgeous day, so we explored Two Lights State Park, followed by lunch at the Lobster Shack.


So you see, Maine really is "the way life should be", at least for four or five days out of the year!

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There's an App for That

Missing your Nana from far, far away?

There's an app for that....
And only a Nana (our Nana!) would set aside her first cup of tea to field questions about donuts, (va)'cations, and whether or not the "Michigan 'Nonalds has a p'ayp'ace" during a 6 a.m. Skype press conference with these two junior reporters.

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It turns out I was wrong

The grandparents DO like it when you blog on and on about barf. In fact, I just received an email from Nana wondering when I was going to post “part 3” of my “gift that kept on giving” series. I can always tell my mom is feeling better when she returns from her cyberspace hiatus to inquire about the status of our digestive tracts.
So here’s the scoop. The boys eventually got it too. Caed was a trooper and bounced back quickly. Larry survived as well and is already back at work (although he probably could use another week of sleep to fully recover). And I no longer live in dread of waking up to the sound of gagging in the night or hosting another all-night vigil by the washing machine. Because everyone in my household has been there, done that, and then some. And we are so over it!

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The gift that kept on giving

Twas the night before Christmas, and what I wouldn’t give to say “not a creature was stirring”. In Dani’s short medical history, she has managed to create a strong correlation between special occasions and sickness. A couple of days before her birthday this year, she produced a raging ear infection (and reproduced her food a couple of times). We spent her birthday the year prior in the ER. And so it was not altogether surprising when at 11:00 p.m on Christmas Eve, Dani kicked off Hurlapalooza 2008.
We stayed up all night--mother and daughter--doing laundry, changing sheets, changing PJs, washing hair, and cuddling in between baths and the next “episode”. The festivities finally wound down by 5:00 a.m.
But it wasn’t over, folks. By Christmas evening, it was clear that Dani had been very generous with her germs. And the fun to be had was now mine all mine. Thank goodness MY mom was here. (Larry had to work from Christmas morning until the following day and couldn’t be around to bail me out.) While I spent the entire night in very close proximity to the great white throne, Nana held down the fort with the kiddos, kept the kitchen clean and the laundry going. When Caed woke up on Boxing Day at 5:30 a.m., rearing to go and determined to play with his new (and loud) Geotrax Airport, Nana quickly came to my rescue and sent me back to bed. Do you hear that? Yes, that is me, rising up and calling my mom blessed, a million times over.
So far, I have managed to be more miserly with my germs--the one situation when it is entirely acceptable to play the role of Scrooge. Knock on wood, Caed and Larry have not yet participated in the festivities, and let’s hope it stays that way!

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Nana is dialed in and I'm still on hold

Cell phone. Palm Pilot. Blogging. Bluetooth. iPod. Macbook. Facebook. And soon, the iPhone. What do these things have in common? My mom, a grandmother 13 times over, was into all of it way before I was. You know you’ve missed the train to hip-town when your own mother is sporting a shuffle while you are still walk-manning around in a late 80s trance.

Many moonwalks ago, when the Palm Pilot was all the rage, I worked for a technology consulting company and juggled a demanding schedule. Yet I clung to my dino-Daytimer to manage my work across multiple time zones while my mom categorized recipes and wrote “to do” lists in her new Palm. She was the savvy early adopter, and I was the lazy late bloomer. But in my defense, I was only late because I didn’t have a Palm with an alarm chime going off automatically to remind me that it was time for me to upgrade to the tools of the 21st century.

So it shouldn’t surprise anyone, especially me, when this past week, one of my friends from middle school found me on Facebook through, you guessed it, my Mom’s “wall”. (This, I believe, makes me officially as uncool as a smokin’ CPU in a commodor 64. And not the good kind of smokin’).

You see, a couple days prior I had reluctantly set up a quick profile on Facebook so I could log in and see updates from my brother on his big move to DC. I had resisted any participation in this online venue up until this point, because (and here’s the irony) I thought myself TOO OLD to toggle with the likes of teenagers, too crotchety to connect with college kids.

But apparently Facebook is for moms too. MY MOM, that is. And wouldn’t ya know, she has like five hundred friends already, and stuff written all over her wall. And I’ll be honest, I really don’t even know what that means. I didn’t think walls were supposed to be written on. At least that what my Mom told me back when I was five and quite prolific with crayons. Boy, has she changed her iTune since then!

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