Parenting Archives - Page 11 of 18

Not knowing won’t stem the flow of advice

July 25, 2014 No Comments

We’d finally convinced the kids to leave the living room the other night for an extended period of time so we could catch an episode of Orange is the New Black.

We don’t want to ship them off for another session of summer camp, nor stay up until the wee hours when they finally go to bed, but we still want to watch our show, which last night meant begging them to stay out of the room, and then remaining on high alert lest they enter again, inadvertently getting an eyeful of the random soft-core porn scenes that seem to be a hallmark of the series.

This isn’t that blog, the one where I talk about balancing inappropriate television habits with lax summer bedtime schedules. It’s the one that starts out with sounds of distress coming from the basement.

Mike paused the show. We found Jack splayed supine on the basement floor.

“I broke it,” he said. “It won’t work.”

Nonsense, Parenting

It still might be awkward if you invite a horse

July 21, 2014 No Comments

Living where we do, it’s odd that I’ve been to so few rodeos.

I remember going to one as a kid. I cried because of the calves being thrown around and because a rodeo clown made fun of an old, swaybacked horse. I guess I was kind of a bummer date.

But I tried it again, when we were camping near Joseph, Oregon. By that time I had kids of my own, who were still really small. The weather was sweltering, and the beer was refreshing, and I was very thirsty.

Later, Mike politely complied when I requested he pull off the highway so I could yell at my shoes. That was followed by the mother of all hangovers, and a hot, sticky day camping with a toddler in training pants and a baby in diapers.

Parenting

Camping by the Numbers

July 14, 2014 No Comments

One camping trip under our belt so far this year. Just the one.

One 3,783 foot increase in elevation from home to our camp site, 131 miles away.
One 12 degree difference in temperature.
One camp trailer that weighs as much as the Death Star.
One tent in addition to said trailer, because 2 boys will no longer sleep in the same space.
7 hands of poker while waiting for fireworks to start (after 5 hands, both parents are cleaned out and kids are demanding to play with real money).

One moderately smelly outhouse, which forces me to relearn I can’t hold my breath as long as it takes to pee.

Parenting

We’re either instilling financially literacy, or raising embezzlers

July 11, 2014 No Comments

Hey mom, “I just found a ten thousand dollar bill,” Colin said, eyes wide.

“Just kidding,” he added a nanosecond later, knowing how quickly I make plans. He pulled out a laminated bookmark a teacher had given him. “See? It’s a fake. They don’t really make ten thousand dollar bills.”

That’s good information, just in case I was thinking of consolidating all the tips I make pole dancing. I’ll need to think smaller denominations.

Somehow, both boys have amassed wads of cash this summer from chores. They started flashing it at us every once in a while, fanning themselves with hands full of ones and fives … which ended pretty abruptly when I started asking for loans.

We pay our kids for chores. But, when I say “pay” I mean the kids keep running totals of what we owe them on a slip of paper on the fridge. Every once in a while we deduct a few bucks on request and add a video game or a Microsoft points card to our cart before check-out at the grocery store.

It’s a pretty loose system which I don’t monitor like I should. I sometimes worry that instead of teaching financial literacy, I’m encouraging the development of latent embezzlement skills, but at least I’m not one doling out the bills for them to flash like gangsters.

Parenting

Driving each other a little crazy

July 7, 2014 No Comments

Jack came home with his learner’s permit last night and drove us to dinner.

That sounds so nonchalant. My kid drove. With all of us in the car. At the same time.

I took a few pictures and then passed the camera to Mike who took one from the front. Then he passed the phone back to me and I hunkered down in the back seat, posting the momentous occasion to social media and distracting myself from the need to pitch in on the instruction.

Parenting

Camp food that won’t kill you

July 4, 2014 No Comments

So… Camping this weekend. Fourth of July. Yippee… (fizzy half-firework in the distance … phhttt).

This will be our first camping trip of the season, and thus will have been preceded by at least a full two days of preparation: cleaning the trailer, packing, determining whether the sleeping bags ever got washed at the end of last season, and whether either kid has a decent pair of flip flops for the beach, deciding between mountain bikes, hiking shoes, or fishing gear (then throwing our hands up and agreeing to all three).

Then there’s the camping menu. That’s totally my baby.

As per my meal planning modus operandi, I will come up with half a dozen ideas that are elegant, nutritious, satisfying … and completely impractical for the situation.

Parenting

Outdoor concerts and cheesy-corn

June 20, 2014 No Comments

Mike and I were in the beer line at a concert last week.

“I think we cut in front of you,” Mike said to the guy behind us.

“No, no, not a problem,” he said, amicably. “Boy, what a line. I think there are more people here waiting for beer than there are up by the stage.” He scanned the plaza.

“What do you think that says about us as Americans?”

“We’re thirsty,” we said in unison.

“Folks been together a while?” He said.

Parenting

Techno tourists

June 12, 2014 No Comments

Mom recently had to buy the book IPhone for Dummies after she switched out her flip phone for the latest, slimmest, whiz-bang of a contraption this side of Seattle. At the time of purchase, the T-Mobile sales guy was in the middle of settling the kind of domestic dispute that can happen when the Friends-and-Family plan becomes the Who-the-Hell-Signed-Up-Deadbeat-Uncle-Lou plan, from which considerable angst tends to spring.

They don’t advertise that particular plan.

When mom switched up phones, we were all pretty excited for her. I mean, think of the aps she’ll be able to use, to, um… do her yardwork, or read her mystery novel of the month club selection…

Parenting

Don’t knock the knockers

June 5, 2014 No Comments

When it comes to breasts, there are perky ones, ones that are droopy, lumpy, springy, teensy, full or pointy. The best thing I can say about mine is that they can clear a room.

I was thinking about this as I was deciding on an ensemble this morning. This was after spending probably a nanosecond too long trying to rationalize wearing yoga pants to a meeting. I couldn’t. I settled on comfortable slacks, and threw a summer blouse on. I’d forgotten about the neckline on the thing. It was plunging.

Was I revealing too much? Might something pop out unexpectedly?

Then my reflection and I shared a little laugh, because the only time something is likely to spring from my blouse is if I’m smuggling monkeys from a jungle.

Parenting

The sound of music

May 21, 2014 No Comments

When I was a second grader somebody let me pick up and scratch out a few notes on a violin. I can’t fathom why I wanted to. Might have been a Laura Ingalls kind of thing. The class was held in a building I remember looking a little like a one-room schoolhouse. It was probably just one of those portables dressed up in my fantasy.

I did go all out for gingham and braids at age seven, though.

I was not a good violin player. I think it had something to do with fatigue brought on by carrying the thing to school. By the time I hit the crosswalk, my arm was about to fall off. The case must have been made of lead or something. I needed a pack mule.

I was also the shortest kid in the whole student body clear through third grade. I was probably dragging it on the ground the whole route, which couldn’t have helped it sound any better.

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