“Are you in lockdown?”

by with No Comment FamilyFamily lifeGun controlParenting

An incident at school Wednesday, followed by a flurry of confusing text messages from my son, had me texting him this question:

“Are you in lockdown?”

I didn’t ask this frivolously. It was the only way I could think of to interpret the incoming messages. The only way I could figure out whether the incident he was describing occurred off school grounds or was happening in real time. And to determine whether he was in danger.

The magnitude of that exchange did not hit me until the next morning. This is where we are, folks. A place and time where I can text my child this question as a matter of course.

This is where we are.

Never in my life did I believe I would accept something so scary, so chilling, as a commonplace question. A practical means to an end.

Our kids are under siege. What the hell are we going to do about it?

As parents we suffer so many anxieties, worries, frustrations and fears. But that our kids will be shot in a school, mall or church? At a concert or movie? Seriously? That is not sane.

This isn’t a war-torn country. We don’t live in Somalia or Syria or Afghanistan. This is the United States of America. A country I still believe to be the greatest in the world. But a great country protects its future and we are not doing that. Why have we come so far and fought so hard if we’re willing to sacrifice our children to outdated and dangerous ideals?

I don’t have all the answer and I don’t believe this problem can be completely solved with stricter gun laws. But your gun vs. my kid? I don’t even have to draw a breath to respond to that one.

This is the real world where many of us live and I want you to see it and hear it. To think about the kid, my kid, who got THAT text and had to answer THAT question. To his mom. In the middle of his school day. And I want you to realize it could easily be yours tomorrow or next week or next month.

Lockdown isn’t normal. Active shooter drills aren’t normal. None of this is normal.

Please, oh God, please – don’t let this be the new normal.

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A Monday morning

by with No Comment FamilyParentingWorkWriting

When your daughter borrows your expensive earrings without asking, and your hair is a wavy mess, and you get a project dumped on you before you’ve even left the house, and one son almost misses the bus, and the other son generates an email from school for being habitually late to science class, and your parking ramp is full so you have to walk an extra three blocks with something in your shoe, and you can’t find your security badge, and you realize you’ve forgotten to plug in the slow-cooker so dinner is not underway as planned…

And then your dad sends you a note about how much he enjoyed your last blog post and how talented you are and how proud he is.

And all things in the universe around you breathe a collective sigh of relief and the day settles back into place.

Small kindnesses matter.

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Teen housekeeping

by with No Comment Household managementParenting

Every day before I leave for work I produce a list of chores. It is in an easy-to-read, table format. Responsibilities are clearly assigned. And for the most part, the chores get done.

But there’s still a tortilla sitting on the arm of the couch in the TV room.

And there is the problem, in a nut shell. All that gets done is what I specify. And I forgot yesterday to add to the list, “Please pick up the tortilla in the basement TV room.”

A tortilla! Courtesy of the very same child who once accidentally lured a mouse into his bedroom by leaving a tortilla under his bed. They’ve learned nothing.

When I worked at home, I knew I was doing most of the heavy lifting when it came to housework, but I had no idea that I was single-handedly keeping chaos from my door. The evidence of our reduced housekeeping state is everywhere. The four-foot weeds in the yard and the cobwebs in the corners are bad enough. It’s that other stuff I can’t stand, like the gum underneath my cabinet counter. The silverware under the couch. And the vast expanse of laundry, everywhere but in the dirty-laundry depositories conveniently located in every room.

I keep holding out that one day my kids will wake up, realize they are pigs, and spontaneously scrub the kitchen floor. So far, nothing. The only person who has awakened to my plight is my extremely bored nanny, who helpfully empties the dishwasher every day and puts everything in the wrong place. Making dinner at my house is like a treasure hunt with a low payout.

I had a glimmer of hope yesterday. I returned home from work to discover that my youngest son and his friends had weeded the path at the side of the yard. It was pristine – not a weed in sight.

“Finally,” I thought, “Someone doing a chore just because it needs to be done!”

Turns out they weeded so they could build a bike jump. A gum wrapper on your rug is acceptable; a weed on the approach to the bike jump is not.

At least they have standards. I’ll take what I can get.

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Let me take a selfie

by with No Comment Family lifeParenting

If you take a photo of yourself in the forest, and no one is there to see it, did it really happen?

I am baffled by the selfie. There’s something disturbing about capturing every moment of your life in a still. Especially when some of them make you look…well, unattractive.

My kids take selfies constantly. Most of them are cute and charming. (It helps to be a 90-pound teen with clear skin and only one chin.) But they’ll also willingly post pictures of themselves at their least attractive moments, where everyone they know will see them. And they don’t even care!

Well I, myself, care. I have spent the better part of my adult life trying to destroy unattractive photos of myself. This is no small effort in the days where everyone has a camera and is not afraid to use it.

I come from a long line of unphotogenic women. (I don’t think I’m saying anything my familial readers don’t know, but I apologize anyway for airing our genetic laundry.) We are camera-shy. There are so few pictures of us you’d think we’d descended from an all-male line.

My kids, fortunately, take after their father. He is annoyingly photogenic. You can shoot a picture of him after he’s spent a 90-degree day clearing brush, and he won’t even look shiny. For a while, his Facebook profile showed him shortly after a rugby injury. He looked handsome, healthy, and rugged – even though he’s bleeding from the eye. The nerve.

Selfies require skill I don’t have. Maybe my arms aren’t long enough. My selfies all look like they were taken by an ear, nose, and throat doctor. I’m trapped in a vicious circle – it takes some practice to take a good selfie, but I don’t want to practice. I don’t want to look at pictures of myself. If I were being interrogated, I would tell you anything to make you stop showing me unattractive pictures of myself. And they wouldn’t be very hard to come by.

On a recent vacation, while attempting to take a photo of my daughter on her phone, I took a selfie of my nether-regions. “Nice crotch shot, mama,” she said lovingly when she came across it. Snarky, but at least she didn’t post it anywhere.

Sadly, it was one of my better selfies. I actually considered saving it.

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#1: Why I hate Halloween

by with No Comment FamilyFamily lifeHolidaysParenting

It’s not hard to figure out why this particular Sad and Desperate search term hit my site since I wrote a post titled Why I hate Halloween. That post, however, dealt with the specific and heinous practice of employees wearing costumes to work, a “tradition” I abhor. Dear reader, there are plenty of other reasons to dislike Halloween!

It destroys perfectly good linens. I don’t know about you, but I prefer not to lay my head on a pillowcase that has been dragged through every lawn in our neighborhood.

It’s heck on those costly braces. Chewy candy is bad. Bad, bad, bad. But how can one resist a whole pillowcase full of it?

It kicks off the holiday eating season, that depressing time of year when you watch the numbers on the scale go up while your energy and enthusiasm go down. (Although in my family, the holiday eating season kicks off even earlier with the celebration of Canadian Thanksgiving, not because we are Canadian, but to accommodate other family commitments, iffy November weather, and one family’s annual November 1 departure to Florida.)

The acceptable age to “trick-or-treat” seems to be going up, and the older the trick-or-treater, the less effort goes into the costume. I expect any year now to be opening the door to a bunch of college students dressed as, well, college students.

Over the years, I have found only one thing to like about Halloween – the neighbor one block over who hands out beer to the adults in the party. Thank you, dear friend.

A disclaimer: While it perhaps shouldn’t need saying, let me remind you that I have no credentials, training or certifications of any kind that would qualify me to mete out advice to anyone. This is a humor blog. If you don’t find it funny, well, that’s another issue.

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Hello, it’s the universe calling…

by with No Comment ParentingSutly Teen

Sometimes when you send an S.O.S. out into the universe, the universe responds.

Yesterday I wrote a somewhat bitter post on self-reflection. Or maybe it was self-doubt. Either way, it left me feeling blue. When I finished it, I closed my computer and walked away from my desk to give myself a break.

As I reached for another cup of coffee, I heard my phone buzz. It was a text message from my teenage daughter:

Hey mama so we are in stress management class and we’re doing this happiness practice thing and we are supposed to thank somebody we are grateful for or who has had an impact on our life so mama thank you for always being there and keeping me from falling behind. I know that sometimes I seem ungrateful and tired and bratty but I really truly always appreciate everything you do. Thank you for being you.

I guess I’m getting it done after all. Although I might consider some discussion on the importance of punctuation.

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Random thoughts from a bus trip

by with No Comment ParentingSutly Teen

It’s been two weeks since I rode a bus full of band students from Minneapolis to Chicago and the pain is beginning to fade. As I caught up on some miscellaneous tasks today, I came across the random notes I made on my iPad during the trip. My iPad and the wi-fi on the bus kept me sane. They gave me something to do, despite the fact that I was fighting for the wi-fi with 40 teens, most of whom were either playing Clash of Clans or streaming Netflix.

An aside: Six of those students are now upstairs prepping for a dance. I’m not sure why they’re all at our home, but I think I might have been voted “least objectionable parent”.

Anyway, here are a few of the thoughts I captured during the 30-odd hours we spent on the bus:

  • When you chaperone teens no one wants to sit by you so you score a whole seat.
  • This bus could have used some aggressive vacuuming before we boarded.
  • I’m going to have to be very careful not to accidentally swear.
  • Ick. I wish I hadn’t dropped my coat on the floor.
  • Chaperoning teens is a little like being Vice President of the United States – no one really believes you have any power.
  • It’s getting pretty ripe in here. I hope none of those smells are me.
  • No matter how many times you tell junior high students they cannot eat on the bus, they will eat on the bus. They will ALL eat on the bus. Even if they’re sitting right next to you.
  • I would never have guessed I could sleep on a bus on which at least thirty-five people are shouting, but then again, I did fall asleep in that nightclub in San Francisco.
  • The $8 popcorn at Navy Pier really is worth $8, and one should not be left alone with it.
  • If I’d driven in the opposite direction for this same amount of time without stopping I could be in Montana right now.
  • Why is it the only person who left their musical instrument on the bus is my daughter? And she thinks I’m not going to notice?

Someone asked me if I might consider chaperoning again in three years when my oldest son makes the Chicago trip. Despite the fact that he will spend even more time trying to avoid me than my daughter (if that’s even possible) I might be ready by then. I’m guessing, like childbirth, the thought of the pain grows dim over time to be replaced by precious memories.

Umm…let’s see. Precious memories from the trip…