Behold!

I love the word "behold". It is commanding. And sassy. There is a Bible verse from Isaiah (the exact chapter/verse are tattooed on the back of my friend St. Ann's neck but I still don't remember the numbers) that says, "Behold, I am doing a new thing!" (In spite of the fact that I could probably find it with two minutes of internet research, I'm not going to link to it - because I am Ms. Distracto on an adrenaline high today and those two minutes could easily become two hours. I would get sucked into the internet and NEVER finish this blog post.)
The point is "Behold!" And "I'm doing a new thing!"
It's like "Stand back!" And "Something's happening here!"
Recently I created and have been saying some affirmations about change and strength and newness.
Guess what happened? NEW THINGS!
The problem is, they're not exactly the new things I was going for.

• *Like VBGF moving here - which is a new thing I totally wanted to happen but which turned instead into a new job for her back there - which is great but unexpected. Her principal, in an effort to keep her on staff, offered her the job she's always wanted - teaching Algebra I and Geometry. Not only that, but she'd "move up" with the class she's teaching now - and they are the best class she's ever had. Not only that, but she'd also get to leave behind a co-worker that has made life miserable for years and she'd get a chance to publish some of the work she's been doing this year and present it at next year's state math conference. How fun is it to have your best friend offered a job so great on all levels that she can't pass it up?!!! Behold!
  
• *Like Mr. Tapioca Head and child support issues - which, if you've read this blog at all, you realize is nothing new but which I decided to let go of completely from the outset. That's new. Usually I hold on, dig my heels in, and show how right I am. Letting go before I've even had my say is not fun. It's not great for my kids not to get $$ that should be providing for them - but it's a one-time thing and letting go of this wrangle is WAY less stressful (for all of us) than an audit of my bank statements and his for the past six years. And oh yeah, the state seems to think that we've only been divorced for one year. Hmmm - since he got remarried in 2003 and I got remarried in 2004 - that would make us both bigamists. That would be new - but, again, not what I was going for. (Can a woman be a bigamist? I know there's polyandry and there's polygamy - but does bigamy cover both? Hmmmm. I'd look that up too if not for the distracto factor again.)
  
• *Like Sweet Hubby's company imploding during an internal board battle. It pretty much sucks to be affiliated with the CEO who's losing the battle. The board hired a "turnaround specialist" to "save the company" - but as it's a new company on the (provable) verge of success - the whole thing is crazy. The "consultant" they hired first suggested firing two employees to save money. If you combine both of their annual salaries, it doesn't equal what the board is paying this consultant - not to mention the fact that there was no suggestion as to who would do the job these two people currently do. As it's a company of about 15 folks - losing two - any two would probably be hard - but these two are absolutely required to launch the product. Mr. Consultant then suggested that he, himself, be given a seat on the board. His next suggestion was that the CEO be replaced. His idea of a replacement? Himself. Two years this team has been working together - heart and soul poured into this company. Sweet Hubby shepherded the product through the FDA approval process under budget and in record time - a full six weeks earlier than the best guess first estimate of when it would be possible - and yet? The board wants to shatter the team and "save" the company. It is a whole lot like setting a house on fire and then getting an award for being the first on the scene and putting it out. Never mind the collateral damage and the destruction of irreplaceable photos - he saved the house!!
  Bite me. That's how I feel about it.
  
• *Like going from having a contractor out next week to give us an estimate and schedule us for some remodeling to thinking, perhaps, we might have to move! Eeeek.
  

New jobs, new plans, new budgets - possibly new home and new schools?! I feel like a monkey who was swinging merrily from limb to limb (carefully not looking down at the alligators in the river below) who suddenly realizes the limb he thought was next is nowhere to be seen. And here I am swinging back and forth, back and forth - looking desperately for a new branch - maybe a new tree (and still carefully avoiding noticing those alligators!) It's possible that all these new things would have come about even if I hadn't started saying affirmations, but just the same, I think I'm going to reword what I say each morning - just a bit.

So... How was your Spring Break?

Do You Know The Mutton Man?

Chaos has gorgeous hair and lots of it. It's fine and soft but very, very thick. Oh, and red - on the strawberry blond side of the red spectrum as opposed to either the carroty orange end or the chestnuty auburn end. When he grows his sideburns out, he looks way older than he should.

I think he looks like a red headed Wolverine from X-men.

Occasionally he shaves his sideburns off and looks more like the eighth grader he is.

We just registered him for high school this week. High school! His school does "block scheduling" which means that they have four classes a day - each for an hour and a half. They cover a whole year's worth of a subject in one semester. I can't imagine that it works well for everyone but I think that will be a good format for Chaos. He has four honors academic classes and four "electives" for next year. I hope that he'll have two of each per semester. It would really suck to have one semester be World Studies (which is Literature and History together in one class that meets three hours a day!), honors Science and Algebra in one semester and Keyboarding, Public Speaking, Computer Aided Drafting, and Wellness in the other!! We'll see. He is less impressed by the fact that his teachers recommended him for honors classes (after he's slacked somewhat this year) and more worried about what classes his friends are going to be in. (I remember those days, don't you?) Next year we'll have some in elementary, middle school, and high school. I can't help feeling like right here, right now, this is the calm before the storm. Brace yourself!
Peace.

Lunch Time Goofiness

Sweet Hubby just called home to consult the "Wife-i-pedia" about French pronouns. Gosh, I love that man.
Peace.

A Blogging Fly By

I've been out of range for a week and then out of energy on the comeback. Last week VBGF's mother had her other breast removed and I went up to help VBGF take care of her dad and then to help her mother settle back in at home. I have a long list of posts I want to write but I'll have to start another day as I'm going back out of town tomorrow. Today I'll relay some recent conversations with the Ninja Princessa:

NP: Dad, I don't have any books to read. (Since we give the kids chores to fill their time if they ever say they're bored, this is as close to saying "I'm bored" as possible. Sometimes this gambit pays off in a trip to the bookstore and sometimes it just gets you pulled down the hall into our library but it almost never gets you in "trouble".)
Sweet Hubby:(starts pulling books off the library shelves and handing them to her) You'll LOVE this one.
NP: Is this a good book or is it one of yours?
I can only imagine the mock frowny face my husband pulled on her because then I heard: Ok, ok. I'll read it.
(If only my dad had handed me Marion Zimmer Bradley's Hawkmistress! I got handed Blake's Songs of Innocence and Milton's Paradise Lost. Bleck.)

The Princessa was on a roll because later I was sorting pictures and came across one from my junior year in high school. She grabbed it out of my hand and exclaimed, "Wow! You used to be pretty!" I think she heard herself because she started babbling things like, "I mean you're still sorta pretty," and "Gosh, that's not what I meant either. Forget it." I responded with "beep, beep, beep - CRASH!" but then I chuckled and gave her a hug. She had the grace to blush and hug me back. She's still a tween. I love her to pieces but I'm dreading 14 in a big way.
Peace.

The Ninja Princessa Diaries

Guess who won the "Celebrate Literacy" award for the middle school?


This is the Princessa's workspace. Butterflies and Buddha, laptop and mini lava lamp.

Early morning Princessa. (My favorite time of the day with her.)

Who does the family turn to for hair straightening expertise? The Princessa, of course. (Chaos' cool points would probably go down the tube if his friends knew how much he primped for school - so shhhhhhhh!) And since we're on the subject of hair - arrrrrrgh - I HATE today's middle school hair fashions. See the Princessa's? She wears plenty of headbands and bandanas - but always with most of her hair pulled forward and in her face. And they straighten it stick straight and flat. The boys too! Apparently the more hair plastered to the front of your face the better. I am such a square. I want to see my children's eyes and sweet faces!

Changing of the guard: the Princessa announced she is no longer obsessed with Jeremy Sumpter. She still likes the Peter Pan story but gone are the days when she quizzes the family on Jeremy Sumpter facts. Even the birthday cards she made for Jeremy have been taken down from her door. She has settled on a new obsession. His name is Josh. She's pretty sweet in her dramatic enthusiasm for boys she doesn't know. I hope this stage lasts a while. Obsessing about safely unattainable celebrity boys is a whole different ball game from noticing the boys who sit next to her in social studies class. Though now that I think about it, she's probably safe for the rest of middle school if the current hair trends continue. They all resemble Cousin It. How can they start relationships? They can't even see each other through the many layers of interceding bangs.

Weather Anyone?

The county schools were all released hours early today for "weather". It's a bit odd and I haven't been able to find anything other than the school closings on the news. (Mostly it's soap operas on the stations with scrolling lists of counties closing.) If the cub scout mom leading tonight's program hadn't called, I wouldn't have even known to go get my kids from school! The skies are blue and it's stopped raining completely. Mind you, the kids aren't complaining but they did want to know, "Why now? Why not this morning when it was pitch black and storming? Why did we have to race to the bus in pouring, sheeting rain with lightning flaring and thunder crashing all around us but we get out when it's sunny?" I don't have an answer for that. What I do have is popcorn and juice boxes and a fervent hope that this is more than a break between big fronts. Send us some good weather mojo?
Peace.

Good Luck, Bad Luck, Who Knows?

Good Luck: old water heater did not blow up
Bad Luck: new water heater for the low, low price of $1000

Good Luck: we do not have termites
Bad Luck: we do have a wood eating fungus

Maybe we should have known better than to call the plumber and the pest folks while Mercury was in retrograde? (At least we didn't call the electrician!)
Peace.

Mayhem In The Middle

Mayhem is 12 - and not only is he in the middle of the birth order of the five kids, but he's also almost always in the middle of everything. He's very social and it's hard to get a picture of him alone. I snapped this one this morning before he was too awake to do anything about it. His bookbag weighs more than he does.

By looking at him, you'd think we don't feed the boy, but I promise, he eats more than almost any two of the others put together. He loves being in the kitchen, chatting, sneaking bits of whatever I'm making for supper and hanging out. His favorite chore is doing the dishes.

These are his new glasses. Actually, they are his second pair of new glasses. The first ones he broke the second day he had them when he was showing off how flexible the frames were. I'm glad I have a picture of him in these because it's possible he's lost them. He *thinks* they might be at his dad's. Sigh.

Mayhem is a very good big brother. He and Havoc share a room and bicker a bit, but are close and generally kind to each other. Mayhem is a good people person. If there's a job out there that involves making friends and not keeping up with things then Mayhem will be at the top of the field. I guarantee it.

A Day In The Life Of Havoc

At eight, Havoc can be anyone he wants to be at any time. I'd love it if that ease of being could stick around a while. Eight is one of my very favorite boy ages.

New etnies + knitted cap = Instant skater boy.

First pretty day + crayons and homework folder = Studious boy.

Pinewood Derby car (in the shape of a toaster) + fun uniform = Cute Cub Scout boy.

Tuesday Tidbits

The wireless router went into mourning when Sweet Hubby left for a weeklong business trip. I tried to explain to it that thanks to the asshats at JetBlue who canceled his Sunday flight, we had gotten an extra day with him. The wireless router did not cheer up. Or reconnect itself to the internet. I decided that perhaps it felt vulnerable lying on the floor in the hallway where just anyone (and their dog) could step on it. I moved the router back to it's hidey hole under SH's desk. Only I couldn't get it plugged back in and when I decided to plug it into the power strip instead of the outlet I inadvertently pulled four other connections out. I gave up and went to bed.

This morning (no longer exhausted from taking four of my children on a six hour excursion to see Bridge to Terabithia) I realized that the reason I couldn't plug the router in last night is because it's a sideways plug. Doh! Pouting over with and plugs all connected correctly, I am happy to report that we are back online. And just in time to share with you the following:

1. Did you know that Google could be set to have your home language be "Elmer Fudd"? Look.
2. I think teeth wipes are weird.
   
3. I had a dream I was being chased by a Sleestak last night. Remember them? I had recurring nightmares of being chased by weird things (like Sleestaks and weasels and Irish setters) when I was a child. The Irish setters made sense because when I was five I did, in fact, get chased by a pack of them - but Sleestaks and weasels? Why were they scary? I have no idea but they were! They were sooooooooo scary back then. Not so much anymore. Why, then, as an adult do I occasionally dream of being chased by a no-longer scary (and incredibly slow moving) tv monster from the 70's?
   
4. This guy (as I may have mentioned before) is completely odd. And yet? I delve into the archives and laugh at the dressed up vacuum cleaners. (There are worse ways to celebrate your wireless routers return to life. Just saying.)

Last, but not least is the news that St. Ann is in the hospital having that baby today!!! Yay! And Happy Tuesday to all. ***Amended - he's here! St. Ann says he's lovely (well, really, she says, "he looks like a troll"), he weighs 8 and 1/2 pounds (!!), he's already nursed, and he was named after a singer she quoted on her profile which led to her meeting her hubby - so it's all good! Congratulations to St. Ann and John the Magnificent (and baby Z's four big brothers and sisters!)
Peace.

Crack Sugarcane

Warning - this toffee is easy, cheap, and insanely yummy.
Peace.

Report On The Week

The homemade chicken soup experiment - meh
Having to collect yet another sick child from school - arrgghh
A friend finding TWO OPENED jars of recalled PB - eeeeeek
Having made it to FRIDAY of my 1st week of triathlon training - YAY
Peace.

**************
HOLD THE FREAKING PHONE!!!!! This whole week I've been blithely making mediocre soup, nursing flu-like virus-ridden children and examining peanut butter jar lids when I should have been making evacuation plans in case the dam just upriver bursts?!! Maybe I should watch the LOCAL news once in a while, eh? I mean, holy batshit! I do NOT like words such as "catastrophic flooding" being applied to the area where my children are. And excuse me, but they're putting grout in to stop the leak? I sure hope the Army Corps of Engineer's grout works better than the grout that is currently hurling itself out from between my bathroom tiles. The solid concrete foundation isn't holding but hey, let's stick a billion dollars worth of grout in there. Yeah, yeah. That's the ticket! Um, pray for us?
***************

Feel The Love And Taste The Soup

Happy Valentine's Day all!
After my last (rather grumpy) post (sorry!) I have been in a great mood. GREAT! I don't actually (<--that word was for you Richard) know why. There are lots of reasons I could still be grumpy: flu like virus has applied for resident status, cold rain turned into snow, it's still February. On the flip side, the tide has turned and here are my guesses why: the days are getting longer, I have no stress, I am EXCITED about my training. And? Mr. Tapioca Head let me know there was a show featuring building with cob on last night. How decent was that? It's a little known fact about me, but I'm a cob fanatic. Of the armchair variety. I haven't had the chance to work with it yet but it is in my future. I know it. I know it the way you just know some things about yourself.

In other news, I am in the middle of making homemade chicken soup for the first time ever. I buy canned chicken stock and cook with it all the time. Seriously, like four times a week. Yet last week when I went to the store, the labels on the cans were all different and I didn't see the one I usually buy. I resorted to reading the labels to decide which to get. (<--That, by the way, only confused me more as they all seemed more or less the same. In the end, it was the price stickers, not the labels that decided me.) One label got me thinking. It bragged "Voted #1 Most Like Homemade". You know, I'm not sure that I would have been qualified to participate in that voting. I can't think that I've ever had homemade chicken soup! Not to bust on my mom or anything. She is a great cook and makes delicious soups from scratch. She just happens to make things like potato-leek soup and gazpacho. Not chicken. Maybe my aunt has made some that I've eaten? I don't know. I do know that I've never made it before.

Unlike my secret cob enthusiasm, it's a well known fact that I have issues with chicken. Particularly with the gross bits - like the bones and the cartilege and the stringy vein things and even like chicken breasts in the form of slimy raw slabs on my cutting board. BLECK. I don't eat drumsticks or wings or thighs. Ever. Many have been the days when I have done all the dinner prep but have been unable to force myself to cut the gooey chicken breasts. Luckily for the children who like more than salad for supper, SH and VBGF are not nearly so squeamish and one or the other has stepped in to do the cutting. VBGF has even taught me the trick of cutting chicken breasts while they're still partly frozen. This is brilliant! Chicken is way less disgusting when it is semi-frozen. Which brings us back to the crazy idea of me making chicken soup. From scratch. Well, at least from grocery store scratch. It's not like I killed the chicken and plucked its feathers out or anything. Store bought ingredients are close enough to scratch for me!

It sounds easy. The main ingredient is a 3-4 pound chicken cut up into 8 or 9 pieces. How hard can it be to buy a chicken? Let me tell you! I looked through the entire poultry section at the grocery and no joy. I saw all the parts separately. I saw chicken breasts stuffed and ready to grill. I saw seasoned chicken wings ready to heat. I saw whole chicken "roasters" with pop up thermometers imbedded in the frozen chicken flesh. I saw already cooked rotisserie chickens. I saw not one plain old, raw, whole chicken. I felt foolish asking the butcher about it, but I needn't have. They didn't have any out. He said that he'd just had to throw away a bunch that had gone past their sell dates. He seemed miffed that here it was cold and flu season and no one was buying his whole chickens. "Perfect for making soup with," he said to me. "Fantastic, because that's what I'm doing, for the first time ever." I said to him. He was more than happy to go get me a fresh one that had just arrived and he even offered to cut it up into 8 or 9 pieces for me. That was nice and all, but I have to say that the package was completely slimy when he handed it to me. I almost abandoned the whole project then and there. The project was even more imperiled when I got home.

I wasn't sure I could touch the chicken. I could barely stand to look at it as I opened the package. I did, in fact, turn my head as I dumped the styrofoam package into the pot. (This bit of information is important in a minute.) I added cold water and chunked up veggies (including a parsnip - because I LOVE parsnips). I didn't see the instruction to add the "cleaned" chicken to the pot until later. I have no idea what cleaning a chicken involves. Is it part of the chopping process? Is it just a matter of rinsing? Surely there's no soap involved. Be that as it may, I inadvertently skipped this step in my anxiety over how to get the 8-9 pieces into the pot without touching or looking at them. Still, we bubbled along for the rest of the afternoon. The kitchen smelled heavenly. The children literally SHOUTED at me from the garage. "That smells GREAT! Is that dinner?!" (No, we had clam sauce spaghetti - from scratch, no bones - last night. The soup is for Thursday.)

I was feeling pretty proud of myself. I don't have any fancy way to separate the fat out of the soup so I followed the instruction about putting the whole pot into the fridge overnight. This morning Sweet Hubby went to work late. (It is, after all, Valentine's Day and we have lots of children who stay awake longer than I do, but who are handily all in school by 8:30 am.) As he was leaving, I was getting ready for Homemade Chicken Soup - Day 2. He admired my efforts thus far and offered to help with the next steps. THANK GOD! I am really trying to get over being so easily squicked out, but there were bones and globby bits and lumps of chicken skin roiling around in the pot. Intellectually, I have no issue with these things. I'm not even close to a vegetarian. You might could get me sad about the plight of veal in its baby cow days, but chickens? Have you seen live chickens? Have you smelled them? I have no guilt over eating them or problems with the fact that the disgusting bits are the very bits that make the soup taste delicious. However, it's those bits bubbling about that make me gag uncontrollably. Don't you wish you could cook with ME?

"My" first chicken soup is a joint project. As Sweet Hubby was separating out the ooky parts, he asked me how I had handled the little paper package with the unmentionables like the heart and gizzard*. I told him that this chicken didn't come with that. "Uh huh," he says, "Well, here's the thing. You know those parts are very good for the flavoring, right?" Yes, yes, yes. I explained the part where it's not my brain but my tummy that objects to those parts and I probably would have put them in they'd been there (and if I could have done so without throwing up). "The reason I ask is, I just took some of them out. Now I'm wondering about the paper." Oh hey, it doesn't tell you so in the recipe, but take it from me that you should LOOK at those 8-9 chicken pieces as you dump them in the pot otherwise you might end up with bonus cellulose.

Anyone want to join us at table tomorrow night for homemade chicken and paper soup?
Peace.

**Gizzards. When I was a little girl, you could get gizzards on Tuesdays from Kentucky Fried Chicken. You may be surprised to learn that this was a huge treat for me and my little sister. My father (who loves all vegetables without exception and eats weird foods in general) does not eat fast food or desserts. He'll have second helpings of collard greens; he'll fight you for the last escargot on the plate; and he can tell the difference between brands of capers - but he will not go through a drive thru. Not for money or love. Only he used to - for gizzards. On Tuesdays. On the premise of getting "treats" for Tidget and me. I don't know when they stopped selling them and I don't know if I'd be game for having them again if they made a surprise comeback at KFC, but I have fond memories of gizzard night with my dad. What's the weirdest food you've ever eaten?

Tapioca - A Minor Flare Up

Remember the shirt? The one at the wrestling tournament that said, "Hold my headgear while I kiss your girlfriend?" The one I object to on principle but find particularly inappropriate to be selling to a crowd of second graders like Havoc? That's the shirt Havoc came home in this morning. It was Mr. Tapioca Head's weekend and he took Havoc to Saturday's wrestling meet. Apparently he didn't see anything objectionable about that shirt. In fact, he had it personalized by getting Havoc's weight class printed on the sleeve. It might as well say, "Under 65 pounds and already being indoctrinated with macho bullshit!" Along with that stellar wardrobe addition, all three boys came home wearing "dog tags" stamped with their name and my ex's address and phone number.

I could be snarky and say that it's probably a good idea as the boys have given up memorizing Mr. Tapioca's info since it changes so often. Except that I'm trying not to be snarky. I'm also trying to pretend it doesn't bug to me when he does weird stuff like this. My mother says (incredibly unhelpful) things like, "Don't let him get to you. You give him too much of your energy when you let him get to you." Ok, fine. Pretend, pretend, pretend. NOT WORKING! I hate the empty gestures he makes - the one upsmanship and the strange ways he has of trying to co-opt me into agreeing with his unhealthy parenting philosophies. He has a way of calling me to tell me things I already know about the boys - things any parent not smoking crack would know about their children. He thinks I don't know some of the things he's saying? He wants to "prove" to me that he knows them too? What? I don't understand. It's like he forgets who he is talking to sometimes. For instance, right after court he suggested we go BACK to mediation to work out the things that were in the parenting plans that didn't get heard (because my lawyer is an asshat.) He said, "This time I'll keep an open mind and make an honest effort. It's for the boys' sake." Excuse me? That's what you were supposed to do last time, nimrod.

Even when we agree on things he makes me nuts. I agreed three separate times to his request that we each have the children on our birthdays. It wasn't in our original agreement and I feel perfectly comfortable celebrating with the kids on a day other than my actual birthday but he seems to feel strongly about it, so fine. I have never objected to this change. Not once. I agreed to this in mediation in June (although I didn't get to have the kids for my July birthday because he had already made plans to take them out of town during that time); I agreed to this in October (when I submitted my proposed parenting plan - it was written to include his request); I agreed to it a-freakin-gain talking to him after court in January. His birthday in February fell on the Sunday in "my" weekend. I assumed (incorrectly as it turns out) that he would want to come get the boys on Saturday night and have them on his birthday as we agreed. But no. He made plans to go out of town. He told me that since he didn't have it in writing he hadn't wanted count on it. Riiiight. Then he said, "I don't want anyone to think I don't want to spend time with my children. I think about being a dad 24/7 and 365 days a year. Not an hour goes by when I don't think of my children." Somebody please get that man a gold star for parenting.

There you have it, my children came home slimed with Tapioca this morning and there's just not a darn thing I can do about it but whine on the internet.
Peace.

Armageddon As Family Fun Night

We have this tradition of "Family Fun Night" where we do something fun all together - like play a board game or go for a walk or go to the arcade etc. It doesn't have to be a big thing. The point is to be together and be playful. It was much easier to pull off when the kids were little because pretty much any night could be family fun night. Now (because of chorus and wrestling and karate and scouts and game) we're limited to Monday nights or the one Friday a month when we have everyone. And those nights often get preempted by homework or the kids wanting to go out with friends instead of hanging out with the family. Once in a while, I wonder to myself if maybe I should let go of family fun night - let it slip away the way other early childhood traditions have done. After all, we eat dinner together regularly, we talk to our kids and they talk to us. We know their friends and their friends parents, at least by sight if not to have over for cocktails. <-- Um, I meant the parents there, not the kids. We're somewhat non-conformist but not to the point that we'd invite teenagers over for drinks for heaven's sake! But even if family fun night doesn't happen every week, I have been reluctant to let it go. After this past Monday, I realized I was silly to even think about letting it go.

Very Best Girl Friend (VBGF) was here for the Superbowl and it was our weekend to have the kids - so in a sense we'd had family fun for days and days. As much fun as we'd had though, the activities had been in smaller groups: me taking Havoc to the wrestling meet, Sweet Hubby (SH) and the bigger kids meeting us later and then them going out to eat while I went to check on VBGF; Nurse Nice coming out to hang with us for the afternoon; VBGF taking Chaos to a memorial service for the father of one of his friends; the kids playing miniatures; VBGF, Havoc and I watching the Superbowl with SH wandering in and out (the other kids weren't interested because their teams weren't in it). We hadn't done anything all together. VBGF didn't have to go back until Tuesday so on Monday, she and I ended up making a terrific hamburger soup. The house smelled good and we all sat down for supper together. I think SH is the one who suggested a movie for FFN and the kids jumped on it. Granted, they originally wanted to watch "The Pacifier" and had to be talked into "Armageddon" instead - but they were excited about it in the end. "Armageddon" was new on our HD movie list - and I voted for it because I remembered liking it more than I had expected to in the theater years ago. Until it started, I did not remember exactly how many years ago it had been! One of the opening scenes showed the New York City skyline - with the twin towers. What a gut punch. I gulped and VBGF and SH both said, "Wow" at the same time. We paused the movie for a second and talked about it. Havoc didn't quite understand until we explained to him what those two buildings were - after all, he wasn't quite three on September 11th, 2001. A few minutes later, when small pieces of asteroid are streaking through the city there is a scene in a cab with some tourists who want to go shopping and don't know why the taxi has stopped. The cabbie shouts back that they're in a traffic jam and no one is going anywhere. He explains that this is New York City - it could be a terrorist attack or a something or a something. I'm sorry I can't remember what the something's were because my mind was completely stuck on the fact that the first thing he said was it could be a terrorist attack. It is not uncommon for NYC or at least parts of it to get obliterated in disaster movies - but it was HARD to see the towers both burning - one with a chunk out of the side of it a few minutes later. To be fair, the top of the Empire State building comes crashing to the ground too - and that had little or no impact on me. Clearly the first time I saw the movie, the images of the towers had so little impact on me that I didn't even remember that happening at all - but man, oh man it brought tears to my eyes this time.

The rest of the movie played out and we all enjoyed it. We talked a little about disaster movies with tornadoes and volcanoes and how this one had come out to counter "Deep Impact". We talked a bit about the theme of everyday people being the ones called up to save the world. We chatted about Bruce Willis and "Fifth Element" (a family favorite) and "Lucky Number Slevin" (a grownups only family favorite). We chased the kids to bed (with Mayhem already coming down with a fever - yikes). It was a great FFN and each one of the kids said thank you and gave out extra hugs.

That, in and of itself, would have recommitted me to keeping this family tradition alive - but it's been the smaller conversations later this week that have clenched it for me. Havoc wanted me to tell him more about the morning of September 11th - about how a friend had called and I'd turned on the news a minute before the second tower was struck. He wanted to hear about how I held him and cried and then went to get the other kids from school. He wanted to hear about how his Aunt Deb had looked out of her window in the Newsweek publishing building and saw it all. He wanted to hear about how when I was 11, I'd taken a tour and gone to the top of the one of the World Trade Towers. The Ninja Princessa had wandered in - and she commented that I'd done that when I was exactly her age now. Havoc slipped off to play with Legos in his room, but the Princessa and I talked about how the world changes and what it might be like when she has kids that are 11. When all the other kids were at school on Tuesday, Mayhem - all pathetic and pale in his bed - asked me about what we'd do if an asteroid really was headed for the earth. I asked him if he worried about that. He said no, but then he also said that it would be better probably for all life to end because of an asteroid that we couldn't help than because of people hurting each other with nuclear bombs. I sat with him for quite a while as he told me about the kinds of things he does worry about. I don't quite know what to say in those situations. He's thinks about some big things for a little guy - although at 12, almost 13, I suppose he's not that little anymore. I did reassure him about the things I could - and he ended up reassuring himself about some things just by talking about them out loud. He told me he liked talking to me and also, could he have an extra big lunch because he was really hungry. We had lunch and the conversation morphed into things he's looking forward to. Later, Chaos talked to me about third grade. He didn't quite talk about September 11th - but he started in that time frame for himself and he ended up asking me about military things. He wants to get his ears pierced but he also knows that he can't have that in the military. He wanted to know if he would just have to take the jewelry out while in uniform or if he would have to let the holes close all the way up. Then, he asked about North Korea and where I saw things in Iraq being in 5 years. He asked if I thought the world would be around by the time he grew up. Wow. That ended up being a great conversation - we talked about how people had felt that sense of doom at different times in history. We talked about the Cuban Missile Crisis and about eclipses and tsunamis. I told him that I had great faith in humanity. He told me he wanted to be part of the group that made things better. I had to squash (hard) the urge to tell him that I didn't think the military would be that group - having joined the Navy myself, 20 years ago for the same reasons he was telling me about now. I did let myself say that I thought there were lots and lots of groups working for solutions - scientists, pastors, health care providers, volunteers of all sorts all over the world, not just here in the States. Then he started naming some groups he thought were working hard too that I'd left off the list - teachers and the Red Cross and even film makers who made people think. Yeah, all in all, I have to say that Family Fun Night is here to stay.

Peace.

Flu Shots

A couple of months ago, I took the kids out of school for an afternoon to get them flu shots and ice cream afterwards. Good family fun, no? I hate taking them out of school, but the shots are only available between 11 and 2 on weekdays, so what else can you do? I reasoned that one afternoon out for the shot was better than a week out with the flu. Good reasoning, no?
And am I glad I went through the hassle! Fighting with the schools to have that time officially excused so the kids could be allowed to make up their work/tests, fighting with the insurance company about flu shots not being "elective" and "voluntary" (i.e. not covered) but rather medically necessary (i.e. paid for by them!) for a family with three asthmatic kids, and putting up with sad, cranky kids (and ice cream spills in my car) - boy was that worth it - because we don't have the flu. No, what we have is a "flu-like virus". Yeah. Life is good here. You?

Crazy Blog Dog

The other day we were flipping channels and happened upon the canine version of extreme sports. Wasabi ran to the tv. He barked. When one of the dogs ran off the side of the screen, Wasabi lunged into the space beside the TV to see where he went.

I'm not sure what was different about this show. He's never shown any interest in what was on TV before - even the dog food commercials. He has barked at doorbells or knocks on a door on TV before but those are all audio. He's never given any indication that he connected the images with real life at all - until now.

He was hilarious. The trainers on the show would hold up a toy and Wasabi would rock up on his back legs like he was going to catch it. I was laughing too hard to get a picture of it, but the funniest moment was when Wasabi got right up the TV and tried to sniff the butt of a dog onscreen.

Go Colts!!!!!!!!!!

Does it get better than this?? Yay Peyton!!! (And Don Shula - the winningest coach EVAH bringing out the trophy! VBGF is from Miami and is a Dolphins fan first and foremost. Just FYI.)
The only - absolutely the ONLY bad thing about the Superbowl is that it means no more football until August!! Go Colts! (God we love football.)

Let's Wrassle

Havoc wrestled today for the first time - and today, for the first time, I was a wrestling mom. Havoc, as the youngest of five, is not often the first kid to do something. He was pretty proud of himself. And? He was a little nervous. (I, on the other hand, was ridiculously, insanely, and unbelievably nervous. Good thing I wasn't the one giving the pep talk!) The first pictures are of Havoc listening intently to the coach.

Havoc was very focused. There were probably a hundred people milling around - the bigger clubs were doing drills about two feet away - and there were hordes of little guys running around playing tag trying to work off some nervous energy. Havoc wasn't distracted by any of it. He zeroed in on his coach. I was trying to listen too - because Havoc's was the very first "bout" of the whole meet! There was a very detailed bracket sheet delineating over 170 bouts in a stair-step form that led to the championship bout. There was a screen with mat numbers and bout numbers that changed every five minutes. Havoc wrestled against 8 and 9 year olds only and they were all divided by weight. He weighed 64 pounds this morning so he wrestled in the 65 lb group. The nine year old boy next to us in the stands weighed 133lbs. YIKES! (He wrestled in the 112lb+ division.) I'd never been to a wrestling match before. It is SUCH a boy sport. Yes, there's one girl (who is about 14) in the club that Havoc wrestles with - but she is very much the exception. (I can't even imagine why she would want to. I promise you that when I was fourteen that I would have eaten glass before I would have participated in a sport that required weighing in, wearing a lycra singlet, having your weight written in sharpie on your hand for all to see, not to mention gripping and grabbing boys. No way.) Remember the part of my story where I grew up in an all female house and went to an all girls school? Yeah - boy stuff still freaks me out which is probably why the universe saw fit to make sure I had four boys! We were watching one bout that had to be stopped because one of the boys got a bloody nose. Like seriously bloody. Like give the boy an ice pack and someone grab a bucket and a rag for the mat, please! You know what they did? The continued the bout! They did wipe up the floor but then they just stuck something that looked like a marshmallow (but was probably an earplug) up the boy's nose and blew the whistle to keep wrestling! (He won, by the way.) In another match one boy's arm looked like it had been wrenched out of the socket. Another boy got a forearm pressed against his larynx and was gasping too hard to cry. I was literally shaking by the time Havoc had his second bout. Havoc's nervousness had completely disappeared though.
He's the one on the top in this picture. This is his very first bout of his very first meet. He won. It was amazing. He was totally jazzed. It was a double elimination tournament - and he lost his next two bouts and was out. But the first boy he lost to went on to be the champion of the whole division. That boy was fantastic. He about gave me a heart attack wrapping my son up like a pretzel. At one point Mr. Future Champion had Havoc upside down with his neck bent at a terrible angle. Sweet Hubby had to pry my fingernails out of his arm. The second bout Havoc lost was much more even. He tied the boy in points for the first of the three one-minute rounds. By the third round, the other boy had Havoc on points but he didn't pin him. Afterwards that boy told us it was his fifth year wrestling. Go Havoc for holding your own against that kind of competition! I learned a lot too. Mostly I learned that wrestling culture is weird. And the weirdness is contagious. I heard other parents shout things like, "Find your base!" and "Crank it up!" I shouted those things too. I'm not sure they helped as I have no idea what they mean. I asked Havoc if he knew how to find his base and he said, "What base?" My thought exactly. They were selling t-shirts that said, "How 'bout you hold my headgear while I kiss your girlfriend!" Eh? I mean, it's not just me is it? Don't you think that's a weird slogan for an eight year old's shirt? Me thinks, perhaps, the wrestling world is just a wee bit defensive about those singlets and overcompensates with misplaced machoness. Weirdness aside, Havoc loves his new sport. Considering he had to leave the house at 5:45 a.m. on a Saturday to go get slammed into a mat and twisted into a spandex covered knot - I thought he had a great attitude. He said, "Know what I think is awesome about wrestling? It's an adventure AND I get to eat a power bar and drink gatorade." There you go, Havoc's formula for happiness is adventure + electrolytes. Headgear optional.
Peace.

New Glasses

And a scary picture - but hey when you're taking your own mug shot it's hit or miss. (How do you manage to look normal when you do this, Deb??) Anyway after breaking two pairs of glasses in seven months when I'd never broken a pair of glasses in my life before- grrrrrrr - I decided not ever, ever, ever to go to Wal-Mart again and also to get these crazy frames from a great little shop. What do you think?
Peace.

Navy Buddies

My Navy buddy Jenn hijacked my day by sending me an invite to join a coolie cool website (database? forum? online thingie?) called Together We Served. The point is to connect people who were in the Navy together. I spent the better part of the day avoiding the work I was supposed to be doing (=writing) by filling in the online questionnaires in my profile (=writing). Sadly I don't think my word count for the one translates to the other. On the flip side, I found a couple of long lost buddies on there. I also spent a considerable amount of time staring at the wall remembering those times - those very weird times.

I was 17 when I went to boot camp. I think of Bug who turned 16 a couple of months ago and of Chaos who is fixing to turn 15 in June. Seventeen felt old enough for me to leave home but I can't imagine my sons leaving home so soon. Chaos keeps talking about joining the service (the Army) after he graduates from high school instead of going to college. Can I tell you how much I hate that idea? (Not just the idea of the Army instead of the Navy - but the idea of him serving the Powers That Be at all. I joined for all the right reasons - I was patriotic and couldn't imagine not serving - but the equation is different now it seems. I don't want their precious lives being squandered.) I don't say anything against it - I just let it slide, hoping he changes his mind. I'll support him all the way if it's what he does decide to do (even if I am cringing inside that he wants to be a ground pounder) but you better believe I will be in that recruiter's office with him to make sure he gets the best deal he can.

While my friends were at sorority mixers and keg parties, I was in the Navy learning to say things like "multiple re-entry vehicle" in Russian. (Well that and things like "very pencil" which is the first thing I learned to say in Russian (the week before classes started), but I learned it from a guy who turned out to be an Arab linguist so it doesn't count. It also doesn't make any more sense in Russian in case you were wondering.) But back to the multiple re-entry vehicles...You know how when you learn a language, you usually have lists of vocabulary words? And you know how teachers always make you write sentences using your vocabulary words from the list each week? Do you have any idea how hard it is to write sentences that make even a modicum of sense when your vocabulary lists are generated by the armed services?? There was one module (Mod VII - we called it the "luurve mod") where the nouns were all hardware - submachine gun (automatic weapon), bomb, mine, mortar, gun (heavy weapon), cannon, MRV, etc. Then they gave us one verb - to love. Riiiiight. Our sentences that week were all "I love automatic weapons. You love bombs. He loves mines and mortars. We love heavy weapons. They love multiple re-entry vehicles." I have to say that the whole experience was a bit surreal.

I still have all my old letters and notes and things from that time. (I'm a writer! I never throw away things people have written me.) It's a bit pathetic to have love letters in languages you can't read anymore. I spent most of an hour trying to decipher what turned out to be a note we passed back in forth in class deciding what time we were going to work out at the gym. I used to be able to recognize the words "Wash Me" in about ten languages because I had a '65 Mustang and people thought it was funny to draw in the dust on her door panels. God, I loved that car! I have so many great memories from that time. I also have a dark hole smack in the middle of my memory of that time and PTSD that can be traced straight to that dark hole.

I am still really close with several of the friends I made then - and today (on the site) I saw the profiles of some buddies I'd lost touch with. (I also saw the profile of a guy I dated briefly who once got jealous (and drunk) and shook me so hard up against a brico brick wall in his rage that he gave me a concussion. Jerk. You'd think I'd be over that by now, but you know what? I'm not. Still, he had a nice smile in his profile picture. I hope he grew up to be less of an ass hat.)

This past spring I made a pilgrimage of sorts back to where I was stationed twenty years ago and put to rest some ghosts. I reconnected with my teacher. We had one main teacher - for 8 hours a day, five days a week, for 47 weeks. I had one of the best and it was GREAT to see her after all this time. I'm so glad I made that trip in April because it made today easier. Today I got to think about the great times I had back then without the bad times overshadowing it. I remembered all kinds of fun, little details I'd forgotten about parties and outings. (Egad - there are pictures of me drinking beer out of a funnel/surgical tube contraption. I DO NOT want my sons to see those! Honestly, I don't have any idea what we were even doing. I mean, what was the point? Can, funnel, hose - why not just drink out of the can?) After all the time spent staring at the wall lost in reminisces and shivering in today's 25 degree pre-storm grayness - the strangest realization for me is that how much I want this to be my next triathlon. I think I'm going to try to talk my Navy buddies into doing it with me - even if only as an excuse to try to get us all together back in our old stomping grounds.

Peace.
PS - School has already been canceled for the rest of the week here so if I don't post tomorrow it's because my children have driven me up a wall and I'm hovering there. Also everyone think good (and contraction-y) thoughts for St. Ann who is due to deliver any day now. What better day to deliver than on the day of the full moon in the middle of a winter storm? Go baby!

Fiction Binge

Since I did manage to read 13 - no wait, 15! - new books since court - I thought I'd list them for myself and share some of my insights (aka completely inexpert opinions) with you. (Note - I read a lot of Young Adult Fiction since I have five readers between the ages of 8 and 16. I think it's as (if not more) important to read what the kids are reading as it is to listen to what they are listening to and to watch what they are watching.) After reading fewer than three books from November to January 18 - here's what I managed to consume in the past 10 days:

YA Titles -

1. Polly by Amy Bryant - well...it was ok. It was interesting in that it was about a girl and her defining relationships with boys as set against the dc punk scene of the 80's. (Actually, I thought that part was a lot of fun and it had me thinking about music I liked then and helped spark some of the conversation that Chaos and I had but other than that it was dark and her relationships were...icky.) Not really my thing.
2. The Insiders by J. Minter - totally not at all my thing. Supposedly a teen fiction book - it's about a group of boys and their friendships/relationships as set in the wealthy New York scene. Bleck. The boys sounded like jaded and pompous 20 somethings and their interactions were superficial and strange. It was the worst of all worlds - boring lists of the boys' outfits and descriptions of risky, pointless behaviors with no authentic plot or growth happening.
   
3. The Clique by Lisi Harrison - the first in a series that is HUGE with the middle school girls. If you can get past the shopping and fashion crap - then the story of what friendships are made of is pretty well done. Young girl moves from Florida and gets forced onto a clique of girls at a private school who wear $600 outfits, strive to earn gossip points with each other, and think being popular is the meaning of life. I think it ends up being a book of mixed messages but the friendship dynamics are intricate enough to be interesting and somewhat possible to relate to. I would hate it if my daughter used ANY of the girls in this book as role models - but it gives us some good fodder for conversations.
4. Best Friends for Never by Lisi Harrison - second in the above series. Was hoping for a change but sadly, it's more of the same.
5. The Boyfriend List by E. Lockhart - FINALLY a good book. Well told story of a Ruby Oliver's sophomore debacles - with great footnotes, more than plausible characters and situations, just enough angst and even better - a therapist who sneakily imparts some great lessons. I immediately put this one on the Ninja Princessa's desk (even though it's a bit old for her.)
6. The Boyfriend Book by E. Lockhart - The second Ruby Oliver Book - and while I liked the first one better, I certainly liked this one enough to hope there's going to be a third.
7. Girl, 15, Charming But Insane by Sue Limb - chronicle of British teen girl's zaniness. More believable than (but not quite as laugh out loud funny as) Louise Rennison's Georgia Nicholson - I liked it.
8. All-American Girl by Meg Cabot - same author as the Princess Diaries - this book is totally unbelievable in terms of an ordinary girl saving the President's life, falling for the First Son, and being appointed teen ambassador to the UN - but it is fun in it's far-fetchedness.
   
9. Kung Fu Princess by Pamela Walker - is much less about shopping/fashion/cliques (thank heavens) and more about a young girl coming into her birthright. Unfortunately for her that birthright is being a princess of two bloodlines destined to face five ancient enemies imprisoned in cursed gold coins. Cassidy Chen is great and exactly on my 12 year old Ninja Princessa's level.
10. Wuthering High by Cara Lockwood - was a bit worried to buy a book under the MTV imprint. (Um, Music Television has their own book division??) But! Spoiled and conflicted Miranda won me over. She gets sent to a spooky boarding school for delinquents on an island off the coast of Maine. The literature they read starts to play out eerily in real life and Miranda begins to suspect that Bard Academy is not at all what she expected. Spooky without being truly disturbing - fun without being superficial - this book was surprising.
11. The Scarlett Letterman by Cara Lockwood - second in the Bard Academy novels and I liked it better than the first because Miranda's character becomes more complicated and interesting. I'll read any more of these that come out.
12. Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan - Fantastic book!! Odd, off beat - cross between a Polyanna Utopian high school and the world as it is - this is a sweet and real story about a gay boy who falls for the new boy in school. The gentle romance - the challenge of navigating high school friendships - the way misunderstandings rupture our plans and sometimes our hearts - all of it is quiet, musing, accessible in Paul's story. I absolutely want all of my kids (and my friends) to read this book.
13. Forever in Blue - the Fourth Summer of the Sisterhood - I loved it. It's the perfect conclusion for the Traveling Pants books. If you haven't read the first - you should. If you liked the first three and are waiting for this one to come out in paperback - then I don't know what to say other than I think it was worth every penny of the hardback price.

The only non YA books I've read in the past 10 days

1. Nylon Angel by Marianne de Pierres - Aussie author I'd never heard of - but I think her Parish Plessis is a fantastic cyber punk heroine. De Pierres is a great new voice in the world of speculative fiction. She uses words and labels in intriguing ways and she creates social conflicts that span race, economic strata, and customs. Gritty and slick at the same time - these books helped me out of my wallow.
2. Code Noir by Marianne de Pierres - second Parish Plessis novel (paperback as of this past summer). Not a stand alone and ends clearly as if there's a third on the way - but I enjoyed it every bit as much as the first.

So there you have it. This is what I was doing while I was not posting. Well, that and watching ESPN. Did you see Serena Williams spank Maria Sharapova? And if you saw that, did you also see the weird commercial with the writer who had a whole trashcan overflowing with crumpled first drafts who then drinks some energy drink? If you saw that, could you please explain to me how those wadded up papers turning into gremlins who attack the writer so that he has to climb walls and chop them with scissors would make someone want to buy that energy drink?!! I didn't understand that commercial AT ALL. Really it was almost as bad as the commercial for running shoes that features two almost dead pieces of road kill talking to each other. Why would talking a half dead rabbit and a smushed bird saying those shoes were cool make you want to buy them? I begin to realize how NOT the target audience I am.

And finally - need I say that I am excited and also despondent that it is nearly Super Bowl weekend? I LOVE the Super Bowl anyway and this year there is a team I really love in it - GO COLTS!!! But damn - only one more game until August?! Sad. Sad. Sad.

Peace.

More Pants And A Tailspin

More about the Pants:
The Pants (featured in the previous post) continue to entertain me. I had to convince Chaos that it was time (and perhaps even past time) to wash them. Have you ever washed pants with chains permanently attached to them? It's loud. Have you ever seen a 14 year old boy trying to be cool about the fact that his most favorite possession ever is clanking around in the washer? It's funny. Chaos gave me a list of all of his friends who have pants like his - Nate has ones that have orange stitching, Galen has ones with chains that look like big safety pins, someone else is still waiting for his to come in the mail, and one of the other band guys has some with skulls on them. I said, "Oh, so it's like your band's uniform?" And Chaos (with a totally straight face) said, "Mom, it's not at all like a uniform. We wear them to be different." Ah. Middle school logic: five guys wearing the exact same kind of pants in order to be different. I gather the point is to be identifiable as a group that is different from the other groups.

Chaos ranted for a bit about how disgustingly preppy everyone else at school was. He told me they didn't "get" metal. Have I written about how Chaos has gone from listening exclusively to Eminem to listening mostly to Quiet Riot, Twisted Sister, Guns N' Roses, etc.? Not just metal - but ancient metal? It cracks me up. I love how much we get to talk about it all. He was under the (very mistaken) impression that this was the kind of music I listened to in school. I had to explain to him that while he was dressing like my crowd* did (chains, piercings, pre-goth black stuff, leather etc) - really our focus was more towards the punk end (Dead Kennedys, Sex Pistols, Dag Nasty) or stuff like Depeche Mode and Violent Femmes. I did once go to a Def Leppard concert (free ticket) and I was friends with a guy who was an Iron Maiden freak - but that was about as much cross over as was possible. Chaos and I talked about how music defines cliques as much as clothes and as a tangent, how music affiliation can dictate fashion choices. When I was in school it was the redneck badboys (and their skanky girlfriends) who listened to metal. The preppy kids listened mostly to Christian "rock". (Gag! I despised it but what do you do when Amy Grant comes to your school's assembly? I will never forget the weekend that the girls were in a huge dither about whether to go to the Michael W. Smith concert or the boys' homecoming dance. I was STUNNED. It took me a whole nanosecond to decide I was skipping them both to go to the B-52's concert. I had such a great time. To this day I love the B-52's. They're not punk or dark - but they are wacky and talented and skewed and FUN!) Even though I grew up in the home of country music - NO ONE (our age) ever admitted to listening to country music back then. It was a sure sign of leprosy. It's interesting to me how some of the cliques have shifted musical allegiances but how the dynamics still feel the same. I told Chaos that I thought it got better in high school because it seemed that the groups were more fluid and dynamic and folks were a bit more live and let live - but I could be wrong.

Chaos told me his father hates the Pants. Thinks they're hideous. That surprises me because Mr. Tapioca Head had major issues with how repressed by his parents he felt as a teenager - but I guess it's good that Chaos has ways to rebel against us both (i.e. the long hair for me and the Pants for his dad.)


Speaking of Mr. Tapioca Head -
I haven't written about court last week because I've been in a flat tailspin since then. In terms of personal process - it actually was good. I managed to control my adrenaline better than I've EVER been able to so I wasn't shaking and trying to talk through chattering teeth. However, that's about all that went well for me. I was prepared to "lose" the child support portion of the hearing. My focus was on the parenting plan part of things - in some ways because that was the only way to offset the child support stuff but mostly because I haven't been able to work through some parenting issues with my ex. (In our original agreement - we compromised and traded out some standard ways of doing things - and since he was undoing our compromises then that was the part where I got to present my "case" and get some of those concessions back.) The problem was that my lawyer completely screwed up. She neglected to file an amendment (or something) to our Answer/Counter petition. After three years of this craziness, I finally get the chance to have my "say" in front of the court - only because my lawyer didn't follow due process - the judge wouldn't hear it. My part of the hearing got thrown out unheard. Completely. Case closed. If I choose to reopen - refile - this time as a petition and not a counter petition, then I could maybe get heard. But otherwise that's it. Years of angst/stress (not to mention thousands of dollars spent) and the result is less than nothing. (In fact it's $700/month less than nothing.) In the interest of fairness - I do have to say that my ex did a totally decent thing in court. The hearing on the parenting plans had been thrown out and the judgment on the child support had been made - and it had been made retroactive to September. Nice. Not only was he getting a huge reduction in child support but he was getting essentially a three thousand dollar credit and wouldn't have to pay ANY child support until the credit was "used up." My ex asked the court if that could be changed so that the new child support order would be ordered as of the day of the judgment and not the day of the original petition for reduction. Mr. Tapioca Head said he didn't think making it retroactive was fair and he wouldn't do that to me. (Um - nothing about any of it was fair to my mind especially that he got the reduction, kept the tax exemptions which should be mine, and didn't have to have the insurance situation analyzed - but hey - it was a magnanimous gesture nonetheless and I appreciated it. He certainly could have just kept his mouth shut and screwed me and the kids just that much more.)

The next day he called me and wanted to talk. Egad. Would it surprise you that he was the very last person I wanted to talk to? But I met with him - and would you believe that we managed to do what I wanted us to do in mediation six months ago??!! We hashed through the parenting plans we had both submitted and made new compromises. Really, I wanted to bash his head in because I don't know why we couldn't have done this in JUNE but what the hell. I guess "winning" made him willing to listen. I don't know.

Sweet Hubby said (by way of consolation) that all my ex "won" in court was money. Custody hadn't changed. Money wasn't a big deal. It's the other parts - the parenting parts - that really affected the kids. He said he'd figure out a way to earn more to make up for the shortfall. He said that when he married me he absolutely pledged to take care of all four of us. That was lovely to hear and he's a fabulous man - but I couldn't help thinking about the whole thing from the single mom's perspective. What if I hadn't been remarried? What if I hadn't had the safety net provided by my new husband or my family or even by my ex's gesture? How would I have managed to feed and clothe and shelter the boys after that judgment? It's hard not to feel like the court process (my asshole lawyer included) let my kids down in a big way. Scary. I think that's where the backlash that threw me into a tailspin came in. I was fine in the moment and for some of the next day - but then I had used up all my coping energy. Really I started spiraling down and ended up totally flat by Wednesday. I didn't want to get out of bed or talk to anyone or care much about anything. I did the bare minimum in the parenting arena (which with our size family is still quite a bit of driving, figuring out of food, and basic cleaning/laundry.) Luckily for me, it just so happened that this past weekend I got to wallow. Sweet Hubby went to a sci-fi , VBGF had lots of plans with her friends and wouldn't be in town, and all the kids went with their other parents for the weekend. It was just me and the dog at home. I thought I would write on Friday or even yesterday - but it turns out that I had a LOT of wallowing to do. I read. I ate popcorn and drank wine and watched Sports Center. Wasabi turns out to be a great wallowing companion. I have a lot of newly read books to show for my tantrum/retreat from everyday life but I'm glad my withdrawal didn't last much longer. I feel a lot better.

Thanks for the emails and well wishes and good court mojo. As my mother says, "Good luck, bad luck, who knows?"
Peace.

*Umm, "crowd" - yeah - I was a crowd of one at my school. I had great friends at my all girls, private, southern, college prep school - but none of them would have died their hair purple, worn leather and safety pins on the weekend, or gone to some of the clubs I went to with my friends from other schools. I had the advantage of doing theater around the city and knowing/hanging out with kids from all over. I was also lucky that I got to "try on" lots of different ways of being in the world without getting stuck in just one group with just one look and set of opinions. I had the best of all possible worlds and only truly appreciate it in retrospect. Is that the payoff of being 38 and not 14 anymore?

Trying So Hard To Be Bad

Chaos just got these pants. He said I could take his picture as long as he didn't have to smile. Then he smiled and tried to make me delete the picture. He really is way sweeter than he looks.
He got these pants because he and his friends (who are all in band and play instruments and have some musical talent) have decided to start a garage band. They have regularly scheduled practices that never happen because there isn't a time when they can all be there at the same time due to church, karate, geography club, etc. I asked Chaos what instrument he played. (He is one of the least musical people I know - and he gets it from me. We are born to be great audiences.) Chaos said his friend is teaching him to play bass guitar (b/c as Chaos explained to me that's the one that's the easiest, stands in the back, and doesn't have to sing if he doesn't want to) but until he gets it down the guys want him to play the kazoo. Can you imagine how hard it was NOT to laugh, much less smile at the idea of my aching-to-be-a-bad-boy son playing the KAZOO in a garage band??
By the way, he is actually allowed to wear these pants to school, but he has to take off the two big chains which cross in front - which is a good thing because as he jumped down from this chair (don't ask me why he wanted to stand on it for the picture in the first place) the chains caught and he tripped. Ahhh the price of fashion. These pictures are DEFINITELY going in his rehearsal dinner box.
Peace.

Ray Of Light

It's a good thing I had a fabulous weekend because this week looks to be sent special delivery, postmarked "Hell". I got home last night and we prepared to take the children out to eat only to have Havoc say, "Since I had a fever yesterday and my throat hurts, should I go out in public?" Errr, fever? Turns out my ex did send an email about Havoc being sick - but that wasn't so helpful since I wasn't home to get email.

Fine - my one day this week that looked sort of clear would now involve an unplanned trip to the pediatrician. This morning was a bit rocky and I was in the middle of posting to tell you the full extent of its rockiness, its pebbliness, its very stoniness when my computer hiccuped and disappeared all my words. Now you'll get the soft focus version instead. What can I say about a morning that has one out of three middle schoolers missing the bus? I don't even know how that happens. The Ninja Princessa was ready. She just didn't go out to the bus. But her brothers did. Apparently they didn't think it was at all odd that she ate breakfast with them, appeared healthy and ready for school but then didn't come outside with them. Did they think she'd just up and changed her mind about going to school today??

I took Havoc to the pediatrician at 10. At 10:35 we were still waiting to be seen, which turns out to be a good thing as Mayhem called from the school office saying he felt terrible, could I come get him. Since you can see the middle school from the pediatrician's waiting room, I got permission from the receptionist to run over, grab Mayhem and have both of my boyos seen. I was there and back with him in under five minutes and got them right in. Havoc has strep (for the third time this school year) and - bonus - ear infections. Mayhem's strep test was negative but the doc looked at his throat and said it was only a matter of time. We are now the proud owners of two big bottles of amoxicillin. The bright spot in this was that she cleared Mayhem to keep his appointments tomorrow. I think I might have had to do some railing at the universe if we'd had to reschedule those long awaited appointments. Havoc isn't allowed to go to school but I guess he'll have to come with us to the specialists' offices because what the heck else can I do?

Thursday is court with Mr. Tapioca Head and I'm not even going to give you the ridiculous details of the document the man sent me last week. He is ickiness incarnate. I will, however, share a letter I got from my dear college buddy Ray. (Ray happens to be the same college buddy that introduced me to Mr. Tapioca Head in the first place but we'll just have to forgive him for that - easy to do when I look at my sons and realize that without Mr. Tapioca Head they wouldn't be here.) My friend Ray wrote:

Hey there beautiful.

[See why I've been friends with this guy for 19 years? He called me beautiful. And already, right here before I even let you read the rest of his letter, I have to digress and tell you that Ray fundamentally changed my perception of myself when we were in college. He was telling me about a woman he had just started dating. "A woman? You're dating a WOMAN?" I asked him in amazement. I was 19 and the idea that my good friend had started to date a woman seemed bizarre and worldly to me. He laughed at me. I asked him how old she was and he said she was my age. How the heck do you manage to be a woman at 19? We ended up having a long discussion about the threshold between girlhood/womanhood and boyhood/manhood. Actually, I'm sure that Ray and I never once had a short discussion about anything - but anyway... Somewhere in the middle of our conversation I asked him if he had ever referred to ME as a woman when he was talking with his other friends and he said, "Of course." To Ray I was always a beautiful woman. How can you not like that? And it's a darn good thing I did like him, because he drove me CRAZY in college. I might have had to kill him a time or two if he hadn't been so likeable. Ray is brilliant but absent-minded doesn't even begin to cover it. The boy could explain explain the theory of relativity and time dilation in space travel but he couldn't manage to pick me up on time to get to Les Mis for my birthday. Grrrrrrr. You'd think I'd be over that by now, wouldn't you? To return to our muttons, he continues...]

How are you?

I just read your blog entry from last Wednesday. Ok, let us be honest here. Sarah [=his beautiful new wife who is AMAZING and ORGANIZED and absolutely perfect for him] told me I needed to go look at your blog entry. I could not find the URL. I did a search in her delicious bookmark database. While I was there I saw an article she had tagged about the increase in gobbledegook in press releases in the last year. They had a really neat chart. Then, your blog was still loading. The graphics, I think. The spinny thing was going. So, then I remembered this Apache project I was in the middle of downloading and went back to check on it. Then I realized I was going to need something else to make that work. Then Sarah reminded me to go back to your blog. But then I explained to her about where the name "Apache" came from in the Apache Web Server. It turns out that it used to just be called "the web server" by the people working on it. But there were so many updates, they had to patch the darn thing several times a day. Always with another patch.
Indeed, they decided that it was really "a patch-y web server". Haha.
Then I read your blog entry.....

And hey! I am _ACTUALLY_ writing an e-mail to you.

Did I mention to you, by any chance, that I was diagnosed with ADD? Really, I know. You're shocked. As was I. But it is true. And it is not fatal.

Actually, I even take medication for it. Just a light dose. It did not bring about shocking changes, but then, you know how you might sit down with 5 things to do and sometimes not get to all 5. I actually used to never see the backside of number 3. Ever. Now I do sometimes get to 5. It is really weird.

Anyway.

I'll write more later. Did not want to risk having this e-mail not
get sent....

Love you - ray

ps: Sarah says hello and says there is a magazine that might help
with questions. http://www.additudemag.com/

Isn't he wonderful? Not only did he write and let me know he was keeping up with me, but he reassured me in the best way possible about Havoc. I had not heard of ADD when I was in college, so I never once thought that Ray might be ADD but upon a nanosecond of reflection I have to say, "Duh." And yet, he has this great life with a fantastic career, wonderful kids and a lovely wife (who sends me great resource information - thank you Sarah!!!!)

What a treasure to hear these words from him/them this week. Aren't friends the bomb diggity?
Peace.

Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It's Off To The M.D. We Go

Just about the time I thought I'd get to be a "stay home" mom again, it turns out that I'm a "take everyone to the doctor" mom. January sounded pretty freaking far away when I was trying to get appointments with specialists for my kids back in November. Back then I was settling for any appointments I could get and didn't quite notice that my New Year's resolution should have been to win the lottery to cover January's co-pays. Ahem. To return to the part where I am so lovingly and attentively making sure my children's medical/therapeutic needs are being met (and completely ignoring the fact that I already missed one dental follow up - crap - and have had to reschedule that for March)...

This week Chaos finally got in with a counselor whom I adore. (I, being the very smart mom that I am, did NOT tell Chaos how wonderful I thought this therapist was until AFTER Chaos told me he was "okay".) It was a little weird to sit there with Dr. H asking me and Sweet Hubby all about Chaos while Chaos was right there - but that was part of the deal. We told the doctor what we thought Chaos thought and what we thought Chaos felt about this and that. Then Chaos got to meet with the counselor - probably to snicker over how off the mark we were. Chaos was in rare form after the session. He was in a good mood because we weren't making him go back to school. They all get one "mental health day" a semester and Chaos wanted to take his - on what better day than his first session with a mental health professional. It was also the last day before Bug had to go back to California so the two of them had big game playing plans all mapped out. I asked Chaos how he thought the session went - and he said that it was okay. "I mean, it could be worse. You all could make me do all sorts of stuff that would be way worse. I mean, like, I'm glad you're not all uppity-tight and make me go to bible school or something." Uppity-tight? Sweet Hubby and I cracked up. Later Chaos was telling us about a new author he has discovered (Harry Turtledove) who writes alternative historical fiction. Chaos was going on and on about soldiers and the Pot-o-matic. It made no sense. We got him to spell Pot-o-matic and it turns out he was talking about the Potomac. The very next sentence he came out with had the word "beige" in it - maybe describing uniforms? I don't remember exactly because it took us a bit to decipher what "bee juh" meant. We really need to show him how to use the Merriam Webster site that has pronunciation audio files! He was in a great mood all day though and laughed with us about it all.

Then yesterday I took Havoc for an hours long screening for ADD. I have been really reluctant to do this. More than one (or even two or three) teachers have suggested it in the past few years, but I haven't wanted to have my kid labeled and then written off with a Ritalin Rx. Havoc's father (Mr. Tapioca Head) has been even more reluctant. To the point that he told me that not only did he not want me to take Havoc for the screening, but that if Havoc was diagnosed as ADD that he would "forbid" any medication and "insist" on a second opinion with a doctor of his choosing. That totally pissed me off but didn't stop me. I have been about at wit's end with Havoc. We have organized and organized and organized the boy - but no matter how many times we clean out his locker and backpack, no matter how many check lists we make, no matter how much we look at his school planner - every system we come up with falls apart the minute I'm not checking every single step. I hate being a nag - and I particularly despair when I fulfill my role as nagging organizational overseer for months only to think that it's time for Havoc to have internalized some small bit of it and come to find out that once again, no, he's not internalized any of it. The doctor we saw was fantastic. He was so easy to talk to. Havoc did most of the talking - and together they looked at Havoc's hand and checked his eyesight. (We have appointments with specialists for both of those areas of concern next week) and they talked and talked and talked about Havoc's patterns at school and at home. I'd had to fill out this detailed packet that covered lots of ground - the thing started with my pregnancy and his birth! The teacher who has been the most concerned also filled out a packet and sent it in. We'd been there almost two hours and the doctor started telling me about vitamin supplements (zinc and essential fatty acids) that he thought could help out. Then he recommended a book about organizational strategies. I said, "Oh, so you don't think Havoc has ADD?" And the man about choked trying not to laugh at me. He glanced over at Havoc who was busy fiddling with his hands, tapping his feet, and shaking his leg from having to sit and do nothing but talk for so long in a small room. The doctor said, "Oh no. He is definitely ADD. But that's only a way to get a handle on his brain style." He then went on to tell Havoc that human brains are incredibly responsive to human experience. He said that it would probably take Havoc a LOT longer to instill a habit, but that when he did it would stick. He explained that Havoc had very bad paper handling habits and that was what we needed to work on most. He said the supplements would help make some things clearer and they could make it easier for Havoc to stick to the routines - but that Havoc still had to do all the work of finding a routine or system that he thought could work for him and then Havoc had to be the one to do it, consistently for a very long time. The doctor said I did need to help Havoc but he told both me and Havoc what the limits of that help should look like. It was a really great appointment. It just took most of the whole day.

And next week looks to be taken up too. Havoc has two specialist appointments and then on Thursday I'm back in court. I got a notice today that there is a certified letter at the post office for me. I know it's from Mr. Tapioca Head because he's the only one in my whole life who has sent me certified mail - and it's never good. My stomach hurts just thinking about it. I don't have a clue as to what it could actually be - but I'm sure it's about court crap. Bleck.

So my dear internets, my presence in the blogosphere may continue to be spotty through next week, but I'll be back here and at your blogs as soon as I can!! Peace.

Getting On The Same Page

Weeeellll - as much fun as new electronic thingamajiggies are, there is a down side. That downside is that I can't make all my new stuff work! The brain disrupter rays shooting out of the PS3 at all hours of the day hasn't helped me figure it out either. I won't go into my hosting issues as Sweet Hubby seems to have successfully ported us out of the old host's realm and into a new one. I had nothing to do with that. The less than 'tastic service has been a contributing factor - but somebody seems to have figured that out too. No, my real issue now is learning how to use my new stuff to do all the old stuff. I can make my new stuff do new and very cool stuff (which is ever so much fun) but I can't make it do basic things. (Mail! Mail is good, you silly Mac!)

Also (and I may have mentioned this before) but blogging when there are squillions of children in the house is well nigh impossible. We eat, we play games, we eat more, we build forts, we snack, we have music wars (and cologne wars, and Warhammer wars, and nerf gun wars, and popcorn wars and for pity's sake, how many kinds of wars can 10 boys come up with??!!) and then we scrounge for more food - but blogging? We don't do that so much.

We're fixing to get back into the swing of things - what with work and school and Cub Scouts and wrestling and chorus and karate demo team all starting back up yesterday. Egad, I can see why someone invented the day planner! 2007 is a blast so far. Pictures are forthcoming.

Peace.