Fast Forward

So...perhaps a bit of an update is in order.  

Here's my crew as they look today (or really, three weeks ago but whatever.)  Top Right and going counter-clockwise (or widdershins as some of us like to say): Chaos, Mayhem, Havoc, Bug, and the Ninja Princessa.  It was amazing and wonderful and unusual to have them all home at the same time in October.

A bazillion and twelve things have happened in the what, 27 months or so, since I last posted and it was scanty fare before that.  But here is where we are and I'll try to back fill later -

Chaos - age 19 as of this summer.  Still sassy (as you can probably tell from the picture).  Graduated from high school last spring (after some pretty serious drama which may or may not be the subject of a future post.)  He is living with my mother - after getting "kicked out" of his father's house (hey - another long story!) I wanted (very much!) for him to come back home and live with us - but he wants to stay working where he is and be around the friends he has there. He is working technically part time but about 40 hours a week at a fast food place.  He is an amazingly hard worker and is getting paid next-to-nothing.  He talks about going to college in the spring or summer or someday.  He is still passionate about history - especially World War II - and says he thinks he wants to end up being a history teacher.   Whatever he chooses is fine with me. He's a great guy and we (he and I) had a rocky summer (during which he refused to talk to me, answer my texts, or acknowledge my existence) so it was fantastic that he came home with the younger boys for Fall Break.  (He had to take a week off of work to do so - which is a big deal and not something he does. It meant a hell of a lot to me.) He's brilliant and wacky and opinionated and empathic and ... very much himself.

Mayhem - age 17 as of this summer.  A junior, handsome and suave, completely into lacrosse (goalie) and all around congenial guy.  Very interested in fashion.  He is a seriously sharp dressed man - and will have to get a job at Buckle very soon to support his shopping habit.  Still ADD as hell and struggling in school - but smart and enthusiastic.  He is one of those guys at the football games - bare chested painted up - cheering his team on.  He is kind of dating (I think) - a girl here.  They talked and texted after he left this summer and went out a couple of times when he was back for Fall Break.  He is so easy to be around.  He's in the throes of deciding which colleges he's interested in.  He is working on his art portfolio for Governor's School.  Now if only he can pass Latin this semester...

Havoc - turns 13 this month! - with Tallulah and Wasabi (4 and 6 respectively).  Havoc is in the 7th grade.  OMG - we have no more in elementary school.  And only one in middle school!  The last one to hit the teens.  It is crazee to think of.  Anyway...Havoc is wicked smart (and on the gifted track still - in spite of my continuing reservations about it). He struggles with ADD and repelling paper like Mayhem, but for some reason he is able to maintain and get enough assignments in to have great grades.  He's a lacrosse goalie too.  It has been wonderful to see him so active and physically conditioning.  He is still in love with the idea of becoming a chef. And he's gotten into drama.  He had the male lead (Daddy Warbucks) in the school musical (Annie) this Spring.  He dropped band.  I think he never got over the fact that they didn't let him play tuba.  (They gave their one tuba slot to a girl in his class.  I think it is ... weird enough that he wanted to play tuba but I truly can't imagine a girl wanting to play tuba.  That's probably sexist.  I don't know.  Of course, if she wants to I'm all about her having the chance to. But really? Why does ANYONE want to play the tuba!) Havoc jumped from instrument to instrument last year and finally said he didn't have any interest this year.

Bug - turns 21 this month!  He is putting himself through community college - getting a double associates in two things IT related.  He was working at Staples but has just gotten a much higher paying and far more interesting (to him) job as a programmer of some description.  (I'm sorry but like car information - IT details do NOT stick in my brain.  I think they are cool and understand them at the time in context - but cannot for the life of me recall them specifically enough to pass on to anyone else.  Go ahead - ask me what Linus does for a living!  It is something involving one or more of the following: data architect, systems, policy, design, chief,  technology something or other. So Bug is a chip off the ol' silicon block.) He is way more social than ever before and has become interested in fashion. Or at least in crafting his own style.  So he and Mayhem spend a lot of time together shopping for clothes.

Which brings us to the Ninja Princessa - age 16.  I love this series of pictures because it is soooooo her!  I was being silly and zoomed in for a close up and out for a full body pic and then when I zoomed in again, she made this little sound like "mweep".  I cracked up when I saw the camera.  She's a junior and in the social justice track at school.  She's president of the QSA (=Queer-Straight Alliance) at her school and on the board of Inside Out (the regional LGBTQIA youth organization).  It's interesting.  She has been a very involved member since her Freshman year.  She didn't date anyone for a long time.  When she first joined we asked if she was interested in girls.  (Not a surprising question.)  She said she thought girls were too much drama but then she went on to say she wasn't particularly interested in boys either.  "I have four brothers after all.  I KNOW what boys are like for real."  Ha!  She said she's passionate about people getting to make their own choices; she supports her friends of all varieties.  She did end up dating a very nice boy who'd been a friend for years.  But they recently broke up. :(  She is still a vegetarian and an activist for animal rights (though she is smart and informed and not like the animal rights activists I detest.)   

In short - my kids are just completely AWESOME.  I have no idea how I got so freaking lucky.  I hope to write an update about the rest of us (me, Linus, and Bet and Tallulah and Wasabi - who should have their own post I think).  Sooner than 2 years at any rate!  But don't hold your breath.  :D  Peace!

My, How Time Flies

Chaos is fixing to be 17 next week. There are days when it is practically impossible to believe that many years have passed since I held his wee baby self in my arms for the first time. Other days I wonder how he's not 30 yet. Ahhhh, motherhood.

Recently Chaos has become somewhat health conscious. He's eating fewer pop-tarts and more grilled chicken salad. He has for a while wanted to start lifting weights, but has not at all wanted to join a gym. The obvious solution? A home gym! Yes, yes. Soooo easy to figure out for a teenager with limited bedroom space and parents in two different states 500 miles apart. Nonetheless! I absolutely love lifting weights and think the overall well-being benefits of lifting far outweigh the hassles. So look what Chaos got for an early birthday present*:

(Some assembly required.)


I had a little help.


And I mean a very little help.


Apparently, it is important to nap on exercise equipment as you're putting it together. 16 and 11/12ths being such an exhausting age and all. What do you think? Is what the fitness books mean by stretching first?



We did finally get it completely assembled. (After a mere two days.) That was four days ago. It took until yesterday for any iron to be pumped. But I totally understand this. After all, apples don't fall far from the trees now, do they? Chaos comes by his "fixing to get ready to get started" tendencies honestly. None of that jumping right in for us - nosiree! Well...actually I'm getting better at it. Turns out, the more you do, the more you can do, and the more new things don't need so much preparation. I'm trying to start passing that on. It's been fun helping Chaos with the workout endeavor. I've really enjoyed the whole process of figuring out what he needs, what workouts he's willing to learn to do, what he wants out of it, what he thinks is "lame", etc. I'm looking forward to spotting for him today and maybe lifting a little myself. But I'm not so much looking forward to disassembling that sucker for the drive back to TN at the end of the summer!! Oh - and have you noted that this monster is in my LIVING ROOM?? You know I love my son when I let that happen, even if it is just for a couple of months. I think it's going to live in the garage at his dad's but I don't have to worry about that part of things. On the plus side, weights are quieter overall than drum sets. See - I am such a glass-half-full kinda mom!

And since no post would be complete without the gratuitious cute dog picture, I'll leave you with this cute shot of Wasabi peering into my room through the "wall" made out of bookshelves:

Peace.

*PS - How awesome is this?? I don't think Chaos would read it (even with the high Z factor) but if he met a girl who was carrying this around in her backpack? Yeah - I think I'd be saying hello to my future daughter-in-law at that point. Maybe I should get a copy to throw in his Rehearsal Dinner Box?

They're Everywhere

Unky Dunky sent me the following news clip with the question, "Do we know if Chaos has been in Texas recently?"


Bwah ha ha ha ha! That would so very much crack me up if I saw that traffic sign. I think it would be the high point of Chaos' life thus far, were he to see a sign like that while driving down the road. I still loathe Texas, but this report made me loathe it just a teeny bit less. Peace.

Where Do I Go Now

Hmmmm, May 27th to July 9th is a long time. A lot has happened. Here's some of it:

We enjoyed hanging out all together while we could as school wound down.

The Ninja Princessa turned 13 and started taking martial arts again. (Tae Kwon Do this time, not karate but I'm not changing her name because it just wouldn't have the same ring. )

She got a silver bracelet from her brothers that says, "A sister is a forever friend." (They picked it out!) She almost cried which made them go all boy and start hitting each other to relieve the tension. (They did not put up with hugs.)

I got a hair cut. Woo hoo!

Chaos turned 16 and had a Cthulu tentacle "cake" only someone stole one of the tentacles before I could even take a picture. Boys! I'm sure I should have posted about this earlier too because I won't do it justice here, but Chaos has this new routine that he does about being oppressed because he's a "Ginger". It's a hilarious play on a combination of the red-headed step child being left out and Black Power rhetoric. (NOT to make light of real civil rights struggles. He more or less walks that line carefully.) I'll ask him to take out the trash and he starts in on how it's always the Ginger has to do the unwanted tasks (even though the chores rotate by week and it's his week on the schedule). He's got a couple of red-headed friends at school too that he calls his Brothers In Red. We've made jokes about him being the Ginga Ninja etc, etc. At one of our hilarity infused family dinners, Chaos interrupted a story the Princessa was telling and she interrupted right back saying something like, "Can it Ginger Snap!" We lost it. Hence the "Ginger Snap" on the cake.

Chaos tried to steal my Israeli Paratrooper canvas satchel so I got him one of his own with a skull on it.

Bet went to an oceanography institute for a week and built an underwater ROV (which I will have to get pictures of because it is very cool. She's going to do some great things with her students involving the topics she studied. She's trying to write a grant to get some sextants for her classroom. How cool is that?

We took pictures of the dogs' noses:
Tallulah -

Wasabi -

And Linus had a birthday. Bet and I decided to make it a "theme" birthday. We woke him up with the Secret Agent Man theme song and sent him on "missions" all day long (mostly to get his own birthday presents and to eat). He got clues and maps and had special agent assisting him.

Bet and I were Agent Smith and Agent Smith. We were bad ass. And we got to boss Linus around. It was all kinds of fun. Everyone had to wear X4/GM12 Eco-transponders (i.e. nametages). Agent-In-Training "The Bug" had a cool beetle on his and Agent "Slim Dunk" had a crazy cartoon WWF Wrestler. The evening ended with a party of 12 Special Agents converging on a little Indian restaurant around the corner for dinner. Good times!

There has also been some complete crappiness - mostly involving Mr. Tapioca. The court stuff is ridiculous and the tactics his red neck lawyer employs are stupid. (I hope Mr. Tapioca isn't paying that guy very much. I have yet to receive a document from him that has fewer than five spelling/grammar/punctuation mistakes. Seriously, the last thing I got was a list of questions that weren't even numbered correctly! That doesn't even go into the insanity of the content. I have had such a hard time resisting the urge to post that document here!!!) I think one of the reasons I haven't blogged is because I haven't wanted to spew about it all.

Chaos, Mayhem, and Havoc are all with him for the summer. I get to go visit and have the boys every other weekend. The Princessa is gone for 6 weeks (which used to seem long but is 3 full weeks less than the boys are gone!) Bug is an only child with us for the first time ever. It's a very different dynamic. Bug is still in school - and kicking ass. He's gotten nothing but A's so far! (Chaos finished his semester with straight A's too! The Princessa and Mayhem? Lucky to simply finish the year - especially Mayhem whose attention span was strained to the breaking point with weeks left to tough out! Havoc breezed through but doesn't get letter grades the way the middle and high schoolers do.) Bet is home for the summer and Linus is working from home. It is a summer completely different from any other.

The good news is the triathlon training is going well. We're on track for the San Francisco half marathon in a few weeks. (Our long run this weekend is an 8 miler!) We've already done a "mock tri" the same distance as the olympic distance we're signed up for in September (swim a mile, bike 26 miles, run a 10K) and we did it in less than the cut off time for the course. Since our main goal is to finish, it was a huge confidence booster!

I'm not sure what direction Lilymania is headed. There are some challenges to mommy blogging. It's hard to find the time to blog in the moment when we are in the midst of family activities and it's even harder to blog about my kids when they are all gone for the summer. I've found on my few attempts this summer that those posts come out pretty whiny! And there are only so many cute dog posts I can write. I don't plan on abandoning ship but I'm relatively content to drift aimlessly for a while. Maybe I'll play around with the format and layout and that will spark something - but until then... PEACE!

A Whole Bunch Of Chaos

I have mentioned how challenging it can be to take a "good" picture of my almost 16-year old son, Chaos, right? He thinks it's HILARIOUS to pose normally and then make a face right as the camera snaps. He's talented that boy. So here he is practicing some of his favorite looks.

Here he is going for either Rob Zombie or a serial killer.

He's laughing because he just stuck his face RIGHT into the lens and said, "Fisheye!"

Then he got mad because I erased a picture. I said, "Your mouth was open and your eyes were almost closed. That one was terrible!" He said, "That was my stoner look. I thought it was funny. You should have kept it." I said, "Your stoner look?! I don't want you to have a stoner look! Ever! How do you know what stoners look like anyway?" He rolled his eyes at me and said, "I go to high school, mom. Sheesh." Then he said I could take one more picture and he would be good. The one below is what he considers good.

I finally caught him in the middle of an important PS3 mission where he was too busy to pull a Calvin on me. I love these two pictures, because this is what he really looks like (even if he'd rather you thought he looked scary like the first picture.)

Peace.

Photo Mania

Mayhem - did I tell you he's back on restriction? Yeah, FOUR D's on a progress report will do that to you. Good thing he's cute, eh?

Bug wanted to dye his hair black. It's a little blue and kind of elfin, but I think those are pluses in his book. He got A+'s in both of his classes! Yay! We like adult high school!

Wasabi says, "Where are mah eyes?"

Tallulah says, "Treats please!"

Kira says, "But I'm not even yours!"

The Ninja Princessa says, "Yay! I'm off restriction! I can play video games for the first time since February!"

Action shot of Havoc. And a close up of the dimple.

Linus on the porch with a look of "Quoi?"

Bet from faaaaaar away. Obviously I hadn't figured out the zoom yet.

Chaos being Calvin (will post more in this series tomorrow because they are pretty funny) and also him snuggling with Tallulah on my bed.

The kids brought me tortellini in bed (b/c I don't like breakfast foods). They were cute and silly and I love them to bits!!

Guess what I got for Mother's Day?? (And if you didn't guess cute pink camera then dude, what's wrong with you?) Peace.

Stragglers

Thank you for the comments, emails. I haven't decided quite what I'll do but for now I think I'll keep posting more or less the way I have been. (Let's hope for the more because I've gotten pretty good at the less and it's not as much fun, now is it?)

I realized I was behind on promised pictures! As usual they are clickable if you want to see them larger. Here is Tallulah Rockstar - the crazy conehead - giving me a mournful look. (I particularly like the "You are my sunshine" pillow next to her that I didn't notice when i was taking the picture.) When Wasabi had to wear a cone it paralyzed him. If the edge of the cone touched anything - he FROZE. I would find him standing stock still and have to coax him to move again. Tallulah? The vet told us to try to keep her quiet for the first few days. I raised my eyebrow at him, we both looked at her, and he said, "Good luck with that." She proceeded to smash, crash, and bash her way through the next two weeks. The cone was in sorry, sorry shape by the time she FINALLY got to take it off.
In case you think that Chaos, being nearly 16, might have grown out of his Calvin phase...think again. Here is a picture of Chaos, Mayhem, Uncle Richard, Linus, Bug, The Ninja Princessa, and Havoc. We miss you Uncle Richard!!!

I guess the Calvin look is better than the I'm-practicing-for-my-mug-shot look:
The one where Chaos is sort of smiling? Mayhem is being silly (and Tallulah has snuck into the photo.) This is why God invented Photoshop I suppose.
And finally we come to fun and games with sharp objects. Linus would like you to think he was grievously wounded while defending my honor. In truth, he lost a fight with a box cutter while doing something involving servers at work. He managed to miss all tendons and major blood vessels - thankfully. I should have taken some pictures when it had all those blue stitches in it.
Then I could have framed it next to this picture and had a matched set. Bet sliced her leg open in two places while building our glass block wall this morning. Warning: do not step over razor sharp spikes of metal embedded in a half built wall.
I've told them both that in this circumstance three is not a charm. No stitches for Lilymane. No. No. No. So, how's your weekend going?