We're not in Kansas Anymore, Toto.

I'm not ready for winter.

I just thought I'd point that out. Mostly because I don't have a real title for this post.

If you've been following me on Facebook in the last few weeks, you know that it's been an interesting time. While it isn't abnormal that I brake for stray dogs, but it is rather abnormal that I pick up one whose owner I can't locate and end up keeping said puppy overnight. I also picked up a couple of teenage girls whose bikes had broken down and drove them home. And shortly after that I helped an older gentleman at the grocery store re-attach the wheel of his walker that had come off, while other people walked in and out through the automatic door and glared at him for daring to block their way. I didn't think before I did any of these things, and the accolades I get for them I find bewildering. Wouldn't anyone else in the same situation do the same thing? Isn't that what we are supposed to do, take care of each other?

Apparently not, as noticed from the said glaring people at the store. Maybe that's what is wrong with us, overall.

This last week has been an odd one. Last Thursday my good friend The Old Christine watched her father breathe his last breath in hospice, after less than two years battling lung cancer. I've been watching their family struggle from the sidelines, unable to do much but bring food and wine, and that not being able to do anything has been driving me crazy. At the same time, someone in my extended family has also been battling a devastating cancer diagnosis, and while I can't talk about that here, I will say that it provides me with an even more excruciating feeling of Not Being Able To Do Anything To Help. I am a doer, I am a helper. I am a jump in and take over when someone needs it kind of person. I attach walker wheels! But I cannot really bring dinner from three states away. I can only pray. And even that gets difficult, after a while.

Anyway, that's been bothering me. So Thursday evening, after hearing of my friend's father's death, I found myself needing something to do. And so I decided I need to switch Will out of the twin bed he's been sleeping in since toddlerhood into the big bed stored in the basement, to which I recently painted the headboard.

That's right. At about 5:30pm on a Thursday, I decided I needed to move two twin beds (mattresses and frames) from a second floor bedroom to the basement, and move a double mattress and box spring (plus frames) from the basement up to the second floor. By myself.

This, as you can imagine, did not go well. By the time my husband got home and took over, cussed in front of the kids several times, and finished putting the frames together because I hadn't really thought through the fact that I didn't have the right hardware on hand, it was 9:30pm, only an hour past the poor child's bed time.

And I didn't even really know why I was doing it. Why had I decided it had to be done RIGHT THIS MINUTE? It was as if I was nesting, like when I was seven months pregnant with my last baby (seven years ago, GAH) and I decided I just had to paint the half bath off the kitchen, and my husband came home from work to find me teetering on the edge of the toilet with a roller. (seeing a trend here? Jenny starts major project, dear husband must finish it.)

It wasn't until a few days later that I realized that I had done it because of my lack of being able to do anything for my friend. I needed something to do, I needed to be useful. I needed to see something change, physically. It was how I grieved for her. And I realized, right about that same time, that I hadn't grieved for my grandfather's death, last month. I was too busy, too caught up in getting the boys off to school, and telling myself how great it was that he wasn't suffering anymore. I hadn't even cried, at all.

So now I'm all grieved out. All caught up. My house is clean, my husband is out of town, I don't have any projects out there tempting me.

Except this blog. Maybe I could get my ass in gear over here to satisfy my urge to create.

Turns out video games ARE bad for you. Who knew.

A couple of months ago Drew started complaining about a knot on his wrist. It happened to be only a few weeks before his checkup appointment with our pediatrician, so I made a mental note to ask about it. I was pretty sure it was a cyst, it moves around and isn't attached at the bone like a bone spur or a wart would be. Anyway, our ped said, yeah, he sees those sometimes, but best to have it checked out by an orthopaedic specialist just in case.  So we made the appointment for today.

So we head in there after school, and I'm a little taken aback by how many little ones are in the waiting room with casts on both legs - pigeon toe issues or similar I guess. Anyway, they X-ray Drew's hand, and then the doctor comes into talk with us.

(Sidenote, I really liked this guy. Dr. Gupta, with Pediatric Orthopaedic Associates here in Overland Park, if you happen to live near me and need such a thing, consider this a recommendation.)

So he starts asking about our summer, what kinds of things did we do - or rather, did Drew do. Did he ride his bike a lot? Did he play baseball? Golf? Ah, yes golf, that could be it - the flicking of the wrist could very easily lead to a ganglion cyst - it's basically like having a blister develop on the tendon rather than on the skin. And then he mentioned, casually, that its sometimes called a Bible cyst. Because you can smack it really hard with a heavy book, and in old days the heaviest book in the house was the Bible, and it would explode and then dissolve.

Drew visibly shuddered.

But I don't think he played that much golf, I said. And then the lighbulb went off. What about the Wii?

Aaaaaagggggghhhhhh! Was Dr., Gupta's response.

Suddenly it all made sense - it had started hurting mid-summer, he played a lot of Wii over the summer, usually using the numchuck thing and doing a lot of wrist flicking, because isn't that pretty much how you play the Wii? Yes, it is. And then lately he said it hasn't been bothering him as much, it's still there, but not really hurting unless he pushes on it. Which makes sense because he's not playing as much on the Wii now that school has started.

So there you go. Video games are bad after all. They don't just kill your mind. They kill your hands!  Gah.

Se7en

My youngest son is now seven. This child was 7.14 at birth. He came quick and easy and was really a pretty easygoing baby, very laid back, slept well and ate well, all the things you wish for in a newborn, save for the random screaming at about 5:30pm every single day until he turned four months old. It was like a clock. My mother tells me I did the same thing.

I think I've mentioned before that he came out peeing, and I am not even kidding, before I saw the doctor lift him up above my sheet-covered knees I saw the stream of pee arc out and hit her smack in the face. (She was not new to this process though, and was wearing a mask not unlike something you'd see on someone preparing to solder steel, so it got in her hair, but not in her eyes.)

This turned out to be something of an omen for him, the peeing. He's a bit mischievous.

Anyway, Will is now seven ears old. He likes being seven, he likes being in first grade, he's not a baby kindergartner, he's a -grader now just like his brother. He's very competitive, mostly with his brother and it probably doesn't help things that brother is a little on the wee side, and therefore Will is pretty much the same size, and I think this adds to the competitiveness. It allows him to ride the same rides at theme parks, therefore passing the fear factor milestones earlier or at about the same time as his brother. I don't know if this is a good thing or not.

He really never had any fear, anyway.

We've been having a really hard time with his behavior recently, his temper has apparently come into it's own, and where he's always been an exceptional child in terms of just how bloody stubborn he is, lately I've become completely unable to deal with his throwdowns and we often end up screaming at each other. I wish I was kidding. He is still sometimes the toddler who is cuddly and likes to snuggle, he hasn't lost that sweetness, but more often than not he is also angry, and beligerent. He growls at me when I suggest that he stop playing with his toys and come to the table for dinner. He runs to his room and slams the door like a teenage girl when I then reach down and wrench that toy from his hands as a discipline for that behavior. I noticed recently the hinges on his door need to be tightened, it's been slammed so many times the screws are coming loose.

Some of this stems from his frustration with his brother, how they pick at each other constantly. Some of it stems from his inability to focus and pay attention at school, or here at home, he knows that his mind wanders and that he forgets what he was doing and it frustrates him as much as it frustrates me and his dad and his teachers and anyone else who's ever tried to get him back on task fifty times. He knows his mind seems to be working differently, that he can't pay attention even if he really wanted to, that other kids in his class don't have this problem. And I struggle, I tell you, I really struggle with how much to tell him about that. Whether to tell him I went through it too, when I was his age, only I didn't have as much help as he will. Whether to explain it to him fully, and help him find the tools he needs, or to just keep that knowledge and that help behind the scenes, where maybe it won't damage his self-esteem.

But of course, If you've ever taken a child to a pediatric behavior specialist who mostly works with families of ADHD patients, and seen the look on his face when he starts to figure out what's going on, you know that you've already damaged his self-esteem. And there's nothing you can do about it.

Let me just tell you how much it freaking sucks, as a parent, that you are damned if you do and damned if you don't start the early intervention process when you know you've got an ADHD kid on your hands. And you know it when it becomes obvious, you know it because Oh My God, this feels so familiar it's like static electricity, and there's nothing you can do about it except ask for help, even knowing that help will get him labeled different at school, among his teachers and peers. There is no drug that can make it go away, there is no fucking Omega 3 gummy vitamin that tastes like sugar crusted fish oil that will fix this.

You know it because he's frustrated, and he's angry, and he's quick to throw down, and yet all he really wants to do is snuggle up in bed with you and read Magic Tree House and forget all that other stuff.

Which is actually all I want to do, too.  But now he's seven. Do seven year olds still snuggle? God I hope so.

The not quite ready for prime time player.

A couple of weeks ago Drew came home from soccer practice angry, disillusioned, and ready to quit. He's on a new team this fall, for a couple of reasons, the biggest being because my husband couldn't coach his soccer team anymore. Work is killing him, and leaving the office before 6pm twice a week was making other people passive-aggressively question his work ethic, not exactly something you want floating around out there in this kind of economy. So he resigned as head coach of Drew's team.

The second thing that happened is that we've finally reached that age where boys kind of figure out where their athletic strengths are, and it gets harder and more competitive, and the moms and dads are tired of driving team carpool every single night of the week, and the conflagration of these things forces a decision on which sports to focus, and which to drop. And so several of our little team's stronger players chose to focus on football, and dropped fall soccer.

There were six boys left who wanted to play from that team. So we got slapped together with another small team, and a dad who volunteered to coach it from that other team who had never done so before, and there you have the recipe for more drama than I had bargained for.

But I don't want him to quit playing soccer. Oh I'd be fine if he decided that he just wasn't into it anymore, or if maybe another activity was becoming more interesting and he'd prefer to engage in something else. But I don't want him to quit because he's miserable and and it's not fun anymore and the coach yells at him, and also that coach is not his dad. (Who, for the record, did a pretty good job at not sparing Drew when he needed to run laps for misbehaving or not having his head in the game.)

(And who also, for the record, is wallowing in his guilt at having to give up coaching his son in a sport that was his own favorite as a boy. The guilt, it buuuuurnnnnnnsssss the poor man.)

So I started looking around for options for Drew to play competitive soccer. We missed the window for tryouts back in June, we were out of town or something, and also I just didn't want to pay the money - it's about $1000-1300 a year to play competitive team soccer rather than rec. But, I figured, if he's good enough to play at the competitive level, and he likes it, then it's worth the money.

Last week we were invited to come practice with a competitive team on Tuesday night. It drizzled the entire hour and a half of the practice, and I stood there in the light rain watching him play with these other kids and a professional coach - kids were all bigger, faster, and more disciplined - that was clear really quickly. But he hung in there pretty well, had fun, and seemed to like it. The coach invited us back for this Tuesday to more officially try-out, rather than just play around and be introduced.

My husband says to me this morning, quietly, "Listen, I don't think he wants to do this. I think you want to do this." Which is entirely possible. But I am not that parent, I am not going to push my kid into a sports commitment that he doesn't want just so I can tell people he plays competitive soccer, that was not why I started this whole thing. I started it to give him some options, to show him what a higher challenge looks like, and see if was ready to face that challenge. I have better things to do than drive him across town on more evening a week, at an extra cost to boot.

So I asked him. And he said no, he doesn't want to do it. He said he didn't want to leave his teammates that came with him from the other team in the lurch, having to play without him. I understand what he means, his fragile little ego regarding how much they need him aside. What he really means, whether he knows it or not, is he needs them. And he is not quite ready, not quite bored enough, to face that higher level of challenge. And that is totally fine. He's only nine years old.

So we play rec soccer for another year. He agreed not to whine and complain about the coach, that he's choosing to stay on this team over other options. He made a choice, and I'm very proud of him.

Me and Murphy, we're like THIS.

So go figure, I make a giant, Atlas-lets-the-earth-roll-off kind of decision about blogging and social networking so that I can spend more time engaging in real life, and then my kid goes and picks up our old friend The Strep Virus just so that I can wallow in my aloneness at home for two days with nothing but the laptop and a fiery, sweaty little boy for company.

Well, I did have other company, actually. My new BFF, Edward Cullen.

Okay, so, I mentioned over on the Savvy Source blog that Drew had started reading Harry Potter, right? So, we're getting ready to leave for San Diego a few weeks ago, and he was finishing up book two, and I needed to find a copy of book three. ( In my lust for garage sales, I had located 1,2,4 and 5, but not 3.) I was chatting with my neighbor who has teenage girls, one of whom babysits for me and is probably in my son's dreams pretty regularly, who didn't have any copies of Harry Potter, but did offer me their collection of all four books of the Twilight series. What the hell, I said, I haven't read a good book in a while, as I don't usually have time or brain power for anything more than Entertainment Weekly, but I'm going on a three hour plane ride tomorrow, might as well have a book or two.

And then I read the entire thing in like five hours. Could. Not. Put. It. Down.
And then I read the second one in seven hours. And then I didn't have the third and fourth book with me, because damn y'all, those things are heavy to pack, and I never in a million years thought I would read two giant-ass books in less than a week. So I had to wait until we returned home.

We came home late Friday night, and by Saturday mid-afternoon I had finished book three.

Sunday night, just after midnight, I finished book four.

People, that shit is addictive. When Edward says to Bella, "you are like my own personal brand of heroin," I totally know what he means.

So yesterday, while the boy and his fever-wracked little body slept in a puddle of sweat, I watched the Twilight movie on Pay Per View. No, it's not as good as the book. But it's still pretty damn fun. And Robert Pattinson does a great job, I totally understand why this movie has all these moms crossing their legs. He's cute, and kind of hot, I guess. But he is sexy, holy crap on a cracker is he ever sexy. Good thing he's not jailbait like the kid who plays Jacob.

Like I need that on my conscience.

ps - Drew is now on book 5. Since July 15th. My husband says to me last night, "you realize you've created a monster, right? A big, fat, geeky, bookworm monster. In your image, but with nads." Yes, I realize. The genes were there, honey, they just needed a little push.)

we had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun...

We've been chillaxing here in our old stomping ground of San Diego since last Friday.  It's been insanely wonderful, hanging with friends, lounging at the beach, playing in the hotel pool.

The first night we were here, we met friends at our favorite pizza place for dinner, then headed down to walk on the beach and watch the sunset. I had to catch my breath to keep the tears back several times, just walking barefoot in the sand and feeling the cool saltwater air swirl around me. My husband noticed the smile of contentment on my face and said, "You miss it, don't you." It was not a question.

Yeah. That's sort of an understatement. He realized then, he said, while we watched the boys play in the surf, that maybe that was why I fought him so hard not to take this vacation. Sometimes it hurts too much to come back.

 It does hurt to come back, to this place where I feel the happiest as I ever have, at any point in my life. It hurts to know that we are just visiting, returning each night to a hotel only to board an airplane and go back to real life in a few days. It hurts to admit how much I hate not living here.

But I've gotten over that, I guess. I've managed to hit 3 yoga classes, the boys have seen all their old friends. I miss my dog. School starts Monday, reality will be a pretty swift kick in the ass when we return.

But for now, I have one more day to just fill my lungs with salty air, and feel content.

Where I've been.

I led my two boys and a whole gaggle of their friends through Cub Scout Day Camp last week, and I'm still recovering. Recovering from the work that I missed, recovering from the severe thunderstorms that drove us from camp early and destroyed our tents on Tuesday morning, recovering from the tick that embedded his nasty little head into the soft flesh of my boob below the underwire of my bra. Asshole.

Advantages of Cub Scout Day Camp:

• $46 per week, per kid. Had I not been taking the week off to volunteer as their walking leader, I would have reveled in the cheap daycare, easily 1/3 what I pay for a normal week per kid in the summer.
• Watching boys be boys in their natural element - shooting BB guns and bow&arrows, catapults and slingshots.
• No need for makeup & hair. Just sunscreen and bug spray. 
• Wellies with shorts. It's a nice look. No, there's no pictures of that.

Disadvantages of Cub Scout Day Camp:

• Ticks. Specifically the one in my boob. I may have mentioned that already.
• There are no alcoholic beverages allowed at Cub Scout Day Camp.
• Golf-ball size hail is not repelled by nylon tent material.

Boys on the levee, overlooking the marsh that was the main field, Kings of Their Domain.

Riding in cars with boys.

Last weekend we drove down to Alabama in the family minivan, rented a small Budget truck, cleaned out my in-laws house of furniture and things we wanted, and then drove back to Kansas City. This all happened between Thursday evening to Monday afternoon. My husband drove the truck back, and I drove the minivan, with both boys and the dog. It's a twelve hour drive, each way.

This was not a vacation. Well, I guess it sort of was for the boys, as they got to spend time with their cousins, whom they adore, for the first time since last 4th of July weekend. And despite loading fantastically heavy sofas and bed frames into a moving truck in the drizzling rain and Alabama humidity, it was kind of nice just to get out of town. The physical stress was actually kind of a nice, cathartic change of pace from the usual mental stress. Although there was plenty of mental stress to be had in the situation.

Cleaning out someone's home is a very weird thing. It feels like you're looting. When you're trying to take a detached, non-emotional look at whether or not someone else's things have value to you - Do we have a place for that? Would that fetch a decent price? - knowing that those things have/had emotional value to someone else, it is...weird. And exhausting. But that's really all I have to say about it.

On the way home we drove through some of the toughest weather I have ever had the displeasure of driving in.  Although I've made that trip several times, usually my husband is driving or we take turns. I've never had to do it by myself before, much less with a carload of cranky little boys who are very tired of the DVD selection you have on hand.  But we made it it, and we returned to our home in time to enjoy a drink with neighbors during Monday evening's Memorial Day culdesac party, and then start another crazy week.  School is out, summer break is here. Work is crazy busy. Life goes on.

Little acorns everywhere.

A couple of weeks ago, in a fit of frustration over something completely random, my 3rd grader blurted out to me "And ALSO? I can't see the board at school, and my teacher makes me sit in the back!"

My heart sank like a rock.  It was the same year in school for me, that it was discovered I could see precisely jack shit when it came to reading chalk scratches on a green board. And so, the summer between 3rd and 4th grade I got new glasses, along with a haircut that offered me no grace whatsoever, and showed up at school that fall looking like a totally different person. Before that year, the kids at school generally thought I was maybe a little weird, but likeable. After I got glasses, though, I was a little weird, AND I looked like a freak, and they had no problem making sure I knew it. Likeable no longer got me by, and so my self-esteem crashed like a Kamikaze into the beaches of Pearl Harbor.

I'm maybe still a little bitter about that.

Anyway, I'm please to tell you that the offering of glasses for kids is a totally different world than it was 30 years ago - they are cute! And have lots of personality. There wasn't a Buddy Holly coke-bottle frame to be seen.  So Drew picked out a pair of brown, slightly tortoise shell frames, and they will be ready in a week or so. His vision is not as bad as mine was initially, he only needs the glasses to read the board at school, or maybe to watch TV if there's small lettering like scoreboxes during a football game. He doesn't need them playing soccer. It will probably get worse each year for the next few years, but at least we got on it early enough that he hasn't fallen behind because of it.

PS - His teacher makes him sit in the back because he talks too much, too loudly, and can't stay in his seat for more than 2.8 seconds at a time. Yeah, he got that from me, too.

PPS - People, get your kids eyes checked, regularly. And not at the pediatrician's office, just during the annual check up. Go to an eye doctor. It makes a difference. Last August, the pediatrician did an eye test and told me his vision was 20/40, which is apparently on target for eight years old. I know a lot can change in a short time, but now he is 20/125 and 20/150. Big difference.

Friday Wine Goodness: Rise of the Nerf Bullets.

How I feel about this week, in "a picture is worth a thousand words" style:

Hmm, yeah, not the best picture, sorry. Let's just say the week is over, and that's a good thing. We'll leave it at that.

In other news, I'm a little worried about the proliferation of nerf bullets that seem to just appear in random corners of my house.

It's like they're multiplying. Help me. Send reinforcements!

Meanwhile, tonight the boys and I are having a sleepover at the zoo with Drew's scout den, no alcoholic beverages allowed. It's not good to enable the animals, I guess.