Happy Birthday DD#3!

She is much happier than this today!

This child has been celebrating her birthday all week, with a trip to the mall with friends and Cheescake Factory on Friday, a sleepover, another dinner out on Sunday to Old Spaghetti Factory, and a family party tonight complete with chocolate cake and spaghetti (at her request.)

She is Nine.

Nine years old, but it seems like a minute and a half ago that she was born.  She was a little bitty thing and bright red and on that day, it wasn’t raining like it is today.  It was a beautiful sunny day that produced a beautiful sunny child at 1717 in the afternoon.

I am very blessed to have a child like her.

Baby it’s damn cold outside

Not in this picture however. I’m desperately trying to remember what the warm weather and the sunshine feels like; it’s been a rude, rude welcome home to the NW this week.

I know we are spoiled here in the NW, we don’t have the cold, cold, weather that y’all have in Chicago, or New York, or Boston. I know I probably sound like a wimp when I tell you that it is so damn cold here right now I can hardly stand it.

It is 33 degrees outside.

Grey.

Damp.

Overcast.

Did I mention cold?

Typically I don’t even wear a winter coat at this time of the year, usually a fleece or sweatshirt will suffice. Not today. Today I have a coat, (and I would have gloves if I could find them.)

Today I ventured the long trip up the hill to Oregon Health Science University for an appointment with a geneticist to evaluation DD#3. She has some serious dental issues and we had her seen by the doctor to determine if in fact she has a genetic disorder called Ectodermal Dysplasia. She does. Although she has a form of it that doesn’t quite fit into any of the larger forms. (Read: they don’t know wtf she has,) and there is nothing that can be done about it perse. It’s just good information to have and her information will be used to educate others about this genetic disorder.

Now I’m off to switch the laundry and go to Costco. I hope all the crazy shoppers are gone and I can buy my coffee and toilet paper in peace.

Ciao.

I suck

So after I finished my last blog post, the one where I was bitching and complaining about how torturous it was going on DD#’s school field trip, I received the following note:

Dear Mommy,

Thank you for volunteering your time, I am really happy about it.  You really did not have to do it but you do and I am really, really, really, really happy that you are my mommy.  Thank you for sitting in the way back with another fifth grade girl kid.  I really wanted you to go and you did, I am really happy about that.  Thank you so much for going to OMSI, I LOVE YOU.

I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you,

So much.

Mmm, hmmm.  Suck.

Spooks and Ghouls and Drunks and Sluts

I was only the last two.

Another Halloween has come to pass, and we made it through un-scathed and very possibly twenty pounds heavier. Let’s just say my diet for Puerto Vallarta went all to hell yesterday when my children brought home seventeen pounds of chocolate. DD#1 went to a friends house to trick or treat (because we’re not cool enough to hang out with,) and her friend lives in the “hoity toity richy” part of town where they give out KING sized candy. And that little brat sweetie won’t let me have her King Sized Twix. B-eotch.

This was my wife…

Admit it. You want her.

This was her first mate,

Aaargh!

Fun was had by all. Except for the children that HG made cry while she handed out candy.
I, unfortunately, got stuck taking the kids around the neighborhood, but I must not complain; the NW saw it’s first dry Halloween in four years. Good times.

DD#3 was Hannah Montana,

Taking a break from the rigorous concert tour.

Later, I tried on her wig.

Ooh la-la. Not.

So that’s the report from Halloween. More pics on Flickr. If you’re so inclined.

It’s Harvest Time

It’s Halloween week, look out for spooks and ghouls, and drunks and sluts.

Also, be careful of clocks that turn themselves back for “Fall Back.” Those clocks did not get the memo that “Fall Back” is occurring on November 3rd this year, brilliant concept that is supposed to save us energy. I’m not exactly sure how this works, considering it’s so damn dark in the morning that I have to have the lights on, AND I have to drive my kids to school because I don’t want them waiting for the bus in the dark. So actually. I am using more energy than I would otherwise. Someone explain this to me?

I love my children.

I miss them when the are away for the weekend. But.

They come home on Monday after school and they DON’T STOP TALKING.

Seriously. I’m talking continuous, non-stop-talking.

Wednesday

is Halloween and I am DD#2’s Room Coordinator for her class, which means that I have planned the Harvest Party. I am taking this opportunity to teach the children a little about the Harvest Celebrations from around the world, which means that all of you, my nice blogging friends on the internet, get to hear my shpiel about it first.

A long, long time ago, The Celtics who inhabited what is now Great Britain would celebrate the end of the harvest from October 31st through November 2nd, and called it Samhain, (pronounced, Sow-en). This marked the beginning of the new year, or the “dark half of the year”. They believed that this was a time when the lines between the living and the dead, were blurred. They hung out, drank, ate, and bobbed for apples, all while trying to stay warm.

Then the religious nuts came into the picture, they were all bugged by the Celtics and their Pagan rituals and GOD forbid, anyone have any kind of holiday that didn’t include Christianity. So they did what they did to all Pagan holidays, and Christianized them with a sprinkle of holy water and a declaration. The Catholics decided that November 1st was a Christian holiday, and named it All Saints Day, or All Hallowmas, a day to celebrate martyrs and saints. The night before All Hallowmas (which means mass of the saints,) is called All Hallow’s Eve, which eventually was shortened to Halloween. Later, November 2nd was declared All Soul’s Day, which had remnants of it’s orginal Celtic beginnings. Celebrations would take place on this day where children would beg for certain food, or “soul cakes” in exchange for prayers for the givers dead relatives. The church was cool with this practice, because it felt that it was better than it’s original tradition of leaving food for rogue spirits, (very non-Christian, very no-no.) This practice of begging for soul cakes or “going a-souling” eventually turned in to our modern “trick or treating.” Trick or Treating, however did not begin until around the 1930’s in the United States when some genius decided that this was a great time for candy companies to make bank.

Go capitalism!

So that’s basically it friends. Now, you’re in the know.

Stay tuned for Part Two of Harvest Time Around The World when our special guest will be LeLo in NoPo. LeLo, (as long as she’s off her sick bed,) will be making a trip out to the Scary Suburbs where she will be presenting a photographic lecture on Day of the Dead celebrations in Guadalajara, Mexico for all the students in DD#2’s fifth grade class. Yeah LeLo! And yeah me for spelling Guadalajara correctly.

Now. Y’all get busy on your costumes. You have only two days left.

13

My kid is 13.

I’m the mother of a teenager. That makes me…

Old.

We had a small family party for her last night. She had her friends party at her dad’s girlfriends condo last Friday. I put on my big girl panties and tried to be okay with the fact that I wasn’t involved in that, it was fine. She had fun, and I didn’t have any mess to clean up.

So yesterday, on her birthday, I took her out of school early and we went to lunch.

(I had the Bloody Mary, because I felt like it was partially my day too!)

A lady sat behind us with her baby and apologized up front in case her baby stared at us too much. I told her no worries, that this was MY baby and she was celebrating her 13th birthday. The lady said, “Wow, 13, you make it that far.”

It’s hard to believe.

Here she was at 7.

And 8.

I don’t know where the time has gone.

So there you go. I have a teenager and it’s all down hill from here I suppose.  Right now, she still likes me a lot.  Probably because I take her to lunch and buy her very expensive cell phones for her birthday.  That should last for a few months, I hope.

Tomorrow HG and I are going to the PLGFF showing of For The Bible Tells Me So, with LeLo and AdRi.  I’m so excited to be going out on a school night, and so excited for the movie.

Tonight, however I am off to the kitchen to make Stuffed Cabbage Rolls.  What’s better than that on a rainy cold day?

Nada.

Ciao y’all.

Relatively Random

Thanks so much to everyone who commented on the previous post.  You all had a lot of great things to say.
Later that day, I was having lunch with LeLo and we were discussing the issue.  I started thinking that even though I don’t agree with making women feel un-beautiful as they are, even I buy into the propaganda.  I make my daughters take showers so they don’t smell, (”You don’t want to be the stinky girl in the class,”) I tell them.  They wear deodorant, I tweeze their eyebrows for them, I tell DD#1 to be sure to wash her face and put some medicine on her acne.  DD#1 shaves her legs, (I showed her how.)  I curl their hair when they ask me to.

I wear make-up.

I get my hair done, (sometimes, or HG does it…)

I wear perfume.

I get bikini waxes,

and pedicures.

Isn’t that me buying into the whole beauty industry bull-shit?  You don’t see (many) men running to the salon for a waxing or wondering which hair color will best cover their gray, or picking out, OPI’s, “I’m Not Really A Waitress” nail color at the salon.

Where is the line?

Personal hygiene is one thing, but why the double standard?  Or why a standard at all?

~~~~~~~~~~

I don’t understand W’s vetoing a bill that would give children health care.

Children.

Health Care.  And it’s being funded by raising federal cigarette taxes,  WTF?

35 Billions dollars over five years.  That’s 7 Billion dollars a year.  And W. wanted 100 Billion more for Iraq?

Let’s see:

7 Billion dollars to fund children’s health care.

100 Billion dollars to kill Iraqi citizens and/or kill and/or mame US soldiers.

Hmmm.

Tough one.

~~~~~~~~~~

I’m on my way to take DD#2 to have an MRI of her back.  She’s been complaining of back pain (to her father,) and her pediatrician consulted with the pediatric neurosurgeon who wants this test to see what’s going on.  Apparently it’s “not normal” for a ten year old to have back pain.

Wish me luck.

That child can barely sit still for one minute, never mind lay in a tube for one hour.  I hope they give her some drugs.

~~~~~~~~~~

Ciao y’all.

Today I am a teacher

I woke from my sleep that did not feel like sleep, it was more like a half-sleep filled with weird dreams that I couldn’t move.  It was probably from going to bed mad.  I was irritated and belligerent and went to sleep that way, I should know better.

I got up and my wife made me coffee while I prepared for my new mission of the rest of the summer–Summer Home School.  Yesterday I bought the girls Summer Bridge Workbooks and told them that we would be doing the workbooks every morning that I don’t have to work at 9:30.  They were thrilled beyond excitement tolerant of the idea and actually were ready and willing to do it this morning.

So today I was a  teacher.

I mentioned here before that I have been worried about DD#2 for a long time and her ability to learn and process information.  All last school year she was being evaluated by the school reading specialist and getting special reading assistance from an aide.  Every conference that XH and I had with the specialist, and with the teachers assured us that she was making progress and doing well.  The only N (needs improvement) on her report card was in spelling, everything else was good, or at least acceptable.

So why is it today when we were doing Summer Home School that she doesn’t know what 3×7 is?  Or 8×4?  Or how many times does 4 go in to 36?  Sure, when she sits and thinks about it she can figure it out, sometimes needing to write each equation out and count up to see what the number is, but after two solid years of learning multiplication tables, I would think that 3×7 would be something she would grasp.

Again, I am back in a place of wondering if I am failing my child.

I have been assured and re-assured that she is fine.  I have trusted that the “experts” know what they are talking about, but my child is entering the fifth grade and doesn’t know what 3×7 is off the top of her head.  Do they really know what they’re talking about?  I’m starting to wonder.

During our time today, she would get frustrated and slap herself in the face.  I told her not to do it, that it was dis-respectful to herself and not okay.  Her task was to look things up in the phone book, a friends name, her favorite restaurant, her school.  I know it was hard for her and I didn’t make her finish it because I could tell she was getting very frustrated.

I was getting frustrated.

There’s a reason I didn’t become a teacher, it’s frustrating.

I know that I need to look into my options, and I know those options are expensive.  XH won’t help out with it, he’s already expressed his opinion, he thinks she’s lazy and doesn’t want her labeled with a “learning disability” that she can use as a crutch for the rest of her life.

So that leave me to figure this out, and like so many things I’m dealing with right now, (trying to find a lawyer to tell me if I have a legal malpractice case, trying to find a lawyer to fix the mistake my stupid lawyer made, trying to figure out how to pay for both of them,) this is daunting.

It’s such a feeling of helplessness to be in such a needy position, and not get the help that you need.  Really sucks.

I have called the Bar Association for referrals, and each of them said they couldn’t help me, that I needed a different kind of lawyer.  So I call back the Bar and they give me yet another name of another lawyer, IN THE SAME FIRM.  The same firm that told me that they couldn’t help me.

I’ve left messages for lawyers.

They don’t call me back.

I

AM

RAMBLING.

And I have digressed.

So today I am a teacher, and it seems that I am a teacher who must do some research to help one of her students.

So I’m off to research.

I guess I’ll put off my studying law for awhile to study learning disabilities.

Mother’s Day

Tomorrow is Mother’s Day, and I appreciate that holiday for so many reasons, mostly having to do with brunch. Brunch is probably the greatest meal ever invented, it’s just so satisfying on so many levels, especially if there are Mimosa’s involved.

The girls will shower me with cards and projects that they created in school. They are always so proud of the things that they make for me, and I always try to show them that I’m proud of them too.

I am proud of my daughters for the young women that they are and who they are becoming. DD#1 is blossoming into a lovely young woman, turning into a teenager before my eyes, with all of the teenage issues to deal with. Yesterday she found out that she didn’t make the Classic Soccer team that she played on last year. My heart was broken for her, I knew how devastated she was and how much a disappointment like that hurts. She was with her dad when she found out, so I wasn’t able to put my arms around her and hold her and cry with her. I cried many tears of my own, so sad for the loss that she is experiencing, petty as it may seem to some, it was important to her. It was important to me because it was important to her.

HG said that it’s good for her to learn about disappointment, that she needs to know that not everything is going to be handed to her.

XH said that it was a good lesson.

I know that they are both right, and I agree, but I hate seeing my child hurting; knowing how hard she worked and how much she tried to exceed.

It’s a good lesson for me too, I guess. A lesson to let go and let my daughter find a way to deal with her own problem solving, to face embarrassment or confusion and figure it out. A lesson in allowing her to deal with a disappointment with grace like I know she will.

Tomorrow on Mother’s Day, I will feel proud. Proud of my own mother. Proud of HG, who co-mother’s my children with me, proud of my beautiful daughters, and proud of me. I will be a mother for the rest of my life, and I can see my accomplishments before me every day like a reflection in the mirror. I know that I’m not perfect, but I’m also not complacent. I will continue to work hard at being the best mother that I can be forever. The girls and I sometimes learn lessons together, we grow and learn together, change and evolve. Someday they’ll learn similar lessons with their own children, and I will have a chance to honor them,

with a mimosa in hand.

Spring Skiing

We had a beautiful day at Mt. Hood Meadows on the slopes. The girls did a fantastic job and the weather was magnificent. It was so warm that I wore only a t-shirt and my Columbia shell without the liner. No hat, half the time I took my gloves off because it was so warm. Incredible.

I had one small, okay not small, but rather large fall.

What is so interesting is that years ago, I would ski and totally wipe out, get up and ski the rest of the way down the hill, no problem. Now, at twenty-eighteen, I wipe out and I lay there for a minute, wondering if I broke my neck, or my back, or my head. I don’t think I did any of those things, but damn, I’m sore today.

It really sucks getting older.

We skiied for a solid five hours. Stopping only once to feed the children some extremely expensive french fries and for HG and I to have a Bloody Mary or two. The Bloody’s were damn good and the girls finished their food before we finished our drinks. DD#1 said, “If you guys would hurry up and finish your Margaritas, then we could go back to skiing.” To which I told her that we weren’t drinking Margaritas, we were drinking Bloody Mary’s, and how on earth was she going to go to college if she didn’t know the difference between the two.

Sigh. I guess I have six more years to school her on the ever important science of mixology. I may want to teach her to cook while I’m at it, but the later isn’t quite as relevent. After all, there is always food in alcohol, but never alcohol in food. So really, which of the two is more sustainable. Exactly.

Today, HG and I are driving to Lincoln City to spend the night with some friends who invited us down to share their condo. Yes, we live our lives like rock stars, always doing something rare and exciting. There’s a casino nearby. Perhaps I’ll really live on the edge and play some roulteet. Maybe I’ll even get lucky? I don’t know, that might be way too much excitement for one weekend.

Perhaps I’ll have a Margarita?

Good times.