The First Lemonade Stand of the Season
Posted: April 1, 2010 Filed under: family | Tags: lemonade Leave a commentI dread the lemonade stand. We have two or three every year, and it’s always fun, but you know, a lot of work. Gotta get the little colorful stand out of the garage, I’ve gotta find cups, find the big pitcher, make the lemonade; then, we have to compete with the 5-year-old entrepreneur across the street, so we have to sell cookies or brownies or something, right? It’s a major production. And then in the end, it usually takes me longer to set the thing up than they can stand to be out there. They get bored easily. We don’t live on a busy street, so, usually, twenty minutes, tops. And if there are any bugs out there — well, just forget that altogether.
So today is the first nice day that they have had off, and they started right in with Can we have a lemonade stand? Can we have a lemonade stand? Can we have a lemonade stand? Mom, can we have a lemonade stand? Mom?
Our lemonade is neither this fresh, nor this lucrative.
We had a number of errands to run today, so we left the house around 9 and got back around 2:30. For at least an hour prior to our return, the lemonade stand was continually requested. Promises were made; claims that certain people were old enough to run their own lemonade stands and such. I was exhausted. I asked for an hour to collect myself before the stand would begin, to no avail of course. We got in the house and they set about making signs, which lasted about five minutes before they started with the barrage of inquiries.
Mom, where is the Sharpie? (In the cup holder) Mom, where are the cups? (In the pantry closet.) Mom, where’s the lemonade mix? (In the lazy susan.) Mom, what is the lazy susan? (I point to the one built in the corner.) Is it over here in the pantry closet? Mom, which shelf is it on? Is this it? (No, Edison, that’s baking powder.) What does it look like? (It looks like a container with the word “LEMONADE” on it.)
Finally, I gave in, made the lemonade, and they went outside for about as long as it has taken me to write this post.
Martha Stewart, I am not
Posted: January 14, 2010 Filed under: family, Food | Tags: family Leave a commentLast night, despite the fact that I had a ton of homework, I decided to make cupcakes for Clooney to take to school for his birthday. And I wanted to make them look kind of nice, so I busted out the two-year-old frosting tips from their factory-sealed packaging and gave it a go. A little awkward at first, but better than usual. And then I put a few confetti sprinkles on there for good measure.
I put them into this big plastic container I had bought (again about two years ago) in anticipation of an opportunity such as this one. The contraption is called “The Cupcake Caddy,” and it has a handle and little circles (12 regular-size, or you can flip the plate over for 24 minis) to hold the cakes. I had made the mini-cakes, and they looked so precious beneath their protective plastic dome.
I was feeling pretty good about myself, even though I ended up doing homework until 10:30.
Then, after all that — the cupcakes…well, let’s just say that the Cupcake Caddy — not so good. It looked like the cupcakes had thrown their own party on the way to school, and a fight must have broken out or something. By the time we got there, (and mind you, it’s not a far trip; there are no hills or potholes along the way) most of them had put their petite icing heads together. I had to smooth over all my fancy work with a plastic knife Clooney’s teacher had on hand.
They tasted the same though, and that was a good thing.
Somebody’s got to say it…
Posted: January 11, 2010 Filed under: family | Tags: Barbie, dolls, family Leave a commentIt might as well be me.
I was looking for a welcome mat the other day, and maybe a nice duvet cover, and I stopped by PotteryBarnKids for some reason, which happened to be having a sale on a limited edition PotteryBarnKids Barbie doll. Here is the doll:
Now, is it me, or are those some of the bitchiest looking Barbie dolls ever?
And check out this photo they had on the site of a little girl playing with one of them:
It’s downright heartbreaking. I mean that doll looks like it is bored to death! Who wants to play with that? I wouldn’t want those things near my daughter. The last thing I need is a disaffected five-year-old.
I’m not anti-Barbie, by the way. She’s got her permanently arched foot well-wedged inside our door. In fact, I think there may currently be more Barbie clothes than people ones in my house. (There are surely more Barbie shoes.) I’m just saying these particular Barbies have the oddest expressions. And what’s with all that eye shadow?
One other thing I want to show you that’s actually pretty cool. My friend makes these awesome cookies, and she baked special ones for Clooney’s birthday that look just like the axe he got:
And you know what? It’s pretty frickin’ yummy too.
Happy New Year, by the way. Thanks for stopping by. I know I haven’t been keeping you up to date regularly. I am still coming to terms with the whole new working schedule and all. But I promise to make more of an effort in the coming year.
Be good, now.
Livin’ on a prayer
Posted: November 6, 2009 Filed under: awkward moments, family | Tags: church, school Leave a commentThe nun was angry, that much was obvious. Apparently the free-style prayer service wasn’t sitting right with her for some reason. I happened to be in the back of the auditorium, and even though chairs were available, I just felt like standing by the door. Grades were due. I had a pile of writing portfolios on one side of my desk and a stack of reading journals on the other; all of them begging my perusal and red ink. As soon as it was over, I just wanted to beat the crowd back to the classrooms. She wasn’t happy either, though not because she had anything pending.
The nun was pacing and rigid. She would disappear into the portico and re-materialize in the back of the sanctuary. She kept muttering under her breath how the service was an abomination, disrespectful to God. Later, when she tore the religious director a spiritual new one, the director would defend the service, saying she was hoping to engage the students by making prayer exciting and fun. “Prayer is NOT supposed to be fun,” Sister admonished.
But all that happened later. During the service, I could tell she was agitated. Everyone could tell. She wanted everyone to know. She wanted her feelings to roll through the crowd, a rogue tsunami, until they knocked over the religious director like a stick figure in rough surf.
In my life though, I try to be a peacemaker. I thought, let me try to calm her down, to bring her back to humanity. So I said, “Sister, I was subbing in your classroom the other day, and I noticed a really nice prayer on your desk.”
She stopped swinging her keys and looked at me as if to say, what of it? There had been a nice prayer on her desk, and from the way it read, it seemed to have come from the home office of the religious order the school was founded on. We are supposed to begin each class with prayer, and while I may not always remember to do that, when I do, I always wish I had something a little more flowery.
So I continued, trying to remain steady in the sound of my voice, “Do you get those every day? From…from…the administration or something?”
Like a bear, she grunted affirmatively. So I continued, “….because you know I am always looking for a nice daily prayer to begin my classes and –“
“Buy a book,” she said gruffly, cutting me off.
“Oh,” I swallowed and then floundered. I didn’t know what to say in response to her. And I guess she kind of sensed that, because she backpedaled … though only the slightest bit.
“I can make you a copy,” she said. “I’ll put it in your mailbox every day.”
I thanked her then, and hoping to make a genuine connection, I reached out and squeezed her burly nun shoulder. But she was wearing her beige suit jacket, and all I got was shoulder pad, devoid of life; nothing but thin styrofoam and synthetic fabric.
Anyway, that was ten days ago, and I have yet to see a prayer in my box.
Yes, I feel vaguely rockin’
Posted: September 23, 2009 Filed under: family Leave a commentI got that job.
I know I can do the job, but can I get the job?
Posted: September 18, 2009 Filed under: family 3 CommentsOr at least, can I get to the interview?
I had a second interview for a teaching job this past week. Just getting there was a crazy experience. As you may know, I used to teach middle school and took an extended leave of absence when Clooney was born. Lately, and now that The Princess has started school, I have felt the call to return. A position recently opened at my alma mater, which also happens to be the school the kids attend, and several weeks ago I began the process of pursuing this opportunity.
From the list of candidates (and they had quite a few), they’ve narrowed it down to three and asked each of us to prepare a lesson and teach it to a room full of students. I felt a lot like I was auditioning for American Idol, but okay, if that’s what they want, I’m willing to dance and sing. The session was to be the introduction of 20 new vocab words, and I prepared my lesson by approaching it from an angle where the students would use context clues, making up their own sentences as we learned the meanings. My audition was set for Wednesday afternoon, and I was just a bag of nerves all week.
In addition to the interview, Wednesday also happened to be a big day for Manfrengensen. He had a huge audit that day for one of his biggest clients. He had been preparing the materials all summer, and the auditor was due into his office first thing in the morning. I think we were both tossing and turning all Tuesday night.
Plus, Clooney was sick with an upper resp infection, which I took him to the doctor for Tuesday. They wanted him to stay home another day, but because I needed time to get my head together before this thing, we decided to send him to my mother-in-law’s for his rest. Because of the audit, Manfrengensen had to leave extra early to drop him off, and I had to take The Princess to school.
They left; the carpool came to pick up Edison (who goes to a different school), and I packed all of my gear and took The Princess out to the car. I planned to go to the gym, to work off a little stress, and I had my aluminum bottle full of water and a book in my gym bag. We got out to the garage, and the doors to my car wouldn’t unlock. What the??? So, I unlocked them manually, figuring I would deal with it later, but when I turned the key in the ignition, I got NOTHING. No sound, not even a click. The battery was dead.
I came into the house, threw everything (though as it turned out, not everything) onto the kitchen table and started making calls — to my father to take The Princess to school, and AAA — the whole time The Princess trailing behind me begging to play Barbies. “Play Barbies with me. Play Barbies with me. Can you play Barbies with me?”
I did play Barbies until my father came to take her (and thankfully, she went without a scene) and AAA arrived about a half hour after that. But then, I couldn’t find my keys. Could. not. find. them. I gave the guy the spare to get him started, then went back inside to search some more. On the kitchen table, I came across my gym stuff and was more than a little confused to find my aluminum bottle was nearly empty. There was no water on the table. Yes, the cap to the bottle was not on tightly, but where had all the water gone? I found out on my next pass in the search. Looking inside my gym bag, I found it slightly damp, and inside was my saturated paperback. It had totally absorbed the water. Looks like I dropped it in a bathtub.
So anyway, long story short (too late, right?) I got all that taken care of, and then actually had breakfast with a friend and that calmed me down quite a bit — at least to the point where I wasn’t a total spaz.
It felt SO GOOD to be up in front of that class. Even just feeling the dry erase pen between my fingers as I spoke to them in my animated fashion…you know that theory that if you love what you do, the time flies and you achieve this thing called flow? a kind of occupational zen? That’s me in front of a class.
They were eighth graders, a wonderful group. I got them to laugh, engaged the ones who were reluctant to come out of their own heads, blew their minds with an example of how Betsy Ross is only a legend (the word was “legendary”) and didn’t really sew that first American flag. It was so much fun.
I felt I did well. I just went in there, did my best and stayed true to myself. That’s all I could do.
As you know this life has given me bountiful (another word from the lesson) blessings. I am lucky that I am not in a position where my kids won’t eat or have a roof over their heads if I don’t get this job. But I still feel that eye of the tiger. I still feel like it’s where I ought to be.
Generation Text
Posted: August 15, 2009 Filed under: family | Tags: texting Leave a commentEverywhere I go these days, the teens are thumbing their phones. Heading to the beach, there are usually two girls there checking for beach tags. They never look up though. They’re just sitting there, side-by-side, heads down, thumbs punching away at their phones. We go for ice cream, and the kids are all hanging around the parlor, texting, texting, texting. Kids are standing over their bikes, stopped and texting. They’re standing outside the Quiki Mart texting. They’re waiting on line at the mall or the movies, and the whole time they’re texting. The world to them is one big twittilation it seems.
I used to think that texting was to the current generation what writing was to lovers in the nineteenth century. It was something you only did with only your innermost circle, your truest love or your best friends. Now I see it for what it really is. It’s like conversation was when I was their age.
Who’s the Boss?
Posted: August 14, 2009 Filed under: family | Tags: mani-pedi, shopping 1 Comment
She chose a pale pink shade with glitter and then got little flowers painted on her thumbs.
Today was The Princess and my last “alone” day before she goes off to pre-school in a few weeks. The boys were at camp, so we went out and did some fun things like get mani-pedis and go shopping. I needed some “professional” kind of clothes for the Fall in case I do any substitute teaching. Not that I plan to do a lot of it, but I realized the other day that my entire wardrobe is suitable only for the playground. I had some success, in fact, so much success, that I will have to work about two weeks just to cover the clothing investment. But she was kind of fun, telling me to be sure to “check your butt in the mirror” as she saw me do with the bathing suits a few months back.
We also did some shopping for her, so now she’s all set for the Fall as well. Then, this afternoon, we walked to the bus stop to meet the boys. While we were walking across the street, she told me that she didn’t have to hold my hand because there were no cars coming.
“That doesn’t matter,” I told her. “You always have to hold my hand in the street.” She begged to differ, so I asked, “Wait a second, who’s the boss here?” To which she replied, “I am!”
“No you’re not,” I said. “I’m the boss.”
But she only laughed. “No,” she said. “Clooney’s really the boss. You’re the funniest one.”
Can’t say that this was a surprise in terms of how she views my “authority.”
Environmental Impact
Posted: August 1, 2009 Filed under: family, Uncategorized Leave a commentClooney was telling me today about a film he saw at school around Earth Day. He gave me his usual almalgamated six-year-old’s perspective, “People in Paris drive a lot at night. France and China, they waste a lot of energy…and toilet paper…and, I think, stickers.”
You know, all the important stuff.
A Sunshine Day
Posted: July 16, 2009 Filed under: family | Tags: vacation 1 CommentSo, one other moment from the vacation:
Manfrengensen, Edison, Clooney and I were all in the water on that last glorious Sunday afternoon. The water was perfect — clean, warm, good waves, the kind that could lift you about, but weren’t strong enough to knock the wind out of you. Manfrengensen and I were out the farthest. It was so much fun, and we were all laughing.
Clooney said, “Wow, Mom, this is like the happiest you’ve ever been.”
Yes, I was happy, but as I thought about it further, I wondered, was this the happiest he’d ever seen me? Does he usually get Disgruntled Mom? You know her — the one who always tells you to stop running with those scissors? I hope that’s not what I give them most of the time. This vacation, as I have said, was wonderful and relaxing. Sunday afternoon Clooney must have seen one of those bursts of spectacular sunshine through the dueling clouds of fury and worry that are too frequently part of being a mom.
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