Mayhem and Motherhood

Growing Up and Moving Out

Well, it's here... sophomore year at Radford University.  This year is different, however.  This year, Megan has her own apartment... no more hot, sweaty, smelly dorm room for her...no sir'ee.  She has a four bedroom apartment with three roommates. 

Now, I don't know about ya'll, but when I first went out on my own, I had hand-me-down EVERYTHING.  The only new stuff I had were items I had collected in my "hope" chest from age 12.  Yes, I know, I'm dating myself.  No one has hope chests anymore.  Why should they when you have suckers like my husband and I for parents.

Several weeks ago, we took a trip to IKEA to pick up a bed frame.  We came back with a bed, a library table, a desk system, three lamps, silverware, various cooking vessels and utensils and other colorful essentials...not to mention a much lighter checkbook. 

Well, of course, we all know that you can't have a new bed without a new array of linens and coordinating accessories.  Off to Target we go.  Thank God for Target.  We picked up a new duvet cover with matching sheets, shams, pillow cases, rug, throw pillows and yes, the ever essential long body pillow.  So this was it.  This was the end of our furnishing of the apartment.  NO MORE.  Checkbook well is dry, right?...Wrong.  We wound up having to supply a dining set and microwave.  Well, they need a table to eat at and a microwave to cook in.  I mean, what's wrong with you people...don't you know anything?

Now we're done spending.  All is well.  Saturday we make the 3-hour trip to put everything together..set up and then get the hell out of there by 5ish, right?  Wrong.

Our little darling has a grocery list because her meal plan doesn't start for a week.  Yeah, OK, that makes sense.  While hubby is busy with the power tools, us girls head off the Wal-mart and the Dollar Store.  Between the two, we end up with trash cans, dish towels, oven mitts, broom, healthy food, not so healthy food, bake ware, sharp knives, first-aid stuff (in case she cuts herself with the sharp knives), glassware, curtain rod and the ever essential cookie jar.  OK, we all know a home is not a home without a cookie jar.

Shopping is done and upon return we find the bed is conquered and the desk is under attack.  One of Megan's roommate's parents are there tackling the construction of an entertainment center.  By 8:00 that evening, everything was constructed, cleaned and put in the appropriate places.  I even managed to construct a fruit salad for my child.  She does need something healthy to snack on, you know.

We bid our girl farewell, gave the usual kisses, hugs, tears and "I love yous".  Twenty minutes into our ride home, my phone rings...it's Megan:  "I'm coming home Monday for a few days, there's nothing to do here until school starts." 

Excuse me?.... how about finding a job.

Lisa

Getting Organized...

I mean it every time I say it, it just doesn't ever work out that way. This time, it's going to be different. This time I really am going to get organized. I'm going to get my life together.

A place for everything and everything in it's place. I'm going to start packing up the summer clothes but I'm not going to put the tops on the boxes because you just know the minute I do that the hot weather will return.

I'm going to give away the stuff that doesn't fit and that we don't use anymore and I'm going to remember where I put my receipt this year so I have it at tax time. Maybe I'll even get a filing system. Yes! I am definitely getting a filing system.

I'm going to make a list of chores the kids can do and stick to it even though it is quicker to do it myself. I'm going to get us on a schedule and no TV until your stuff is done.

I am going to paint the bathroom that has been primed and ready to go for about a year and a half. I'm going to scrape the peeling paint off the storm door--maybe I'll borrow the power washer from the guy next door and do it that way...Power tool babe---(Tim The Tool Man Taylor sounds here)

I am going to clean out my kitchen and stock my pantry, throw away anything and everything I haven't used in a year--which is pretty much everything in my kitchen--and cook like a crazy lady and stock the freezer.

I'm going to do all of this...just as soon as I take a nap. Thinking about all this work has made me exhausted...

Chris

All pray to the refrigerator god...

The refrigerator broke. It up and died during a thunderstorm and it never came back to life. This is just a fact of life, I know that, but it really seems unfair when it happens to you.

The last time the guy came to fix the refrigerator he told me, "Lady, this is it. I can't fix this thing anymore." So, when it broke, my husband and I stared at the checkbook, grimaced and I went off to buy a new one.

I walked into the store...(cue harp music and angels singing...) and there they were--nifty new appliances all shiny and clean and presumably functioning--just calling my name.

There was the stove that cooks things in half the time it would take you with a conventional stove because it circulates air in some new funky way--probably is operated by nuclear fusion--called my name but a look at the price tag made me lightheaded, so I moved on.

There was the washer and dryer that looked like something off the Enterprise, but I've heard that all those complicated computer buttons break and it costs you the same to replace the control panel as it does to buy a new one. They sure look cool though...and I really would like a front-loader...

I moved down another isle and found the refrigerators. I stood and gazed at the ones that look like a cabinet. They blend nicely and don't break the lines of the kitchen. They are SUPER COOL. Trouble is, I hate my cabinets. I really need to replace my cabinets. The trouble with that is that I have really expensive taste. I found these amazing cabinets...they are green and made to look antiqued and they have beautiful beveled glass and a warming drawer so your bread is always warm and a place to hide the bread with the roll top thing...they are BEAUTIFUL...trouble with that is they cost over twenty-thousand dollars. They are the reason I buy lottery tickets.

So on to the normal refrigerators I trudged beginning to feel just a little bit sick and tired of being middle-class. I stood in front of your standard white, freezer-on-top-fridge-on-the-bottom refrigerator. I looked to make sure it wasn't a Maytag because my cousin bought a Maytag last year and now she is on a first name basis with the Maytag Man, and decided yup this was the one...until, next to it, I spied the pretty side-by-side one with the...(cue angels and harps again)...ice maker and water thinggy.

I'd like one of those, I thought. Sure, you can't fit a turkey in the freezer but we have a freezer in the garage and besides I don't even like turkey all that much and it had an ICE MAKER.

We don't have ice in my house. I lost the trays and anyway when you fill them up they drip all over the place and who has time to think about ice? I never think about ice until I am drinking luke warm soda on a 97 degree day...actually not even then...I only think about ice when all I have to offer someone else is a warm soda on a 97 degree day...but an ICE MAKER would make that whole embarassing moment disappear.

So, I bought it. YEA ME! I mean I deserve a little ice, right?

They came and brought the refrigerator the next day and for only $150.00 more hooked up the ICE MAKER. Then we had to wait. You see it takes two days and eight million batches of ice to clean out the factory taste from the cold water and the ice.

For two days my kids said nothing but, "Can we have some ice now?" It was like playing the "Are we there yet" game on a trip from Maine to California. "No, not yet," was all I said through gritted teeth.

Finally, the day arrived. The ICE MAKER was working and ready to go. We all were drawn to the kitchen by the sound of music...AHHHHHHH...we admired the new refrigerator, bowed down before it and offered up a prayer and then...we all had a glass of water--with ice. It was a magic moment.

I looked over at my daughter and thougt that this was the beginning of something--that there was some kind of generational thing going on. I knew in that moment that I had changed her future. I knew that she would never own a refrigerator that didn't come with an ICE MAKER--although, probably in her world, it would be ice maker with small letters.

It has been two weeks and already the change is... ummm ...unbearable. My kids won't drink water from the tap anymore, the ICE MAKER has become the "BLEEPING ICE MAKER" because it has jammed twice and I had to chip the stuck ice out with a knife, and now the freezer light is out.

Progress...ain't it great?

Chris

Camp is over...

Alas, it is true; the end of camp has arrived. This is met with a mixture of relief and sadness. The relief comes from the fact that I will now always know--at least for the rest of the summer--where my kids are and what they are doing. The sadness comes from knowing that I will be stuck watching them every minute of every day from now until school starts.

Usually, camp ends and there are two weeks until school starts. I have filled these weeks in the past with school shopping, dentist appointments, hair cuts and searching for the paperwork I forgot to turn in at the end of school last year. You know the stuff the school absolutely-must-have-or-your-kid-can't-come papers?

This summer, however, has four weeks left until school starts. Some politician somewhere thought that it would be great if the kids didn't have to go back until after Labor Day. (He--and you know it is a he--wished to remain anonymous so that the roving mob of mothers looking for him don't find him.)

So now I have to fill two weeks. I have to find fun and informative and educational things to do to entertain and prepare my children for school. The zoo in 97 degree heat is one of my favorites. Sitting in beach traffic is another one of the highlights I have planned. Then there is the ever famous stand-in-line-and-get-heat-stroke-at-the-water-park day.

Maybe if I'm feeling really adventurous, we'll put everyone in the car and drive the 8 hours to visit my in-laws in sunny Hazleton, PA.

All I know, is that whatever I do, wherever we go, I will be looking for that one sign that says in no uncertain terms that school is just around the corner. What is that sign, you ask?

It is the Staples commercial. C'mon, you know the one. It's the one with all the pouty faced kids standing in the store as the joyful parents glide up and down the aisle throwing school supplies into the carriage while in the background you hear..."It's the most wonderful time of the year..."

It's Christmas in August...

Chris

The Neighbor Kids...

The neighborhood is going to hell in a hand-basket.

I haven't always liked my neighborhood. It's kind of snotty on occasion. Sometimes, it is like being in high-school. Everyone has something to say about everyone.

Over time, we worked it all out. We are civil to everyone and have  few good friends. The kids all gather here or next door. It's been good.

Until--the new neighbors moved in.

I am always excited when we get new neighbors. There is some foolish part of me that thinks new neighbors will take a good situation and make it better. Well, not this time.

The people across the street have four kids--two older boys and a boy in first grade and a five year old girl. The younger kids mesh nice with mine--or they would if they weren't raised by their parents.

Since they have moved in, my children have learned all kinds of new words. The best was when my five year old daughter asked at the dinner table, "Why do they call a boy's private parts a dick?"

My husband will not recover. For him, some part of her innocence died that day. He will never be the same.

Now, I have to go over there and knock on the door and explain to that mother that my five year old just walked through the door and asked me what a nigger is.

I have been trying to calm down. I have been trying to gather my thoughts. It is not working.

I am going now and Lisa is going to take up a collection for my bail.

Chris