This Old House

I've been really antsy about the house lately.

Since the divorce, it has felt like I have just been marking time here, versus really living here. In case you have ever wondered, I can say with absolute certainty that it's hard to stay in a house after a divorce, especially if you keep all the same furniture, and all the same dishes, and all the same pictures on the walls, and all the same linens . . .

You get the idea.

What (I think) has been a comfort for the kids has been more than a bit uncomfortable for me.

By my choosing.

Since the divorce, I have worked hard to make sure that everything has stayed the same, physically, for them. At first, I thought that was supremely important. Somehow, I thought that maintaining their home and their neighborhood and their surroundings would make the divorce less difficult.

Maybe it has. Then again, maybe that was just wishful thinking on my part.

Consistency was my battle plan for getting my kids through this whole debacle. Of course, who could have imagined a year and a half ago that we would be sitting here in July 2010 in the situation we find ourselves in now. Matty is here with me, living in this house with me, the kids, the dogs and The Ghost of Marriage Past, battling cancer, and we are living across the street from my ex-husband and his family in a home that I have always loved but now somewhat resent.

Let's don't even talk about the housing crisis, or the economy, or the 2 chances we have for selling this home and walking away with a penny in our pocket (those two chances being slim and none.)

Even if we could sell, it would be a terrible time to try. We need to stay put and get through Matty's treatments, and keep the kids in the schools that they are used to, and I still think it's good for them to have their dad and grandparents closeby, even if that's not the most comfortable thing for the adults (them or us.)

All of these factors have kept me from doing, well . . . anything.

It's taken over a year for me to consider what I could do to this place to make it feel like a living, vibrant home, versus a marital graveyard. I know it's been hard on Matty, too, moving into a ready-made home.

In a perfect world, we would have sold this home, and disposed of the furnishings and found a new place.

But you know what they say . . . nothing's perfect.

But when you find yourself in the situation that we are currently in, you take stock of what's important, and what can be enjoyed in the here and now, and if having Matty here has taught me ANYTHING, it's that the day is what you make of it, and you can choose to enjoy life regardless of the circumstances.

I love him so much for that.

So, with that in mind, I found my mindset start to slowly change about the house.

I do still love it here. I love my kitchen, and I love my walk in closet, and I love my basement office, and my wooded backyard. I love my flowers out front, and I love my dining room, painted just the exact shade of blue as my beloved Pfaltzgraf stoneware.

I even love the neighborhood, and the pool, and the sidewalks.

All of the things that I loved about this house are still here. Everything that made it felt like I would shrivel up and die if we didn't get this house are still here.

That realization has been slow to catch fire in my head, but it's been smoldering for awhile now, and seems to have worked up a little flame. It's only been in the past month or so that I have begun to assess the situation and make plans to remake this home into one that feels less like a monument to what was, and more of a comforting place to enjoy what is.

It really started with a couple of small things, but I've learned that it's amazing how encouraging small changes can be.

Matty bought me a new gazebo for the deck (my old one had been destroyed in a bad storm last year.) Somehow, having him make that effort led me to want to make the deck as nice as I could for us to enjoy, so I ordered some solar light caps for the deck railings.

And, oh my sweet Home Depot . . . it took me FOREVER to pull the trigger on the damn lighting.

I looked online for DAYS, agonizing over every choice. It felt like I was making some kind of life-or-death decision, which is crazy.

Well, it is.

Anyway, I finally took a deep breath and clicked the "buy" button.

Then I noticed how neglected the deck was, and how badly it needed to be cleaned and stained and sealed, so we started collecting bids for that work, and it wasn't too long before I took a good look at my exterior porch and garage lights and ordered some that are as pretty as the deck lights. (Sea Gull Yorktown 1-Light Forged Iron Wall Lantern, retail $104, EBay new in box $54.00.)

They are in boxes at my front door now, and I am giddy with excitement to see them adorn the entrances.

We also picked up some new showerhead sets for our bathrooms. If you don't have a rainshower soaker/handheld shower combo, I can't recommend them highly enough.

This past weekend, we bought some beautiful forged iron pulls for my kitchen and bathroom cabinets ($1 apiece at a closeout of custom order kitchen hardware, retailed for $8ish each), and I've ordered some replacement lights for our bathrooms (this Kichler 3 light set was $225.00 retail, $39.00 new in the box on Ebay. Her 4-light sister was $295.00 retail, got two of those for $49.00 each!)


I've also begun to assemble all of the things that will be leaving our house. I plan to have the mother of all garage sales very very soon.

Once the house has been cleared of all of the unwanted items, the biggest project of all will commence: painting. It's the only project I am actually nervous about, which is silly, of course. I'm sure once I actually start applying the paint, it will be a breeze, but deciding on the colors, and preparing properly, all that . . . it feels like a big challenge.

The sins of the fathers

My kid started playing football this season. He's 8.

He wanted to play last year, but I was concerned about him getting hurt, or getting yelled at by overzealous coaches. We have stuck with baseball for the past 3 years, so I was oblivious to the huge differences between little league baseball and pee wee football.

Namely, making weight.

Unfortunately, my kids were saddled with 2 fat parents. Now, there's lots of speculation in the medical community about whether obesity is genetic (i.e. thyroid problem) or environmental (i.e. one too many trips to Stevie B's with your fat parents). Most think it's a little from Column A, and a little from Column B (with three you get eggroll.)

All this to say . . . I had never encountered a weigh-in at the baseball field. Actually, his size was sort of celebrated, since he loves playing catcher and has NO fear of the baseball.

Come to think of it, his size has ALWAYS been celebrated. The day he was born, the nurses cooed and squealed over him at the hospital.

All 10 pounds of him.

From the moment he was big enough to sit upright in a shopping cart and peacefully eat Cheerios while I shopped, grown men have approached me in Target and Walmart on a nearly weekly basis to comment, "You're gonna let that boy play football, aren't you?" followed by a hair tussle and questions about his weight, his height, how tall he might end up ("how big's his daddy?"), whether or not I would consider aiming him toward the Univ. of GA (I've always had my heart set on Ga Tech) and admiring glances at the size of his feet and how much older he looks than he is.

When he was a toddler, we would frequent a chinese buffet (what a shock) where the waitresses would literally whisk him away from me and take him INTO the kitchen to "visit" the cooks and staff there, because they were so enamored of his size, and his blue eyes, and his fair skin and his white blonde hair. "He is VERY lucky! YOU are very lucky!" they would tell me in broken English. Apparently, large boys are just about the best thing you can ever have, where they come from.

No one ever said, "Wow. He's too big," or "Uh oh, that's going to be a problem." Until now.

It was quite the blow to have the football coach lead my littlest giant to a dusty equipment shed and have him step on a rusty old scale and announce, "He's 20 pounds over the weight limit for this team."

What?! What do you mean? Aren't football players SUPPOSED to be big?

There he stood, red and breathless from 2 hours of sweaty practice, being told that he's too big to play. And there I stood, feeling like I had led my kid to this moment, one bite at a time.

Yeah, that turned out to be a pretty rough night all the way around. When you see your frailties and weaknesses visited upon your children, it's impossible not to feel guilty. I played the blame game most of that evening and into the wee hours of the night.

I was fat when I had him. I've raised him to be fat like me. It's my fault.

His dad is fat and wasn't active enough with him. It's his fault.

Our parents allowed us to get fat when we were kids. This is THEIR fault.

Which means if parents are to blame, it's back to being MY fault again.

But in the midst of all the self-abuse, I had such an overwhelming sense of pride for him. He had slogged through the hottest, sweatiest, hardest 2 hours of his life for 3 days before we were told the news, and when we WERE told the news, he said "I want to play."

Just like that. He didn't give up. He wanted to play.

I was adamant that there was NO WAY that my kid was going to drop 20 lbs in time to play football this year, and I was ready to turn in his football equipment until I learned it was possible for him to "play up" to the 9 year old team. Their weight limits were slightly higher.

But he was still 10 lbs. over.

Last week, he slogged through furnace-like temperatures, and walked laps when the others ran, holding his side but never quitting. He dragged himself through the drills, carrying the equivalent of a 20 lb bowling ball while the others sprinted past him, with seeming effortlessness while he struggled.

It's the hardest thing I've ever endured in my life. It was like he was paying penance out on that field for all of my sins.

"The sins of the father will be visited upon the children . . ."

It was all I could do not to break down and cry right there, in front of the parents and the other kids and my fiance and my ex who were all encouraging him to hang in there as he doggedly struggled to do the coach's bidding, over and over and over.

I felt like such a failure, despite the fact that I've now lost over 100 pounds. It's been a source of great pride for me AND my kids. They have been there the whole time for me, waiting at the hospital through my surgery, and worrying about me during my recovery, and watching me through mostly good days and a few really bad days as I struggled to keep food down or regain my strength. Now, it just seems self-indulgent to even celebrate that now, now that I see my kid trying to tread water with the same anvil tied around his neck that I managed to free myself of.

I felt helpless. And guilty. Really guilty. I didn't know what I could do to help him, but I couldn't just sit there and watch him struggle, so I got up, and left the stands and went down to the track to show some solidarity. I vowed to walk the track while he practiced. The first night, I was barely able to make two laps. By the end of last week, I finished 4 laps, and he had finished 5 days of grueling, humiliating, sweaty practice in 90 degree weather.

Not surprisingly, by the end of last week, he was also ready to quit. He was sore, and tired, and his resolve was giving way to the unrelenting temptation to stop moving, that same inertia that held me captive when I was at my heaviest.

Through the weekend, I tried my very best to encourage him to hang in there.

We all did.

I told him how proud I was of him. I told him that I would be right there with him, walking that track and enduring the heat and cheering him on. He managed to suck up his courage and get back out there yesterday to endure another 2 hours of heat and humiliation and hard work.

He's still determined, despite the soreness. He's also lost 4 pounds, which makes me so proud of him and so sad that he has to deal with this at such a young age.

I thought about an episode of "Deadliest Catch" I saw recently, where a greenhorn that had been the sole survivor of a sinking fishing ship was describing what it was like to watch everyone around him freeze to death in the icy water. How seductive the urge to just stop moving was for him, how hard he had to fight to keep moving until he could be saved, and how easy it would have been to just . . . . stop, and allow death to take him, like it had the others.

Not to be overly dramatic, but obesity is like that, too. The heavier you get, the stronger the urge is to just stop moving, to just sit very still and allow yourself to be taken. I kept thinking about that guy when I looked at my son. It was like watching him drowning in the water below me while I was safely on deck.

I have to keep encouraging him to move, to keep trying, to hang in there. I can't let him stop. I have to keep him moving, despite the fact that the sea around him is riddled with the bloated corpses of those in our family that allowed themselves to be taken way too soon by the seduction of the inertia.

I'm not going to let that happen to him. I just won't. I'm still thankful every day that I managed to escape from that, but now it's time to save my kids.

Happy Mother's Day

Editor's Note: When I originally posted this in May, 2004, I had no idea what my own mother would face in the 18 months to follow. In a span of about 12 months, she lost her home, her husband (my father) had a yearlong hospitalization and became wheelchair bound, and she was diagnosed with terminal metastatic breast cancer of the bone.

In July 2005, I left her hospital room and prepared myself to say goodbye to her within 3 months.

In December 2005, we all gathered around the Christmas tree to watch the kids open presents and to celebrate her remission.

Through it all, she has maintained her sweet disposition, and continues to be a source of strength for me.

As she has always told me, "Believe the diagnosis, ignore the prognosis."

Amen.

I only hope to be half the mom that she is.

I love you, Mama.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Wonder
Natalie Merchant

They say I must be one of the wonders
Of god's own creation
And as far as they can see they can offer
No explanation . . .

- - - - -

May 2004

I have had the nicest Mother's Day, and it isn't even over yet.

Yesterday, I had a day out with my daughter Rachael. She is 8 this year.

She and I took her baby brother to his grandmother and left for a few hours of shopping. We had some time on the way to talk about Mother's Day. My daughter never tires of hearing about the day she was born, how I decided on her name, and other tidbits of her early days.

She could barely contain her excitement when we parked in front of the strip shopping center. My daughter is just beginning to discover her taste. She adores the occasional trip to the Limited Too , and it tickles me to see her carefully considering purchases and shopping the sales racks (good girl!) She decided to try on a little top and skirt, and carefully approached the dressing room with me in tow. I was fighting the images that were flashing in my mind . . .

As she stretched to hang her choices on the hook in the dressing room and steadied herself with one hand against the mirror, I thought about laying on the delivery table, draped, as a team of doctors and nurses attended her birth.

Doctors have come from distant cities
Just to see me
Stand over my bed
Disbelieving what they're seeing

As she slowly bent down to remove her shoes, slowly pulling her shoes off, I remembered the blinding lights of a little suitcase bed delivered to our house to fight her jaundice, and the little velcro strip she wore across her eyes to protect them from the harsh glare.

Watching her struggle to steady herself as she stepped into a little skirt, I remembered the years of therapy that she had endured to walk, to talk . . .

We were in the dressing room for better than 10 minutes, but it was a proud little girl that looked back at her from the mirror, dressed in a very pretty summer tanktop and matching skirt.

With purchases made, we decided that lunchtime was fast approaching. She opened her little purse to reveal that she had found a Sweet Tomatoes coupon (my favorite) and wanted to take me to lunch. She had a little stack of dollar bills that she had carefully counted earlier, and she was so pleased to be able to invite me.

There were a couple of people that impatiently waited behind us as she pushed her tray along the salad bar, carefully choosing and scooping "salad" (corn, chickpeas, pickles, raisins, sunflower seeds, and broccoli) onto her plate. It took her awhile to get to the end, retrieve silverware, and tell the cashier that she would like to pay for us both. The women behind us that had been silently urging us to hurry stopped in their tracks when they heard her speak . . . her halting speech and trembling hand put them in their place better than my angry, she-tiger look ever could.

People see me
I'm a challenge to your balance
I'm over your heads
How I confound you and astound you

I remembered the meeting with her neurologist years ago, gently breaking the news to me that she might never acquire the life skills she would need to live independently as she was counting the bills and change into the cashier's hand. Her face was beaming, angelic, when the cashier commented on how pretty she looked, and how nice it was that she was taking her mother out for lunch. One of the young men that worked there offered to carry her tray, and I was thankful that it seemed to be a service offered to all, and not something that only she required. She hates being singled out, and generally does everything in her power to complete things herself, but this day, she indulged.

Lunch was such fun . . . we shared muffins and tasted each other's soups ( she wasn't crazy about the vegetable, but particularly liked the chili).

We talked about the gifts she had selected for her grandmothers, those women that had been pillars of strength for me during the dark days when I wasn't sure how I would ever be able to handle all that I had been given with her birth.

Their hopes for her never wavered, even when I would gently report back discouragements from the multitudes of doctor visits and therapy sessions.

O, I believe
Fate smiled at destiny

Laughed as she came to my mother
Know this child will not suffer

Laughed as my body she lifted
Know this child will be gifted

She excused herself from the table to go to the ladies room . . . alone. While I waited for her to return, I decided that today was a day of celebration, that I could look back and remember the early days without feeling the pain and the fear anymore. That I could sit here with her now, her beautiful little face full of hope and promise, and I could share in that with her, without reservation. That I could now look forward to her life, its struggles, its victories. That I could resurrect my expectations of what she could become.

With love, with patience and with faith
She'll make her way . . .

For alot of people, just another day, but for me, the day surpassed my wildest dreams.

Happy Mother's Day.

Busy Bee

Man, what a weekend!

Last Friday started bright and early, cause I had to have work squared away by noon because The Boy's 2nd grade class was having "Fall Centers", which is a complete ripoff . . . in MY day, we had Halloween carnivals with scary houses and good candy, and it was the highlight of the year. "Fall Centers" means that during the last 1/2 hour of the school day, everyone gets to glue together a foam turkey and make a candy corn-bedazzled picture frame and . . . well, that's pretty much it.

BUT . . . I was determined to sneak the devil in by bringing in treat bags full of scary bat rings, and rubber bats, and glow in the dark skeletons, and GOOD candy. An hour later, I emerged, glue-covered with a happy boy and my girl, headed to the house to get ready for the trick and/or treating festivities to begin.

Full of Halloween spirit, we costumed up (even my tiny Chihuahua, LilBit, had a witch costume) and we headed to the mall. Hub, ever the pragmatist, mentioned something in passing about LilBit and the mall, but I was too hopped up to pay much attention. We entered the mall and began our parade down the hallways, earning oohs and ahhs for our costumes, and squeals of delight for our tiny pet. All was good until I was approached by mall security for some type of breach, and among a chorus of "Booooooooooo!"s, I was unceremoniously escorted out of the mall by the mall police.

That dampened our spirits a bit, but Hub was kind enough to kiss my cheek and not say "I told you so", and the boy lent his support by bellowing "This place blows!" on the way out the door. Ahh, my family.

On to bigger and better . . .

We had never "Trunk or Treat"ed before, but since our neighborhood is sort of devoid of the Halloween spirit, we thought we'd give it a whirl. My girl and I had bought a metric ton of good candy at the Kroger the night before (Midnight Madness sale - $1.65 per bag for the GOOD stuff, plus a full order of groceries for less than $200, score!) so we were loaded. I had no idea how to pull off a Trunk or Treat, so I just packed things that I would use at home, and we all piled into my Element and headed out (LilBit, too).


20 minutes later, our little vehicle was properly "trunked" and delighted fellow Trunkers oooohed and ahhhhed, saying that I must certainly be a "Trunking" veteran, which caused a deep blush of pride (luckily, my witch hat had a black veil that blocked most of it). We saw witches, and ghosts, and Star Wars characters, and fairies, and superheroes, and . . . and . . .and . . .all KIND of stuff.

It was getting chilly and really dark, and the Trunk or Treat was winding down, so we headed home, each kid with at least 5 lbs of candy to show for their efforts.When we pulled into our neighborhood, we saw some kids listlessly walking our street, so I hightailed it in to set up my Trunk props and threw on the front lights, and I was rewarded by visits from 10-15 kids, so that was cool.

Saturday was spent in pursuit of electric blankets (it's getting cold down here!) Hub and I have different core temperatures these days, and I can't seem to stay warm, so I had the idea that an electrified heat source might be just the answer, and keep the heating bill reasonable. So, the kids were good as gold as we schlepped all over town, through Bed Bath and Beyond and Linens n Things and other places looking for a decent deal. Everyone was up for lunch at Golden Corral, and a flash of my "surgery card" got me a nice little discount, since I'm still eating Lilliputian-sized meals.

The kids had evening plans, so we were able to slide away and get a low carb Smoothie King concoction and laugh at "Zack and Miri" at the AMC late Saturday night. Funny and horrible, just my style!

Sunday was a whirlwind of activity: we gutted and regorganized the Black Hole known as the laundry room, sorted clothing and came up with 5 or 6 bags for donation and hauled those to Goodwill, scored my electric blankets (damn, I love Big Lots - $40 for blankets that were $90 everywhere else, PLUS I found a bullet mixer to make my OWN Smoothie King smoothies, and it works like a charm, even on on the whole frozen strawberries, the bane of my regular blender's existence), cleaned all 3 bedrooms (dusting and vacuuming too), washed all the linens. blankets and covers, got Weenie into her Doxie Cart for some physical therapy and exercise, planned our intinerary for our Disney World trip in 3 weeks, and we changed out all the Halloween to Thanksgiving.

I laid down last night feeling great and commented to Hub that there is no way in hell I could have done all this 3 months ago.

It feels fantastic.

Freebie

Attention KMart shoppers:

Get your ass to KMart quick and buy 3 packs of Reese's pieces.

Why, you ask?

Well, because, my friend, upon purchase of 3 packs of ET's preferred candy, KMart will give you a free ticket to Batman!

Why are you still here?

Ahh . . . the ol' "Brown Box" treatment, ay?

Well, this past weekend found me hip-deep in my precious daughter's room, wading through immeasurable and unimaginable junk, crap, clothes, toys, dolls, MORE crap, and various and sundry flotsam and jetsam.

In other words, it was Spring Cleaning time.

Along with the challenges my daughter already faces with her (slight, but ability-affecting) brain injury, my daughter has also inherited my penchant for hoarding. She struggles mightily with throwing things away . . . ANYTHING at all. To her, everything has value, even things that are obviously trash to anyone else (things like boxes that toys or dolls or shoes are packaged in, or pretty tissue paper, or school papers that have been long-ago graded and returned to her.)

Her love of Hello Kitty is legend. At any given time, her room appears to be the aftermath of a bomb that has gone off right in the middle of the Sanrio factory. She has an equal love for Cabbage Patch dolls, Build-A-Bear animals, American Girl dolls (even the knockoffs), and Webkins. I admit that I have played a hand in this . . . no one enjoys a trip to Build-A-Bear more than I.

I saw tears of worry begin to well up in her eyes the minute I announced to her that we were going to clean her room. She equates "clean" with "give her dolls away", and she usually dissolves into a complete meltdown.

I had to clean it, but I hate (HATE) upsetting her. She is such a sweet child, and so attached to her things. But . . . drastic times call for drastic measures.

Rather than do what I usually do (bitch, shovel, argue with her over each thing that I think is expendable), I switched things up a bit. Taking a cue from "Clean Sweep", I entered her room with several large, brown packing boxes and with NO discretion at all, I swept up armfuls of crap and dumped the offending stuff into these boxes, with absolutely no rhyme or reason. I continued in this fashion until there was nothing left in her room except the furniture and curtains. Every surface was clean, and I could see her purple carpet for the first time in months. We ended up with better than 9 boxes full out in the hall.

I decided that one of the biggest challenges in her room was storage space, so I ordered 2 large white bookshelves, each about 6 feet tall and 5 feet wide, giving the room an additional 60 feet of shelving space. Who knew what a transformation and miracle this would bring about . . .

Once the new shelves were in place, and the bed was nicely made and the floor was vacuumed, I had my daughter begin the arduous process of visiting the boxes out in the hall and bringing items in that she absolutely wanted to keep. Of course, this ended up being mostly her dolls, which were arranged by kind on the new shelves. Even I was flabbergasted to see just how many she had. She had no idea that her collection was as vast as it is.

When she was done, every inch of the 60 feet of shelving was full. Every . . . single . . . . inch. There were also lots of leftover junk in the hall that she didn't bother to rescue, filling 2 large black garbage bags and 2 big brown boxes. The good part was that it seemed absolutely painless to her to leave all of that behind. Choosing what to keep turned out to be much easier for her than choosing what to give up.

We cycled her clothing through the laundry and sorted the clean items into her drawers, and paired her shoes in her now-clean closet. I bought her some lavender scented room freshener, and fluffed her curtains and pillows.

The transformation was amazing.

With all of the clutter gone, my girl's eyes and attention seem to be able to focus on the things that she really loves. She has spent more time in her room in the last few days than she has spent in the last several months. She can now recline in her purple butterfly chair, talk on her Hello Kitty phone, line up her Cabbage Patches on her bed for new ponytails, and dress and redress her American Girl dolls in endless outfits (we made a doll closet too).

Even the boy finds his way in there, although he says he doesn't like all the "girly" stuff in there, he does admire the cleanliness and organization.

His room is next. I've already ordered a new dresser and nightstand for him.

I'll post some pictures soon.

Where's Molly

I was clicking through CNN (like I do every day) and came upon an article about a new documentary called "Where's Molly?"

The man that made the documentary, Jeff Daly, lost his little sister Molly when he was about 6. Molly wasn't quite 3. Molly had a few problems: a lazy eye that didn't respond well to surgery, a club foot, and possibly some developmental delay. As was the custom, his parents were advised quietly by their trusted family doctors to send Molly away to an institution. Like all other parents of disabled kids, they were told that it would be "better" for them, for the child, and for the extended family.

Jeff recounts how he asked about his little sister every day, and was told, "Stop asking about Molly." His parents wouldn't discuss her with him, and for years, he had no idea what had happened to her.

It struck me, reading this article, that if I had had my Rachael years earlier, I, too, would have been pressured to institutionalize her. That chills my blood to think about. As much as I worry about her now, I don't know how these parents, or hundreds and hundreds more like them slept knowing that their children were, for all intents and purposes, jailed and warehoused because of their disabilities.

I guess we can thank President Kennedy for pushing through a few laws that gave the disabled some rights . . . rights to live free, to receive the education that they are capable of receiving, to work, to be productive.

I don't pass judgement on these parents, I really don't. I know the pressure that parents of disabled kids face: even now, we are pressured to listen to the experts, to accept their opinions as gospel, to not question school officials and therapists and hospitals, to accept whatever they deem is best for our kids.

Being Rachael's case manager has been a daunting task, one that I had alot more energy for a few years ago. These days, what I lack in energy, I make up for in experience. Teachers hate to see me coming when it's time to discuss Rachael's education plan. Doctors rub their foreheads when I make them listen to me. See, I have a PhD in Rachael. I made her, I love her, I live with her, and I have studied her quirks and idiosyncracies for nearly 12 years now. I know her many strengths, her challenges, her struggles, and her victories, all of them.

Sometimes it's been hard, really hard, but I'm glad Rachael was given to me, just the way she is. I'm glad no one forced me to give her up, citing medical credentials. And it breaks my heart to think of how many parents fell victim to what I was able to dodge.

Yo yo yo!!!! For all the moms . . .

Compliments of my dear friend, Allison. I'll never look at my ductaped sideview mirror the same way again.

Pay No Attention To The Man Behind The Curtain . . .

This post will bore you to tears - do yourself a favor and skip it.

I just need to record some things so I don't forget.

I am taking on the task of cooking low-carb safe meals that the kids will not balk at. It's a balancing act . . . finding low carb things, and adding just enough OTHER things that everyone can feel like they had a full meal.

Since hub has lost about 85 pounds now on Atkins, I am trying my very best to continue to support that, and with my diabetes, well, low carb is really good for me too.

BUT . . . we have two kids in the house that need a little variety, so . . . . I have been experimenting with meal combinations that work for all four of us. When something works well, I want a place to record it. And this is it.

AND . . . if you have read this far AND you are doing low carb AND you have kids AND you have recipes/meal plans that seem to go over, please do let me know.

Low Carb Dinners That The Kids Seemed To Like:
Kielbasa/Pineapple/Onion Skewers - grilled, w/light BBQ sauce
Watermelon
Adamame (steamed, safe for all)
Sticky Rice (steamed, for kids, not us)
Cole Slaw (ok, kids didn't eat this, but it was good. no sugar, Hellman's mayo cut and sweetened with Minute Maid diet Orange drink, Splenda sweetened sweet relish with poppy seeds)

Meatloaf (Hunt's Meatloaf, recipe on the can. Mixture of beef and pork. Used oatmeal instead of breadcrumbs to cut the carbs and minimize the glycemic impact.)
Blue Lake green beans (cooked the beJeezus out of these with Kitchen Gourmet)
Buttered Egg Noodles (for kids, not us)
Cole Slaw (again, we liked this, kids didn't)

How To Drop $3 Large During 1 Week in Myrtle Beach, SC and NOT Have Even 1 Strip Club Experience Under Your Belt, Numero Tres

In the continuing saga of issuing reports from Central Accounting regarding the recent Spring Break Family Vacation, I'd like to revisit something I touched briefly upon in Part 1.

See . . . here's the part that no one tells you. Taking kids to the beach for vacation has VERY LITTLE to do with the actual beach.

You'd think that by the time you square away a nice place to stay on the beach and with pools in close proximity, you would have it made in the shade, right?

Oh, dear reader . . . you could not be MORE mistaken!

Here's the thing. Kids tire of sand in their crack pretty quick. The few that DON'T tire of it can't stay out on the beach all the time, cause they would fry like earthworms on a hot sidewalk.

So, the enterprising parent soon figures out that the vacation must be supplemented with extracurricular kiddie fun.

Enter the Family Fun Centers. In Myrtle Beach, this pretty much centers around a few core activities:

Putt Putt
The Putt Putt courses at Myrtle Beach are like none I have ever encountered. They are 1 part Vegas, 1 part Disney World, and 1 part Master's Tournament in Augusta. I fully expected to see people win green jackets at the end of these things. Here's a few pictures to detail the fantabulousness that makes these courses worth $40-$50 a game (for a family of 4):

When you tire of Putt Putt, there are a few other diversions to capture the hearts of your crumb snatchers (not to mention the extra few dollars in your wallet). This little ride was situated in an outdoor mall, along with a ferris wheel and a couple of other little rides. At $3 a ride per kid, well, these little tooth chippers probably paid the rent on the whole damn place, my guess.

One of the coolest things we stumbled across was a bowling alley situated inside a (once) fabulous (used to be) beachfront resort.

This place had at one time, evidently, been THE PLACE to be, until some moneygrubbing bastard sold the property adjacent to them for a stacked parking lot and turned their oceanview rooms into parkinglot view rooms.

But, you know, they turned lemons into lemonade.

The floor that got screwed by the parking deck? They just said "fuck it" and built one of the most awesome bowling alleys I have ever been in in my entire life.

This place was top notch, state of the art. The attendants typed in your names when you came in the door, and even coded the lanes so that the gutters would pop up ball guards when the kids were up to bowl.

The screens were animated with little cartoons that played after every bowler's turn to let you know how many pins you hit. Totally mechanized.

But to hell with ALL of that . . .the thing that turned this place from cool to awesome was the light up furniture and the nonstop Cosmic Bowling! Even the bar was bathed in cool, everchanging neon!

Totally worth $28 bucks a game for 4 (with shoes, which are sorta mandatory, I guess, it jumped to $36. We played twice.)

How To Drop $3 Large During 1 Week in Myrtle Beach, SC and NOT Have Even 1 Strip Club Experience Under Your Belt, Part Deux

In the interest of full disclosure to all of my readers who have yet to experience the pageantry and majesty of a "Family Vacation" with children, I feel compelled to lay it all out for you.
As I alluded to earlier, the most shocking part is how much it fucking COSTS to take your children away for a week of (mildly entertaining) fun.

Let's take it from the top, shall we?







Our luxe accomodations were worth every penny, let me just start by saying that.

My good buddy, Larry, who I met through EBay last year, hooked us up AGAIN with amazing beachfront condos.

Initially, we were to have a 3 bedroom condo in Myrtle Beach, but as it turns out, we were given 2 2-bedroom condos instead. Since grandparents tagged along for the trip, it was perfect! Both condos overlooked the pool, and were right next to each other. Grandparents got some peace and quiet in the evenings, and were close enough for the kids to run over and show off their seashells, etc.

This place had several indoor AND outdoor pools and hot tubs, a lazy river, game rooms that showed movies all day, all kinds of stuff. Our room had a HUGE jacuzzi tub, and the kid's room had a large bath, too. They even had a washer and dryer in the condo, so no one had to put on cold, wet bathing suits in the morning.

Situated right on the sand, this place even built a little boardwalk straight from the pool to the beach.

We booked with Larry a month before we left, so by the time we left for vacation, we had very nearly forgotten the sting from shelling out $900 for the reservation.

Believe it or not, $900 was a steal, because the condos regularly booked for $1600 apiece for a week.

I was thrilled with our places for $900. I would have stabbed someone in the leg if I had paid $3,200, though. Actually, that might explain the looks on the faces of a few of the other parents we saw down there. I'd be pissed off, too, if I had ponied up full money for this place.

Anyway . . . . it was nice, but for those of you keeping track, we were into it for $1G before we even left the house.

We're Back, Jack!

Well, just like Jesus on Easter Sunday, we are back.


Note: Wow, that was REALLY sacriligious. Sorry about that. I'll say a few Hail Marys while I bite the ears off of this chocolate bunny and share a few of my vacation pictures with you. I'll also have a few funnies to add to My Kid's Krazy Krap, so stay tuned for the hilarity.


Granted, this will just be a little taste of the greatness to come, kinda like chocolate Easter bunnies versus the promise of eternal life, or something. I guess I'd better drop the religions cross-references and get on with the show. So, without further ado, I present Part 1 of . . .


How To Drop $3 Large During 1 Week in Myrtle Beach, SC and NOT Have Even 1 Strip Club Experience Under Your Belt

















Cuplrit #1: Myrtle Beach has turned Putt Putt into an art form unto itself. These courses have everything: animation, light shows, flora and fauna, and oh yeah, it runs about $40-$50 a game for 4, and my kids played pretty much every day. Fore!

Ain't Technology Grand

I was walking through the Target a few days ago, perusing the Clearance section near Electronics (one of my favorite Target Clearance sections, other than the pocketbook and jewelry clearance sections).

I spotted this little iQuest PDA by Leap Frog. (For those of you that don't know what Leap Frog is, they pretty much OWN kid's electronics, starting with preschool toys all the way up.)

I have invested heavily in Leap Frog in the past. My kids have had the phonics early learning toys, and they currently have the Turbo Twist Addition and Multiplication games, several Leap Pad books and cartridges, and they DID have a Leapster, but it broke (that was kinda crappy, I have to admit.)

This particular doohickey is really pretty cool. It has Sweet Girl's science, math and social studies books preloaded, and she can play games while getting quizzed chapter by chapter.

This thing also has a calendar, a calculator, 75,000-word Merriam-Webster dictionary, address book, notepad, headphone jack and volume control.

Evidently, this thing will carry Sweet Girl through to 8th grade.

And I paid $24 for it, and $12 for some extra math and science cartridges.

OH, plus! You can use this MindStation thingy to download extra games, questions and study guides (I already had this for the kids' Leap Pad games) to expand the handheld even further.

Yeah, I know we don't have flying cars yet, or robot maids, or jetpacks, but considering that the ULTIMATE handheld electronic when I was in 5th grade was a Coleco Electronic Quarterback, the iQuest is pretty damn cool, I think.

Trick or Treat . . . Smell My Feet!

If you have a 5 year old at your house, then you have probably heard that as many times as I have this past month. Interestingly enough, 5 year olds NEVER tire of saying it, and then dissolving into uncontrollable laughter. My son is no exception, except maybe for the fact that he ACTUALLY tries to make you smell his feet (he's pretty strong and agile, too, so no laying on the sofa around here until closer to Thanksgiving.)

We tend to do things up big around here for Halloween. It's always been one of my favorite holidays, and even though schools don't have Halloween carnivals anymore, and kids can't trick or treat unsupervised, and you have to check the candy bags for razor blades, it's still a cool holiday. We generally kick things off by erecting our huge blowup scarecrow on October 1 (the Homeowner's Association LOVES us!) and follow that up by repeated viewings of "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!" throughout the month, awaiting the arrival of the Big Party To End All Parties that ALWAYS occurs the Saturday before Halloween.

Except this year.

Our friends, who have dutifully thrown the best party ever for many, many years, finally decided to discontinue the tradition this year. Speculation is that the party was getting too big, there were too many people, too much booze and weed, and too many hassles, too many complaints from the neighbors, and too much hassle all around. Can't say I blame them, but damn, was I disappointed.

But, I did what you do when the best party in the world is dead and gone, I found another. It seemed a shame not to take advantage of our costumes (Red Riding Hood and The Big Bad Wolf), so we crashed the Masquerade Ball at Wild Bill's Saloon. It was lots of fun, about 5,000 people strong, and nearly everyone was dressed up!

It drew a big crowd, because there was $5,000 on the line for Best Costume. There were guys there on stilts inside 8 foot tall monster costumes, all manner of witches, goblins, devils, and superheroes. There was even one lady who had recreated a full-scale framed painting of the Mona Lisa, which she wore and stuck her own head and arms through. I saw her dancing with Teen Wolf at one point (he took the big prize, by the way. Don't you know the stilts monster guys were pissed off about that?)

Saturday slowly, ever so slowly gave way to Tuesday . . . THE day. I don't know how the kids made it through the school day! I joined my kindergartener for "Fall Centers" (remember, they can't call it a Halloween Party in public school) and I was in charge of helping kids glue eyes and mouths to foam pumpkin cutouts. My "center" was totally outdone by the "smear peanut butter on a pinecone and roll it in birdseed" center, not to mention the "make a spider out of doughnuts and pretzel sticks and icing and decorate with candy" center. Ah, well . . . when it's all said and done, and the doughnut spiders have been eaten, and the birdseed and peanut butter have all been pecked away, my foam pumpkin cutouts will remain (that is, if the moms don't throw them in the garbage the minute that Halloween is over. I keep all that stuff, but then again, I am sort of a packrat when it comes to stuff my kids make.)

Once the agony of the school day had passed, and I extricated myself from my work (harder and harder these days), we prepared ourselves for The Moment . . . Sundown on Halloween night. Hub had been home sick the previous day and Halloween day with some kind of stomach bug, but he was a trooper, gathering the troops. We had invited the kids' friends to come walk the neighborhood with us. Really sweet kids, brother and sister, same age as my two, and all four are inseparable. We had missed the little boy's birthday earlier in the month, so we set up a quick party table with cupcakes (like you need THAT on Halloween), popcorn and presents. Imagine our surprise when he showed up, dressed exactly like MY kid!


Hilarious!

The kids decided to pool their resources and dump their candy into a community wagon as we went through the neighborhood. The wagon was pulled by Weenie the Wonderdog, who was celebrating her 3rd "birthday" with us (I got her from the pound on Halloween day, 2003.)

By the time 8:00 pm rolled around, we had (easily) 15 pounds of candy, 4 tired kids, and a worn out dog. It was worth it. And for the record, nope, I didn't eat ANY candy. Good for me.

Happy Halloween, ya'll.

Spring Break '06

Well, there were no beer bongs, screaming guys, second degree sunburns, group sex parties or incriminating pictures to live down later, but I had a ball during Spring Break this year.

Hub and I took the kids to North Myrtle Beach, SC, and I can't recommend it highly enough. We never ran out of things to do, the weather was PERfect, and by damn, you couldn't ask for more Putt Putt courses.


Or pancake houses.

Myrtle Beach loves them some pancakes and Putt Putt! Not sure what the deal with that was, but literally on every corner, you either ran smack dab into one or the other - sometimes both!

When we weren't on the beach, we were in the heated outdoor pool of our fantabulous condo, or the 2 heated outdoor hot tubs, or the indoor pool, OR the indoor hot tub. Swanky.

When we weren't soaking our bods, we were out seeing what there was to see, eating what there was to eat, and doing what there was to do. And there was alot of everything!





One of the coolest things we did was visit a place called MagiQuest. We completely dorked out, running around this virtual castle/fairy/crypt/dungeon playsite like nimrods, waving our magic wands and giggling when all manner of magic happened.
Coolest place ever.








And holy crap - the Ripley's Aquarium was amazing. I pet a skate, we saw sharks, all kinds of crazy fish, octopus, jellyfish, living coral - that was one of the best parts of the week!

The kids LOVED the ghetto Build-A-Bear workshop - I think it was called Construct a Teddy or something equally infringing on the copyright.

OH, and everywhere we went, we had a chance to squash a penny into a momento of the occasion, attraction, or town. And squash we did!

If you've never been . . . by all means go. It was a hoot.