Suburban Bliss:: Birth Control Via The Written Word

If only you could pick your family.

We went to a funeral for a friend's grandfather this morning.

Logan gets antsy about funerals. Barring a tragic death of any sort, I generally like funerals. I love hearing stories about older people who have passed away. I love seeing the pictures of them growing up. I love seeing how their lives have touched so many people. To me, though it's sad to say good bye to those we love, a funeral is an oddly satisfying way to celebrate a life.

My friend's mother stood up to speak about her father and said something that really touched Logan and I.

"I feel fortunate to have had him as my dad."

And with that my tears started (the other reason I like funerals: excuse to cry.)

I know a lot of people who would say the same thing about their own fathers. Unfortunately, I know a lot of people who can't.

I've been so busy. So busy dying.

So after the three week long illness I couldn't stop talking about, you know, the one that stripped me of my will to live and left me with blood pouring from my eyes? I started to feel a little better by last week but then? My throat began to feel as if a smallish (though is there really such a thing as a "small" rock when we're talking about our throats?) rock was lodged in the back of it. I tried to ignore it and will myself to be healthy because this is starting to feel karmic. But finally Saturday morning I went to the doctor and SURPRISE! I have tonsillitis.

And the the Black Plague.

But don't worry I'm on another round of antibiotics*.

*Come back next week when you get to hear all about the raging yeast infection I've developed from a month on antibiotics. My body is a wonderland.**

**I won't really tell you about my yeast infection. I'd rather call each of you individually on the telephone to schedule a Festival Of Hugs Marathon than write about that not so fresh feeling.

Still I've managed to persevere and come up with five great Mother's Day crafts your kids could make you if your parenting partner gets wind of what you want.

I also managed to close out the Heirloom Gift Guide at Mighty Junior and the first person who tells me how expensive everything is gets a big sloppy wet kiss directly from my infection-laden mouth to yours.

Funny story. I was looking for a classic baby carriage for the guide because, though not practical, it is such a sweet item (and you can use it in your apartment as a cradle if you'd like). I found this one and thought, 'Gee, that's awfully expensive.' (Which is against the rules of shopping for cool things, btw.) Then went in search of a less expensive model and found this one. And gee, it's funny how suddenly the first option seems downright affordable by comparison.

In fact, I've lived through all of them.

We visited Max's school last week and browsed through his first grade writing journal.

The question was: "Have you ever had a tantrum?"

His answer: "Yes, I have had tantrums. In fact, I have had many."

Desperately Seeking:

In the mid 80's I did a lot of things. Like listening to the music my friend's older siblings thought was cool, roller skated to said music in Molly's basement and rode my bike for several hours a day. I was also a Girl Scout in this same time period.

My troop attended a regional camping event and each troop held a contest to design the badge all the attendees would get to commemorate the event. I designed a badge using the thing I liked most at the time. Rainbows! Mine was chosen to compete among all the troops at the big event. And guess what? It won there too because rainbows and young girls of the 80's are UNSTOPPABLE.

By the late 80's Girl Scouts were no longer "cool" and I hung up my sash and moved onto cooler things, like brooding in my room for hours each day. My mother is not really the type to get rid of anything, she may not be able to find it, but she has it somewhere. Things the average person might think they'd never need again, like the envelope the cable bill came in, is lovingly preserved somewhere in her house.

Somehow, in the course of two moves since my childhood, my Girl Scout sash, with my award winning badge on it, has been missing. As I said, it's entirely possible it's somewhere in my mother's house, but the thought of digging through my mother's house to find it is a terrifying prospect. I'd rather assume it was disposed of during one of her moves, quite possibly by me because unlike my mother I don't believe a newspaper from two months ago has any intrinsic value.

It is significantly less terrifying for me to post a crappy sketch of what my badge looked like and let the Internet tell me if they've seen it somewhere.

So here it is.

The lesson I'm going to keep learning for the rest of my life.

We've been trying to teach our kids to ride their two wheel bikes for just under a year. It's been a mildly frustrating process because convincing our kids to even get on the bikes to, you know, try to ride. Because generally the process of learning to ride a bike is trial and error.

The error part is what gave Maddie pause. Maddie doesn't like doing things which involve "error", because "error" when riding a bike means falling and I think Maddie's goal in life is to avoid anything which can cause you to fall.

Max was a little bored with the process of learning to ride his bike. He'd try for about two minutes and give up.

Though I know kids do things in their own time and there's no reason to stress about it or push them too much. Still, I also know a few adults who's parents never pushed them to ride a bike and so, they never learned to ride a bike. So I ended up balancing my frustration with my kid's disinterest with riding a bike and my desire for them to actually get on their bikes and just ride.

Thankfully spring fever hit Max hard and he spent a few hours perfecting his technique until he was actually riding his bike!

The pressure of her little brother riding his bike before her forced Maddie to overcome her fear of, gasp, falling off a bike, and now she's also riding. Albeit, reluctantly....when forced...with a scowl on her face.

Now that we can all ride bikes, I have an elaborate fantasy of taking the kids to Amsterdam. But we'll settle for riding up for ice cream.

Many other places for you to see.

Did it just get really White in here? Or is that you?

Logan sent me this this morning.

When you meet a person wearing New Balance shoes it is a good idea to ask them about the marathon for which they are inevitably training. If they say “I’m not training for a marathon,” this is a good opportunity to raise your status by saying “oh, I thought only runners wore those. My running club all wear New Balance except for a few jerks who won’t shut up about Asics. I’m still a bit sore from the 10k run this morning.”

This is an extremely effective move since white people who jog are generally viewed as being better than white people who don’t. Although perhaps it’s more accurately stated that white people who jog feel the need to constantly prove they are better than white people who don’t.

Now, to be fair it's not Logan who constantly runs around telling people he runs marathons. It's mostly me telling people, "I know he comes off as really smart and handsome and funny, but get this, HE RUNS 26.2 MILES IN A ROW. ON PURPOSE." Most of the people I know think it's as crazy as I do. And a lot of them are white, so you know, do with that what you want.

I shared some birthday inspiration today at the Buzz Off, including this cake my friend Jodi made. It's actually a pretty simple process. You should try it if you have a SpongeBob fan in your house.

Last week I mentioned we were starting an Heirloom Gift Guide at Mighty Junior but I lied. I just felt like lying about it for some reason. Actually I wanted to do it but I was dead last week and now I'm back to life and have started the guide. Items will be added every day so you should look and maybe question the decision to get that vasectomy. For a minute.

Good point.

Me: "I know I keep saying this, but I feel so lucky to be living here."

Him: "Don't say lucky. Say fortunate."

Me: "What's the difference?"

Him: "Lucky implies we just sort of fell into this great place in our lives. We worked our asses off. We're fortunate not lucky."

Women who do too much.

Sarah Brown mentioned before, her Gmail appears to be a portal to the lives of the other Sarah Brown.

My Gmail account appears to be doing the same thing, though we have not yet crossed paths in real life. Still, I think you might like to know what the other Melissa Summers' (I think I'm getting mail for three of them) of the world are doing.

Veronica would like her to pick up Alex for soccer practice tonight. Veronica says thanks, Paul will be on the field!

Mary would like to invite her to the first Social Justice Committee Meeting May 1st.

Is happily welcomed to the Jantz School Of Dance summer program!

The Jantz School of Dance would like to apologize, they had a computer glitch and everyone was sent the welcome to the summer program email. She should please refer to the list in the school lobby to be sure she is actually happily welcomed into the summer program.  *Ed Note: Way to go Jantz School. Dumb asses.

Should really know about the mess the driveway in the carpool lane is. Because something needs to be done. CHILDREN ARE GETTING COATED IN MUD. (Ed Note: Caps are Christine's.) *Christine is finding the situation very frustrating.

Really needs to do something about the dinner service situation because Jane and Caitlin made it work once again when other people "fell down on their responsibility". Jane and Caitlin pulled the meal together on the fly but this just can't keep happening. Caitlin really looked forward to this service project but has been very disappointed. cc'd Leslie Markoff who also needs to do something about this. I presume. (PS: Jane, Caitlin is trying to kill you with her eyes.)

Is a greeter at Sunday morning services on the following dates. 4/6 4/13 4/20 5/4 and 5/18. She needs to be on time and make sure the doughnuts are set up prior to the end of the service.

Is asked to consider greeting on these dates in June....(you get the idea). *Ed Note: This Melissa Summers is being pooched.

Needs to take care of the horse race fund raiser because there is a lot of confusion *As per Marie LaMonde.

Is being invited away for a BIG ALL GIRL SPRING TRIP before they all graduate! Sarah is NOT LETTING ANYONE SAY NO! WE [THEY] ARE DOING THIS! (Apparently Sarah isn't very popular because three people reply they are actually not going on the trip, even though they're not allowed to say no.)

To sum up: getting the email for several Melissa Summers is kind of stressful. Also, I think a few of the Melissa Summers in the world need to check out this book.  Maybe also this one.

Still Sick.

I haven't written because I didn't want to admit a few things. The biggest thing I didn't want to admit is:

I get sick a lot.

This whole house is sick a lot.

Holy Shit I am sick. Last week it was mainly mild exhaustion, I thought I was just recovering from my weekend of convalescing at Alice's house. I didn't fill a prescription for antibiotic because I thought I was stronger than that. I thought I'd teach my immune system to SUCK IT UP already and get on with the process of living a life which is not in my bedroom.

This is what I thought. I also may have gloated to Logan that my cough was going away all on it's own and I didn't even need antibiotics like he did. "Poor Little Bunny".

My immune system appears to be a gigantic baby however and is currently cowering and whimpering in the corner while whatever this monstrous thing in my body is beats it about the head and neck.

So yes, that's all that's happening in my world. Mucous and a careful minute by minute cataloging of my current symptoms. I know you're interested, as interested as Logan is.

Swollen glands.
Pain in neck (likely caused by the enormous weight of my head).
Plugged up left ear.
Mild rattily cough.
Low grade fever.
Blood pouring from my eyes
Slow liquifying of my vital organs.

When I wasn't cataloging my symptoms I was writing about Earth Day over at The Buzz Off. I've also been putting up some items at Mighty Junior and tomorrow marks the beginning of the Heirloom Baby Gift Guide.  Also Max learned to ride his bike (without training wheels) and Maddie completed her first school science fair project titled, "Attention: Messy Windows"

Look out Messy Windows, Madison has got your number!

Less funny, less edgy, less witty*...but still, she types!

It's been awfully quiet here this week hasn't it? I apologize, I've been asleep.

While in New Jersey over the weekend it took every ounce of my will power to stay awake or once asleep to actually get out of bed. I knew it wasn't the company I was keeping making me so tired, I did start to wonder if the state of New Jersey was just exhausting me. The last time I was in New Jersey....things didn't go very well.

Maybe I was having a Post Traumatic reaction to the state. When I landed in Detroit around 6 Sunday night it seemed maybe it was true. Spring has finally arrived in Michigan, I missed my kids and husband and when we walked into our house (love the house), I wanted to stay awake for hours! Maybe even until 10 or 11 o'clock!

But then, at 7:30 I started watching the clock to see when I could go to bed. I made it to 8:30 and I haven't been awake for 10 consecutive hours since then.

Well, except for yesterday, when I chaperoned five 1st graders through the zoo. I think I may have enjoyed chaperoning five smallish crocodiles through the zoo more than I enjoyed taking 5 boys through the zoo.

Here's the thing about boys. They're insane. Actually I think they're only insane in groups of two or more. There may be exceptions to this, like say, boys who are insane when they're all by themselves. But for the most part "Group Of Boys" = "One long loud fart joke which never ends."

So besides sleeping and dragging a band of hooligans through the zoo, I haven't been doing much of anything this week. I'm hoping next week is better, or at least more awake.

I did manage to write a little about the tooth fairy at The Buzz Off, the tooth fairy who appears to not exist in this house anymore simply because I forgot one too many times. When will kids start taking check cards from the tooth fairy? I mean who the hell carries cash anymore?

I also closed out a little baby shower gift guide at Mighty Junior. Classic gifts meant for the classic baby...the kind that sleeps, eats and cries.

*Title refers to my website's place in a box within an article about Heather Armstrong in the Wall Street Journal. The heading might read, "Not as funny, but still...."

Financial Swingers

At breakfast.

Me: "One of my best friends is really good with money and she's married to someone who's really good with money. Usually at least one person in the relationship is bad with money, you know? To balance it out?"

Scott: "Not us, we're both bad with money."

Me: "Oh GOD! Logan and I too! We always say we should swap spouses with them, just for the financial education."

Scott: "Wow. That is completely not sexy."

Me: "We're swingers, just until we learn how to budget!"

Alice: "Hot."

Iz Not Watching Him Masturbate.

Here's something fun. I made it as a surprise for Logan. I think it makes him feel a little safer while I'm away.

You can make your own here.

Unique Baby Shower Gifts

I closed out my next gift guide at Mighty Junior. It's the unique baby shower gift guide. And by unique I don't mean "Unique", I mean....you know.

"Spring is baby shower season. You could run by Baby’s R Us to grab a set of footie pajamas on your way to the party, but you want something memorable. College tuition? Maybe not that memorable. Check out our collection of gifts that will have the new mom asking, “Where’d you get that?”"

Over two hundred viruses cause the common cold. Stop fighting it.

The kids and I created a couple terrariums last week during spring break, I shared them at The Buzz Off this week and you might enjoy that. (It's less of a 'How-To' and more of a 'Go over here and here to find out how to and we just sort of flew by the seat of our pants and did this' Too long for the title field and definitely not SEO'd.)

Spring break is the break where I start to realize if I don't up my income substantially we're going to be staring at each other every single day for three months this summer. And I'm going to be saying, "I don't know why you have to be so mean to him all the time." And, "Just use your words. We don't hit in this family." Until the cats punch me in the face and tell me to call The Supernanny already.

Maybe it will be different this year since we live in Heaven now. But a few weeks of summer camp never hurt anyone. Or so I assume since I never went away to camp. If I was away from home for more than 12 hours I would become increasingly anxious about what was happening there. This is amusing to me now because mainly what was happening at home was my parents ignoring each other or conversely throwing Little Debbie Snack Cakes at each other's heads. So you can clearly see why I wouldn't want to be AWAY from all that. WHAT THE EVER LOVING HELL NINE-YEAR-OLD ME??? (Also? 20 bucks says Maddie never goes to camp either because of her own anxiety. Though not about Logan and I throwing snack cakes at each other. We throw hugs and kisses at each other!)

=========================

I've had two things on my mind this week and it's a topic which hasn't come up since the days of MOMS Club. You know when I strangled myself with a jump rope and stabbed myself with a horse tranquilizer during a discussion of breast feeding at a playgroup?

I've found as my kids get older there are less hot buttons to trample on than there are when you're a mother of young kids surrounded by other mothers of young kids. Most of this is due to my highly developed sense of weeding people out.

We had drinks with another couple the other night and she is a librarian. We were talking about books and how there's no reason to finish a bad one, not when there are literally a million more to read. You'll never be able to read them all so cut your losses and move on.

I feel like that about people, if someone irritates you...which really has more to do with you than it has to do with them...move on. Because there are thousands of people out there who will be a better fit, you don't need to waste time on people who annoy you simply by being who they are.

Still there are two things that continue to drive me crazy in some parents I see around school and activities.

The first thing is people who try to pinpoint who gave their kid the flu/cold/strep whatever. This comes in the form of statements like, "Oh....so that's who gave it to us...." Or, "Didn't she realize he was sick? Why did she send him to school? Now my kid's got it!"

This is very similar to another issue I had as the mother of younger children desperately trying to fit in with my local MOMS Club. I wrote about it here.

There are a few things that bother me about this, the first one being the idea that it's so unusual for kids TO GET SICK. They get sick, you're stuck at home with them for a few days and maybe you eat mustard sandwiches because you can't get to the market. But really, this is called "life" and everyone gets sick. If you don't want illness to be a part of your life do yourself a huge favor and do not have kids.

The other thing that bothers me about this is the implication that some kid (or more specifically the kid's mother) purposely gave your kid a virus. That these irresponsible parents were so selfish they sent a sick child to school and now your kid is sick.

The truth is most illnesses are contagious before there are any detectable symptoms in your kid and if I were to keep my kids home from school every time they may have possibly come into contact with a virus or strep or whatever else is going around, my kids would never be in school. In fact they would have been home from November until now and probably wouldn't be able to make it back to school before summer break.

Instead of trying to pinpoint where your kid's illness came from let's use that energy to teach our kids to wash their hands.

The second thing is .... going to have to wait because I just really riled myself up. I think I pulled a muscle.