Archive for the “The Rockstar” Category
Happy
NaBloPoMoMaNaNoNoBaNaNa
Kickoff
Day!
I love happy endings.
Yesterday had a happy ending.
The Teacher e-mailed me back and said that was just fine if I wanted to pick him up, but they also had an extra costume if I was ok with letting Dino stay. I e-mailed back that was fine with me, but I was still coming in just in case Dino might have a meltdown. I got to the school a little bit early and came into his classroom. Of course the kids were completely wired for sound; actually ricocheting of the walls like super-bounce balls.
The Teacher came up and said to me, “I offered the costume to D and he said ‘no, thank you’ but he does still want to be in the parade. I asked him what he was going to dress up as, and he said he was going to be himself.”
I said, “Great! Sounds good to me.”
The Teacher announced, “Ok, boys and girls, it’s time for us to get dressed for the parade! I’ll help the boys and The Para will help the girls.”
The Dinosaur dressed up as “Himself”
He gave D some coloring stuff to do while everyone got changed, and chaos ensued. At one point, D buried his head in his crossed hands on his desk, and I was worried we might have an impending meltdown. Loud freaks him out. But he looked like he was handling it for himself pretty well, so I left him alone to take care of his own distress. The other kids were getting changed into their costumes, yelling excitedly and running in tight circles not unlike a highly caffeinated herd of Jack Russell Terriers.
Oh, and one interesting note… one little boy dressed up as a girl. What better costume for the budding closet transsexual? Um, yikes. Of course, he got the most attention from all the other kiddies; but much to my surprise, it was fascination rather than derision. He must’ve pulled it off because he was one of the cool kids.
The Teacher had everyone line up for the parade and at the last second, D got up and joined the line, next to last place. The procession, well, proceeded. The Para showed us other moms the short cut out to the playground where the kids would end up. We walked through the gymnasium and down the fire exit to the playground.
Ok, side note? All elementary school gyms smell the same. I walked through the double doors and instantly was flooded of memories of the humiliation of getting chosen last for teams, staggering in last in races, and forged notes excusing myself from the requisite involuntary indignities that is Physical Education. I found myself wishing that I had been able to raise my kids where I grew up so I would see a full circle, bringing my sons back to where I was humiliated educated. Partially the nostalgia of returning, but also partially so I could go to parent/teacher conferences and say, “See, I turned out OK in spite of your insistence that I would never amount to anything since I was brilliant yet completely incapable of applying myself.” I had a hearing impairment and ADD to boot; and instead of an IEP, I got shamed because I could not be what they insisted I should be.
Oops. That’s a tangent I didn’t intend to go off on. Moving on.
Anyway, we got downstairs just in time to see the 2nd & 3rd graders parading and the 4th & 5th graders supervising. I heart R’s teacher. She’s so perfect for him. She came up and chatted a little and told me how well he’s been doing.
The Dinosaur marching in the parade dressed up as “Himself”.
The girl in front of him is apparently dressed as “All Red”.
The Rockstar hard at work supervising with the Cool Kids.
I spent time in both kids’ classrooms for their Halloween parties. Oh, man. The sugar. The horror. God bless all teachers everywhere for enduring Class Parties. I would have taken pics of the parties, but I was frozen in morbid fascination at the pandemonium.
At one point, I was reading over R’s last book report, and dang, my kid is good. His teacher saw what I was reading and came over and said, “I hope you understand that a lot of what he writes is not grammatically correct, but I just leave it. He writes just like he talks, he bends the rules a little. His writing has his voice, like you can hear him speaking as you’re reading his work. He’s going to be a fantastic writer, and I don’t want to squash that with red ink.”
I almost kissed her. In a totally non-lesbian way, of course.
Later, we went to the church party. As you enter the party, all kids 7th grade and under can put their name in a basket for a prize. Up front they had an eight foot by 3 foot table stacked with good prizes. Now to get the loot, you gotta go through the puppet show and the singing; ok, no problem, it actually wasn’t that bad. It was pretty loud though, so I had to take D out into the hallway for a little bit where he could watch without protectively shutting himself down. As soon as that concluded, he was absolutely fine with going back in. Next, a guy dressed up as a greenhorn calling himself “Marshal Fife” comes out with a cart with pumpkin on it. I sucked in my breath, because oh hells no, my church better not friggin’ teach my kids that the wages of sin are pumpkin guts. All was well, though, because Marshal Fife (AKA Ben, a really fantastic youth ministry helper, really funny, kids love him) teaches all the li’l chi’drens that the pumpkin is like our lives. As he dug out the guts, he explained that the guts are yucky like sin. And as he lit the candle inside and turned the pumpkin to reveal the cross carved in the pumpkin, he explained that when Jesus is in our lives, he cleans out the sin so His love can shine through us. I audibly exhaled a sigh of relief. Good thing, because I wouldn’t want to have to snap on anyone, all Christian-ly-like, of course. No one better ever tell my kids that they’re yucky inside. Leave the emotional scarring to me. I don’t need you to teach my kids right now that they’re inherently evil inside and give them a completely negative connotation of God. They’ll get enough of that later on in life. For now, let’s leave it at sin is yucky, not them. And God’s primary objective is to take care of his children, like the Heavenly Dad that he is, not like Heavenly Mean Man Just Waiting for the Opportunity to Strike You Dead with Lightning, mmmkay?
Oops. There’s another tangent. Moving on.
Finally, the kids had paid their dues in the form of barely containing their unbridled enthusiasm for their body weight in sugar, and it was time for the drawing. I had a good opportunity to teach them to speak “positivity” instead of “negativity”. As they started pulling and calling names, my kids start muttering. “Look at that big basket. I’m not gonna win. I never win anything.” etc. etc. And I said, “Now, listen, stop that. You speak that negativity, and you give it power. I want you to take that back and replace it with “I hope I win. I might win. I could win.” Of course, at first they looked at me like I had suggested they do double homework for the rest of the year. But wonder of wonders, they decided that mom had been right before and took my advice. Less than one minute later, they pulled R’s name and he ran up and got a nerf dart gun. He came back yelling, “You were right, mom, you were right!” Geez, do ya hafta sound so suprised?! D’s name didn’t get called, and his chin started to quiver, but once I reminded him that there were still an hour of games and candy downstairs in the gym, he perked right up.
We got downstairs and the boys had a blast. They played games and ate hot dogs and nachos. They won toys and candy. And I sat my butt down in the middle of the gymnasium and listened to my iPod. I was ‘home base’. About every five minutes, either boy would run back to me and I exclaimed over their loot and then they’d drop it on me and go get more. And the best part about it was it was all free. No money for tickets for stuff. Free. R kept on saying that they made out like bandits and I finally reminded him that bandits steal stuff, but the church gave them that party to bless everyone. And he tilted his head and looked at me all serious and said, “Man, mom, God is good.” And, that, ladies and gentleman, is one of the kodak moments I had kids for, and so rarely receive. I guess that’s so I appreciate it even more when it does happen.
So don’t you just love happy endings? I just love me some happy endings.
Dude, it took me a couple hours to write this. How am I gonna keep this up for the next 29 days?! What if I get a *gasp* job and have something better to do than relax in front of the computer?!
Rip it, roll it, and punch it, dude. God’s good.
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How about some sugary cuteness with a side of adorable?  My favorite Halloween.
For once, procrastination paid off and I got these
costumes from the Disney Store for 50% off.
The Dinosaur is Woody, and The Rockstar is the ninja.
That’s my sis-in-law on the left, and my nieces and nephew.
Trick or Treating together makes it even more
fun for the kids and less painful for the adults.
The last time the boys dressed up and went trick-or-treating was ’04.
I didn’t know at the time that this was going to be our last ToT.
Would I have done anything different? No.
But I would have soaked in the cutesy yumminess more.
I have a Halloween dilemma. I shall explain.
In ’05, when I suggested forgoing ToT in 40 degree weather for a warm church party, The Dinosaur was all for it and The Rockstar was skeptical, but willing to try it. They came home with more candy then they would have gotten for ToT and they got to play a bunch of games to boot and got kool-aid, hot dogs, and popcorn. And I was Mom of the Week. No costumes were purchased. Neither boy cared at all.
So in ’06, I didn’t even have to cajole them into the car. They were in the back seat waiting impatiently, and honking when their dad and I didn’t come out of the house quite fast enough. Rocky was a 4th grader who didn’t parade in a costume at school, and Dino’s school didn’t parade, period. No costumes were purchased. Neither boy cared at all.
This year, I again gave them the choice of ToT vs. Church Party, and I might as well have asked them would they like pepperoni or snails on their pizza. Duuuhhhh, Mom. Much eye rolling from them and apologizing from me ensued. So sorry, a thousand pardons, where was my head, etc. No costumes have been purchased. It remains to be seen if either boy cares at all.
This year, D is at R’s school now, and 2nd & 3rd graders wear costumes and parade the halls while the 4th & 5th graders watch. Now, the only reason I would have to buy D a costume this year is for that 20 minute parade. And I just couldn’t justify spending $20 for a 20 minutes. So I talked to D about it, and he said he didn’t care if he paraded or not. But. I’m worried that at the last minute, D will have one of his meltdowns because he wants to parade in a costume, and it won’t matter to him if I try to explain that I offered the choice earlier. Very often, even though we give him a choice and he gives us an answer, it doesn’t quite sink in until he’s actually presented with the situation. And it very well could go the other way– a meltdown because he’s terrified to put on a costume and parade around with his friends. Too much of a breakdown in his routine. (I have another good story about what happened when I tried to change Dino’s routine at school once, but NaBloPoMo is coming, and I can save it for that.) We just never know what will happen until he is actually presented with the situation. And just to let you know, the meltdown is not a temper tantrum. He’s not mad, kicking and screaming. He’s terrified and sobbing. Much harder on a Mom’s heart.
So this morning I e-mailed his teacher and told him I’d pick up D early right before the kids got their costumes on. I explained my reason to him. I haven’t gotten a response. But I’m so worried about what his teacher is going to think of me. I know I shouldn’t, but I do. Will D’s teacher think I am a mean, cheap-ass wench who is going to scar her child for life? Will D have a meltdown and prove I am indeed a mean, cheap-ass wench who is going to scar her child for life? Why do I give a rip? These are the questions that agonize me.
The Hunkman is showing off his new toy on his page. Go see!
Rip it, roll it, and punch it, dude. And I sure hope you raid your children’s Halloween candy after they go to bed just like HunkyDory does.
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My baby is ELEVEN, people. *shakes head in disbelief*
That’s not The Rockstar I’m holding; that’s his cousin. But this is a great pic of me big and pregnant with R. I was about 34-36 weeks along here.
About a half hour old
Our new family, about 6 hours old
About 6 months old
One year old
Two years old
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2006
2007
Tonight, just a couple hours ago
You make me happy… crazy… surprised… frustrated… proud… mad… baffled… sometimes all in one day. Sometimes all in one hour.
Dad blesses you every night with this verse and he always will… “The LORD bless you and keep you; The LORD make His face shine upon you, And be gracious to you; The LORD lift up His countenance upon you, And give you peace.”’ Numbers 6:24-26 (New King James Version)
Happy Birthday, you little yahoo… someday I’ll tell you your whole birth story. It’s a good one.
I love you, boog.
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(This evening’s blog entry is presented uninterrupted and commercial-free, and has been sponsored by All or Nothing.)
I was at the library a few days ago. I was skimming the adult fiction shelves and I saw a book by Tami Hoag I hadn’t read yet, The Last White Knight. I’ve read a lot of her books and enjoyed her writing immensely, mostly murder mystery thrillers that make me bite my bottom lip and stay up until 2am reading when I know full well that I have to be to work at 7 and short sleep truly does a cranky Dory make. I get home and start reading this book and quickly realize that this is not Tami’s standard who-dun-it. It is a who-dun-who. And it’s not a mystery who-dun-who, because it’s smut. At first I was all indignant, all what the hell is this crap? and then figured out it’s not new material, it’s a re-release in hardcover, an encore presentation if you will. Her first book deal was a series of Harlequin-esque diddies, the likes of which my sensitive reading taste turns up its snotty (*snickers*) haughty nose at. So I start out all oh hell no and then I get all well it is Tami so how bad could it be? and moved on to well, just one chapter won’t hurt and then um, rrrowrrr, and I was hooked. I read the whole damn thing. I felt like I ate a whole damn cake. That book was solid chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, sprinkles, and three scoops of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream. Total brain junkfood. But mm mm mmmm it was good. I still feel a little guilty. I made it through Anna Karenina, how could I possibly have enjoyed that book so much, what with all its iron-hard tumescence and entrance of her feminity. Gah! Oh, but it was steamy. Then the book I just finished tonight, The Infidelity Pact by Carrie Karasyov, was just ok, pretty much brain candy. I’ll save you some time and just tell you, the killer was
This blog entry has been interrupted for this Special Hard-Hitting Infomercial.
ProActiv rocks, girls. My skin is not just problem skin, it is juvenile delinquent skin. I tried everything; Clearasil, Clean & Clear, Avon, Mary Kay, nothing worked. I finally bit the bullet and shelled out the dough for ProActiv, and I was very surprised when it worked so well. The only thing I didn’t like about it was that to order it, you had to set up an account with them and give them a credit card number they could charge every time they delivered a batch. Cancel anytime, my ass. When you try to cancel that kind of stuff, they deliver that request via Pony Express and your decendents continue to pay long after they’ve paid your funeral expenses. So I got it on eBay. Works perfect. LOVE IT.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog entry in progress.
And that, my friends, is the meaning of life.
The job hunt and the resulting broke-ness continues. I have one resume out there I’m sure I’ll get an interview for, but I’m also pretty sure I’ll hate it. It’s a graphic design position for test booklets. *yawns* *finds a wall with wet paint* *pulls up a chair and stares slack-jawed at the wall* Then I have another resume out for a graphic design position at our local community college, and I’m really excited about this one. I’d be doing graphic design in-house for whatever the college needed. Includes free tuition (you mean I might not have to pay $309 for ASL 4?!), great benefits, and a free membership to the campus gym which is a really nice facility, just built a couple years ago.
I still haven’t gotten paid for that freelance job I did back the last week in July. Absolutely ridiculous. Apparently, Invoice Due Upon Receipt means Whenever You Get Damned Good and Ready. $1100 might not be a lot to them, but right now it’s the only thing standing between me and foreclosure.
The Seester might kill me for discussing this with y’all before I even discussed it with her, but her darling nephew, Rocky, is going to turn my whole head gray before I hit 40. Hunky told me on the way to pick boys up from school that he had just checked history on Firefox, and about six days ago, there was a whirlwind of adult-site type activity. Now seeing as how he has promised me no porn and it’s just understood that I will not look at porn (1-I’m not interested and 2-If I was, that would be an unfair double standard) and Dino’s off on his planet most of the time and hasn’t even asked what sex IS yet, that leaves… Rocky. He did have the courtesy of not even trying to lie about it. We had a discussion about how pornography is evil, it objectifies women, it makes deviant crap seem normal which in turn stunts any relationship you do have with a real woman, etc. etc. etc. and I think he actually listened. I thought we handled it really well, on the outside. On the inside, I’m screaming, my baby wants to know what underwater sex looks like?! ACK! But I knew this day was coming, he’s about to turn 11, and we may be facing hormonal surge-age a lot sooner than I was ready for. But would I ever really be ready? Sure, when he was about 27.
HunkyDory has a don’t-ask-don’t-tell approach to sex education. We don’t initiate a birds-and-the-bees conversation, but if you’re old enough to ask, you’re old enough to tell. We will tell them almost anything and answer almost any questions that arise. Rocky was six and half when he asked, and we explained and showed him kid-level books and discussed our views and morals, basically we had This is What Sex is All About Week at our house. Dino just turned eight and hasn’t even asked about, or talked about, sex yet. I suspect that has something to do with the Asperger’s. But it still worries me some. Isn’t it a milestone that kids hit at a certain time like walking and talking? We have an appointment about the Asperger’s in September and I want to try to remember to ask the doctor about this. Should I initiate the conversation or wait until he asks?
Rip it, roll it, and punch it, dude.
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It seems no matter how much I get done, instead of feeling accomplished, I feel even more behind. My ppc has a task list feature complete with a reminder on the ‘today’ screen, so now I have digitized neuroticism.
I got all the boys’ clothes sorted and put away, but I haven’t even touched their winter clothes yet. I still have to sort through those and put into “still fits R”, “now fits D”, and “Goodwill” piles then get them put away in their dressers. While I’m at it, I’m going to force myself to give up a large chunk of my winter wardrobe. I have items that have been through at least three winters and never actually been worn.
Are you sitting down? Good. I finally started the curtains for the office tonight! Yay!
I filled out all the boys’ school forms and took them to open house at school to meet their teachers today. A Dinosaur-sized meltdown was narrowly avoided on the way into school. He was still being all weird after we got inside, so the teachers got a glimpse of the Crap Sandwiches he can serve up. I met both boys’ teachers. They both have regular teachers, then they both have Spec Ed teachers, Speech Therapists and Paras built into their IEPs. Rocky’s teacher seems to be just right for him, she’s pleasant but has good puttin-da-smackdown potential. I already knew his Spec Ed teacher, (and I like her) and his Para, so that was no surprise. Dino’s teacher is all brand-new and fresh-faced, and has absolutely no clue what’s about to hit him. His Spec Ed teacher seems fine and his Para too. School starts Tuesday. I’m waiting with bated breath right along with every other mom that has been at home all day long with the bored young’uns for the past 12-ish weeks. Tuesday morning at about 8:10am will find me on the way home from dropping the kids off for the first day of school and wishing that it was societally correct to chug a morning celebratory beer. The first day is a half day, wassup with that?! So kids start back Tuesday, ASL 3 starts in a week for yours truly, and Hunky’s back in school August 29. Wooooot.
Man, the summer has flown by. What with all the job applications and the couple freelancing jobs I picked up and tackling a multitude of mundane house projects, summer snuck right by me. I finished up the big freelance project I took on, but they’re dragging their heels on paying me, which really worries me. I was told at first that they would pay me a couple days after delivery of the project to the event, then when over a week went by, I im’d the main contact I had to tell him I hadn’t received a check yet, and he apologized profusely and said it would be more like three weeks since they were going to cut the check at their next meeting. They owe me over $1100, which I’ve already promised to the mortgage company. Then we got two certified letters from the IRS today reminding us that because of an oversight back in 2004, we owe an additional $870. Ain’t bein’ a grownup grand?!
I probably built up the naughty sex toy party and sign language combination a little too much, but that’s ok, right? Friday night I had a party, and a good time was had by all. I made walking tacos and many drank a little more than is socially correct. :) Anywho, a very good friend I made back in January-ish when I started hangin’ out in the Deaf community was there. Her husband had taught me a bunch of the more raunchy signs, and this knowledge came in very handy when there were a few times during the evening that I did a little interpreting between her and the Passion Party Consultant. I had to laugh when at one point the consultant stopped and said, “Wait, what was that sign again?!” If you want, go check out her website and if you order anything, we’ll get it to you. :)
Finally, Rebecca tagged me so you can blame her for the next rambling paragraph.
Why do I blog?
I suppose you deserve a better reason than “why not?”.
I started blogging in 2003 over at LiveJournal when me and the mister were separated. I wrote mostly to bitch vent. I wrote sporadically and sported this whole bitter-angsty vibe (as opposed to the cheery-angsty vibe? Duh.). In April I moved over to blogger and took the clean-slate opportunity to lighten the frick up. Now I blog to entertain/inform my real-life friends of the plot line on the Dory Show, and maybe even garner some attention from new victimes people out there in InternetLand. I also blog just because I enjoy writing. As I said yesterday, I just love words, and I always have. I love the emotions I evoke for myself and others, and I enjoy making words play nicely together. In my kindergarten play, I got to be the narrator because I was the only kid in class that could already read. All through school when the teacher assigned reading/writing exercises, the other kids groaned, but I was in my element. In those moments, it didn’t matter that I felt completely awkward socially, didn’t know quite how to fit in, and my peers didn’t know quite how to take me. It was just me and words and my imagination, and we got along fine.
Rip it, roll it, and punch it, dude.
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