If I were interested in keeping it real, I would post what I wrote up on Wednesday and would also have left today’s title, “Keeping it Shirt on Friday.” But you don’t need MY real. You have enough of your own. Also, true to my typical pattern, I probably won’t keep it short anyway.

I have a kid performing in his first ever concert tonight. He has resisted performing until this moment. Even in kindergarten, he would only hold the cloud. He wouldn’t sing. When the song blared “You raise me up,” he’d raise his cloud just enough to cover his face. It was any parent’s dream concert. Tonight he’s the drummer. They are doing We Come Running by Youngblood Somebody and Speed of Sound by Coldplay. They just learned these songs on Monday and most of the band members are 12. We made him go to this camp. Signed him up without his permission. He said it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to him. Right after the 9 months he spent in my womb and my awesome parenting. He said that.

Speaking of awesome parenting…last night it wasn’t. It was not a smooth night. It was like a modern day Lord of the Flies. I would walk out of the room and things would be fine. When I walked back in, I was forced to reach for the tranquilizer guns we do not own. Some children were sent to bed an hour early with no personal screen time.

As Todd and I were wandering the upstairs hall solving problems, he walked past the girls’ door, where the following signs were displayed.

“Uh oh,” he said, pointing at the door. “Apostrophe catastrophe.”

Two things were wrong with this. One, the actual catastrophe. It’s pretty bad. And two, the signs had been up for a week and I hadn’t noticed. I’m going to chalk this one up to parental neglect.

Which could be the reason for the Lord of the Flies. Good thing it’s the weekend…

Winking should not be done. Period. It’s awkward. The occasions that call for an appropriate wink are probably less than 50 per year, worldwide. Yeah. I’m standing behind those numbers.

If you have ever winked at someone or been winked at, I’m talking to you. Take a step back and think about it. Let’s think about when it works (besides never).

• Person catching the eye of a friend to signal inside information or a private joke of some sort. Like, hey, WE GET THIS and no one else does. You look like a jerk to everyone else, but to that one person, you’re a hero. So go for it, I guess.
• Person winks at younger person to acknowledge some sort of achievement, like on the sports field or at a performance. It’s a little patronizing, though, even in this case, don’t you think? You think you are saying “good job” to them, but it really translates to “good job, if you’re medicated and have a concussion” because of the wink.
• Person winks at potential dating material. It can work, but it’s creepy. And outdated. You really want to date an old person?  No. Then don’t wink. Cuz that’s what you’re gonna end up with.
• Little kid winking at anyone and everyone, but they have no control over their eye muscles, so it just comes out as a violent double blink. It’s cute if you are 3 or under.

I went through a winky phase, which lasted way too long. If the phase had lasted an hour, it would have been too long, but I think it actually lasted about 2 weeks. There are people all over Florida that are probably still creeped out by what I was doing with my face. Sorry about that.

But then something new happened. People decided that since winking was so successful in person, they would invent a way to do it online. People turned to emojis. Some Japanese guy invented it. The world embraced it.

I rejected it.

For a long, long time, I rejected this technology out of sheer stupidity. But the craze didn’t end. It got bigger, and fancier, and more colorful. Before it was over, there were smiling hershey kisses representing whatever you might suspect. And there were country flags and holidays and broken hearts and ghosts wearing eye patches. But there were also faces. Lots and lots of teeny, tiny faces. Where I had once rejected the practice out of principle, I was now forced to reject it due to my failing old person eyesight. Emojis are not for the ancient folk. Honestly, I have friends who are just a few years younger who send them to me and I have no idea what they are saying. I can’t see it. Not one bit. Can’t see the eyes, the mouth, anything.

If you want to offend me and get away with it, do it through Emojis. I won’t know. But if you try to say something nice through emojis, i still won’t know.

Sometimes I try to rise above the challenges and use them. That is the biggest mistake of all. What do they mean? What is the message behind them? This first guy…is he angry about a sinus problem? Allergy season? Why are his eyes closed? Are they swollen shut?

And this guy. What is the HUGE drop of water coming from where his nose should be? I have NO IDEA what this means. I can’t even venture a guess as to the mood he’s in. Confused? Sleepy? Afraid of books?

This guy. This guy appears on my phone with the same smile and many different types of eyes. What do closed eyes convey over open ones? Guy who has made a serious error but is still smiling and is afraid of impending pepper spray. It has to be that. Otherwise his eyes would be open.

While I was typing this post, my daughter sat down across from me at a table in a skating rink and asked me a question. I answered her question and then winked at her. I didn’t do it to prove a point or make a statement. I did it out of misguided instinct. Old habit.

She didn’t recognize my gesture as a wink. So I grabbed my phone and texted her this guy as if to say…?

Well.
Good thing I never set up unnaturally high expectations for things. That way I’m never disappointed.
Oh wait. I do and I am.
But it’s all good because it’s summer. A summer without schedules. With swimming. With laughing and frolicking and playing.

That’s what I thought. But then I called about football tryouts for my oldest boy’s high school. I thought I was actually being proactive and calling a tad ridiculously early. That’s when I was informed they’d already been practicing for 3 days and I needed to get off my summer-lazy hiney, get the boy’s physical, get his medical pack notarized, and get him to conditioning by Monday at 4. Oh good. Today is Monday. And you know when 4 o’clock is.

So Summer ended before it began.

But that’s a glass half empty approach.

I’ll try for glass half full.

YAY. I get to take a kid to football practice from 4-6:30 and then somehow get him showered and fed before skating begins at 7! Still glass half empty, isn’t it?

My glass is half empty. Whatever.

So, the Informinator heard I had taken a day off blogging last Friday and said, “Oh, there we go…see you in 6 months.” Her glass is all the WAY empty. Sheesh. I took a day off because everyone was as sick of reading the blog as I was of writing it. Sometimes we all just need to walk away.

My youngest, snuggilest daughter came to me in the dead of night Saturday. It was 2:15 a.m. Sunday morning. I always hear my door open and see the stream of light attacking my eyeballs from the hall bathroom. The stories are always similar. I can’t sleep. I had a nightmare. There are 100 spiders in my room. Blah blah.

“I had a bad dream,” she said.

Wanting the wakefulness to end as quickly as possible, I invited her up to my bed for a quick snuggle. I didn’t ask questions because I didn’t want either one of us to become more awake than we already were. Then I sent her back to bed.

Two and a half frustrating hours later, I think I fell back asleep. It was a restless, exhausting night. I go to sleep fine. But if you wake me in the middle, I don’t resume sleep very easily. Having lost so much sleep over her bad dream, I needed to ask what it was about. Over breakfast on Sunday, I asked her. Was it a scary clown? A storm? A bogeyman? Serial kidnapper? 

“No, it was about Flash,” she answered. Flash is Brady’s neglected hamster. “I took him down to the deck by the river. It started to rain so I ran in the house and left him out there. I guess he fell in, because I never saw him again.” So you don’t even know that he fell in the river? It’s just a hamster wandering off? That was the bad dream?

It’s time to have a talk about what the mother can be awakened for. It isn’t for hamster dreams. I will schedule this talk today between the notarization and the football practice.

Bam.

Yeah.

I just read my posts from early January. Not because I was bored, but because I was pretty sure I had switched horses in the middle of the stream.

I talked a big game about intentions, roads to Hell, surviving until Valentine’s Day. I did mean it. I always mean it. But as usual, there were things. In March there was that whole spring break thing. In April there were allergies and doctors. In May, I began the awkward process of screwing everything up at the end of the school year and spent the rest of my time trying to drum up acceptable excuses for it.

My goals were to parent better, get healthy, save money, and be more efficient. Oh, me. Silly me. I guess I could be considered healthier in some lesser-known countries. Places where the water supply is tainted and the women are fluffy. And I guess you could say I saved money, until the field trip money was due and I raided the jar. And I guess you could possibly say I got more efficient, because I now keep my extra garbage can liners under the current bag of garbage in the can. I mean, that saves all KINDS of time and effort.

But around 1 Kings 4, my bible reading dropped off…no offense to the Kings. And I haven’t yet met any viable fitness goals. In that sense, I am tempted to call it a failed experiment, blow off the rest of the year, and start over on January 1, 2017. That would be the path of least resistance.

I really don’t think I want to do that. I think it can be saved. A thing is only dead when you allow it to die. A dream is only dead if you walk away from it. A goal, a hope, a mapped-out plan for the future…only dead if I turn my back. And I haven’t done that yet. It’s summer. It’s the half birthday of my resolutions. And by George, I don’t have to quit yet.

Most of my goals are the same as they were on January 1. They are just as important to me now as they were then. But I added a big one, which is the mid-stream horse switcheroo. I started my novel. The one that’s been in my head for 2 years. I’m 5 chapters in and loving the process 115% more than I expected I would. Some people would say that it’s dumb to add a HUGE goal into a mix of failing goals. If you are already struggling to run the 5K, don’t sign up for a half marathon the same weekend. People who say such things are smart people.

I’m not those people.

So the novel is on the list. And the other stuff stays on the list. Making new lists is on the list.

Squirrel.

Cafeteria ladies do not make enough money or garner enough respect. I know this, because after 20 minutes in the cafeteria yesterday during 2^nd grade’s lunch period, I was almost dead from the lacerations caused by loud, shrill, utterly intolerable noises. It was not unlike being trapped in a small, closed barn with howler monkeys. And I glanced over at Ms. Sallie on several occasions (meaning that she could not have been faking it) and she was unruffled. Completely calm and patient with these savages.

One public caning in that cafeteria would lower the noise level.

As I’ve been back and forth between home and school this week, I’ve experienced a dichotomy of activities and attitudes. The boys are out of school and have been since June 1. And since that time, they haven’t done enough activity to skew the results of a blood pressure machine mid-take. I’m surprised there aren’t bedsores by now. The girls, however, have been moving at breakneck speed toward the end, trying to stay one step ahead of their non-snack-bearing mother, which isn’t difficult. I came into my bathroom tonight and the oldest had showered. I mean, that’s good. I promote showers. But his towel, shorts, and underwear were in a heap. A wet, smelly heap. In MY bathroom. Keep your wet, smelly heaps to yourself. I looked down at that, thought about the bedsores, and decided a housework boot camp might be in order soon. I pictured how that would go and I smiled big and goofy. I think it’s going to go terribly. But I’m still gonna do it. It’ll be a fun new way to fail. 

Because sometimes all your failure needs is a fresh idea.

Summer starts today. Boot camp is coming. Life is good. 

#summersavvysnapps

This morning, I walked my daughters into the courtyard of their school and dropped them there. As I was turning to go, my younger daughter came running back to me for a hug and then ran off. Just when I thought I was about to walk away again, my youngest came running back again.

“Another hug?” I asked.

“No,” she answered. “I just found a Jolly Rancher on the ground and I wanted to ask you if I should keep it.”

“You should not,” I answered.

“That’s what I thought,” she laughed and then ran off.

Sometimes I feel like I’m trapped in a Junie B. Jones book.

Probably right about now, all 13 people that read this post are thinking, “It’s June 9, your kids are still in school??!” To that I would say, YES. WE ARE. And we are IN PAIN. It’s June 9 and we are STILL IN SCHOOL! Still forgetting to sign planners. Still forgetting to make the online payment so they don’t have $-.20 in their lunch account and get nasty letters home from the cafeteria staff. Still forgetting to send in snack for the entire class. Yesterday was “Bring a snack day” in Jenna’s class. So, like every good mother who wants her child to have a snack in class, I prepared her a baggie of pretzels and a mini pack of Pringles. I mean, let’s be real here. She took TWO SNACKS. I had nailed it. Until I walked into her class to ask a random, unrelated-to-snacks question and saw all the BIG snacks on the front table. Cupcakes, oreos, sugar cookies. Hmm. Wonder what all of that is. I walked out of there and talked to another mom, only to discover that “Bring a snack” meant BIG SNACK TO SHARE.

Brother. It wasn’t snack day. This was a party.

To be fair to me, the mom who gave me the info had forgotten also. She had the knowledge, but no snack. So I got in my car and drove immediately to Winn Dixie. I bought snacks for me and for the other mom. 2 boxes of Caprisuns, 2 packages of mini chocolate cupcakes, and 2 packages of yummy frosted sugar cookies. $21 later, I walked back out of Winn Dixie with everything but my dignity. From that parking lot, I went straight to school and walked back into Jenna’s classroom. I snuck in while they were watching some type of presentation and walked over to the snacks table with my stuff. All of the other prepared-mom-snacks-to-share were arranged on the table. Among them was my daughter’s baggie of pretzels and tiny little package of Pringles.

That was my crowning moment. That was it. Wish I’d taken a picture of my initial contribution. But hey, I stuck my $21 worth of party stash on the table and walked out of there a proud woman. Then I texted my friend to tell her how awesome we were…how GREAT our snacks were. And how we’d nailed it for ONE MORE DAY.

Backwards Moms Unite.

ONE.

MORE.

DAY.

If I am going to post most weekdays, which is my current intention, I need not pretend that I have 5 days worth of stuff to tell. Some weeks, I do.  But there will be times I just keep it short and sweet.

At any rate, I feel I should apologize to the greater Tampa Bay area. It is my mockery of past treatments of tropical storms that caused the last 48 hours to occur. I believe it is called Karma. Mine is bad. I scoffed at the news reports, daring Colin to do his best. Well, he did. He wasn’t bluffing. I woke up from a dead sleep at 12:30 with my eyes WIDE OPEN and could not believe the show. Lightning, thunder, howling wind, and rain coming down in the sheets so thick it didn’t look like Earth anymore. It was the stuff of sci-fi. I was up a lot last night. Up again at 5, as were some very chatty girls. When they finally got back to sleep at 5:45, as the storm raged on, I decided that their college careers wouldn’t be stunted by taking a Tuesday off from elementary school and we all went back to bed. That was sweet sleep.

Lilian wasn’t able to go back to sleep. This is a new place, new people, new weather for her. She laid in bed and listened to it.

Tonight at dinner, the kids were acting like they were making audition tapes for military school. I said something about what Lilian must really think of us and what she’d go back saying.

“She’s going to tell everyone she stayed with some really weird people,” Todd said.

“I think she’s going to use a stronger word than weird,” I replied.

“Like stupid?” Andrew chimed in.

“Yes, that was more what I was thinking,” I answered. And Lilian, mimicking what she might say to her family back home said this:

“You should meet the psychopathic people I stayed with.”

Boom. Nailed it.

It isn’t often that a person whose first language is not English can call you psychopathic and be 100% accurate in her usage. Well played. Dutch people got it going on. Some Americans, not so much.