Stop the madness

A few years ago, my in-laws had some work done on their bathroom and laundry room. It was one of those Dateline-esque experiences. Everything that could go wrong did. Backwards, inside out, upside down and just plain sloppy.

We were there visiting this weekend and I had to laugh. Because in the laundry room taped to the mirror was this.

Now frankly I have no idea if this was the problem company or the one that fixed it. So let's give them the benefit of the doubt and go with the latter.

But come on, really.

Kwality Karpentry? I couldn't read it without putting my my best/worst Steve Martin "Wild and Crazy" guys voice "Kuh-wah-lity Karpentry!"

I know I'm not the only one who can't stand things being misspelled just to be cute. Or to create an unnecessary alliteration. Really I am a big believer in spelling things right. But I get that there is this strange inner force in some people that makes it, somehow, unavoidable to spell things creatively as some kind of a marketing gimmick.

But some things just shouldn't be misspelled.

Quality is one of them. Period. Never.

The madness must stop.

Kwit it. It's just plain kwazy.

When you hit a home run

I admit I am not a big sports fan.

Maybe it's being a total klutz myself. Maybe it's the fact that I run like a chicken (yes, indeed, go ahead and picture it). Maybe it's growing up an asthmatic. Or maybe it's just part of my perspective, but I am not a big sports girl.

Sure, you can take me out to the occassional ball game and buy me some peanuts and crackerjacks (and beer). But occassional is just fine.

So I also have to admit this spring has been a bit of a challenge for me. We have sports three nights a week (and Cub Scouts on the fourth) keeping us out at parks until 8:30 each night. I race out of work, pick up the kids, have them change in the back seat and race to the park. And then stand there baffled why I am the only parent still in work clothes.

As Brian defeatedly said to me the first week, "So this is our life now, huh?"

And this is just rec league sports. No traveling. No hyper competitive leagues. Sigh.

But last night was a little different.

Because last night, Noah hit the first home run of his life.

And as he ran the bases the crowd cheered and he pumped his little fist.

I was standing behind the fence at home plate as he ran from third on home. Perhaps the best part of all of it was him seeing me standing there and smiling the biggest smile I have seen in ages.  He ran on to home, his team cheered and he ran over and gave me a fist bump and a hug.

At the end of the night, his coach awarded him with the game ball which Noah promptly grabbed a sharpie and wrote his name on.

So yes, this is our life now. And it won't always be this sweet and certainly rarely this exciting and I still have to stand there in the grass and sand in my work dresses, but that was a good one.

That said, I am still thinking Little League might be more fun if the kids got CapriSuns and the adults got beer.

Little brothers

Just when you think...

Just when you are feeling like you are all the big kid. Like you have a cool antique desk. Like your lounge is all that. Like you have really made it.

It's just then that your little brother has to go and make it his naked jungle gym.

And no, Eli doesn't really have a Ken doll butt. I just don't want him to totally hate me someday.

On being content

The past few weeks I have been house dreaming. Ok, I'll own it, it's more than house dreaming. I might just have signed up with the alerts from the real estate company. The ones that show me perfect four-bedroom houses within the zip codes we'd be willing to look.

But still, just dreaming.

Our house is fine. It's more than fine. It's 90% great. 

But I'll own this, I am a girl who likes change. At least in some areas of my life. Career? Bring it. Wardrobe? Always. Hair color? Easy. Decor? Sure. Family and friends...not so much there. Constancy is good.

But I am a consummate American, for better or worse, I guess. I am a victim of "what's next?" Responsible what's next, but what's next all the same.

And so then I found it. Our perfect dream house. Our forever house. Everything we wanted. The 10 percent and then another 10 percent beyond that.

Problem.

We would just need an extra $100,000.

That isn't a stretch. It's an impossibility. But I don't do well with impossibility. Change sure. Impossibles, hmmm, not so much.

Problem is that while my couches may be filled with Cheerios, they don't seem to be filled with much more than that. An occasional penny, yes. But thousands of dollars, not so much.

And so this has been a weekend where I have reminded myself that it's okay to just be. To inhale what I do have rather than focusing on what I don't. To celebrate the 90 percent and try to ignore the other 10 percent. To just revel in being in content.

Of course, that's not to say I'm not still searching the couch cushions.

How do you say "Pickle Rapper" in French?

Dinners at our house are crazy. Oh don't get me wrong, I try to have a veil of decorum and manners and cleanliness. But the reality is... Well the reality is life. We wash our hands and get clean napkins and dishes and do our best. But all the same, it's just a bit of chaos most nights.

The other night we were eating tacos and hot dogs. Don't judge, I was in the car from 5:00 - 8:00 getting the kids to and from their sports. Leftovers it was.

Caleb: Can I have another pickle for my hot dog? [He was born in Chicago, after all.]

Brian: No, eat your hot dog [hold your inappropriate giggles people, we'll get there, I promise]

Caleb: Do you have little pickles? Or as I like to say, je m'apple?

Me: Um I think that is "My name is," side question, how do you know how to say "My name is" in French? That said, I am pretty sure you mean petite cornichons. But, Dude, I am impressed all the same.

Caleb: Right, je m'apple cornichons.

Me: Um, Caleb, I think you have your new nickname, dude. Do you know what you just said? You might be the only American kid ever to introduce yourself, in French, as a little pickle. You now have a new nickname, the Little Pickle.

Noah: [pipes up]: Dude, if you were a rapper, you'd be "Lil' Pickle."

Caleb: Yeah, that's right, I'm the Lil Pickle. How do you say pickle rapper in French?

And that is the point at which we had to walk out of the room.

Because a dinner with hot dogs, and pickles ad pickle wrappers rappers? Even I couldn't suppress the 13-year-old giggles.

Realizing your parents aren't cool

All it took to inspire him was me cleaning out the garage. There, mixed in between high school awards, mix tapes and bead necklaces from church camp was a pile of these.

Old school 45s.


Caleb fancies himself quite the urban hipster these days. Which, in itself, is hilarious. But really, we're letting him go with it. This tween age is tough. Wanting so much to be big and yet in so many ways still little.


His after school teacher is also a DJ and to say that he has had an impression on the boys would be an understatement. Before I knew it, with the help of some old USPS boxes, black construction paper, some sharpies and a lot of scotch tape, we had our own turntable ready for some sick beat boxing.

Mix Master C works it (usually in oversized headphones, I should note). Beats in his head.

And as cutely, alternately cool and geeky as it is...

What is even better is that the record that he found? The record that belonged to his father? The record that made Caleb think his Dad was "Awesome!" Was this.

I am hoping that no one has ever remixed "A Groovy Kind of Love" before. But if someone does in the future, it might just be Caleb.


And I am sure it will be greatness. (Said as only a mom can say...)

Don't be a superhero (Or: It's okay to buy shredded cheese)

Life is busy these days. As in ridiculously busy. Dinner-at-9:15-the-last-three-nights busy. But good busy.

As I try to get my bearings in a newer, busier life, I am trying to figure out how to balance it all.

And with that comes guilt. Sure, some of it we put on ourselves. We are too focused. Too unfocused. Too dedicated. Too scattered. Too on top of it. Too failing.

We are just too.

And in the too we are bound and determined to make ourselves feel like we are too.. too... too bound to fail.

If there is anything I have learned in the past few months, it’s something I knew already. But even more so now.

I am not a superhero.

AND...

I can tell myself that.

But at the same time, I have decided that I won’t let anyone tell me I am not a superhero.

AND...

I won’t let someone else let me define what a superhero is (or isn’t).

AND...

It all starts with shredded cheese.

Yes, shredded cheese.

I actually got in a conversation with a group of people recently about shredded cheese. And in it there was this very indignant moment where they all got very agitated about the insanity of buying shredded cheese. Expensive. Lazy. Lower quality.

I mean really...I get it. Shredding cheese isn’t that hard. Shred away on your grater. Or even open your food processor, add the attachment and grate away.

But the takeaway was there. If you buy shredded cheese you are an idiot.

I have never purported to be an expert on anything. Other than, oh, like, how my socks feel on my feet. So, really, like nothing.

But I am here to tell you something definitively. It’s okay to buy shredded cheese.

I don’t care if it’s more expensive. Or cheaper. Or somehow of less quality. Or the exact same price.

What shredded cheese boils down to (well that is fondue, but that is another topic for another time) is this:

We need to stop telling each other what is okay and what isn’t when it comes to managing the nuances of our lives.

I will buy shredded cheese. You can buy bricks.

It is okay. Because I am not a superhero.

Sign on the dotted line. Or the fence.

There was once a time when signing your name wasn't an obligation.

When "Initial here" didn't make you feel like you were signing your life away.

It wasn't about seeing the dollars disappear from your checking account. Or mindlessly paying at the checkout.


It wasn't about refinancing or signing legal documents or accepting certified packages.

There was a time when we were all immensely proud that we knew how to write our name. It meant we were growing up. Opening new doors. Being big.

 We knew how to write our names.

Or at least the first letter of them.

 Then we just had to learn to stop writing them on our faces.

The strange "holiday" that Mother's Day is...

Mother's Day is a funny holiday, isn't it? And no, not like funny "ha ha..." more like funny odd.

First, I find it amusing that it is scheduled in the midst of the school year ensuring that schools will observe the "holiday" in some fashion. Father's Day? Not so much. Roll it up with Flag Day and call it done. Sorry dads. This year? Brian and the boys will be enjoying the bed bugs at Scout camp together that weekend. So much for Father's Day.

And then there is that ying-yang nature of it. Are you the mom who wants nothing more than to cuddle with her angels and have breakfast in bed served by them? Reveling in their amazing moments speckled their impish handprints on the walls and their muddy shoes in the halls?

Or the yang? Are you the mom who, really, truly, just wants a day at the spa. Mother's Day is a break.

Ask me at any given five-minute interval and I am both. And while I am no expert, I am going to say it aloud. Mother's Day is a ridiculous holiday. Sure we mothers do a lot. We juggle. We laugh. We wipe. We clean. We wash. We referee. We scold. We escape. We are.

But that is kind of what we signed up for, isn't it? So here is my deal this Mother's Day...it's just another day. A day that will likely gloriously alternate between being a woman who can't imagine anything more blissful than the fact that someone calls her "Mom" and being one who can't escape to the salon fast enough.

With that, I leave you with Eli's reflections on me as a mother.

In that you probably can't read it yourselves it says:

Mom holds me on the potty.

My mom gets me breakfast.

Mommy lets me use the sharpener. (Note from me: Pencils people. Pencils)

My mom is good at driving.

She buckles my seatbelt.

She lets me use the paper

There are no more sippies in the cupboard.

Hmmm. I think I need to up my game. Happy Mother's Day out there. Be it the strange/wonderful day that it is/isn't.

Can't resist the Peas

Really not much I can say that these videos can't say for themselves.


Other than that I do recommend breaking out in dance the next time you finish a puzzle.

A beautiful cab ride

Last night I went to bed early to get enough sleep before flying to Chicago early this morning for a long day of work meetings.

As the alarm went off at 4:30 this morning I spotted texts from both my father and sister. Immediately, I thought something must be wrong. They don't tend to text me simultaneoulsy at 10:00 p.m.

But both were sharing the news that was traveling quickly, Osama Bin Laden was dead.

I arrived in Chicago a few hours later and joined the cab line. As my turn came, an older man exited his cab, smiled, greeted me in a Middle Eastern accent, putting my bag in the trunk.

On his radio were NPR reporters discussing, like most news programs today, the news of the attack and killing of Osama Bin Laden and what it meant.

I found myself wondering what he thought of the reports. Of the celebrations. Of the questions of what was next.

Then his phone rang.

Hello brother. How are you brother?

I know, I know, I am listening to the news now.


No, brother. No. You need to understand this. He who kills innocent people in the name of religion is not a man of religion.

That man was not a religious man. I love you brother. I'll talk to you later.

He hung up and smiled at me in the rearview mirror.

That was my brother-in-law. He is a Christian and I am a Muslim and he was worried that I would be upset about what happened. But I said to him, no. Sure there are people out there who believed in him and say they support him in the name of religion. But I believe most of us do not. I was reminding him that I have been married to his sister for 40 years and that he will always be my brother.

We talked the rest of the drive into the city, Aziz and I. About how he left Pakistan 40 years ago. About the challenges he and his wife have faced being a Christian-Muslim interfaith couple. About how sad it made him to hear his former home talked about so divisively. And about how much life changed in the last ten years.

And then he talked about his hopes.

Like so many of us, I have been thinking about all that has happened in the last 12 hours. What it means or doesn't mean.

And I don't know the answers. He didn't either.

But I do know that I had a very beautiful cab ride with a wonderful man named Aziz. A man who just happened to be from Pakistan.

Hard lessons for little boys

Living in the city with three boys can occasionally prove challenging.


We have a yard the size of a postage stamp. Okay, a Fed Ex label, but still. With each season, I find I have to tell the boys that their athletic abilities have outgrown our yard in yet another sport.

First was baseball. Self explanatory.

Last year was soccer. Their kicks were too touch for the neighbor's fence. (Not to mention my tomatoes.)

This year it is football. Arms are too strong. Tackles are too bold.

Then I had to tell them no more playing full-contact Nerf hoop basketball in front of a second floor picture window. (I know, I know, the things you don't think you need to say.)

But this weekend was a first. Evidently Noah's getting into his bunk bed skills have outpaced the height of our ceiling. I had to clarify that when I say, "Hop into bed!" I didn't really mean it.

I mean really. Who knew you he jump high enough to connect with the ceiling?

Maybe it's time to try out pole vaulting.