It's ART mom!

 

In all the 10 years of his life, I think this is the most shocked I've been by something my son has done. And he was being completely sincere and innocent about an act that is linked with vandalism.

 

Here's what happen...I was in the house speaking to a security system salesman. My son was entertaining himself outside. He'd come in and out sporadically to get supplies for whatever he was doing. Our front door was open, so I could see a sliver of outside. I glanced over from the dining table to see some movement outside that caught my eye. I didn't believe my eyes at first. I had to ask the salesman if he could see what I was seeing. Yep, we were both seeing it. My son was TPing my huge Oak tree out front. And he was loving it! We both got up from the table and went out front to ask him what he was doing. "Christian! What are you doing?!" He looks over at me with a huge smile, "I'm making art mom!". I was flabbergasted. Speechless. I finally found the words to be a mom again, "Honey! That's great and all, but that is making a mess and can be confused for vandalism! You have to stop doing that! I won't be able to get all that down!" So he stops. I tell him to clean it up and go back to my salesman. Christian walks in with the empty toilet paper roll and plops it onto a sculpture he had made at school and said, "There! Now my sculpture is done." He was using up the toilet paper in order to use the roll for his sculpture! He had seen some kids TPing a house in a movie recently and figured it was a fun way to get rid of the toilet paper on the roll. It was torture not to laugh out loud.

 

 

Nasty!

My son was rooting through the fridge one day and he pulled out a container of turkey. He was horrified to find what he thought was really old turkey turned black. It was actually an avocado half that I had put in a reused turkey container. His face was priceless!

Just another Thursday night...

So we got home from running errands and I walk into the living room to find my son wearing a Target bag and my daughter wearing her sweater with her legs in the arm holes and her arms on her legs...making him a plastic jumpsuit wearing tween and an armless, hunched over teen. Life is never boring here!

Hidden child...beware...

We went to the store...my son tells me he "HAS to try something". I follow him as he's already run ahead of me. He's in the shelf with all of the toilet paper, rebuilding the wall of T.P. so he can hide in it.

If I hadn't been standing there taking the picture this poor old couple would have croaked. The old man looked at me and said, "Well your life must be pretty boring if you're taking a picture of toilet paper"..."Or you're in a commercial with it?" Then Christian moved. "Whoa! There's a kid in there!"

I'm not the only one!

 

 

I knew I wasn't the only one who felt this way...Oh the validation!!

 

 

 

 

The morning of a single parent...

I chuckle when I think about other people's mornings. I have no clue what they are like, but I, of course, assume easier than mine. I also chuckle every time I pick up my phone and read messages from anyone and quickly respond as I'm running around the house doing whatever I'm doing. And this is my choice to do this, it's not a burden. I put messages aside when I have to. I don't want people to think I'm avoiding any duties by responding. I'm more productive when keeping in touch with friends, oddly enough.

So here's my morning. Wake up at 6:30am...look at my phone for any notifications. Respond to any if I can. Go upstairs and wake up the boy. Go downstairs, turn on the lights in the kitchen and living room so he can get his breakfast started. Jump in the shower, have a morning conversation with my son as he pee's while I'm in the shower, with the shower curtain keeping us separate for privacy of course. Get out, go to the kitchen in my towel to help him start his breakfast because he wants a fried egg and I won't let him use the stove yet (it's a gas stove). We're out of eggs...Toast with Nutella it is. Get dressed quick while putting deodorant, perfume, moisturizer on my face and hair product on my hair to keep the curls from frizzing, earrings, bracelet. Snuck a peak at phone again...responded quickly to an email. My son is milling around as he waits for me and inquisitively asks, "Mom, would mornings be easier if you had a husband?" I laugh out loud and say, "Not sure honey...maybe." Move on to avoid getting too deep into that conversation with him. Cut open an avocado for my toast. Put his Nutella on his toast. Had him put his shoes on, open the garage (nearly at the door finally). Needed my tweezers for an eyebrow hair that was bugging me. Can't find them because my daughter steals them constantly. I run upstairs to her room (she's still sleeping, but has to get up in 5 mins). I wake her up asking where they are in her mess of a room. Can't find them. Oh well. Eyebrows will have to wait. Run downstairs. Put Avocado on my bread, wrap up my son's nutella toast and put a cut-up apple on top of his napkin. Grab my purse, water bottle for work, daughter comes downstairs groggy. Tell her I love her and give her a kiss. Run out the door. Christian is in the car buckled and waiting. Pass him his breakfast, he says thanks (this was new and nice to hear) and we back out of the garage. I stop for a moment before driving down the driveway to put on lipgloss and sunglasses and to make sure garage is closed since we've left with it open before and I will never do that again.

Driving to work we eat our toast while listening to the radio. First words from Christian are his observation of the traffic in the other direction. We go against traffic going to work and home, so that's nice. Then he yells "TRAIN!" as we see a train go by. I respond with "TRAIN!", which is a little something we do. More silence. I'm wondering how many people on the road looked over and saw my green toast and wondered what it was since avocados aren't a common breakfast food here. We get to the exit for his school and they are talking about Hank Williams on the radio since it's his bday and he would have been 90 today. They talked about how he died in his late 20's from drugs and alcohol. Christian hears this and has to ask more about it. We talk about the dangers of drugs and alcohol. Then Hank is played on the radio and Christian is amused by his voice. "He was 20 something? He sounds like he's a hundred!". We drive up to his school, we're on time...this is good. We have been on time each day so far this year! He jumps out, love you bye! Now I'm off to work which is only 5 blocks down the road. I pull in and sit for a sec in the car to look at latest emails, respond quickly. Grab purse, water bottle, keys and into work I go.

I get in and as soon as I put my purse down a co-worker is asking me about something that is totally logical and she knows the answer. My computer isn't even on yet. I help her to "talk it out" and all is well. She is considered "clerical", while I'm considered "Professional" in regards to pay scale, so she rarely takes initiative to do things just out of spite. Then another co-worker comes to me with a question about student activity accounts (which I manage fully) and she asks if I can join in on a conference call with the office coordinator from that school to sort it out. So off to an office to shut the door and do conference call. I get the whole story and it's an easy fix. Conference call done. I get to my desk and computer finally goes on. Then the phone calls start. Busy day for some reason with the phone calls. All easy fixes that I can help with. Then a third co-worker comes over to ask me about a deposit I made in Aug. It's in the wrong account due to some miscommunication, so I do a quick journal entry to fix it for her so she can move forward. As I'm going through my backup paperwork to get the proper code, I lick a paperclip by accident. This throws me into hysterics laughing and now I think I've lost it.

It's 10:30am and I am finally having my coffee. I was realizing that I am good at responding to emails, text messages, and other communications regardless of what my day looks like and I'm not a dork who sits on my butt all day at the computer or glued to my phone. I am really productive and being connected this way brings a smile to my face, which helps me through the day.

Vedgy

What's a Vedgy? According to my 10 year old son, it's a Vagina Wedgy. Yep, that's my son. Commence with laughter. I don't know where he picked it up. He says he made it up. If he did, I'm actually kind of impressed. If he didn't, then I'm shocked I've never heard it before. He says he made it up after the Prancersize video debacle. All that talk of camel-toes. He learned that word and apparently wanted something a little less animal and a little more plant sounding.

Here's a good one in case the story above didn't make you laugh.

Do people avoid being direct in all parts of the country? Or just here?

I was having a conversation about relationships with a  single male friend of mine recently. He was frustrated because he was told by a friend of a friend that she knew someone who would be perfect for him and then continued to set them up with communication information. He approached her online and, thanks to modern technology, he could see that she had read his emails, but she never responded. Days go by so he asks the person who set them up if everything was ok. She couldn't give any explanation as to why she hadn't responded, so he waited a couple more days. He emailed the women who set them up and told her not to worry about it and thanked her for trying.

Now anyone in their right mind can see that the woman obviously checked him out online and decided she wasn't interested....or she was busy....or she is seeing someone else. Either way you cut it, why is it so hard to just be straight with others?

My friend is not the first person that I've heard this happen to and I've experienced it myself. Sure we could just let it go, let it roll off your back. And normally I do. But in order to keep with the post topic, I digress.

Definately Perfectionist

After some deep thought and self exploration over the last few days, I've come up with an answer to my previous question. I'm not OCD...I'm a perfectionist. And don't be mistaken, I am not in any way suggesting I'm perfect, just someone who wants things to go smoothly and well. Because of this, I'm finding that I'm much too hard on myself. The trait of checking notifications within technology/social media is a symptom of this. My expectations of myself are uber high. I demand that I'm on top of everything in order to avoid disaster in any form. I realize that I don't hold these expectations for others. In fact, I'm extremely understanding when it comes to the faults of others. If someone performs below expectations, then I just pick up the slack.

This became clear to me the other day when I was forced to wear a bandage on my wrist after having a cortisone shot into my wrist in order to help some inflamed tendons. Unfortunately there is 2 days of agony preceding the comfort of the medication actually working. I wore the bandage in order to brace my wrist while I operated my manual transmission car and did normal daily activities. It hurt so bad I was nearly in tears most of the time. And I have a very high pain tolerance. My chores still needed to be done, so I continued on my day with our list of activities. My son wanted to go to the library to check out some books, we needed groceries, there was a prescription to pick up at the drugstore, and so on and so on.

A known fact about me is that people find me intimidating. Not in a scary way, but in a "wow, she's confident and knows what she wants" way. I've been told this by men who have tried to pursue me, women who are friends, and co-workers alike. Because of this, I've often felt a little like an outcast or fish out of water.

On this particular day I decided to take my wrapped arm, which I assume was perceived as a sign of weakness, and continued on with my day. I couldn't believe how many people approached me. Men and women alike. It's as if I let down a wall that I had been holding up and people finally felt as if they had permission to come into my circle.

I am only sharing this story because it was the wake up call I needed to see that I need to learn how to break down some barriers I have up in order to try to control everything and stop holding myself to expectations that are so high, that I can't ever meet them or if I do, I'm exhausted once I get there.

OCD? Or Perfectionist?

I had a thought tonight...I realized that, being that I'm completely connected to everything electronically, I can't seem to just let "notifications" go. If I see any notification, whether it be a message on the discussion board for school, a Facebook notification, an email, a voicemail....you get the point. I have to check it. Not because I'm so interested in what the message or notice holds, but so that the notification signal goes away! This thought is exhausting to me tonight because I'm tired, but still I check. I need to work on this. Seems like it might be time for a technology break.







Wise words.



Time for a  technology break.



Advice for me and many others.