The Unbearable Stench of Impossible...

So... the Impossible Son is now a freshman in high school.

*pause for motherly whimpering*

In our small town, the freshman campus is separate from the high school.  It's also on the other side of town from where we live.  Not a big deal, because this is a small town.  I am lucky, though, that his first period class, athletics, is at the high school, and so is his last class of the day, because this means he can walk to school in the morning and walk home in the afternoon, since the high school is just down the street from us.  Which means... no more sitting in long slow lines of cars to drop off/pick up my student, HUZZAH!!!!

*dance of joy, dance of joy*

Since Impossible is also on the high school cross country team, this also means that every other morning, he has to be at the high school at 6:30 a.m. for running practice. The Husbandly One drops him off on his way to work, and if I wait long enough, I can go out on the back deck and see the whole team go running by.  They get back to the school in time for the team to shower and get ready for their first period class.  Which, for my son, is athletics, as I mentioned earlier.

The next thing I need to mention is that my son, at 14, is the tallest person in our house.  He is all long arms and legs, and the basketball coach pretty much started drooling the moment the Impossible Son loped into the gym.  So... the Impossible Son spends first period playing basketball pretty much nonstop.  All. Period.  Long.

All freshman who have their first and last periods at the high school are required to ride a bus to go back and forth.  This bus leaves at a very specific time, and if a student isn't there at that time... too bad, so sad.  There is only ONE bus for this.  I totally get that.

However, what this means for athletic students is... depending on the coach, there is NO TIME FOR A SHOWER.

This... is NOT a good thing.

So, Tuesday morning of the second week of school, I was sitting and staring at the story I'm presently working on and wondering if I needed to do little tweaking of my outline when the Dropkick Murphys start screaming, "I'm a sailor peg, and I lost my leg! Climbing up the topsails, I lost my leeeeegggg!!"

It's my phone, and I think, "I turned in the athletic forms, he has all his school supplies, omg, what has he done now?"

"Hey, Mom."

I frown at look at the clock, thinking, did he miss the bus?

"I need to come home and take a shower."

Blink.  Blink.

"Wait a minute, didn't you take a shower after class?"

"There was no time," he said a little sheepishly.  "I mean, I barely have time after practice to throw on my clothes!  I have to get out to the bus as fast as I can, no time for a shower!"

Okay, I know that's true, it was true when my daughter was a freshman, and will probably be true until the construction at the high school is finished.

"Impossible, you'll just have to suffer through it," I begin, knowing the school won't just let him come home.  Then I realize, the ringtone was the Dropkick Murphys, not the Legend of Zelda.  He was calling from the school office, not his own phone.

"Mom, everyone in my class says I reek!  I stink, Mom, even the teacher says so!  I need a shower!" he insisted.

It doesn't normally take me this long to catch on.  "Wait a minute, are you just calling me on your own, or did the teacher send you to the office to actually go home and take a shower?"

"Yes, Mom, my teacher insisted!"

"Okay, I'll be there in a few minutes."

I was sort of stunned, but, having been around the Impossible Son when he was sweaty, I could sort of see it.  Thing is, he didn't have that much of a body odor problem, really.  It was mostly his feet that would get us during soccer season, where we would beg him to keep his shoes on until we were out of the car.  But that's soccer pong, and just means keeping his gear clean.  So, I got in the car and drove over to the freshman campus to sign him out.

The freshman campus was built in 1923 and has all the problems you'd associate with a building that old.  It's small (the current class of freshmen are practically bursting out of the seams), it smells, and it's hard to air condition.  In fact, only the classrooms and offices are air conditioned, while the halls are NOT.  It's like walking into a sauna when you enter the building, and you want to hold your breath until you get into the office, where it's nice and cool.  At least for a few minutes.  Air conditioning at the freshman campus really means not as hot as the hall way.

So, I wade through the sauna to the relative comfort of the office to sign my son out.  He arrives and keeps a careful distance from me, and when we get outside, immediately moves downwind of me.

"It's bad, isn't it?" he asks, eying me as we walk to the car.

"Not really."  I take a careful sniff, but I don't smell much because... he's downwind.

"Just wait," he says ominously.

Amused, I unlock the car, we get in, I pull the window shade off the dash, start the car and get the AC going... and immediately my eyes start watering, my gag reflex leaps up and punches me in the throat, and my nose and lungs start rebelling and trying to escape.

"Oh... my... God..." I gag, turning to stare at my son in horror.  "Did you roll in something dead??"

He's grinning at me.  "I know, right?" The Impossible Son's cheeks are red with embarrassment, but there's an odd sort of pride in his eyes, too.  "It's awful, isn't it?  I told you!  You didn't believe me!"

Frantically opening all the windows in my car, including the sun roof, with the AC going full blast in the faint hope of getting the... the... STANK out of my car, eyes watering and leaning away from my child, all I can say is, "Holy crap... how the fuck did this happen??"

"Mom," the Impossible Son says as leans helpfully away from me, "we ran four miles this morning in cross country, and then I had to go straight to basketball practice!  No time for a shower!  And then we barely have time to dress before we have to catch the bus!  We all reek!"

I think all my nose hair was gone by the time we got home.  My eyes are watering just remembering this.  It was horrible.  Like... old cheddar cheese that's been sitting in a bowl of water in direct sunlight for three days, and moldy soccer socks in a hot car, with a little muddy dog and three weeks unchanged cat litter box.  During a hundred degree summer.  With... sweat.

*is still horrified*

I never thought I'd ever say that about one of my children, but omg, he reeked.  It made soccer pong look... pleasant.

So, after he'd decontaminated and changed clothes, he told me the story.

He was in his second period biology class, and the teacher had broken them up into smaller groups to work on their assignment.  First, the kids in his group had started moving away from him with, "God, Impossible, WTF?" and "Dude, did you even take a shower??" Then some of the groups that were close to them started complaining and became vocal about insisting he go home to take a shower.  The teacher, noticing the increasingly vocal protests, called him over to find out what was going on.  At this point, Mr. Impossible had had enough.  "Miss Biology Teacher, I really need to go home and take a shower," he said apologetically.

She said humorously, "So you're a little sweaty, you're fine, stop messing around and get back to work."

"No, I really, really stink, that's why they're all complaining," he insisted.

At that moment, the AC came on, and the vent was apparently behind him and blew air directly toward her.  He said she was opening her mouth to probably tell him to go back to his table when his personal cloud of stench was blown into her face.

She froze.  Her eyes went wide and her nostrils flared.  Her eyes bulged as she stared up at him with horror, then they reddened and started to water.  Her nose looked like it was trying to pinch itself shut.  Her hands gripped the desk so hard, her knuckles went white.  And her mouth snapped shut.

He said, "I seriously started to worry about her, because it was like... she stopped breathing!"

Of course, she stopped breathing!  She was trying not to smell him.

After a moment, she started frantically pointing at the door.  "You," she said, scooting hastily away from him after thrusting a hall pass at him.  "You!  Home!  Now!  SHOWER!!!"

"Well," I said, leaning toward him, "you smell much better now."

"I should," he said as we got in the car to go back to the freshman campus.  "I used almost half my body wash cleaning myself off!  Do they make industrial strength body wash?"

"No, and before you ask, Axe Body spray is not shower in a can," I said firmly.  "If you had used it you would not have smelled better.  You would still have the Stench, it just would have been... the Stench WITH Axe Body spray.  And that would have been much worse."

"How do you know?" he asked as we pulled up to the school and I parked.

"Because the pot smokers at my high school used to try to disguise the smell of what they'd been doing before school started with this mint breath spray called Binaca.  And it never worked."  I grinned at him.  "They never understood why they kept getting caught, but you know, it was because instead of smelling like pot smokers, they now smelled like Fresh MINTY Pot Smokers™!"

He laughed.  "I'll pass that on!"

"Good.  Because we're all kind of tired of smelling sweaty teen pong with Axe Body spray!"

You know, I'm still working on getting the smell out of my car!

"Ring them bells with an iron hand so the people will know..."

A Facebook discussion group was established for our small town/county a little over a year ago, and I have to say, it has been a hugely positive thing for the most part.

I am sure there are people who work for our small school district who don't feel the same way, but after having a child in the schools here for twelve years, through good and bad, having a visible forum for local parents to air concerns has forced our district to change.

No longer can they count on problems just going away as soon as parents leave the building, or as unsubstantiated rumors.  It's right there on Facebook, in black and white (and blue), and everyone can see it.

I wish we'd had this discussion board years ago, like when Mr. Harper, the wonderful AP Physics teacher at the local high school, finally gave up on being treated right by the district and left to teach where he'd be happier.  Or when there were no textbooks for the math and science classes.

I'm glad we have it now.  I'm seeing more and more parents posting about the issues at the junior high that have been continuously swept under the rug for years.  The bullying issues.  The huge fights that happen on the Maple Street walking path after school.  The inconsistent way things are treated.  It's infuriating, and I'm glad it's getting a spotlight.

I'm glad some of the policies at the elementary school my son used to go to are being spotlighted, too.

I'm hoping this continues.  I remember the discussion when a bond election to build a new high school was coming up, and how many people in our town truly did not realize how badly it was needed.  In their minds (and there are still some people who persist in this belief) there is no need for a new high school.  They truly do not see that our schools are practically bursting at the seams, and the current building is falling apart.  It has reached the point where it's cheaper to build an entirely new school than it would be to repair the existing building and add on to it.   There are still people who think it is "too fancy" for us, and it is very hard for me not to laugh hysterically at them.

Really?  Are you kidding me?  We are so far behind other districts, in education, in facilities, it's not even funny.  And I just mean basic, bare-bones facilities, not the bells and whistles.

Maybe I'll raise these issues on the discussion board later, but for now, I'll simply be grateful that the district's dirty laundry is finally being aired.

Because there's no way to really prepare...

I somehow never envisioned this day.

Well, I did, but far off in some misty, distant future, nebulous and untouchable in the land of Someday.  Because in my mind's eye, last week, my daughter was two and lurching around the living room with a very large dog and three attendant cats, chocolate smeared around her mouth from the chocolate chip cookie she was hanging onto with fierce determination as she headed for her goal; the front door.

Three days ago, she was pushing her baby brother in a giant Tonka truck across the kitchen floor while he squealed with glee, making "Vroom! Vroom!" noises while the Triplicats scattered out of the way.

Two days ago, she was waving impatiently at me to leave as I hovered outside her first grade classroom, her brother in a backpack on my back, hoping she was going to be okay, and that she would make friends.

Yesterday, she was playing in her first soccer game, stunning us both as she displayed a determination and ferocity that has gotten her through every hurdle that has been placed in her way.  I still remember having to hold onto the Husbandly One when a kid who seemed like a veritable giant loomed over her and looked like he was going to plonk a massive fist on top of her head and crush her as he stole the ball from her.  She looked up at him, sniffed derisively, then plowed him over as she took the ball back, and passed it to one of the forwards, who immediately took it and made a goal.  She then turned to face the boy and flounced past him to show how beneath her contempt he was and ignored him for the rest of the game.

It was very demoralizing for him.

Last night, I hugged my seventeen year old daughter for the last time, and this morning, I hugged my eighteen year old daughter for the first time.

The night the Impertinent Daughter was born was one of the most... ridiculous and yet wonderful nights of my life.  My water broke three fourths of the way through an episode of the X-Files, an episode I still to this day have never seen through to the end, and then we were rushing to the hospital, feeling woefully unprepared.  I mean, we decided on her name on the way to the hospital!!  Seriously!!

I had a C-section, because she was a breech baby, and I remember when I heard that first cry thinking, "Oh, my God... what have I done?  What have I done??  I can't be a mother!!  I'm too immature!! I'm not stable enough!  I'm gonna fuck her up, and she'll be lying on a couch by the time she's 25, spilling her guts to a therapist about her whacko mom and how she totally fucked her up and... and... I CAN'T DO THIS!!"

Meanwhile, they were cleaning her up, and the Husbandly One was looking at her and cutting the cord and all that, and then they laid her in my arms, wrapped up like a little burrito.  I looked into her tired little scrunched up face, her centuries old eyes looking up into mine, and felt my breath catch.  She wriggled a tiny hand free of the burrito wrap, then reached up to touch my face, stroking my chin, and suddenly, I was calm.

I could do this.

We could do this.  We would grow and learn together, and we could totally do this.

And now, here we are, eighteen years later.  She's got a driver's license.  She'll be graduating from high school in a few weeks.  And there's a part of me that's screaming, "No, no, I can't do this!  I can't let go of my little girl, my baby, my firstborn, I can't let her go out into the wild, crazy world, because she's not ready!  I'M not ready!!"

Today, she hugged me, and touched my face, and I thought, "Maybe... maybe I can do this."

Nah, not really, but you know... I'll give it a really good try.

Happy Birthday, Impertinent Daughter.  You have given the roller coaster of my life some really wild twists and turns, some of them utterly terrifying, but I hung on and I've enjoyed the ride.  And I can't wait to see where it'll take us next!!

The Power of Vocabulary...

Reason number 253 why my son rocks:

Walking home Monday, a group of large sixth graders (meaning they were bigger than my son, who is a five foot tall 7th grader) tried to involve the Impossible Son in a fight by calling him names.

"Hey, faggot!!"

He stopped, frowned, and looked at them.  "Why are y'all calling me a bunch of sticks?  I know I'm skinny, but duuuuuude..."

They stared at him and said, "Wait... what?"

"That's what faggot means.  It's a bunch of sticks."

"No, it doesn't!" one of them said in disbelief while the rest stood there with their mouths hanging open.

"Yeah, it does," he said over his shoulder as he started walking away.  "Look it up in the dictionary."

He said by the time their brains finished processing it and they were able to move again, he was too far ahead of them to even bother.

And just in case you were wondering...

faggot or esp  ( US ) fagot 1  (ˈfæɡət)
— n
1.	a bundle of sticks or twigs, esp when bound together and used as fuel

This is what happens when you read fairy tales to your kids when they're little.  

Heh heh heh...

And The Growing Continues...

Last Tuesday, the Impossible Son was complaining of a headache, sore muscles, and nausea.  When I took his temperature, it was a stunning 96.4 F.  So... no fever.  I figured it was the result of not enough sleep after a three day weekend and pronounced him mostly fit for school.  However, in the car, he turned green and looked likely to hurl, so I turned around and brought him back home.

I knew something was off when I suggested a nap and he went without protest.

My son has been protesting naps since the advanced age of two.

But last Tuesday, he said, "Huh... good idea," and promptly went to bed.

When he woke up five and a half hours later, he'd grown an inch.  I am totally serious about this.  He was taller when he woke up than he was when he went to sleep.  Noticeably taller.

He's grown another inch since then, and I have a feeling he's going to do it again today.  Because, once again, he woke up complaining of a headache and nausea, but this time, he's added a sore throat to the mix.  I sent him to school after giving him something for the headache and congestion that had led to the sore throat, and they called me around 10:30 to come pick him up.

When we got home, as we were walking through the door, I said, "Maybe you should take a nap... wait, where'd you go?"

He was in bed before I could finish my sentence.  Taking a nap.

He's going to grow again, I just know it.  And dammit, that means MORE SOCKS.  And probably another pair of shoes.

Shoot.  Me.  Now.

Growing, Growing, Too Much Growing!

I cannot keep up with my son's rate of growth.

He's twelve years old, and already looks like a teenager, all arms, legs, and lankiness.  Yesterday morning, while getting ready for school, he came to me and said, "Mom, I'm out of socks."

"Look in your drawer," I said while finishing up lunches, "I know there were four pair in there two days ago."

"There are no socks in my drawer, Mom, I looked!" he insisted.

Grumbling to myself, I went to check and sure enough, lots of underwear, no socks.  So, I headed for my bedroom and the Sock Basket.

In case you're wondering, the Sock Basket is a small laundry basket where we toss all the socks with missing partners.  Sometimes, the missing socks turn up buried in the furniture, hidden under the bookcases or, even more surprisingly, on the shelves of the bookcases.  I have found socks where you expect, jammed into shoes or hidden under beds or the kitchen table.  And I have found socks where you don't expect, like... in a box of music CDs, or on top of the XBox.  And I've found them where you shouldn't expect to, like... between the pages of a book?  Really???  Stuffed into one of the drawers of the china cabinet?   Seriously, guys?? What possible reason would any of you have for stuffing your dirty smelly socks in there???

It's moments like those that I realize my children are strange, strange people.  But I love them anyway.

So, I went to the sock basket, figuring I could at least give the Impossible Son a mis-matched pair of socks, which seems to be all the rage among the teenagers of our small town anyway.  No, really.  They buy pairs of wildly colored or striped or spotted or patterned socks and deliberately mix them up, and wear the resulting mis-matched pairs.  I was dubious at first because, hey, grownup here, raised by parents who kept all our clothes strictly matched and handed down ironclad rules of dressing: 

1.  "No plaids and stripes shall be worn at the same time!!"

2.  "White shoes shall not be worn before Memorial Day nor after Labor Day, unless you are in the Navy and serving in Florida or the Tropics, and you, Young Lady, are not in the Navy!"

3.  "Sandals will not be worn before May, nor after September, I don't care if it's December 25th and it's 90 degrees F and we live in Texas.  It's just Not Done."

4.  "All socks shall be matched and be the same color, and they shall be a color the same as or complimentary to the outfit you are wearing.  And if no matching socks are clean, you shall wear sandals, unless it's before May or after September, in which case, you are Out Of Luck."

However, I got over it, and have seen the mismatched sock thing as a good way to empty out the Sock Basket.  So getting into the spirit of it, I found a mismatched pair for the Impossible Son and handed them over.

Ten seconds later, "Mom... they're too small."

"What do you mean?  We just got you those socks."  

I looked down.  Now, these are what my kids call "footie" socks.  They're the short little socks that barely show over the top of your sneakers, and my son is particularly fond of them.  The sock should come up over the top of his foot and up the back of his heel.  But it doesn't.  It doesn't come up over his heel.  It's too short.

Jaw dropping, I grab another pair of large socks and hand them over.  These are supposed to come up to the ankle.  Except... they don't come up over his heel, either.  So... I grabbed a pair of the Husbandly One's socks, a mismatched pair as well, and they fit.  Kind of.

"How does Papa stand these?" the Impossible Son asks conversationally as he tilts his feet side to side, peering at them dubiously.

"He loves them," I said, putting the other socks back in the basket.  "He says they're very comfortable."

"They're kind of tight around the top," and I look down and sure enough, I see red lines pressing into his skin where the socks end.

I stare at him.  "Honey," I said slowly, "I can't give you any of my socks, because my feet are much smaller than yours.  And I can't give you any of your sister's socks, because her feet are smaller than mine!"

"I know," he said miserably.  "I'll... just wear these."

I had just bought my son socks.  And he had outgrown them in less than two weeks. 

*pauses to hyperventilate*

You know, I thought I was prepared for this.  I thought, because I've already been through the teenaged thing with the Impertinent Daughter, that I at least had an idea of what to expect.  And it sank in.

This... is going to be totally different.  Teenaged boys have a completely different growth rate than girls.  I knew this intellectually, of course.  But I was basically being slapped upside the head with it.  

When the Impertinent Daughter started her growth spurts, she outgrew a brand new pair of shoes in less than an hour.  They had fit just fine in the store, had plenty of wiggle room, and were comfortable.  We put the shoes back in the box, took them to the cash register, bought them, and went home.  She took the shoes out of the box, put them on, took three steps and cried out, "They're too tight!!"

Understand, she's still wearing the same socks she'd worn to try the shoes on.

I knelt in front of her, just like I had in the store, and felt her feet in the shoes, and it felt like her feet were about to burst out of them.  Literally.  I made her take them off and put her old shoes back on.  

She couldn't get them on.

I thought maybe her feet had swollen for... whatever reason feet swell, so I said, "Hey, run around barefoot for now, we'll try them again in the morning."

She couldn't get them on in the morning.

When we went back to the store, her feet had grown a whole size bigger!

So... I thought, when it came to the Impossible Son, hey, I can handle it!

Riiiiiiight.

He's grown nearly four and a half inches since last May.  Which doesn't sound like much, until I tell you that three of them were just in the last two and a half weeks!!  And his hands are now officially bigger than mine, which I know isn't saying much because I have small hands.  His feet are huge right now (think Sora from Kingdom Hearts), and I know that means he's going to grow again, to fit those big feet.

He's going to be taller than me.

I knew that.  I expect that, but it was always in the distant future, when he would be sixteen, seventeen... not now.  Not... like... by next summer, when he'll be thirteen.

Holy Mackinoly... he's going to be thirteen.

*hyperventilates*

He's my youngest child, and all of a sudden, time's passage is rushing by me as I watch his jaw lengthen, his chin lose it's pointy-ness, his face taking on a more adult aspect, and my baby is receding further and further into the past.  I no longer see the cheerful toddler, or the bouncy kid with the big grin, I see the adult that is to come, and whoa!

Then he catches a toad and brings it to show me. And goes flying awkwardly after it when it hops out of his hands.

Yep.  The kid is still there.  And I can still smoke his butt at Smash Brothers.

Hey, it's the little things...

Library Day...

For the past four or five summers, Mondays have been Animanga Club days for my kids at the San Marcos public library.  For my kids, this means three hours to hang out with other kids who not only understand anime and manga, they truly, truly get it.

For me, this means three hours of interruption free writing time.

In the past, because my old laptop had a very short battery life, and... it was big, I was limited to places wherever I could find a plug, and had a nice big table to set up on.  And believe me, the tables with plugs at the San Marcos library fill up fast.

This also meant people being able to look over my shoulder to see what I was typing away at so industriously, often to their (and my) chagrin.  And as I've said in the past, I have issues with people being able to look over my shoulder when I'm working, whether it's writing, sketching, sewing... I don't like it.

Now, however, I have my new SHINY, and I'm sitting with my back to a wall.  It's... nice.  Plus, the MacBook is light, and doesn't get hot, so... I can have it in my lap.  If I get really adventurous, I might go hole up in one of the library's out of the way corners to write... except then, the kids would panic because they wouldn't be able to find me when the club lets out.  Oh well.

I can't get over how quiet this laptop is.  There's no optical drive, so... no whirring, no clicks, no fan noise... just the gentle clicking of my keyboard.  And wow, isn't that miles and miles away from the loud percussive clacking of the IBM Selectric I first learned to type on in junior high?

Yes, I'm that old.  Typing was required when I was in junior high.

So... it's nice to only hear quiet when I sit here and write.

Just thought I'd mention it...

"Don't stop, tick-tock, sun blows up today..."

Today is officially the start of my kids' summer vacation, since school let out Friday, and... apparently weekends don't count.  At least that's what I've been told.  Repeatedly.

Of course, they're still passed out, and I'm up, because I'm still in "gotta get up and make the lunches and take the kids to school," mode.  And because I know this is the only quiet time I will get today.  Now, a responsible mom would have rousted the younguns out of bed by now and had a variety of projects for them to do, but we already know that's not me, right?

Besides, after the tough year they've both had, they deserve it.  At least for today.

When they were younger, I used to look at summer break with a mix of "Yay vacation!" and "Nooooo... I'll be home alone with them... all day long!!!"  Which I know is probably not an attitude I'm officially supposed to take.  Officially, as a stay-at-home mom, I'm supposed to be all, "Oh, I'm so glad to have them home with me where I can nurture their little hearts and minds and be a mom!!"

Yeah... not so much.  Because you have to understand, I'm essentially raising Calvin and Hobbes.  And those roles are interchangeable, too.  Or you could say I'm raising John Sheppard and Rodney McKay.  Kirk and Spock.  Basically, think of any extremely bright, prone to getting into either excessive trouble or excessive mischief duo you can think of... and that's my kids.  My kids are extremely intelligent, very inventive, and attract trouble like a magnet.  I am barely one step ahead of them, and that margin gets smaller and smaller every day.  Thinking of things to keep the Dynamic Duo occupied, engaged, and happy is a bigger and bigger challenge every single year.  It's crazy.  And I have alternately loved and dreaded it for years.

However, in the last two years, I have met the advent of summer break with a huge sense of relief, especially on the Impossible Son's behalf.  We live in a small town, with a small school district, and good teachers are far and few between.  Inspiring teachers are even rarer.  And while the district has a strict policy about bullying... it isn't consistently enforced, if it is enforced at all.  Only when it's something drastic, or so big that it can't be hidden easily.  Like last year, with the kid who physically attacked my son.  Had he only shoved the Impossible Son, or called him names, the administration of the elementary school he went to last year would have made conciliatory noises at me and promised to "deal" with the boy, talk to him, etc, etc.  But because it was a big issue, where the police had to be called, and because the Husbandly One and I threatened legal action, especially when it was shown that the principal dropped the ball when it came to informing us, AND because there was a threat to younger, smaller children, the bully was isolated from the rest of the school population for about three months and counseled within an inch of his life.  Plus, the principal "retired" shortly after that.

His first year of junior high was a mixed bag.  Great, because he was in band and discovered a whole new group of friends and hey, new school!  And sucky because there's only one junior high in town, and five elementary schools' worth of kids are going there, so... not only are there new friends, but... the old bullies are there, too.  And they didn't wait too long to start in.

Not only that, but he had a teacher bullying him, too.  And when I switched him out of  that class, he waited until the last three weeks of school to tell me that his bullies were in the new class.  So they were in his first, second, and fourth period classes.  Fourth period was gym.

*sigh*

And... the Impossible Son also learned the social implications of hanging out with the Wrong People.   Hanging out with the kids who always got in trouble, who back-talked the teachers, who harassed other kids, meant that when he was being harassed and he appealed for help from the teachers, they weren't as willing to listen to him.  And tended to look the other way.  It also meant that when he found kids whom he shared interests with, kids who liked the same books he did, or read manga, too, they weren't as willing to talk to him because... he hung out with the kids who harassed them for reading or being smart.  And they were afraid of being played.

He also found out what happens when he hangs out with a kid who rubs Mom the wrong way.

Yeesh, that was a tough one!  I don't often go off on a kid, but every once in a great while, one of my kids' friends will send out vibes that grate on my nerves like coarse sand on sunburned skin, and I'll balk at letting them hang out.  And I'm always vindicated later on.  And no, I don't say, "Told you so!" or "I was right!"  I usually hug them and say, "I'm sorry."

Then there's the math issue.  Dear gods, if there is ONE thing about this district that makes me absolutely furious, it is the absolutely SUCK-TASTIC quality of the math education here.  Seriously.  They have absolutely no clue how to teach math here.    Can anyone explain to me how it is possible for my daughter to make 98's, 97's, and 95's in Pre-AP Physics... and 50's, 60's, and 70's in AP Pre-Calculus??  They're using the same math!!!  That's why they're taking them together!!

By the way, the reason she didn't fail completely (she passed with a 78) was because of the math she learned in Physics class.  I kept trying to the Impertinent One into asking Uber-Awesome Physics teacher for help, but she didn't want to overburden him.  Because she wasn't the only one.

And then there was my son, who had an actually semi-competent teacher this year, and when I could convince him to go to tutoring, he raised his grade from 56 to an 88.  Then... he stopped going to tutoring.  And when I got him back, his grade went up, but not as dramatically, and when I asked his teacher about it, she looked at me helplessly and said, "Mrs. J.  there's just so much I can teach him... and so much he doesn't know because... he never learned it."

He never learned it.  Because they didn't teach it to him in elementary school.

And you know, my son isn't alone.  

So, yes, I am relieved that school is over for three months, and I can spend this time again trying to get my son back up to speed.  And trying to make up for the lacks in what passes for an educational system in Texas.  

Ibuprofen, anyone?

Because I like to get their attention...

I'm at the dryer, pulling out dry towels and putting them in the basket when I hear the fridge door open.  And I know it's the Walking Stomach otherwise known as my son, so I immediately call out, "Leave the strawberries alone!  They're for lunches!"

"Not touching 'em!" my son shouts back as I hear crackling and rattling coming from the kitchen.

"Leave the blackberries alone!" I shout.

"Not touching 'em," he shouts back, sounding almost bored as more crackling and rattling is heard.

Just for grins, I shout, "And whatever you do, leave the squid tentacles alone!"

"Not touch... wait... WHAT??"  An outraged face pops up in the door to frown at me.

"Just checking to see if you were listening," I said with a grin.

Yep, still got it.

When Ketchup Meets Impertinent Force, Part 2

Do y'all remember The Centrifugal Ketchup Incident? You know, when the Impertinent Daughter was trying to get the ketchup from the bottom of the ketchup bottle so she could pour it out... and ended up splattering it across the ceiling, the floor, and the cat?

She did it again last night.

That's her, laughing herself silly (and being a little embarrassed, too) after splattering the kitchen and the dining room with ketchup. She was, once again, trying to get the ketchup from the bottom of the bottle to use on the Husbandly One's grilled burgers. She swears up and down that she sealed the top of the bottle. She SWEARS!!

As you can see, it clearly wasn't.

Once again, it's across the ceiling, and now makes an X with the splatter from 2010, which, while it was cleaned up, took off the popcorn ceiling in those spots.

*sigh*

She hit the paper towels...

And inside the cabinet. It's across the counter, across the dining room table, and in the far corner of the dining room, too. I'd show you those photos, but... they came out blurry, so... you'll just have to imagine it. At least she didn't get one of the cats this time!

And the lesson learned? JUST OPEN ANOTHER BOTTLE OF KETCHUP, SHEESH!!!

Because creativity needs to be nurtured...

The Impossible Son has one class period that at one time might have been called "study hall." However, this one is more interactive, as it's basically a tutoring period because our district fell way behind on math and reading scores ("hmmmm, wonder how that happened?" Jo asks sarcastically). So... he's getting extra help in math and in language arts.

So, a couple of days ago, they were working on "correcting sentence fragments," basically changing fragments and making them into whole sentences. And the example given was "at the station," which had a finished example of "I can meet you at the station tomorrow morning."

Then the teacher made the mistake of saying, "But that's boring, I'm sure y'all can do better than that!"

Heh.

So... these are the sentences my SON came up with. His "corrections" will be in italics. You might want to put any liquids far from the computer, and don't drink anything while reading, because some of them are surprisingly hysterical.

Don't say I didn't warn you!

1. Before the dance I killed a vampire.

2. While we worked on the experiment my friends turned into zombies.

3. Once the baseball season begins, THEY WILL COME!!

4. Ahead of me, he watched me with a bat.

5. After the summer vacation, vampires came.

6. Without a pen or pencil I can't kill Bigfoot.

7. Opposite the park he still watched me, but with Bigfoot.

8. When she began to speak a bear came, wielding a sword.

9. Even though the temperature was warm, the bears took over.

10. From my seat, I could see the orcs coming.

11. Next to the library, they were still watching me.

12. How the rumor spread was because of the duck.

13. On top of my dresser was a honey badger.

14. Past the principal's office, they continued to watch me.

15. When they are found, we take them to NARNIA!!



I think my personal favorite is #6. I laughed so hard when he read that one out to me that I nearly drove us into a ditch. Though... a bear wielding a sword is pretty funny, and so is a honey badger on a dresser. I wonder if it cares?

For eleven years old and having virtually no writing instruction beyond what I cram down his throat during those times he's willing to sit still for it, that's not a bad fledgling effort at letting his wonderfully weird sense of humor show through. What kind of bothers me, though, is the teacher had laughed and said, "This is weird. It's crazy, what's up with this??"

And then I remembered, "Oh, wait, that's right, they don't have things like irony, humor, and creativity here." Because, you know, this sort of thing, well... it's normal at my house!

Yes, yes, I'm getting sarcastic again.

Still, I'm proud of what he's done, and happy to see his creativity developing. I can't wait to see what he does next!

Because they put the lime in the coconut and that song won't go away!!

Sometimes, sitting down to write a blog post is ridiculously easy, because my kids will do something, or my mom will say something, or I will do something that I feel compelled to write down. It's my way of programming it into my memory bank so I don't forget it.

Other times, though, writing is unbelievably difficult. It's difficult to pull the words out of my brain, or to flog my brain into thinking of something worth writing about.

It's not that my life is uneventful. Because, seriously, there is always something going on. Always. It's just deciding whether or not it's blog-worthy.

For instance, my son has started junior high, and with it, he has also signed up for band. Yes, I finally have a band-geek in the house. And I thought he was going to be a percussionist, because that's where his interest was for the longest time (and still is, I admit it), but... he tested well on trombone, and they are woefully thin on lower brass while being embarrassingly full on percussion. So... my son is going to play the trombone.

As you can see... at present, the trombone is bigger than he is! I have no doubts, though, that he will grow into it.

This is beside the adventure of what the Impossible Son being in junior high means for all of us, most especially my husband. I say that because he seems to be even more reluctant than me to relinquish the baby that once was for the teenager that is coming. I admit it, I look at our son, and I see the cheerful baby that used to reach up for me, that would take every step the Husbandly One did, one small fist firmly gripping the seam of THO's jeans, the other reaching out to explore whatever was in reach. I see that baby, and then I blink and I there he is, my son, lanky, overly long arms and legs and awkward angles, lengthening jaw and too big feet and I think, "Where did my baby go?"

I thought that with the Impertinent Daughter, too. I looked at her when she was at that awkward in-between stage, missing the baby, and getting to know the teenager, and now I'm watching her turning into a young woman... and it's both incredibly cool, and extremely freaky.

And they're both having a growth spurt at the same time. This means we literally cannot keep enough food in the house. As soon as we bring it in... it's gone. And remember, my kids are the kind who like to snack on frozen veggies as a "cool treat." So, not only are the fresh fruits and veggies we bring home from the grocery store disappearing almost as soon as they come home, but so are all the frozen veggies, too! Crackers, granola bars, raisins... ham, chicken, leftover spaghetti sauce, bread... it's all disappearing, and I'm not sure where the kids are putting it because it's not showing on them at all. Except for the increase in height factor.

This leads me to a weird little aside. We were leaving the junior high after sixth grade orientation last week, and the Impossible Son had asked me if I knew any trombone players when I was in high school band. I laughed heartily and said, "Kiddo, my first real boyfriend in high school was a trombone player, and he was taller than me!"

"Really?" Mr. Impossible peered up at me, and really, he doesn't have that far to peer up any more.

*sigh*

"Yep. He was six feet, three inches tall," I said with a grin.

"How tall were you?" he asked, and that's when I came to a complete halt and kind of stared blankly in front of me. Because it only just then dawned on me. I was only 4'10" when I was dating Mr. Tall Trombone Player. No, seriously, back when I was dating him, I had no clue. I never thought about it, except that I found it awkward to hold his hand or to kiss him, because he was so much taller than me.

I went to his senior prom with him, and he had to pick me up to dance with me, my feet dangling two feet above the floor, because otherwise, it hurt his back to bend over and hurt his knees to crouch down and dance!!!

Oblivious Jo was oblivious.

*shakes head*

Of course, seeing the look on my kids' faces when I told them that was hysterically funny, because I had to give them a comparison scale, so I said, "Imagine if the Tall Blonde's husband was standing next to... Grammy." Grammy is THO's mom, and she's shorter than I am. It was an apt example.

"You're not 4'10" now, are you?" asked Mr. Impossible.

"Nope. I'm about 5'3" now," I said. "Still short, but not as short as I was back then."

The Impertinent One spent a lot of time snickering about that, and I just laughed it off, because really, it is funny! And no, I wasn't blonde, I was a ginger back then, so... chalk my obliviousness up to inexperience and general nose-buried-in-a-bookishness.

In the meantime, the Impertinent Daughter has started her junior year of high school, and this year, we actually have textbooks in our science and math classes!!!!

And the people rejoiced.

Mrs. Sees-Plots-Everywhere has so far been quiet, but the Impertinent One reports her prowling on the periphery of the school, eyeing students and saying nothing. Yet. It can't last, of course, but we shall see.

Still, the Impertinent One seems determined to worry about every single little thing that it's possible to worry about, and it's quite a challenge for THO and I to calm those worries with sensible advice. Or lots of hugs and chocolate. Or jokes. Jokes work. Sci-fi marathons, too. Or general nerdiness. That seems to help from time to time.

So, as you can see, there's been quite a lot going on, it's just... kind of hard to decide what to write about, to choose just... one, or two.

And now, to go bake some cookies to throw at the kids so there's something left for the rest of us to eat!

Because they are LOUD...

One of the drawbacks to living in an old house with wooden floors is the fact that it often sounds like I'm raising a herd of young elephants. Clumsy young elephants.

Our house is built on a pier and beam foundation, which means it is built on a series of concrete pillars allowing a crawl space under the house. This is the norm in Southern homes as it allows air circulation under the floor, an essential in keeping cool in a climate that is hot nine months out of the year. And while this is great for keeping the floor cool, as well as allowing access to plumbing and wiring, etc... it's not so great when you have heavy footed children thumping around the house.

By the sound of it, my kids both weigh approximately six tons a piece.

This is great when I want to know where they are, because I can tell just by listening which child is where. And I can tell precisely how close the teenager is to killing her brother just by how much heavier (and faster) those foot stomps get.

This isn't so great, though, when they're horsing around in the living room while waiting for me to get stuff together for our weekly trip to the library. Or do I mean "elephanting" around?

When the Husbandly One and I were first married, we lived in a house built by my father's uncle in 1925. It was small and had a lot of cool doors with cut glass door knobs and each door had a lock with a skeleton key. Well, except the bathroom door. That one had a little knob on the inside that turned like a deadbolt.

Anyhow, it, too, was built on pier and beam and had beautiful wood floors that we loved. We had no children then, just a very large, enthusiastic Labrador Retriever that we loved very dearly, and his herd of cats. And while Max could be loud when chasing his cats around the house, or when they chased him right back, for the most part, it was pretty quiet.

That entire neighborhood was full of old Craftsman houses on pier and beam foundations with similar wood floors. And the house two doors down from us had a family with two small children.

Let me tell you something. I always knew when the mom gave her kids something with a lot of sugar in it. How, you ask? Because I started hearing what sounded like a herd of small horses thundering through a canyon. Seriously. You could hear every single footstep from two houses away when they'd start running through the house. You'd hear resounding booms when they'd jump off the couch and hit the floor, towel capes flapping behind them, and then there would be the rapid fire clatter when they'd race down the hall, chasing imaginary bad guys, or the bangs when they knocked something heavy over in their enthusiasm. And I'd hear the thuds when they'd finally have their sugar crash and pass out for the rest of the afternoon.

I always thought it was funny. Annoying, but funny. And I'd think, "Wow, why doesn't she just shove them out in the backyard like my mom used to do us?"

That always goes through my mind now when I hear my young elephants thumping through the house on their various adventures. I wonder what my neighbors think my kids are doing, and if they can hear it from two or three houses away.

Once, I came back through the back gate after walking to hear, "Thump, thump, thump, THUD, thump, bang, CRASH!" and then my husband bellowing, "Will you two cut it out?? WAIT TILL YOUR MOTHER GETS HOME!!"

I was laughing before I even got in the house. Everyone froze when I came through the door and all I could say was, "Wow, y'all are LOUD."

I suppose I should resign myself to being an elephant herder for now. I'm sure there will come a time when there won't be feet stomping through my house, and I'll miss it. But for now, I find myself wishing for less elephants and more... ninjas.

Ninjas would be seriously cool. Huh. I think I just got a scathingly brilliant idea!!

I'll get back to you when I'm done!!!

Because random is the word of the day...

I was watching my kids the other day, walking out the back gate on their way to a pick-up game of soccer out by the high school and the Husbandly One said, "Wow, the Impossible Son is almost as tall as the Impertinent Daughter."

And wow, he was right. The Impossible Son is definitely catching up to his sister. It's a surprise, because he's always been so small, so tiny compared to the other kids in his class. Watching him play soccer all these years has had us alternately elated and terrified. Elated because he's really good, he's extremely fast, and his small size is a definite advantage when it comes to maneuvering on the field. Terrified because his small size means he gets knocked around, and especially lately, the other players seem like giants next to him. Especially when he's in the goal box.

He's growing like a weed. All of a sudden, his arms and legs are too long, and his hands and feet are too big. He's outgrowing clothes and shoes at the drop of a hat. He's eating everything in the house and groceries run out way too fast. And even though my husband and I are both small (he's 5'6" and I'm 5'3"), I'm wondering if the tall genes in my mom's family are activating, and Mr. Impossible is going to be taller than both of us?

I remember when my nephew suddenly started shooting up in height, and the day he realized that he was taller than me. It was Thanksgiving and we were in the kitchen. He was handing me a fork when he suddenly froze and grabbed my hand, staring at it. "Aunt Jo," he said, his eyes wide. "Your hands are so... tiny!!" Then he stared at me in shock and said, "You're tiny!!"

I laughed and said, "What brought all this on?"

And he said, "You've always seemed so... big to me! I mean... you're... Aunt Jo!!"

I have sudden visions of my son going through the same thing. I wonder if he'll have that same moment of staring at me and realizing he's taller than me and have his whole reality shift because of it. I'm waiting for my own shock when he's tall enough that we're able to stand eye to eye.

I"m still reeling from being able to do that with my daughter.

Part of me isn't ready for any of this. Somewhere in my mind, both of my kids are still small, still hanging on to the leg of my jeans with a determined little fist, still chirping away in their little voices and asking questions that I still have answers for. Then I look at them now and see... that they aren't so small any more.

They still chatter away, and they still ask me questions. Some of them I have answers for, and some of them, we have to go look it up. I'm just glad the dialog is still open, to tell you the truth.

As I watched them walking out the gate together, though, I found myself glad that they're growing together, and as they get older, they still find things they can do together. That through all the squabbling and fussing, they're still friends. I just hope that when he's taller than her, he doesn't forget she's still in range of his stomach!

Writing in Public...

Yes, I'm in the public library in San Marcos yet again for another summer. For the past three years, the Impertinent Daughter has been going to meetings for the Animanga Club. The Impossible Son and I would find a table with available plugs and hunker down for the duration. Sometimes, he would find a pile of manga to read, or books that interested him. Or I would check out a library computer for him to play games on while I did some writing. Because I've been finding it easier to write at the library than at home.

Writer's block sucks, by the way, just in case you were wondering.

This year, though, the Impossible Son is old enough to go to Animanga Club, too, so I am actually alone at my table... and finding it almost impossible to write. Part of it is missing my little companion... who isn't so little any more, by the way. And the other part is... paranoia. Because most of the tables near accessible and available plugs do not have sides that face convenient walls, so... anyone can walk up behind me and read over my shoulder, and regardless of what I'm writing, I have never liked having anyone read or look over my shoulder. Sucked when I was taking art in college, because that's all the teachers do is look over your shoulder to judge your progress.

Anyhow, whenever I'm working on something a little... er... adult, shall we say... I can always tell who read over my shoulder by the fact that their ears are turning red as they hurry away.

*sigh*

Add in my extreme dislike of sitting with my back to doors or wide open areas, and you can see my problem. Thank you, high school, for giving me that particular issue.

Still, my kids are enjoying themselves and probably were a big hit when they walked in the door. Come on, it's an Animanga club, and the kids both have wildly colored hair. The Impertinent Daughter, though she started the summer red, is now once again blue, and the Impossible Son opted for bright florescent green (it glows under black light, how cool is THAT??). This, of course, makes me the Coolest Mom Ever. Thank you, Manic Panic.

So far, all I've really accomplished today, writing-wise, is a long email to my mom, and this blog entry. Did I mention writer's block sucks? Because it does. Like a Hoover. Or a Dyson. No... a Hoover. Because it sucks like crap.

Anyhow, if this keeps up, I'm either going to have to beg my husband for either a new battery for this old laptop so I can sit in odd corners and type away to my heart's content (what a COOL idea, and I know just the corner I could use, too!!), or beg for a new laptop, which really, we can't. Because I want my next laptop to be a Mac (no, I am no longer a fan of Windows, how did you know?). And to be fair, the next person in the family who should get a laptop should be Miss Impertinence. After all, she'll be starting college in two years...

*has a moment of major Mom-Freak-Out*

OMG... she'll be graduating high school in two years. Excuse me, I have to find a paper bag, because I'm hyperventilating. Because, no way. I mean, she only took her first steps LAST YEAR... right? Where the hell did the time go?? Is it a rule of quantum physics or something that time goes from dragging so that it takes approximately three years to go from Christmas to Christmas to suddenly only a week passing before it's Christmas again?? Since when did we go from "slower than molasses in January" time to warp speed, warp factor 11?

Those commercials weren't kidding. Life comes at you fast. Somebody should have told me to wear a helmet!!

Adventures in Grocery Shopping...

This is what I posted on Facebook a few minutes ago...

"Grocery shopping with my children is rather like being orbited by my own tiny planet and moon. A hyper, dancing, chattering, extremely frenetic tiny planet while a very grouchy, cranky moon continually snarks and fusses at the tiny planet. No wonder I forget stuff. Aleve, please?"

The Impossible Son orbits around me, literally sticking to my side and hopping, dancing, twirling, and jigging on both sides of me, and behind me, and in front of me, until I can't keep track of him and I end up almost falling over him or bumping him or... yeah. And yes, it drives me NUTS. It was one thing when he was small and I could easily move him either into the basket or up on my back or hip and thus out of the way.

Now, however, he's eleven, and he's in that all long arms/long legs stage of pre-explosive growth, and that's just entirely too much boy to be dancing around Mama and nearly tripping her up!

And while he's doing this, he's talking my ear off and with the grocery store being full of people and annoying music, I can't make out a word he's saying, and I can't focus or concentrate for anything. GAAAAAAHHHH!!!!

In the meantime, my daughter is pushing the basket, fussing almost nonstop at him to get off the shelf, get off the the display, move out of the way, don't touch that, put that down, don't pick that up, get that for Mum, please, no, don't put that in the basket, not that one, genius, the other one, wait, no, don't touch that or you'll knock it all over... MOOOOOM!!!

Yes, as you can see, the fun of grocery shopping with my kids lives on.

It's very... migraine inducing.

Good thing I love them. Of course, I can't walk away from them and pretend they aren't mine because (1) they look just like me and (2) it's a small town, everybody knows us, and no one is fooled any more, though they might take them off my hands for an hour or two out of sheer kindness. Maybe.

Have I mentioned that my kids are also going through the ravenous wolf phase? The Impossible Son is eating nearly everything in sight. Fruit doesn't last long in our house. Or frozen vegetables. Or crackers. Or ham. Or hot dogs. Or leftover grilled hamburger patties. Or cheese. Or chips. Or bananas... dammit, I forgot bananas!!

*head-desk*

And the Impertinent Daughter, at 16, is still growing, and has moments of, "I'm not hungry," followed by three or four days of, "eat ALL the food in the house!!" And there are days when she sort of eyes her brother, but he's too skinny to eat. Not enough meat on those long bones of his. Perhaps I should be nervous!

And then the Husbandly One comes home and says, "Where's all the food?? Didn't you just go grocery shopping???"

And I say, "It was sheer self-preservation!! I had to, or they would eat ME!!!

I don't know why he never believes me...

The State of Me...

Okay, so... let's see... I went to see an orthopedic specialist two weeks ago about my knee. Verdict, yes, I banged it up good and proper, I also have osteo-arthritis in my right knee (not unexpected, considering the way I've injured it in the past), and... at some point will need intervention. I'm too young and active for knee replacement, he could do surgery to clean out all the crunch stuff in there, but it would come back eventually (also true), or there's an injection he could give me after the inflammation and irritation calms down in my knee called "Synvisc One" that would basically replace the fluid that lubricates and cushions the joints in my knee. He's had good results with that one, and it turns out that the mom of one of Mr. Impossible's team mates has had it and said, "OMG, Auntie... get it. It's wonderful. I can move, I can walk, and it doesn't hurt!!"

You know... I was doing pretty well there for a long time. I mean, I was able to run and play with my kids, and while stairs were tricky at times, mostly, things with Rice Crispy Knee were good. Until now.

So for the time being, Dr. S. gave me a steroid injection in Rice Crispy Knee to calm down the inflammation and help with the pain, and advised me to stay off of it as much as possible, no stairs, no bending it, no kneeling, no lifting, etc., and to use a crutch when I needed to walk around.

Okay, cool, I can do that, and I promise, I've been very, very good. Very good. Except, I haven't told my mom about it because... really, she would freak for no good reason, and right now, I just can't see the point of upsetting her. Really. Besides, I really, really don't want to hear the "Marching Band Ruined Your Health, And So Did Drum Corps, If You'd Only Stayed In Swimming And If You'd Only Gone to Bellaire High School, You'd Be So Much Better Off" lecture again. I got a five year break from that one, but now that her memory isn't so dependable, she doesn't remember us settling that one so... it's being recycled. Yay.

Last week, the Impertinent Daughter turned... sixteen.

*incipient freak-out*

Have I mentioned how awesome my daughter is? May the 4th is her birthday, it's Star Wars Day, and "The Avengers" came out in the theaters. TRIPLE BONUS!!! So... we took her to San Marcos for dinner at her favorite Chinese restaurant, where the Impossible Son got this in his fortune cookie...

If you can't read it, it says, "About time I got out of that cookie!"

After that, we went to the theater where I'd pre-ordered tickets and got in line. And hey, I just have to say, I really like this "ordering movie tickets online" thing, because the show was sold out!! It was awesome!! Yes, yes, I know, welcome to the 21st century, Jo.

I learned a valuable lesson that day, too. The Impertinent Daughter is absolutely NEVER allowed to ever, ever, EVER drink Mountain Dew again. As far as she's concerned, it's a controlled substance. OMG... one of her friends gave her a can for her birthday, and she was feeling tired when she got home from school. She wanted to stay awake for the movie, she said, so she decided to drink the Mountain Dew with her snack. This is around 4:30 p.m.

Holy Mackinoly, y'all, that child was wired for sound!! I mean, seriously, she talked nonstop (except when she was eating, and even then it was a close thing) from 4:35 until 1 a.m.!!!! EVEN DURING THE MOVIE.

I would shush her so I could hear the dialogue, and I'll say this for her, unless her enthusiasm got away from her, she mostly kept her voice really soft and quiet, which had irritations of it's own, because I couldn't hear her well enough to understand her!! And she tried valiently to be quiet in the car on the way home after, but... chatter chatter chatter!!! At least it mostly made sense!!

"The Avengers" was ... awesome by the way!!! Just... oh, yeah, gonna go see that again just so we can catch what we missed the first time!!!

The Impossible Son had a soccer game Saturday, and didn't play like himself at all. By Saturday evening, he had a fever of 103 F (39.4 C). That was fun. Turned out to be a virus that's blasting its way through town. The Impertinent Daughter fell victim to it Sunday night, but her temperature didn't get as high as the Impossible One's did, thank goodness. Mr. Impossible missed Monday, and Miss Priss should be back at school tomorrow.

After her doctor's appointment tomorrow, I shall retire to the couch with pillows to prop up Rice Crispy Knee with an ice pack and not do one damn thing until the kids get home from school!!!

LIFE. It Happens.

Can I just... step off the roller coaster for a few minutes? Kinda feeling dizzy... just a bit.

Let's see, we're having to replace the central air/central heating unit in our house because (1) it has reached the age where there are no spare parts available any longer and (2) even if there were spare parts available, it wouldn't be safe to fix.

*sigh*

Yeah, that was fun. The guy who came to repair it works for the company who installed it in the first place some twenty years ago, and after first telling me what needed fixing and how much it would cost, then telling me the parts that needed fixing needed to be replaced, then telling me they don't make those parts any more, I got to deal with the blustering, Good Ol' Boy owner of said company. Mr. Good Ol' Boy took one look at me and decided that I was the type that could be easily manipulated into what he wanted me to do, and proceeded to try to intimidate me into agreeing with him that his company should be the ones to do the work.

Y'all know that went over like a lead balloon, right?

Funny how Mr. Blow Hard and his tech went all through the closet where the CA/CH unit is housed, with Mr. Blow Hard taking measurements and loudly telling his tech that they'd have to rip out the wall, and probably part of the floor to put in a new coil, and he would recommend a contractor to rebuild the wall after they were done replacing the unit, blah, blah, blah, and it never occurred to him that I was texting the Husbandly One basically a blow by blow account of what was going on while I sat quietly at the kitchen table with the laptop. Mostly, Mr. Blow Hard shouted out a series of arcane numbers that I'm guessing were supposed to be measurements of some kind, or maybe it was just supposed to impress me with how technical he was...

When he finally "presented" me with his "findings," I said politely, "Well, I'll discuss this with my husband, and we'll let you know what we decide."

He frowned, then smiled indulgently and looked at his tech, nodding as he said, "Oh, right. You'll discuss this with your husband." He snickered. "You mean, you'll ask him what to do and then do what he tells you."

Yeah, that pretty much made me see red, but I just raised an eyebrow and said, "No, I mean I'll discuss it with my husband. We're partners. Neither one of us makes big money decisions on our own. We talk it out, go over the pros and cons, and go from there. Sometimes he has the final say, sometimes I have the final say, but either way, it gets discussed, we do research, and decide how big a hit our budget can take, because it affects both of us. So when I say we'll discuss it and let you know, that's precisely what I mean. You have a problem with that?"

"Well, if you go with us, you won't have to pay the service fee for this visit," Mr. Blow Hard said, still trying to work the intimidation factor. "But if you go with someone else, I'll have to send you a bill for $85."

"That's fine," I said with a sweet smile. "We'll let you know."

"You should decide soon, because we might be booked up," he said as he headed for the door.

"We'll take that chance," I said firmly. "Bye now."

Yeah, that was fun.

We called a couple of companies, but decided on one recommended to us by the Tall Blonde. What settled it was (1) he got back to us and (2) he didn't just look at the main unit. He also went up into the attic to check the ducts and connections, and went under the house to check the coil and the drains. He was very patient with my questions, and also cleared up a mystery that's been driving us crazy for some time now.

Every time the A/C or the heat came on, I'd smell this... faint burning odor that made the back of my throat burn, and would sometimes set my asthma off. We had the unit checked several times because of this, but there was never anything we could find to explain it.

Then Mr. A/C guy takes a look at the duct work and peers up at the top of our unit and goes, "Huh."

Yeah, that's not a good sound, either.

Seems that when Mr. Blow Hard's company installed the unit, they used a type of duct work that has since been banned in our country because it's... well, basically a piece of crap. And when all the new ductwork was installed, they left this original duct work in place where the unit connects to it all. Basically, what happens to the crap duct is that it dries out and starts cracking, then dry rots and gets blown about in the system. That's what I've been smelling every time the unit comes on.

Mr. A/C said, "What I don't understand is why they left it there. Because even if the new duct wouldn't fit, there's a way to work around it and adapt it, so... why leave the old stuff? It's not safe!"

Well, judging by the crap unit Mr. Blow Hard wanted us to buy, I'd say it was done to cut corners. After all, how many homeowners actually look up into their attic to see what they've got up there? And how many of those that do would know what to look for or what they're even looking at?

We're fortunate that the weather has been mild, though the first three or four nights after we lost our heat were tough, because it got down in the thirties. Thank goodness for lots of blankets!! This house holds on to the cold like you wouldn't believe, and I've had to open the windows during the day just so I can feel my fingers!!

The Impertinent Daughter's team survived a three day soccer tournament over last weekend, and so did we! Again, in San Marcos at the fields where the Impossible Son and I froze our katooshies off. And, yes, it was cold, but not as cold as last year! Friday night, they were in first place, but by Saturday afternoon, because of the bizarre point system the folks who were running the tournament were using, the JV found themselves playing for third.

I'm still not sure where we placed, because every person I've asked have said something different. Personally, I think they placed pi.

Hey, it makes about as much sense as that point system!!

And the Impossible Son has started soccer practice for the rec league this week, which is going to be frustrating, I can tell already. Why? Because once again, there weren't enough coaches for the record FIVE U12 teams that were formed this season, so they basically started grabbing any warm body. And one of the warm bodies is the woman who is coaching my son's team.

I have nothing against her. She's a good person, I've known her since the Impertinent Daughter started playing soccer, and now her daughter and mine are playing JV for the high school. It's cool. However... she's never coached soccer before in her life and has no idea where to start. The good news is, she knows this, and has enlisted the help of several girls on the high school team, as well as any parents who have any sort of know how, or is willing to help out. This can work, I've seen it work before.

I've also seen it go to hell in a handbasket.

So... I'm hoping and keeping my fingers crossed that things will go well. However, the Husbandly One and I have decided this will be Mr. Impossible's last season playing here. If he plays rec league next fall, it will be in San Marcos.

And that is the State of Jo so far. Woo.

Stupid elves...

... at least they didn't wait until we'd gone to sleep to wake us up all over again.

Still, do you have any idea how terrifying it is to be bent over, digging in a drawer to look for those gift bags from last Christmas because nobody can remember where the stockings are, and feel a hard, knobby, bony finger poke you in the side while a voice that sounds like a chain smoking six year old says, "Santa's running late, we got hung up in Poughkeepsie, and then there was a block party going on in Tulsa with search lights... Santa's way behind schedule, and you've got balls to blow up, here's the pump!"

I thought my heart was going to jump out of my mouth!!

I think the only reason that elf isn't dead, dead, dead is because (1) no gifts for the kids EVER, and (2) the Husbandly One wouldn't let me clock him with the lamp. He really likes that lamp. THO, that is.

So... yeah, it's 2:21 a.m., and we're done putting out the presents under the little artificial tree THO and I had the first year we were married. Yes, we still have it, and it looks so cute and completely dwarfed by presents! And I'm sure in the morning, I'll feel more charitable toward the elves, but right now? Not so much.

It was easier when the kids were smaller. Santa did the bulk of the present lay-out, and we just filled out the corners with the presents we'd gotten them. But since the kids have gotten older, it seems Santa is more and more pressed for time.

I'm beginning to wonder, though.

Anyhow, Happy Holidays to all my friends! Hopefully, you're getting more sleep than I am!!

"It was a Butler... in Pain... in a Trunk... in Cement..."

I'm fresh from a game of In A Pickle, and oh, boy, my sides ache from laughing!!

The Husbandly One and I love playing games of In A Pickle with the kids, because not only do we get into hilariously silly word strings, but... our kids learn to think on their feet, they learn to use their skills of persuasion and argument, and they learn to think creatively while justifying their choices.

It's a win-win, because while THO and I are demonstrating the skills we want our kids to learn, we're also getting a glimpse into the way they think. And, disturbingly enough, they're getting a glimpse into how we think!

So, while we started with a cheeseburger eating moose in a bedroom, the Impossible Son added that it was all in fear, and he had to justify that all of that would fit in a fear, and we had a lively (and somewhat hysterical) discussion about irrational fears, and THO wasn't quite convinced that fear of a cheeseburger eating moose was the same as the fear of being watched by a duck. However, the Impertinent Daughter chimed in that she was sure there were many Americans who were afraid of having a moose in their bedroom, and that she, herself, would be very disturbed by a moose in her bedroom, and if it were eating cheeseburgers, that would definitely cause mental scarring for life.

I had pretty much laid my head down on the table at this point, in helpless tears of laughter.

So, once Mr. Impossible, with the help of his sister, had won his case, I decided that all of this was in the mind of a girl, and I got the pickle.

We've had a great deal of fun with this game, probably more than we're supposed to, because with our geeky brains, we probably get a whole hell of a lot more mileage out of the words than most people would. Come on, seriously, how many people would look at the words, "Venus Fly Trap," in their hand and think, "OMG, I know just how to use this!!" and go on a word string that has a Reflection of a Venus Fly Trap in a Mirror on a Submarine in a Parade? Or starts cackling with glee when they see, "Nun," and end up with Ants in a Nun in a Marriage (we didn't say she was a good nun) in a Warehouse in Paris?

Whenever someone goes a little too weird or too far, the rest of us make that game show buzzer noise, "EEEHHHHHH!!!" and "No, no, no, sorry, can't have a blimp in a cat, even if the cat is as big as a house, or a toilet in an elephant, because even if an elephant is bigger than a toilet, how would it get in there? An elephant is big, but has a small mouth!"

I won't even go into the arguments to justify how a toilet can get into an elephant!!

Of course, as the game goes on, we all get more desperate to not lose a turn, and it just gets crazier and wilder until we're all laughing so hard that we can't breathe, and I just ... can't help but find it so awesome that we can all do this, that we all get to do this together. To be as nerdy and silly and just plain goofy and... life is good.

Yeah. Life is good.