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...

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...

Ch-ch-ch-changes....

My daughter went to her first prom this weekend, and it was one of those rites of passage that her father and I anticipated and tried to prepare ourselves for only to find those mental preparations were... well... woefully inadequate.

I tried not to make too big of a production of it, because I didn't want the Impertinent Daughter to freak out and hide.  After all, this was a big step for her, my wild tomboy daughter who doesn't think she's pretty (must be genetic, I swear).  First date, first time wearing makeup, first time wearing a dress and heels in public where it didn't involve a cosplay... all pretty huge steps for her.

So, she went to prom with a boy she's known since sixth grade, whom we will call "Toast Boy," because I crocheted a scarf for him that looked like joined pieces of toast with pats of butter on them.  He still wears it, I understand.

I had made an appointment at the salon we habitually go to for her to have her hair, face, and nails done (for which I am extremely grateful, because while I could have done her makeup, her hair would have probably broken me), so Saturday afternoon, that's where we went.

Now, salons in a small town are somewhat different from those in larger towns.  And I say this having grown up in Houston and having gone to small neighborhood salons.  You get to know the stylists, and some of the regulars, you chat and all, but you don't get to really know them.

In a small town, where everybody knows everybody, and knows everybody's business, it's a whole new ballgame.  You know the stylists because their kids go to school with yours, or played soccer with yours, or you know the same people.  Or you had to serve on the same parent volunteer groups at school.  Or your kids are in band together.   Or they live down the street from you.  So, you go in with your kid, and they already know what they're going to do to her and you'll hear them say things like, "I've been waiting to do your hair for prom for x number of years!!" or "I can't believe you're old enough to go to prom!  I gave you your first haircut when you were so small, you had to sit on two phone books just so I could reach you!  That was just last week, right?"

I heard a lot of that from the other girls getting their hair, nails, and makeup done, because, of course, small town, only one high school, of course the salons were packed with girls (and guys) getting ready for prom!  And a couple of the stylists, who I am shocked to now realize I have known for ten years, came over to chat with me and check on Miss Impertinent's progress.

What you need to know is this...

(photo by Jo Jandrok)

Was transformed into this...

(photo by Erin Hurd)

After we got home, her best friend's mom called, and they came by for photos, and this...

(photo by C. Jandrok)

became this...

(photo by Jo Jandrok)

Which is amazing.  Looking at them in that photo, you'd never have any clue they're both kick-ass soccer players who have played on co-ed teams and sent guys bigger than they are flying.

The look on the Husbandly One's face when we came home, by the way, was priceless.  I think in a lot of ways, he still sees the Impertinent Daughter at eight, with dirt smeared on one cheek and chocolate in the corners of her mouth, tangled hair and a big grin, ready for the next adventure.  Seeing her like this, though, was a major shock to the system, and I don't think he was ready for it.  Neither was I, really.  

Of course, I can't leave you with this... dignified photo of the girls, because really... it's just not them.  So, about ten seconds after the above photo was snapped, we got this...

(photo by Jo Jandrok)

Followed by a sisterly photobomb, courtesy of Super Goalie's younger sister...

(photo by Jo Jandrok)

And then it was time for Super Goalie to leave for dinner with her date, and the Impertinent Daughter to leave for dinner with her date and the group of friends they were going with.  And I got another shock.  Because this...

(photo by C. Jandrok)

Became this...

(photo by Jo Jandrok)

Of course, it later devolved into this...

(photo by B. Schaub)

Which shows my daughter and her friends have a propensity for dramatic gestures.  

Oh, and by the way, did I mention that my daughter actually had not one, but two dates to the prom?

(photo by Jo Jandrok)

They had an extra ticket, and can you believe, the Demon Lord Nevitz was actually not going to go???  Well, Miss Impertinent and Toast Boy had to fix that, so they promptly asked him to go, and here you see them, Demon Lord, Impertinence, and Toast, all ready to go to the prom.  The Three Amigos.  Or the Three Formal -Wearing-Teens of the Apocalypse (notice the formal skulls on the Impertinent One's wrist bag).    

Of course, they said the prom was boring (and I can imagine that it was, for them), and the high school should really worry if those three get it into their heads to take over next year's prom, because I am sure there would be Cards Against Humanity, actual danceable music that wasn't rap or country (apparently, the country music wasn't danceable, either) which may or may not include J-Pop and K-Pop, and decorations that don't consist of a box of popcorn and a movie clapper on each table.  There may even be some C4 involved, or zombies.  Maybe even pirates!  (She wanted to wear a pirate themed dress, but we didn't really have time to plan it this year).  I think if the Impertinent One had her way, it would be strictly cosplay, period.  

She'd make an awesome Black Widow, don't you think?

Anyhow, I think she did have some fun at least, and I can say that her father and I survived our first prom experience.  It was... challenging, and did require a margarita on my part.  Did I mention that the Husbandly One makes really good margaritas?

And that was our adventure with prom night!

Because her art grows by leaps and bounds...

She's done it again. The Impertinent Daughter has blown me away with her art again.

Yeah, I know, proud mom here. But it's not like I can drag you all HERE to look at the door of my fridge, is it?

It took me a moment to realize this was a DRAWING!!!



It's just... wow. Just... wow.

Because your kids are sometimes just... incredibly cool...

You know, this whole raising kids gig has had its ups and downs. And anyone who has read this blog knows we have had our share of ups and downs! Sometimes funny, sometimes heartwarming, sometimes hysterical laugh inducing, and sometimes terrifying.

But you know what I think is the absolute coolest thing ever?

When your kids are old enough to start getting your jokes, to snort and laugh when you make obscure references that leave other people scratching their heads, because your kids really get it! It's like you become the coolest, most secret club ever, and you're automatically in!!

It is awesome, seriously.

When your kids are watching some of the same nerdy, goofy shows you watch, and see nothing wrong with it, and if their friends find out and make fun of it, they look at them like they're nuts and say, "But... it's the coolest thing ever and anyone who thinks otherwise is a loser!" And they make it stick!

It just... yeah, makes me smile all day long!

When the Impertinent Daughter drew the Spock fan art for me and now I've gotten her hooked on "Stargate Atlantis" and drew fan art for that, and then last night, we ordered Chinese takeout and sat in the living room watching a disk of "The Big Bang Theory," and it was just the most awesome thing ever! And I sat there on the floor by the Husbandly One's feet, looking around at my little family, watching them get the "Star Trek" references, and the comic book references, and I was suddenly just so happy!

It's one of those moments you just... kinda want to hold onto forever.

See Max's Girl Run

Okay, y'all are going to have to put up with some more soccer gushing, but this time will be a little different.

Y'all know the Impertinent One has been playing soccer since she was seven, right? Wanted to start her when she was four or five, but the Husbandly One was convinced she was too tiny and would get hurt. I kept pushing, and finally, he said we could try it out and see how she did.

Why did I want her to play soccer?

Well, see, our Labrador Retriever, Max, was such a ball dog. We'd had him since we were first married, and spent a lot of time throwing tennis balls, Frisbees, kick balls, and any other kind of ball we had around for him, and he'd fetch and bring it back, or knock it around and then knock it to us... he was very playful, and we sort of got into the habit of inventing games to play with him. Then one day, THO found a soccer ball and brought it home, and thus began Max's life as a Soccer Dog.

THO spent a lot of time running around, kicking the ball with Max, and Max would knock it back to him and it was pretty damned funny. And amazing.

Did I mention Max waited five years for us to have a kid? And when we finally did, the first thing he did the day we brought her home was drop a ball in her crib and wait patiently for her to throw it back?

The day she finally did was the happiest day in his life.

Okay, so skip forward to when she was finally upwardly mobile and could run. We still kept a variety of balls around for Max (and for Miss Impertinence, too!). And they played, running around the yard constantly.

The inevitable happened. Max taught the Impertinent Daughter how to play soccer. And he always played in a take-no-prisoners kind of way.

She learned well.

Okay, so, the Impertinent One went to her first soccer practice and took to it like a duck takes to water. She was the smallest kid on her team, and I had my moments of "Oh, maybe THO was right," but then she'd play just the way Max taught her and I'd stop worrying.

Then she had her first game, and THO, who had missed the practices, came to watch. There were several kids on the other team who were like... twice her size, and I could see THO was nervous when she went on the field to play. Then this kid, who was HUGE compared to her, loomed over her as she came running up the field with the ball, actually lifting up his arms like he was going to do a "Hulk, smash!!" kind of thing, and I could see THO was ready to race onto the field to save her...

She looked up at him, smirked, then plowed him to the ground with one shoulder and blitzed right past him like he didn't weigh a thing, passed to one of the other forwards, and bam! it was a goal.

I looked up at THO, trying not to be smug, and he was staring after her with this sort of befuddled, totally besotted look on his face, full of shock and admiration, and he suddenly shouted, "THAT'S MY GIRL!! YOU GO, IMPERTINENCE!!"

And that was that.

Well, somewhere along the way, probably when she was about ten or eleven, she started losing her confidence. Mostly after she started playing under the coach she'd had her first season, whom she really liked. He called her his Trooper, because she was always willing to play, even when she was hurt, and he could count on her to set up the ball for shots on goal. Then... he started not playing her as often. He'd bench her, or put her in and take her out after a few minutes. By the last season she played with him, it was starting to tell on her. She started playing in a very tentative sort of way, and flinching when the ball came at her, or when boys looked like they were going to bump her. The coach moved her to midfield, and by her last season, had moved her to defense. She stayed at midfield and defense for the next two levels she played at, and again when she played for the junior high, though she slowly started getting her confidence back. By the time she was playing for the junior high, she was playing aggressively again.

When she started at the high school, after making the team, the coach told her she would play her at midfield, but mostly, she wanted Impertinence to play forward.

"I can't play forward!" she wailed to me. "I'm not fast enough!! I can't run like that!"

"Yes, you can," I said, because I know her, right?

"No! I'm too chunky, look at my legs, they're too short!!"

"You do a lot better than you think you do," I said firmly. "And it's not just speed, honey. It's knowing where to be and when to be there, and you are very good at that. And you're fast enough when you want to be," I added, thinking, you're pretty damn fast when your brother has something you don't want him to have, and you want it back!

Admittedly, the first game she played as a forward, she looked totally lost, but... she nearly got a goal. By the time they played in the tournament in Hays, she'd figured things out, and was starting to enjoy it.

Last night, she came full circle.

I almost missed her first shot at goal. I was grumbling at my camera, trying to adjust the settings because it wasn't cooperating with me, and the Tall Blonde grabbed my arm and practically physically turned my head for me and I was just in time to see her, right there, zipping between Bastrop players like they weren't even there, and then she was there, the keeper wasn't and BAM that ball was flying into the goal. The keeper made a desperate last second lunge and managed to hit the ball with the tips of her fingers just enough to change the trajectory and the ball hit the pole and flew out.

I couldn't even make a sound!, I just sat there with my hands plastered over my face.

I could just swear that when she went zipping down the field, slipping between those other girls... there was a big goofy black dog running right next to her.

It was like I was seeing her in that first game, that same fierce joy, the determination, the "Ha-ha-ha, this is my game, you're playing on my field, and I'm gonna get that ball!!" that had been missing since she was eleven... and it was so wonderful!!

She's found her speed again, too.

And that's why I spent most of the game with my hands either clutched under my chin or plastered over my face, why I could barely squeak at times, because seeing her like that again was so extremely wonderful, it was almost unbearable.

I think she's going to be just fine now. I really do.