I'm weary tonight. We're in the final month of school and I'm ready, so very ready, to be done with the school year. Of course, first we have to navigate the gauntlet of furlough days, field trips, concerts, Open Houses, book fairs and book swaps, costumed theme days and parties.

That's right, I'm spending tonight figuring out how to make a Greek Chiton costume for my son, for tomorrow. Because... yeah. Apparently there were emails and notes sent home about this months ago?

I'm sure this king-sized pillowcase will work fine. (Hangs head in shame. It's Cave Day all over again.)

Work has hit a fever pitch again, and as always happens, my husband's work has ALSO hit the fan, meaning that one of us is travelling every other week, sometimes for week long stretches, between now and mid-June. Mercifully, most of the travel is his. That means, however, that most of the parenting is mine.

As I said. WEARY. But I'm picking up one foot, and placing it in front of the other.

Posted by Jenny at 6:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by Jenny at 10:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My oldest is now 13 years old. My first-born, my training baby, my giant child, my young lady is thir-freaking-teen. This is supposed to be a transitional period, where the un-selfconciousness of childhood crashes into the awkwardness of adolescence. This is the time when (supposedly) parents who have run this gauntlet are left navigating a scarred, charred wasteland and a thousand-yard stare, occasionally punctuated by shudders and a twitching eye.

By and large, though, we're doing great. Greatish. (knocking wood.)

I'm struggling with my weight (still, always) and have been having some really candid dialogues with my kids about why I need to watch what I eat, why I need to exercise better, longer, just more. As I mentioned a long time ago on my old ClubMom Blog, I don't want my kids to have a complex about being an idealized weight. I want them to know that food is fuel (while also being fun) and I want exercise and physical play to be a normal part of every day for them. I want health and physical ability to tackle any task they want to accomplish to be the rewards of eating well and moving often, rather than fitting into a certain size.

I want this for them, and I want this for me.

I've lost my way, though. I'm sitting on my exercise ball chair in front of a computer for 8+ hours a day (although I walk and stretch during meetings and calls when I don't have to be right in front of the computer.) My mom, and my sister, and my friends and coworkers all have lots of great advice, and what they know, I know. I know what I need to do, and I know how to do it, and I know when to do it, and I know why to do it, and I still am not doing it. I mean, I'm eating low-carb and writing down my weight and thinking about doing something, but other than that? Not doing it.

I am still not doing this, even though I want this for all of us. ANYWAY.

My thirteen-year-old daughter's primping routine far outweighs my own. She's a girly girl in all the ways I used to be. I'm glad to know that I passed on the Razzle Dazzle Jenny gene to at least one of my kids. She mixes her own lipglosses and creates complicated patterns with her eyeshadows and seems to be developing quite a look for herself.

She likes to have her hair in big, swoopy, wavy curls, and she often turns to me for help putting up her hair in buns before bed, hoping that this time will be the time it actually makes pretty curl, instead of weird, crispy, disordered frizz. I try my best, but a lifetime with hair that doesn't curl for nobody, nohow, has left me inept with hot rollers, foam rollers, rag curls and pin curls. I can do a curling iron, sometimes, but I get impatient and use too large sections of hair, resulting in unevenly curled and weirdly crimped.

The unveiling the next morning almost always results in my daughter getting frustrated and going to school with hair that looks like her mother attacked her with something bendy and her hair caught the worst of it. My daughter, sitting beside me now, just said that it sometimes looks like a dead cat. SO YEAH.

But one thing that I can do better than she can is paint nails. She loves to paint her nails, but she also likes to paint the surrounding skin and really glop that stuff on there. Yeah, she loves her some thick-ass polish layers. She polishes, and then removes, and then polishes, and then removes, and the entire family is gassed out of whatever room she's working in. There is much complaining.

As a nail biter, I rarely have nails to paint, but I've been growing them out and so I figured if you can't beat her, join her, right? So, I've been sporting some Klassy looks over the last few weeks. My daughter cracks up because I have a tendency to paint my left hand and then get bored, and so I end up with crazy nails on one side, and naked nails on the other. She says my left hand is the one I kill people with. The eeeevil hand, if you will.

Right now, I'm sporting bright yellow nails with golden glitter top coat, and boy don't I feel fancy. It's the worst color in the world for me. I'm already plotting the next polish change. The surprising thing about these spontaneous manicure sessions is that it brings my daughter and I back into harmony (most of the time, when she's not trash-talking about her polish being better than my polish or mocking my hairstyling skillz.) We can just sit together, and inhale fumes from wee bottles and enjoy the clacking sound of ball-bearings pinging against glass.

I don't know what the next few years hold for us, but I'm hoping that we continue to find these moments of camaraderie as we navigate the teen years.

Posted by Jenny at 8:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yesterday afternoon, it dawned on us that it was the last day of spring break and my son's project wasn't even started. He was supposed to craft some sort of ancient Chinese artifact and of course he picked a sword. OF COURSE. A quick trip to the craft store netted us some bronze colored paint and two balsa wood boards. That should work, right?

An hour later found me crouched on the front steps, using a rusty box-cutter and an emery board to help turn a rectangle into a facsimile of a sword. No one lost any chunks of flesh despite some risky carving moves, but there were some really unpleasant words said (by me) and I'm still sneezing due to inhaling the sawdust.

The thing is, with the right tools, we could have accomplished a much finer finished product, and in half the time. I tried to tell my son that the time we were spending smoothing the hacked off edges with a piece of cardboard covered in cupcake-printed gritty paper was doing it like Ancient Artisans would have done.

In reality, though, I basically taught him to make a shiv.

Posted by Jenny at 9:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

If given the opportunity to bend your ear for a spell, my children would accost you with tales of empty-stomached woe, and pantries full of things called ingredients and fridges full of things like milk, eggs and cheese and bread boxes spilling over with breads and english muffins and counters with bowls of grapes and apples - in other words, nothing to eat.

My children have spent the last week crying from the hilltops that we have no food, and that I never grocery shop, and that they are being slowly starved because the food in our house must be *gasp* prepared.

And not in the microwave, in a specially designed microwave-friendly package. No! Like, actually cooked.

The problem, of course, stems from the fact that what they want to do is what we've trained them to do with our patented "Root Pig or Die" meal planning that happens when one or both parents becomes knee deep in work. They want to stumble to the pantry or fridge and find premixed can of tuna salad or a single-serving cup of soup, or a yogurt... or as happens in the witching hour between the end of school and the end of my work day, a bag of pretzels, a package of beef jerky, an ice cream bar or some other packaged treat.

If they are hungry, and we are busy, we figure that they can grab something for themselves. Most of the time they choose something healthy-ish, because I haven't been bringing in lots of junky foods. Since they've been home on break this week, I didn't buy any snacky things. I figured they could just eat meals.

And then I got busy, and they had to fend for themselves a bit - which meant selecting breakfasts and lunches from the available ingredients. Turkey sandwiches! Tuna sandwiches! Grilled cheese! Toast and soup! Yogurt! Fruit! Cold cereal! Oatmeal!

No. None of that worked. The poor little darlings are starving because there isn't anything worth eating in the house. Worth eating equals Mom cooked it.

I get it. I do. I would like to have all my meals prepared for me (and cleaned up after) and never have to think for myself. I would also like to reject the logical options presented and demand better options. I suspect they get this from their father, who delights in sharing random food pairings that I have not shopped for when asked what he would like for dinner.

Here's the thing, though. They should be able to make their own meals with a little input from me. My hands are not the only hands that can layer peanut butter onto bread. There is no reason that a 10, 11 and 13 year-old pack of children cannot assemble a simple breakfast from an array of options.

Instead, they whine about not having anything to eat. Time to volunteer at the food bank, methinks.

Posted by Jenny at 3:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by Jenny at 3:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Not a metaphor! Actual wet dog is happening right now!

Poor Donna the Dog has separation anxiety. She doesn't like me to go anywhere, so when I leave the house, she sits in the yard and waits for me to get back.

We have a doggie door. And while I can lock her in the house, she likes to express her dismay by peeing on the floor if I do, so I just leave her in the yard these days. She CAN go back in the house if she wants.

But then she might miss me pulling up, and then who would bark and jump on me. Donna will be happy to tell you that is the Most Important Job ever, and she's not leaving it up to the cat. Oh no.

It's raining here today, buckets and buckets, so when I left to pick up the kids from school, Donna took up her post on the wet front walk. I shooed her back inside the house, and left.

As soon as I got back home, I was greeted by Barking Jumping Wet Dog, who seems to think that her extra effort should be rewarded.

So, now she smells like wet, muddy dog, my house has a delightful new floor pattern of muddy dog prints from front to back, and she's giving me the evil eye like all this is my fault. Because I do insist on the barking and jumping and keeping vigil.

The cat, meanwhile, is sleeping on the couch, and could give a crap.

Posted by Jenny at 5:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)