Latch-key kid fun

I feel you deserve a story, my good readers. You've read about my tech woes for too long now. I know, I'm just giddy because all is well for these few brief moments. Let's enjoy them together.

When I was growing up, the hour between when school let out and when my Mom's car hit the driveway was perhaps the most dangerous hour of our day (surpassed only by the hour when Dad found out about what we had done). You've heard about the dragging out mattresses so we could jump off the roof. The way we stretched the phone up to the roof so when our neighbor called our Mom we could "prove" to Mom we were in the house ("Crazy Nora!").

There were other days when we merely tortured one another.

One day, after Batman was over of course, my brother Skip offered my brother Rod "a hundred bucks" if he ran around the block naked. Of course he didn't have a hundred bucks. This was around 1977-78 and the kids in our world didn't have more than the 10 cents needed for the ice cream man.

But Rod didn't think that way. He's a lot like Neil. Or Neil's a lot like him.

Rod countered with: "I'll run around in my underwear for 50 bucks?!"

Skip knew a good deal when he heard one. We didn't live on the biggest block, but it was big enough. Probably a 10 minute run to make it all the way around.

Plenty of time for us to close and lock every window and door in the house. 

Rod in his skivvies showed up to a house locked up tighter than a drum.

He started banging on doors, banging on windows, screaming and yelling, desperately searching for the clothes he had left by the front door (Did you really think we would leave those out there?).

Skip and I would run from window to window and LAUGH at Rod. He was MAD, MAD, MAD. We were highly entertained. We would open a window and call to him, and he would run over just in time for us to slam it shut and lock it with the trusty stick meant to keep the bad guys out.

Rod managed to force his way into the garage, and he started banging on the door from the garage to the house. It was my brothers' bedroom. He was BANGING and BANGING and BANGING on the door.

Skip and I were laughing so hard our sides hurt. This was just good fun.

That's when Rod grabbed a tire iron and RAMMED it through the middle of the door.

Oh, crap.

Skip and I looked at each other.  It's that moment when your stomach sinks and you realize you have gone too far. You are in deep doo-doo, and Dad is going to kill you.

 (I can still see that tire iron sticking through the door, twisting around vainly.)

We let Rod in and tried not to panic. We tried pushing the door pieces together. I found some white paint in the garage. It didn't look so great. And we got a little on the door frame which was painted red so we had to hunt up some red paint. This was going from bad to worse.

We tried taping it. That didn't help.

Finally, we put two posters up -- One on the garage side and one on the bedroom side. We then tried to act casual -- for years. For whatever reason, my Mom never asked about the posters.

My brothers lived with those stupid posters and a red & white bedroom with little tin soldiers on the wallpaper for 7 or 8 years ("No, Mom. We love the room. Don't paint it." "Don't touch that poster. It's my favorite.") before my Mom finally took them down and discovered the hole.

We confessed. It was clearly Rod's fault.

21st Century Home

We have phone service! Somebody call me! I feel I should add a counter to this blog that keeps track of how many days we have working technology all at once. You know, "This house has had a working phone, computer and television for _____ days." Yeah, that would bring in the readers!

Jiggle the handle, will ya?

My friend Sandy has the best description of my technology woes:

"I picture you in the black hole of technology and every time you crawl your way up to the rim, barely hanging on you get flushed back to the bottom."

Pretty much sums it up.

Always waiting

So our digital phone has been out since the quake yesterday. I'm presently on hold with Time Warner. It's been more than a half hour.

Two things I "love" about the experience:

1. As you work your way through their automated system you get a recorded message, "We are currently experiencing longer than normal wait times. We recommend you call back at a better time." Are they serious? Is this customer service?

2. When you finally get a human, they answer: "This is Ginger. How can I make this a wonderful day?" Well, Ginger, if I hadn't spent the last half hour on hold and if I had a working phone, that would be a start toward "wonderful."

So Ginger goes through the dozen prompts she's been trained to try.

"We show your modem working."

"Yes, but I still don't have a working phone."

"I'll have to transfer you to the third-tier."

Third-tier sounds dangerous. I'm imagining third tier is where water boarding happens.

Shake, shake, shake!

So I'm sitting on the potty and the earth begins to move (and not in a good way).

"Are you freaking kidding me?!"

Why is it the minute my butt hits the toilet something has to happen?! I swear the kids start fighting, the telephone starts ringing, the dogs are pawing at the door!

But the house keeps moving and the kids are on the stairs yelling, "MOOOOOMMMYYYYYY!!!"

So I grab the kids, stand under the doorway and hold them. When the shaking stops, I sit them at the bottom of the stairs, take time to wipe and pull my pants up and then we talk about what you do in case of an earthquake.

Pyramid of Frustration

Jack is a Webelo (WE BE LOyal Scouts) now and one of the requirements is to plan your menus for a week and then record what you actually eat. (We don't need 7 days of menus to record what Jack eats. I'm not sure there are 7 different things he will eat.)

Please don't tell me how you "sneak" vegetables into your kids' meals, etc. Good for you. There's nothing to SNEAK anything into. I've created chicken nuggets from scratch but he won't eat them. There's no spaghetti sauce to put in any veggies. There's no anything to put in anything!

Jack's eating habits are a serious bone-of-contention in this household. Cheez-its, chicken dinosaurs, hot dogs, spaghetti and the occasionally forced green vegetable do not make a healthy diet. We battle over it constantly. He can out wait me at the table. There's been yelling, feet stomping, fit throwing, gagging, crying -- you name it, I've done it!

His gag reflex is amazing and highly tuned. I've tried not to give into it, but when I threatened to make him eat whatever he threw up I knew I needed some perspective.

I've even offered him cash. No go.

So back to the Scouting requirement. We spent two hours yesterday talking about the food groups (which are different than I was a kid) and what is good for your body and what fuel you need to do the things you want to do (i.e., Cheez-its will not propel you to sports stardom. No, mom won't let you have bacon for every meal. That sort of thing.).

It took those two hours to get two days worth of menus. Holy crap! We needed 7 days! I wasn't going to make it. So I wisely put it aside. His father is his den leader and has more patience than I do so I figured they could do some when he got home. And this whole exercise wouldn't end with me yelling at my child in frustration.

Why, oh why, does it never work?!

Why? Did I not ask his dad clearly enough? Did his dad not see the momma fit coming if I had to spend more time at the table arbitrating between Jack and food?

I argue with Jack over breakfast. I fight with him over lunch. I battle over dinner. Adding hours of negotiation over menus is not my idea of a good time.

But that is where I ended up last night. Dean ran to the store for the few things Jack had put on his menu. Mom ended up at the table with a grumpy 9-year-old.

Which just leads to Mom's volcanic reaction when Dad arrived home and announced he had bought organic raisins. Jack balked at eating them because they were too dry (Yeah, they are dried grapes kid. Deal with it.). Did I mention my child will eat certain things but only certain kinds of certain things and only if he is in a certain mood?

That's when Mom lost it. Screaming, stomping, steam coming out of the ears lost it... I hid in my room and took a long shower to calm down. Dad wisely finished the menus. There is even a turkey sandwich on Friday's menu (I'll believe it when I see it.).

Today I'm medicating myself with chocolate and peanut butter (hey, that's a protein!).

I hate TV

TV is overrated. We don't really need it. It rots the brain anyway... And yes, we are having difficulty with the new DirecTV. Why do you ask?

Can I quit?

Yesterday was one of those days that affirm my lack of skills as a housewife. I burnt a crock pot lasagna beyond all recognition of it as a lasagna. (Is that the cheese or the sauce? Where's the noodles?)

I do know that you aren't supposed to be able to burn something in a crock pot but I have skills, thank you.

I burnt toast, broke dishes, swept and swept and there is still dog hair. The mounds of laundry I have washed are dwarfed by the mounds I have not. I knocked over a giant bin of very small LEGOs.

I gave up before I caused more damage. 

Wake up!

Jack is my easy child. He's responsible, well-behaved and naturally cautious. Clearly he is not Neil. No sticking a fork in the electrical socket for this one.  No climbing the outside of the stairs to the top. No finding him in the garage working his way into the rafters.

But still I should pay better attention.

My head is clogged up with a cold (That's my excuse, and I'm sticking with it.) so when Jack asked for some glue this morning I groggily told him where it was. When he asked for a hammer, I did the same thing.

Now if he asked for a saw, I'm sure it would have woke me up.

Well, maybe. I did stumble to my computer to check e-mail and my Google calendar and there was hammering going on behind me, and I didn't even look.

It took awhile for the hammering to sink in. Pound. Pound. Pound.

Pound. Pound. Pound. ON MY GOOD DINING ROOM TABLE.

There was Jack surrounded by wood, glue, nails, hammers and various other items. He was working on his Western Wagon from Cub Scout camp.

"What?" he said as he looked up at me.

What?! Do I start the day by yelling? Or do I walk away?

He did a great job putting it together by himself. We have the nail marks in the dining room table to prove it.

Teenagers these days

Jack and Neil went to a friend’s house the other day for a play date. This is a friend that we don’t know super well, but good enough for mom to let them go over alone.

Before going, Neil reminded me that the little boy had big brothers. “Really big brothers...” he said. (The big brothers are 16 and up. Can you imagine what 42 means to Neil?!).

“His big brothers creep me out,” Neil said.

“Creep you out?”

“Yeah. They are creepy Mom.”

I’m trying to remember if they had a Goth phase or something else I was blocking out that would be “creepy” to a 5-year-old. I don’t think so. They are nice young men and look that way.

“What makes them creepy?” I ask.

“Mom,” he says very seriously as his voice drops to a whisper. “They show their underwear...”

Not to him but at the top of their pants. You know the style...