Category Archives: Humor

Surviving Summer FunTimes Week 6 — I’m Loving It, but Don’t Quote Me On That

Humor, Parenting, Surviving Summer Funtimes, Things that smell

Happy Back to School Week! Haha. Just kidding. There are 6000 more weeks of summer vacation.

 

Something smells. Seriously, in my house, something smells. I get little wafts of it every so often and then it dissipates so quickly I can’t find it. It’s not quite as bad as my dog’s odor, which usually smells like he ate something so terrible that he emits gas from the center of Hell. But it doesn’t smell like rotting food. It kind of smells like a melting crayon covered in mold that’s been jammed in the heating vents — which makes no sense because right now we’re running AC. My husband was kind enough to suggest we might have a dead animal somewhere in the house so I may have to set the place on fire.

The kids asked for a day off from camp, and I agreed on the condition that the only television we watch would be shows I want to see. We watched Iron Chef and the ingredient was Wahoo. The kids were completely and hilariously repulsed by the whole thing. They learned a valuable lesson: never ask to stay home again.

That evening, the boys put out cheese and crackers as appetizers. Nicely plated, too. Not sure if they were inspired by Alton Brown or just trying to get at some pre-dinner noshing in a very clever way. Either way, it worked. The only problem is all the children loaded up on Triscuits, Laughing Cows, and a questionable plop of hummus, so the nice dinner I made became the slightly less nice lunch the next day.

I asked my daughter, “Do you want to help me make brownies tomorrow?” She looked at me, eyes wide.

“It is my duty,” she said.

Every so often, I feel I’m doing something right.

Figured out what the smell was. It’s the kids’ paint, made by a popular crayon company. I wasn’t completely off when I said it was a combination of dead animal and crayons. But all art projects made with that paint were photographed then tossed.

There is probably some analogy about creation/death (smells) but I’m too woozy to figure it out.

The boys finished their “regular” camp and began a week of coding classes. My husband came home from dropping them off and reported that the boys did not want to have their dad walk them into class.

While the boys were at class, I took my daughter to the local children’s museum for the first time. I’ve been avoiding it because I remember taking the boys there and being exhausted, but then I realized (a) she’s starting kindergarten in a few weeks and we won’t have the same amount of time together and (b) she’s not twins. We spent hours playing and exploring, despite the fact that she’s probably a little too old for the place. Fortunately, she’s not too old to hold my hand while we wander around.

These are the moments that grab a small awl and bore time-passing holes in my heart. And I realized I actually enjoy having my kids home for the summer.  It’s going to be hard for me in September when they go back. Now, feel free to repeat that back to me in a week when I am saying I’m going nuts from all the bickering and the fighting and the permanent state of snacking they all seem to be in. But for now, I am enjoying them very much.

 

 

 

 

 

Surviving Summer Fun Times YOU ARE NOT ALONE

Humor, Parenting, Surviving Summer Funtimes 
Wondering about the great life decisions I made to get to this point? Check out the last Sweet Summer Funtimes update here.

This week’s tired analogy: Summer is Groundhog Day.  (The movie, not the holiday, although I’m not counting out that soon I will have reason to write that summer is like the holiday.) Repeatedly making sure everyone gets to their fun activities, making sure the house is still functioning and everybody is fed, things are taking care of. You know, the adult stuff, the stuff that reminds you that in large part, summer just isn’t the same as an adult. So, in an effort to prepare my children for adulthood, every day I yell say forcefully, “Pay attention and enjoy it while it lasts, kids, because when you’re my age in a million years, you still have responsibilities and you can’t do them with chocolate ice cream smeared all over your face!”

It is also like Groundhog Day because my son and daughter talk Minecraft nonstop. I’m convinced they’re just saying the same thing over and over again. Crafting, Redstone, Blocks, Building, Zombies, Rabbits.  I don’t know what they talking about, but I can leave the room while they are mid-sentence  and come back three hours later and they’re still talking about this game, probably still in the same sentence they were on when I left. They insist they are making progress or leveling up or winning or whatever indicates that the game actually has a point.

Craaaaaaamps. How much time do you really make your kids wait between eating and swimming. Asking for me. I don’t worry as much about them cramping up (because they do have just enough sense to stop swimming for that) as I do them spitting up (which is something by which I will not abide if I can help it.)

My boys went to a birthday party this week. Birthdays are pure joy for kids, and I like when my kids can help celebrate with another child. The only snag is that it usually involves my wrapping presents. I’ve got some sort of wrapping curse, and I’m wary of gift bags mostly because I’ve heard parents complaining about them – they’re “cheap” and look like there’s “no effort” – which in my case is completely true. But I need the “no effort” because my effort at wrapping is “shitty” and “why bother.” And frankly, as I give humans enough reasons to complain about me, I don’t need to add to the list unnecessarily.

I used wrapping paper for the board game, only had kind we had the cheap kind of paper, not the cheapest but pretty cheap, it always feels a little… damp. So it’s hard to wrangle into place. The second gift was shaped like an extra-credit question on a geometry exam and I did not have a box to put it in, so I used a gift bag. I tried to make up for that egregious misstep it by putting a shit ton (metric) of tissue paper in there. It looked okay actually. On the way there, the gift bag fell off the car seat and onto the floor upside down, spilling out gift and paper. So when we arrived at the party, I crammed it all back in and prayed for forgiveness.

It’s like the Pinterest gods mock me.

The kids watched Sunday Morning with us this week. Mostly they are entertained by the medicine commercials’ roving list of side effects, but occasionally the children are inspired. This week’s episode ran, or perhaps reran, a segment about children’s competitive cup stacking. And I groaned because I knew what was coming next: my kids dug out their cup stacking kit (that had remained dormant in their closet for months) and began cup stacking obsessively for hours. Sunday Morning made cup stacking even sexier to my kids when they implied that it helps with focus and it may help with math. I’d like to see the research on that. I do know that cup stacking does not help with mental health. Clack, clack, clack.

The kids are getting along so well that when one got a time out for reasons involving armpit farts and selective hearing, the other two children joined him and kept him company while he paid his debt to society. It warmed my heart a little bit, quelling the “I’m a bad parent because my kid is a maestro armpit farter” a tad.

And thus we survive and we laugh, despite a veritable flood all over town and in our backyard (we live in the flood plain) which has kept us from picnicking and playing baseball for a while.

My backyard, now a home for wayward ducks.

There’s always ice cream. (I recommend this if you like making your own!)

Sweet Summer Funtimes — And the Living is Mumblety Mumbelty

Creative non-fiction, Humor, Parenting, Surviving Summer Funtimes 
Wondering about the great life decisions I made to get to this point? Check out the last Sweet Summer Funtimes update here.

Day 25 – One son was up at 5:00 in the morning moaning and sniffling because his nose was stuffed up. Yet for some reason he refused to blow his nose, preferring to act as some sort of horrific alarm clock of misery for the rest of us. When I finally marched in there and forced him to blow his nose, he was fine. Not stuffy at all. For the rest of a day he enjoyed and I stumbled through, bleary-eyed.

It was Reptile Day at my daughter’s camp. Reptile. Day. Seeing this on the calendar sent her into fits of apoplexy. She envisioned slo-mo attacks from prehistoric critters like camp was suddenly going to be gladiator situation. She did not have fun that day. I’m sure some kids did. Kind of kids whose parents let them have reptiles in the house as or dinner.

Day 26– This morning the weather was a balmy 60 degrees and raining. The boys insisted on wearing shorts to camp. I think it’s some sort of warm light/macho/Braveheart thing. I’m just not sure how it’s those things. Meanwhile, I’m in a sweater.

They’ve taken it upon themselves to practice the piano for over five hours a day on and off. When they’re not playing “Clocks”,

they’re trying to figure out pieces with the hunt-and-peck method, which I do not recommend to anybody who has an eardrum. Occasionally they take a break from banging on two different pianos of the house so they can play Rock Band. My children have many gifts, but the gifts of Rock Band mastery and tone accuracy are not among them. (Un)fortunately, the ability not to get bored singing “R-O-C-K in the U.S.A” 100 times in a row is one of them. I know some of you are saying “Encourage them! It’s wonderful! I have to force my children to practice piano.” To which I say, after much twitching, there has to be a middle ground. I think we’re fighting on the same side this war. It’s a War on Sanity.

Day 27 – Camp drop-off can be a shit show. No matter how early we all get up, for some reason, it’s a race out the door. Once at the various camp drop-off points, it’s a demolition derby, aided and abetted by strollers 2 or 3 across (two separate moms), and dogs, and the crying kids, and the campers who all crowd the sidewalk, making my hasty escape rather difficult.

It’s ok, though. I’m perfectly delightful because of all that. Like, camp drop-off delightful.

Day 28 –  Took the youngest to gymnastics. We continued her classes to keep her skills up because God forbid she loses all momentum on her falling down every three seconds into a foam pit. I sit for an hour in a loud, smelly, hot gym and watch my daughter making sure I’m watching her every move. I made the mistake of looking down at some point because I thought perhaps I’d caught fire, and another kindly let me know that my daughter was trying to get my attention and didn’t she at least deserve that?

It’s like taking them to the pool without the trench foot.

Day 29 – No sleep because everyone in the house, including the dog, snores. I may have taken the kids swimming. I  don’t remember. Pretty sure they ate today because all over the house are wrappers from all the snacks I hid from them so I could eat them after bedtime.

Day 30 – no sleep again last night, mostly because I didn’t get any snacks yesterday. One child begged me to let him sleep in my bed insisting it would be “fun.” He sleeps like he lives – uneasily. Lots of tossing and turning. I honestly don’t know how dragging myself around but I’m feeling and looking and probably smell like a carcass at this point. Somehow my husband sleeps through it all. Fortunately, he took on the Costco responsibilities, because I’m pretty sure had I gone, the 20-pound container of peanut butter-filled pretzels would have seemed like a good idea.

Husband brought home a 5-pound bag of almonds wrapped in coconut, bathed in chocolate. He is a good and wise man.

Day 31 – Kids. They can’t just take the easily-accessed strawberries and wash them themselves. They prefer the strawberries to be decapitated and sliced and cored and butterflied or julienned or something that good parents probably do.

They’re not suffering, though. Today I went into the random kitchen appliance drawer, the one with all the measuring cups and potato peelers and the stuff I use once a year. I saw the ice cream scoop. Now, I don’t usually bother with the ice cream scoop, because (a) they don’t work that well and (b) I usually just eat it out a pint anyway. If I’m putting things in bowls because I’m feeding the children and I don’t want them to think that it’s appropriate to eat out of the pint. So, long story short, the ice cream scoop is more a placeholder, if you will. Something people have in their random appliance drawer and something non-heathens probably use. But there it lay, that scoop. And it was filthy. With ice cream. Melted chocolate to be exact. Probably Ben & Jerry’s. One of my kids tried to use the ice cream scoop to get him/herself ice cream, then in an effort to “clean up” and/or hide the evidence, put the scoop back in the drawer. The kicker is that the drawer is literally just a half spin away from the dishwasher, and I’m so tired these days if I’d noticed it at all, I just would have assumed I’d gone classy for awhile and didn’t remember. Anyway, cleaned out that whole drawer. All members of the house deny doing it.

Day 32 – July 4th, the original Brexit. If the amount of neck-dirt, chocolate on their faces (despite not eating any chocolate), and ability to narrate 32 minutes of fireworks nonstop is any measure, it was a success from which we may never quite recover.