sick in the house

(scarf making on a sick day)

Have you ever experienced that moment, RIGHT after one of your kids throw up, and you think, “HOLY SHIT I KISSED HER ON THE LIPS JUST FIFTEEN MINUTES AGO!!!”

Happens to me all the time.

So, after the hurricane, the next night, Blue got sick and lost her dinner in the middle of the night, in her bed…um, in her hair…everywhere…

Nothing wrong with a bed change, pillow change or a bath at midnight, right? Nope.

Doing it again at 3 am, that’s pushing it.

She woke up Saturday morning feeling decent, Red had a little cold, so we stayed in and literally watched TV all day, made scarves and did Pixos and ate toast and omelets and cuddled. It was a peaceful day with no more puking and everyone getting better as opposed to getting worse. And so far, the rest of us have refrained from getting the stomach bug.

I set my alarm for the wrong time this morning, so I jumped out of bed fifteen minutes late to get on the road to Boston to pick up the girls from their overnight with their dad and bring them back to school. I literally threw on my clothes and ran out the door.

It’s a non-bra day.

It’s a non-everything day, in fact.

The drive sucked. Traffic, slush, ice, rain, accidents, but somehow I got the girls to school right as the bell rang.  Secretly, I wished it was another holiday or snow day and we could all stay home together.

J and I are sitting in our pajamas drinking coffee, doing more restaurant planning work. Oh my, how frickin’ slow this shit is. Meetings, phone calls, making notes, keeping things on the calendar of when they need to be done (liquor license meetings, etc).

We’ll have a better idea this week how things are panning out. Keep your fingers crossed, I know we are.

We were out last night listening to some live music, actually, we were having dinner and drinks at the place that we are working on buying.

I was ordering my wine with my dinner and J started to laugh.

“What?” I said.

“Um, if we’re going to be owning and running a restaurant and bar, you really need to learn how to pronounce ‘Pinot Noir’.”

On the Bedside Table

I grew up reading avidly.

We weren’t allowed to watch tv except Little House on the Prairie, so I think I felt a bit deprived at the time, especially while all my other friends spent their Saturday mornings watching cartoons.

The tradeoff though, was an appreciation and excitement for books, for reading. On Fridays, we’d stop at the library and I’d check out the maximum limit of ten books, go home, get in the bathtub, and read a novel front to back, pausing only to add hot water. We’d get in bed at night at 7 and read until Mom yelled at us to turn out the light, hours later. And I recall waking up before sunrise often enough to keep reading before having to get up for school. Saturdays were a dream, where I could sit on the beach and read in between volleyball games, or in the cooler months, stay inside and read by the fire.

Now, in our house, we’ve promoted this sort of habit with the girls. Both J and I read, currently, it is more marketing and restaurant books. Sometimes inspirational or self help books. But the other day I was at the book store with the kids and bought myself “The School of Essential Ingredients.” I even started it last night and I can’t remember the last time I actually read a book that wasn’t teaching me more than what the story was telling me.

The girls have a reward system chart on the fridge. Their goals for each day are to a) keep their room clean b) respect each other (which is a nice way to say “don’t fight, hit, scream at your sister”) and c) listen to Mommy and J. At the end of each day, they get a sticker for each accomplishment and when they reach 25 stickers, they get a reward.

Last time it was a trip to Chuck-e Cheese.

This time, it was a choice to take a trip to the bookstore.

Oh and what a treat that was. To have kids who beg to read, who beg for new books, who beg for the library, who beg to trade books with each other, how did I get so lucky?

They each picked a book. Blue got this gorgeous Pippi Longstocking book.

Red chose a Roald Dahl book, which I found amazing, considering she seems to have already read about ten of them, it is hard to believe there are more out there!

The girls both have reading homework every night, and I found myself, in the beginning, begging them to read after school, but they weren’t interested since they were busy doing other homework, resting, playing, studying, doing flashcards. I thought back to my own childhood and the new plan was easy. For the last few years, the girls have been getting in bed at night and reading for 45 minutes, sometimes longer, in their beds. In the mornings, they no longer come traipsing in to wake us up, but I go pull them from their beds and their books to get them ready for school on time.

We got a good thing going and I have even had to make the “no reading at the dinner table” rule. (along with the “no Nintendo DS at the dinner table rule.”

Lastly, on J’s bedside table is a book I ordered for him a while ago. He has read most of it but I find he has been holding onto it and picking it up and re-reading pieces of it. He alternates this with Macworld magazine and restaurant books on cutting costs, employee satisfaction, and advertising. The book is “Soul Proprietorship”. And oh man, is it good. (I know this only because I read over his shoulder sometimes when he isn’t looking. I’m still waiting for my turn with it and considering my own copy.

great worrying

Red has a very good friend, they are the sweetest together, watching out for each other, true partners at school and every year they are put together, seated together, partnered, and even paired together with others who need additional moral support in class.

It makes me really proud of both of them.

Last year, when the “swine” flu was the most common subject in the news and on the street, I struggled a bit with Red, who suddenly became immensely phobic of germs. I wrote about it on my previous blog “Movin’ Down the Road.”

It got so bad and I was so worried, but eventually, especially once summer hit, the phase and worry passed on her part and therefore I was relieved of it.

Red’s little friend has suddenly developed this anxiety thing at school, and it causes her not to eat, especially in the cafeteria. Just the other day, I saw her drinking “Ensure” because I know her dad is trying to just be sure she gets the nutrients she needs into her, fast, throughout the day, until they resolve this issue. J and I are good friends with her dad, who has custody of his kids, and does an amazing job parenting his two girls.

It’s horrible and they are getting a handle on it, even  though this little eight year old is seemingly disappearing, physically, but her personality is big, her presence is huge when she is here in this house and she shines at school. But she still just doesn’t eat.

I got her to eat with us the other night though, when she was here visiting, a few completely dry pancakes, which is more than she has eaten in a while, apparently. Anyway, at school, the cafeteria is too crazy for her for eating, so her dad asked if Red would be willing to eat with his daughter somewhere quieter. He arranged it with the faculty, so Red eats with her friend in the principal’s office (which is apparently a really fun and exciting special thing to them!)  It seems to be helping, but not sure what will happen when re-introducing her to the cafeteria.

This whole thing has really affected me. I feel bad his little girl is going through it and that he is going through it. He even has her going to a therapist  who specializes in eating disorders and the last time I talked to him, he was horrified and sad and struggling.

It makes me think about the kind of kid I was and what I put my parents through. I never did anything REALLY bad, but there were times I didn’t eat, times I stole candy from my sister and her clothes when she went to college. I stayed out past my curfew but I wasn’t out partying, I was making out with this cute guy I adored, out on the front lawn. I didn’t study and got b’s and c’s, and they knew that if I studied just a tiny bit, I would have gotten a’s. I faked cleaning the house when I was supposed to and shoved my dinner under the rug, often enough. (we didn’t have a pet). I also screamed and yelled and butted heads with my mom, on a daily basis. About what, I have no idea, but all I know is we were both stubborn and over the years I have had to let go of it, for my sake, for my own behavior, and for her sake.

Although the things I worry about now are minor, like how Red is doing with math (tutoring starts next week) or if Blue is lying to me about small things, I realize these will be teenage girls, going to middle school in a few years and then high school. I think about what I saw or what I experienced as I got older and cringe to think of my kids in similar situations. We can’t always protect them, but we can be there when the come to us, needing help to fix something or just be comforted.

On Mothering this week

I sat at the kitchen counter with my 9 year old realizing, “I am trying to  teach my kid math but I have to use a calculator to check her homework.”

My seven year old screamed how she hated homework because she hated coloring. Her first grade teacher gives her about four word problems a night and then makes them color everything on the paper, every picture, every line drawing. It IS kind of annoying. So, as much as I don’t blame Blue, I make her color. She rolls her eyes and then colors them half heartedly and then asks to do math flashcards. (what a kid, huh?)

This week has been hell in our house for some reason, my older one is good as gold one day, the next, she sticks her foot out to trip her little sister, who was already on the verge of complete meltdown…who screamed, not only at her sister, but at me, at the wall, she threw her boots down the stairs and yelled “I DON’T CARE” thirty two times before 8am.

Well, she did care, when she lost her play date with her little friend from school, when the Nintendo DS went in my purse for a few days, and when she didn’t get to go to Chuckee Cheese with her sister (and me) as the reward for the previous week’s good behavior incentive chart we have been doing the last few months. She still gets the reward, but “sorry kid, we’re postponing it.”

Chuckee Cheese, which I admitted to Red, was not as bad as I remembered (I had banned it for the last 5 years since the last time I was in one) because this one is smaller and being 5:00 pm on a Wednesday, we had the place to ourselves.

Now that’s how to do Chuckee Cheese, I’m tellin’ ya.

At any rate, she stayed home, in her room, by herself, while J practiced and about two hours later he went to get her, amazed that she’s been so quiet and had stayed put voluntarily. Apparently he stepped into her room and goes, “So, Blue….what do you think?” And he squatted down so she could climb on his back and he took her downstairs to make her an omelette and toast for dinner. They did her homework together.

And when I walked in the door with Red, fresh from Chuckee Cheese, Blue ran up to me and handed me a letter she had written, with the help of J.

And she gave me a hug.

Despite the ending to the day, it was one of those things that stayed with me, longer than it should have. It made me feel guilty, like I dropped the ball on her behavior turning out  to be so, so long and stretched out that day. That maybe I did something wrong and didn’t teach her properly how to get a hold of herself. Maybe I couldn’t get a hold of MYself to handle the situation properly.

I’ll say though, if all I had were champagne in the house, I would totally crack it open and drink it. (and I hate champagne) I would toast to the fact that we all made it through the day alive.

Helping out, 1st grade

I was helping out in first grade this morning and dictating to the kids and they had to write in their composition books.

Trick Words. Review Words. “Unk” and “ink”words.

So this little guy, who tends to be more on the cuter side with his fresh ways than on the annoying side with his fresh ways, is sitting there gazing at me from across the table. He wrote down every word perfectly and was listening and patient and not talking to his friends.

I was on the last word and I said, “Wink.”

And then I winked at him.

And he smiled and grabbed his crotch and goes, “You mean WINK like MY WINKY!?!?!”

And I swear to GOD he was totally serious.

Stranded and I can’t lay off the chocolate frosting

This is how I feel.

I stood there over J, who was flat on his back on the ground under my car, in nice clothes, after  lunch out yesterday. And I am thinking, “this man loves me.”

I had started the car up and the engine was loud, like my muffler had been chopped. You know, like when the kids back in the day wanted a loud car to be cool.

But this was not cool.

So, he’s lying under the car in the snow and salt and mud and I hear, “your pipe is cracked”.

It was ever so slight and he thought I might be okay driving the kids down to Boston to their dad’s later in the day.

So the girls and I set off at 4, he was already on the road in his car to go play a gig. And I heard a horrible high pitched dragging sound that was actually slightly confused by the girls’ new Nintendos that they were playing in the back seat. I pulled over and sure enough, the pipe had broken and was dragging. And then I lost complete power in my car, no power steering, no lights, no heat.

At any rate, I love my car, it was my first car ever, 9 years old (yeah, my first car was when I was 28 years old, imagine that) 2001 Subaru Outback Wagon. I love it.

It’s as old as Red.

There is a possibility I will decide to buy a new car. I’ve put 5k into this one in the last two years, so it may be time to bid this one goodbye and spend some money and gain some piece of mind. The last thing I want is another breakdown in the dead of winter, farther away from home, perhaps, with my kids in the car, with no heat, or cell reception, or whatever….

Anyway, soon after, my mom came to rescue the girls and take them back to my house to get them some food. I waited in a very cold car, because I also lost complete power, for an hour, waiting for the tow truck. After he came and towed my car to the car place, I walked home in the freezing cold. (just a quarter of a mile or so). I barely felt it, I was upset, mad and annoyed.

My mom was a saint and we drove the kids the hour south to their dad’s and back again, in snow and sleet and ice.

When she dropped me off at home, I took a shower and went to bed.

I’m thinking “bad reality tv” and nachos today.

Actually, no.

I am working on a new painting, because I haven’t painted since November.

I’m doing my end of the year financials for my tax guy.

I will do the laundry.

And maybe then, will lounge under ten layers of comforters in bed, eating leftover cake frosting with a spoon and watching bad reality tv on Hulu while I wait for J to come home.

We left snow and came back to sunshine

We left Saturday morning to go North for a few days with the kids to see J’s mom and sister and her family. For the second time ever, we stayed in an inn with the kids sleeping on blow up mattresses on the floor of our room, by the fire, on the lake. It was alot of fun and the indoor pool was a blessing with the few days of rain.

Even better, the hot tub sitting right next to the pool, served as a perch for me to stay warm while they swam right beside me.

The inn was cozy and wonderful (but I didn’t sleep much).

J played an extra gig last night at a restaurant up there, so we sat at a table near him and had dinner while he played. The girls enjoyed putting money in his tip bowl, saying, “you can buy Mommy Starbucks tomorrow with that”.

It was funny, since the money came from my wallet.

Yes, I tip my piano playing boyfriend.

On the way home tonight, we dropped the girls at their dad’s house, where they will stay for a week of vacation with him. They invited us in to see their rooms (I had seen them but J had not and he had avoided it for months and months now, he finally conceded and I think it was the welcome from the girls’ dad to come in. I appreciated that, as did J. And I know the girls loved it.

We drove back up the highway to our ocean town and noticed the snow was somewhat melted. I checked the car’s thermostat and it said that it was 50 degrees outside. When we pulled in to our house, the sidewalks were clear, the mound of snow in the middle of the square (where we live) is very small, and everything looks clean and smells like Spring.

Too bad we have a long way to go for that!

At any rate, here is a picture of our neighborhood from tonight.

Can’t beat that, two days after Christmas.

Tomorrow we are staying in Boston to celebrate New Year’s a bit early. J is heading down to the islands for a New Year’s Eve gig for a bunch of folks on a private yacht. Not too shabby, a flight down, a day to rest, play one night, fly home the next day.

I’ll be spending the days kicking the tree out the door and cleaning the house, top to bottom.

I’ll likely sneak some old toys and stuff into the Goodwill bag while the kids are gone and place their new toys and books in the proper places in their room.

I’m even thinking of cleaning out cupboards, or at least, the laundry room.

And I am thinking of movies and Sushi for myself on New Year’s Eve, in my pajamas, with the heat cranked up to high.

Wise at Christmas

Here I am, freezing my ass off the other day in the snowstorm that hit New England….but hey, the kids had fun…

…So, sometimes things don’t go as planned, we had a holiday party to go to on Friday, we even hired a babysitter.

We got a call from our broker and after the babysitter arrived, we drove south twenty minutes and spent some time signing the purchase and sale for our piano bar property.

After that, we didn’t feel like going to one of those holiday parties with a billion people drinking all night, so we went to a local bar/restaurant and had a drink and appetizer, thinking we would try a second place for dinner. But at that point, the other place had stopped serving dinner, so we stayed where we were and ordered spring rolls, buffalo wings, sushi, BLTs, fries and molten chocolate cake. We drank wine with all of that.

Talk about a change of plans!

J was going to be home on Saturday night and during the day we were going to go north an hour to a holiday party with the kids.

Well, the kids started fighting, RIGHT when we were about to leave, so J threatened that we wouldn’t go.

Sooooo, we stayed home.

I think he made the rule and stuck by it  because he really didn’t want to go. I didn’t either.

Then he got called for a last minute gig at his sister’s restaurant up north, so he headed up there for the evening, completely missing this major snowstorm we are getting down here near Boston. He skyped from his mom’s living room, next to her fire with the cats and I wished wished wished we were all together, either here or there. It was this sudden urge to feel not okay being apart for a few nights since he was going to gig the following two nights as well.

So the girls and I woke to a snowstorm on Sunday and somehow we all ended up reading in my bed and I made coffee and bagels and we sat in bed reading and eating, quietly.

Suddenly, the small voices in my head that told me I might agree to their dad’s wanting to send them to overnight camp this summer for two weeks, dwindled away.

It was Red’s birthday yesterday and when I asked her what she wanted to do for the day, she replied “Denny’s and the Mall!”

So, we drove down to Denny’s, we shopped at the mall for presents from the girls to not only J, but their dad. We  bought them new sneakers and it’s the first time I could ever convince them to buy real sneakers that tied, you know, the kids that don’t have velcro or slip on.

My babies are growing up.

In the end, we stopped at Princess and the Frog and watched a good old classic Disney movie, something we haven’t seen in quite a while and I felt blessed that my kids are still not too old to enjoy it.

We got word after I got home, from our banker, saying that although the SBA is approving our loan, they will not be. (two banks, our local bank takes up part of the loan, the SBA takes the other). Interestingly, as hard as we’ve been working on this project, we know the road has not ended because the banker is passing it all along to two other banks he thinks may be interested. We also know that perhaps this isn’t the property for us. And then we were thinking, “maybe this isn’t the time for us to be doing this.”

We have no idea.

We’re doing different things suddenly, looking at listings for other locations. Talking about trying to make this current property work. Leaving it all and relax a bit and take some time soon and go to Texas for a little breather weekend sometime soon and good hotel sex.

At any rate, although I’m not all religious and stuff, we realize we aren’t the ones in complete control, that although we are doing our work, there is something greater leading us down our path and I feel it even greater as I sit here in the dark by the tree in the early morning, drinking my coffee, my guy is heading home from his gig this morning, my two little girls are excited for Christmas and learning Parcheesi, and there’s even snow on the ground.

Random odd thinkings

So, I spent a fortune recently on a bunch of Aveda face products back when J sent me to the spa for a facial.

Can I say that it is TOTALLY worth it!?!?!?

My face has been the clearest, bestest, ever, in years (since before kids, before the hormones went all wacky on me)

I bought this serum and that is my favorite.

But I can’t help noticing, every time I squirt some out, it reminds me of something….

….sperm.

It just does, so there, I said it.

Anyone else notice that?

And then I bought this awesome soap at Trader Joe’s, with lavender IN it. There is all this organic stuff in it that exfoliates and smells awesome, but the one thing that has set me back is that the little black lavender leaves sometimes get left behind in silly places like my arm pit or way down “there”….and I start thinking I have bugs, but realize it’s only lavender….

yeah, weird, huh?

The other day, J stepped out of the shower and obviously had washed his face with it. He started spitting into the sink and goes, “I think I had a bug in my mouth!!!!”

And I calmly stood there and said, “ah heck, no, that was just some lavender…”

About two weeks ago we got our tree and it wasn’t until yesterday that I realized, the damn thing doesn’t smell. I am wondering “what kind of tree is this?” Well, it’s the kind that obviously doesn’t smell. I swear, it isn’t fake, but it also barely needs water. The thing is perky and lovely and I water it every three days, compared to the past years of watering almost twice a day!

Strange, low maintenance tree…but I sure wish is smelled nice. It smells like, well, nothing…

My mom sent us a box of Harry and David Pears. There are ten of them. I am appreciative and we love pears, but aside from making a pie or having a family of ten, who can eat ten pears before they spoil? I have a gorgeous bowl of pears sitting in the middle of the kitchen island, and fortunately the kids are eating pears now and decided they like them and fortunately I love making pear pie…

I have a confession to make.

I am so fucking tired.

My 7 year old, Blue, is having a two hour holiday party/craft thing at her school and I just couldn’t bear to go and tend to it. I’ve been in the classrooms multiple times in the last few weeks for a variety of things and I held Red’s birthday party last night (where four nine year olds trashed my house) and I just can’t bring myself to help out in her class.

Instead, I am sitting here writing my blog and drinking tea while J and our friend, Brian (amazing voice!) are rehearsing upstairs for some gigs. I am considering watching some TV on Hulu while scrounging up some chocolate.

I figure I will make up for it by letting her eat candy when she gets home, before she has fruit and let her watch tv.

And it’s only the “first day of Christmas”

I posted this on my facebook page last night and my friend commented, “Did you give them drugs?”

My answer was, “no, but maybe I should have.”

Seriously.

They definitely have Christmas in them.

As for me, I am enjoying it, along with a hacking cough.