super shopper

At the risk of looking like I have only one son instead of three, I have to post a couple more pictures of the little guy. I can't help it! He's just been giving me more photo opps than the other two lately.

Last week he went with me to Sam's and just as we were getting out of the car he asked where his cart was. It hadn't dawned on me to bring his new Christmas gift. He first fell in love with a shopping cart I got him at a garage sale last summer for $1 and he pushed his older brother's lunch in it to school every morning. But, alas, his other brother destroyed it and no amount of epoxy could reattach the handle again and so Santa brought him a shiny new one.

Anyway, seeing the disappointment on his face when I forgot to bring it to Sam's, I took him on another shopping spree to the local grocery store the next day. He was in heaven and piled in as many things as he could fit. I'm sure the other customers thought I was a geek taking pictures of him as he rolled down the aisles, comparing dust pans, but I didn't care. You may notice he had his puppy sitting in the baby seat of his cart...





I don't think they make little boys much cuter than this!

mean girl

Back in high school, I was on the dance team. The part I loved about it was dancing at the football games and cheering for our team. The part I hated about it was the catty girl culture.

For some reason I tried out for officer when I was a senior and actually made it. I wasn't nearly as good of a dancer as some of the girls but I had a few things going for me:

1. I was squeaky clean. Unlike a lot of the girls, I didn't go to parties and get drunk on the weekends.
2. I wasn't pregnant. This seemed to be something that happened to more than our fair share of team members.
3. I could read and write above a 7th grade level.

Anyway, I was painfully shy and it was waaay out of my comfort zone to be "in charge" of the other girls. I had to issue demerits for infractions such as having a run in your suntan color pantyhose or wearing the wrong leotard. I pretty much had chronic diarrhea my entire senior year from the stress of it all. Nice. At least it kept me skinny!

Also, the girl who was the lead officer ("Colonel") had it in for me because her best friend did not make officer and she thought it was my fault. Her friend was a better dancer but was also one of the ones who could not read/write above a seventh grade level. So the Colonel made it her business to taunt and embarrass me when she could. She took the whole dance team thing very seriously and could not tolerate a less than perfect dancer. The whole idea of it being for fun didn't seem to factor into her plans.

One day, toward the end of our senior year, the entire team was rehearsing for the spring show. The junior girls were given some responsibility since they were about to "take over" and they were teaching a new dance to everyone else. The Colonel and the rest of the senior officers were watching and the Colonel kept talking loudly and laughing and basically distracting the rest of the girls who were trying to teach and learn. I remember it was blatantly rude and even I, with my severe aversion to speaking up, had to say something. So I said something very benign like, "Hey, maybe we should go around the corner to talk so we don't interrupt them." To which she said something along the lines of, "Maybe you should just shut up." And she went right back to blabbing. I stood there with my face burning, feeling totally embarrassed in front of the other officers. They all acted like I was invisible. I turned around and did soemthing totally out of character for me. I walked out of practice and stormed back to our locker room. I was going to leave but I didn't have a car since my parents and I were in the middle of WWIII over my boyfriend. I was going to have to wait for my mom to pick me up. So I went into one of the bathroom stalls and cried tears of anger and frustration that anyone who's had to suffer through high school can relate to.

Finally, I got a little worried that I would get in trouble for leaving without permission and I pulled myself together. I walked back into practice with puffy eyes and ready to fight. But I found the officers and our teacher just sitting in a circle talking as if they hadn't even noticed I was gone. But they stopped talking as I approached and must have surmised from my appearance that I was in no mood to discuss. So they said nothing and I said nothing and we went on our dysfunctional dance team way.

I actually had nightmares about that girl for about two years after I graduated and was disturbed to find out recently that she is the director of a high school dance team in San Antonio. I hope for the sake of those girls that she's changed and has realized that it's not about being perfect, it's also about having fun and trying to bring out the best in all the girls, not just the talented ones.


This post is in response to Jessie's Girl's call for the 'rudest thing anyone said to you'

the clean gene

One of my youngest son's favorite Christmas gifts is his boy-sized vacuum cleaner. He comes running with it whenever I pull mine out and vacuums right along with me, beaming from ear to ear.


Yesterday I finally remembered to get him some batteries for it so it would seem even more realistic. I wanted to install them right away but we could not find his vacuum anywhere. We looked upstairs, downstairs and in the basement. Finally, he lead us to it...he had parked it next to mine in the pantry.



Later that night when I was about to put him to bed, he was still going at it, back and forth in the corner.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"Cleaning up the raisin," he replied.

Sadly, he was trying furiously to vacuum up a raisin stuck in the carpet. He had true faith that his little machine actually had suction powers. I managed to convince him that raisins are just too sticky to be vacuumed up and it had nothing to do with his cleaning abilities. Thankfully he went to bed peacefully, satisfied with his day's work.

If only it did work for real. I would never have to vacuum again...

just let them play!

When we moved to our new neighborhood, one of the first things I noticed was that everyone and their dog was up to their eyeballs in extra-curricular activities. I was overwhelmed when we got a booklet from our local rec center with pages and pages of classes for children and adults: gymnastics, sports of all kinds, painting, ceramics, karate, and on and on. What should I sign the boys up for? There were plenty of options from age 6 months on up. I couldn't decide, so I asked them. What do you want to do??? Nothing. They were not interested in any of the classes. They just wanted to be at home.

So I backed off. I thought, they're only 2, 4, and 6. They have plenty of time for sports. But every Saturday when we passed field after field with tiny people in fancy uniforms playing games, I started to worry. Should I make my boys sign up? Was I doing them a disservice by not forcing them? Maybe they just didn't know what they were missing and they would thank me for signing them up against their will.

Then recently, my Mom sent me a book called The Hurried Child. It was written over 20 years ago but as I read it, it was as if the author was describing my very own neighborhood. And he had some very different ideas about what was going on. He actually said, in not so many words, that little league was the enemy of childhood. What??? I thought. Blasphemy! But as I read on, he made so much sense. He described the different developmental stages children go through and explained that it is good and healthy for children to be given much free time to play with their friends and create their own games with their own rules. Making them dress up in uniforms and subjecting them to adult rules at a young age is not right. For children, playing is a stress-release and allows them a little freedom from all the confines they are subjected to on a daily basis. Instead of playing for fun, they now have pressure to perform from coaches and parents. He also discouraged organized sports for young children because he said that on any given team, there may be a couple of really good players, but often the rest of the kids feel inadequate and helpless and that leads to self-esteem issues.

I don't remember the last time I've seen a spontaneous game of kick-ball or anything else around here. It just seems like the parents are subjecting their kids to the same kind of rat-race they choose for themselves. Running from practice to practice and not even having enough time for real dinners together. Trying to keep their kids competitive and keep up with the Joneses. Is is really any fun?

I was discussing this with a friend of mine and she had even another perspective on it. She'd recently heard an interview with some soccer players from Spain or Mexico where they were discussing why America can't seem to turn out any real soccer stars. They surmised that American soccer players had no imagination or ability to "think outside of the box" because of the rigid rules they were taught to adhere to. In their countries, children were let loose to play on their own and that lead to new, creative ways of playing.

One last thing that convinced me to just follow my childrens' lead in this area is a visit we had with our neighbor, a former Washington Redskin. I asked him how he found out that he was made to play football. Did his Mom sign him up? Did she dutifully drive him to all his practices and games and cheer him on all the way? No, he said. His parents were both very busy working to support his large family. They didn't even have time to come to his high school games, but he did not expect them to. He was the youngest of six and had one particular older brother who gave him his first helmet and shoulder pads. He said that by the time he was in first grade, he was obsessed with football. He knew all the stats and drove his family and friends crazy talking about them. So basically, he chose football for himself and no one could have stopped him if they'd tried.

I know there are many parents who swearby the benefits of organized sports: team playing, self-discipline, building leadership skills. And I'm sure they are right. But for me, I'm going to wait until they are a little older and they ask me to get them on a team. What's the hurry?