Category: Kids Page 3 of 4

Sometimes Losers Do Win

On April 28, 2010

I have another sports story to share. This involved my son’s high school snowboard team a couple of years ago. Since snowboarding is not a school-sponsored sport, the team is run by volunteers. I was in charge of the whole shebang, which meant I hired the coaches, collected money from all the members, paid for the buses, processed all the release forms and other paperwork, etc. Plus I went to all the competitions, practices, and state competition. Riding the bus up with these kids 10 times during the season (2 hours each way), I got to know everyone pretty well.

I inherited coaches the first year, but the next year I hired three new ones, keeping only Juanita. One of the new coaches was a pretty fun guy named Justin. He was full of ideas, most of them crazy but the kids thought they were cool. Justin would find fallen trees, pack the tops with snow, and have the kids snowboard across them as a way to practice balance rather than starting out on the metal rails. I didn’t totally approve because I’d ski around the five hours we were there patrolling for kids in the trees smoking pot or doing inverts (front or back flips) or not wearing helmets. Once I watched a string of kids flying across a “tree rail” as Justin called it that was seven or eight feet off the ground. They sailed off the end of it, landing hard about twenty feet down the mountain. I couldn’t watch for long – I just pictured them falling off sideways and breaking their necks. All of them. They broke plenty of other stuff in the three years I was in charge, but never on these little side adventures Justin took them on.

We were having a kick ass season, and then the injuries started piling on until we looked like the Portland Trailblazers – many of our best snowboarders got sidelined with broken wrists and dislocated shoulders – the most typical snowboard injuries. One girl broke both wrists at one time.

State was coming up, and we needed people who could qualify for the boardercross team – a six man group that races down the hill together and tries to get the best average team time. Only the top four times are used, but you were supposed to send six guys down.

Two weeks before state my son broke his collarbone. Then a couple of other guys got injured. Luckily I had fixed it so that a ton of kids got to go to state because we rented a huge house and I wanted as many people as possible to pitch in on expenses. Plus I wanted the new people to get the experience. We allowed up to three alternates to come along with all those who qualified so we ended up with about 25 kids.

The night before the boardercross, one of our fast boarders said his back hurt too much to compete, so that left us with two fast boarders and the rest would have to be alternates who had shown themselves to be anything but speedy. At first Justin tried to talk my son into doing the run with his sling, but I nixed that immediately. With that hope dashed, there wasn’t any way we could finish anywhere but last, which had the two fast guys bummed, and the slow guys felt bad because they knew they weren’t good enough to make a difference. All our heads were hanging low.

Then Justin came up with an insane idea. “If we can’t be the fastest, we can be the coolest,” he said. When he said it, I didn’t realize he meant that literally. He met with the dejected six and explained that the only way they could redeem themselves from finishing last would be to go down the mountain in style – and by that he meant bare backed – no coats, no shirts, no nothing.

“No way,” I said. “You are NOT going to catch pneumonia on my watch.”

They all gathered around and begged. “We won’t catch cold. We’ll take everything off just as we get ready to load in the gate and Justin will carry our stuff down and be there when we get to the bottom.”

“No. End of discussion,” I said. But I was starting to warm up to the idea. They were so enthusiastic, and I could see that it would build team spirit. Plus it would put an end to their moping around, which was depressing everybody. I let them beg and plead a while longer, and then I grudgingly gave in. “But if anyone gets sick, I don’t want to hear about it.”

“Oh we won’t. We won’t,” they said, adding, “You’re the best!”

The next morning was overcast, windy, cold, and miserable. The boys were beside themselves with excitement, and it had infected all the rest of the kids and the chaperones, too. Someone told someone in the crowd, and before long people were coming up to me to ask if it was true that the boys weren’t going to wear shirts.

“Fraid so,” I said. “They’ve made up their minds, and what can you do?”

When it was our school’s time to go, the crowd was cheering like crazy. I was midway down the course, and since it twisted over hills and through trees, I couldn’t see the starting gate but I had an official two-wary radio and heard the crowd up on top get really loud so I knew they had taken their shirts off. I was bundled up for Siberia and was still freezing, so I couldn’t imagine what that cold mountain air felt like on bare skin.

“They’re on their way,” one of the officials said over the radio, “AND THEY’RE NOT WEARING ANY SHIRTS!” We could hear the wave of cheers coming down the mountain. When the first guy rounded the corner, he had his hands over his head, pumping his fists and yelling, “Woooooooo.” The people loved it. I got my camera ready and snapped a few shots as they flew by. They were scattered – the fast guys passed in a streak and the slower ones came into view like they were just moseying along. They all had their arms up to show what tough guys they were, and I got chill bumps when they went by – and not from the cold.

Soon after the last guy passed, two of the coaches snowboarded down, arms loaded with coats, shirts, and fleeces. “Hurry,” I yelled, “they’re going to freeze to death.” Justin grinned like a mule eating briars. “Don’t worry. Those boys are SMOKIN!”

The team came in a distant last, but they did it with style. If any of them got colds, they had the good sense not to tell me about it. When I got home I wrote up a play by play of the race for all 90 kids and their parents and emailed it to them with the pictures. I called it, “The Bareback Boys Win the Crowd’s Hearts at State.” I got a standing ovation at our end-of-season banquet – all because I let those boys turn a bunch of lemons into lemonade.

We Found a Dress

By Suzanne Olsen

On April 26, 2010

In Kids, Uncategorized

If you read my blog yesterday you know about the misery I was going through shopping for a prom dress for my daughter. I’m happy to report that we found a dress, although it was expensive and has to be altered. At this point I would have mortgaged my house if it meant I wouldn’t have to shop anymore.

Let me tell you the story about my daughter’s date. He’s the kind of guy who likes to go the extra mile. They have been friends for many years, and so it didn’t surprise me that he invited her to the prom, even though he could have had his pick of girls. Everybody likes him because he’s just a super nice guy.

A couple of weeks ago the two of them went down to the Saturday Market, an open air gathering of old hippies, craftspeople displaying artwork, photography, jewelry, homemade clothing and so forth, bento stands, and street performers. As Johnny and my daughter were walking around, they spotted a guy doing caricatures.

“Let’s get ours done,” Johnny said. So they did. The guy was rapidly sketching them when Johnny leaned down and said something to him, and told him their names. A few minutes later he paid for the sketch and they looked at it. It was a the typical funny picture with their big heads and little bodies and exaggerated prominent feature – if you read yesterday’s post you’ll know what that feature was on my daughter. Between their two heads the artist had written the word “Prom?” with a question mark. That’s how Johnny asked her to the prom. I went to a mom’s margarita party on Saturday night and everyone was talking about it before I even got there. Women live for these kinds of stories.

Here’s another example of what a stand up guy he is. One time they were here hanging out in the kitchen while I was cooking dinner. I took advantage of their presence to start grumbling about how tired I was or how much work I still had to do. I was going on and on and then I paused and let out a big sigh. At just that pause Johnny said, “I wish there was something I could do to make things easier for you.”

Oh my gosh! Those were magic words. Hearing them made me feel 100% better. You know how most people, when you start complaining, will start offering advice. “Well, why don’t you make your kids help around the house?” or “”Why don’t you go in and tell your boss you can’t work so many hours?” They totally miss the point of the complaining. You’re venting because you want sympathy. You want people to know how hard you work and how no one appreciates it.

You may not know that’s why you’re complaining, but after Johnny said those words and it made me feel better, I wanted to figure out why. I wasn’t complaining to get solutions. I don’t want teenagers to advise me on how to lighten the burdens in my life. I think I just wanted someone to know that my life isn’t a bed of roses. By saying he wished he could help me, Johnny was acknowledging that he understood I was having a tough time and he also understood there really wasn’t anything he could do about it but be sympathetic. Most other guys his age would have said, “Let’s go out in the bonus room and watch TV.”

That’s the kind of guy he is, and I couldn’t be happier that he’s picked my daughter to be his date. The thing that worries me is, what if he’s Eddie Haskell? What if he’s got me totally hoodwinked and he’s really conniving and sinister and is pretending to be my daughter’s friend so…

I’m not going there. He just got elected president of the student body, so I’m thinking he might be the genuine article. It may be easy to fool someone’s gullible mother, but the whole entire high school?

Tomorrow I’ll tell you about what he did when he coached the girls’ powder puff football game. He’s not only sweet, he’s smart.

Prom Crazy

By Suzanne Olsen

On April 25, 2010

In Kids, Uncategorized

I was so excited when my daughter was invited to the prom by one of her best friends and the nicest guy on earth. She went with her girlfriends to buy a dress but came home empty handed. No big deal, there was lots of time and lots more stores.

Over the next few days she went to most of them. I started getting text messages. “Mom, they don’t have anything at Nordstrom. Where else should I go?”

“Try Macy’s.”

“We did already.”

“Lloyd Center has some good stores.”

“We’ve been to all of them. Nothing.”

I wasn’t bothered because I knew there were lots more places, and worst-case scenario we’d go to bridal stores or order something online.

Today I went with her to several stores. The problem isn’t so much a lack of dresses, although I’m not sure who’s designing these things. Who wants a dress that starts out light green on the top and progresses through several shades to dark green at the bottom? Since when is tie-dye associated with formal wear? We have lots of tie-dye stuff around here – my daughter went through a phase – but none of it is dress up, and all of it is ugly.

The other thing about these dresses is that they’re so revealing. Dresses for 17 and 18 year old girls are scooped out almost to the you know whats or plunging toward the belly button. Some have the mid-section cut out with see-through fabric. There are lace-up backs that look like something old west women of the night might have worn. And the gaudy fabric. Oh my gosh! It’s like a marriage of Wal-Mart and K Mart with not an inch of fabric unblemished by some shiny cheap glued-on silver stuff or woven-in sparkles.

This is what my daughter told me the dresses looked like, and I didn’t believe her until I saw them for myself. Even the really nice Nordstrom ones are super-revealing or else they look like something an old woman would wear to some kind of country club installation dinner.

However, there were a few darling dresses in my daughter’s size, and she tried every single one of them on. They would have been cute except for one structural curse that many women, especially in LA, have paid thousands of dollars to get augmented but my daughter got genetically. Let’s just say that when she looks down, she can’t see her feet. Her girls cannot be contained in a normal prom dress. She needs a size 12 on top and a 6 on the bottom. No manufacturer has the good sense to design like this, even though everywhere you look girls have amassed disproportionate endowment these days, so we tromped from store to store and dressing room to dressing room for hours with nothing to show for it.

At one point, frustrated, my daughter got testy with me, and I got testy back, and she said, “I hate the stupid prom,” and burst into tears. I wanted to say, “Don’t get mad at me, blame your dad’s side of the family. You sure didn’t get it from me,” but for once I had the good sense to keep my mouth shut and suck up my irritation and comfort her so we could press on. We came home with two dresses that will do if we absolutely can’t find anything else, but one is not a good color and the other would require alteration.

I just spent the last two hours browsing websites but since we only have a couple of weeks, I’m scared to order anything. I made a list of all the bridal shops in a 300 mile radius and I plan to gas up my Prius tomorrow and hit the road – and I’m not coming home until I have a freaking prom dress – or a bunch of them on hold all over the state so she can try them on.

Mom’s Medical Myths

By Suzanne Olsen

On March 19, 2010

In Health, Kids

Tonight I had to take my daughter to an Urgent Care because she spiked herself in track. That sounds like something illegal or immoral. It doesn’t sound like the name of a rock band, however (inside joke).

I’m not sure how you spike yourself on the side of the leg just under the knee, since it has to be done by one of your own feet wearing a track shoe with spikes, but she was pole vaulting and found a way. She came home limping and bleeding with a bandage the size of a sheet of paper on her leg.

Unfortunately, her timing couldn’t have been worse because my son was coming over for dinner for the first time since he moved out, so I was preoccupied making hamburgers. “We’ve got 24 hours to get you stitches if you need them, so we might as well all sit down and eat,” I told her.

I don’t know where I got the 24 hour rule, which is much like the 5 second rule of letting food drop on the floor and being able to pick it up and eat it. Within 5 seconds it doesn’t get any dirt or germs – after that it’s infested. This is a handy rule with small children because they are constantly dropping food, either by accident or on purpose. If it’s an accident, like if it’s candy, they cry but you can cure that immediately by saying in a very chipper voice, “5 second rule!” and pick it up and give it to them. If they’ve dropped it on purpose, like if it’s broccoli, then you can say in a flat voice, “You know the 5 second rule,” then pick up the broccoli and put it back on their plate so they learn they’ll have to come up with something more creative to get out of eating “healthy” food.

If some of you reading this think it’s disgusting that I have picked food off the floor, let me assure you that it is a common practice among the mothers I know, and we are not meth moms.

Anyway, we had a rather pleasant dinner, and fortunately for my daughter, my son was chomping at the bit to leave because he had a friend coming over, so we went directly to the clinic. They looked at her gash and said, “Yep, she needs stitches.”

A rather cute, very young doctor, who I had passed in the hall earlier and, I’m telling the truth, he winked at me, came in and examined the wound. He smiled with dimples before he told us that he would be injecting pain killer right into the wound itself. We gasped.

“It’s a very short needle,” he said reassuringly.

“Oh yeah,” I said, “like that’s going to make a difference.” I continued to joke and kid around, getting a snicker out of my daughter here and there. Apparently to the medical staff, however, this was no laughing matter.

Part of the reason my daughter was snickering was because I had informed her earlier that the gash, swollen and on the soft, puckery tissue of the inside of her leg just below the knee area, looked like a woman’s private. She shushed me, of course, but as the doctor squeezed the wound and prepared to stitch, there was no denying the resemblance. I told her to take pictures with her phone, and when she showed me the first one, a close-up of the gaping wound just prior to the first stitch, it looked like pornography.

We watched him sew her up, which he did with delicate precision using a needle shaped like a U, pulling at the skin on the side with tweezers that made us both cringe, and slipping the U through then repeating on the other side before tying the whole thing in several carefully engineered knots. If I had been young and single I would have said, in a heavy southern accent, “Oh, doctor, you have such wonderful hands.”

Instead I made pleasant conversation. “Good thing she’s within the 24 hour rule of getting stitches,” I said to show how medically astute I was.

“Oh no,” he said. “Only 6 hours,” after that she risks serious infection.” My daughter scowled at me because I had forced her to sit and eat before getting medical attention. “Well, we’re still safe then, since it’s only been two hours since it happened.”

I did not mention the 5-second rule.

Livid and Let Live

By Suzanne Olsen

On February 16, 2010

In Kids

This is an article I wrote a few years ago, and I must say it’s better than some of the ones I’ve been doing for this blog. I know I spent about 4 times more time on this, and it shows.

I’ve just had a startling revelation. I’ve discovered that my children must surely want me to yell at them. Why else would they litter their rooms with wet towels and dirty clothes, or continually bicker like WWF wrestlers? They must want to bring out the drill sergeant in me.

Picture the scene this morning. While my teenage son was making faces at his little sister, and as she fiercely retaliated by calling him deplorable names like, “you cuckoo dung bird,” I calmly asked them to please stop, which they did. However, the second I turned my back to refill my coffee mug, my daughter whined, “Mo-om (a two-syllable word), he’s making faces at me.” I’ve been keeping track, and this is the ninety-zillionth time I’ve asked my son not to pick on his sister. Before I could think of anything better to do, I screeched, “How many times do I have to tell you to leave your sister alone?” Bedlam ensued, apologies flew and peace was finally restored. For the moment.

Later I strolled down the hallway toward my bedroom. You’d think by now I’d have better sense than to glance into my daughter’s room. It’s always a mess even when it’s clean. She hoards everything, from favorite rocks (I only know of two she’s come across that weren’t special), to candy wrappers that remind her of Disneyland, to pictures yanked out of magazines and Scotch-taped randomly to the walls like paintball splatters.

But this morning. O, mercy. This morning my daughter’s room looked like thieves had ransacked it. Every drawer was open, with pants, underwear, pajamas, and tank tops trying to escape over the sides. Mismatched shoes lay like stepping stones through the rubble. I counted slowly to ten and then calmly called, “How many times do I have to tell you to put your things away?”

I’m a peaceful person. I was a hippie back when tie-dye was an art form rather than a fashion statement. And I’ve read all the books like, “How to Talk to Your Children So They Don’t Cower.” I know what I’m supposed to do, but it’s just so hard when the two of them keep repeating the same behavior that turns me from a “live and let live” kind of gal into a livid and let rip mood.

Every Sunday I go to church and pray that God will help me see the best and overlook the rest. Unfortunately, in the same prayer I usually have to ask forgiveness for bellowing such things as: “How many times have I told you not to wear your church shoes in the mud?” or “If you’d hang your coat up where it’s supposed to go, you’d be able to find it!”

I love these children dearly, but let’s face it. They do things they know they’re not supposed to do – when I’m having a pleasant dinner with my family, and my knee gets stuck to the underside of the kitchen table with Silly Putty, or when I’m scraping melted chocolate chips off the sofa cushion (“How many times have I told you not to take cookies out of the kitchen?”) – do they not realize these are yellable offenses? Don’t they have any respect for me? They say they love me, but can it really be true when there’s purple toothpaste spit all over their bathroom sink?

One of my parenting books said that when they’ve left the nest, and their rooms are perpetually clean, I’ll yearn for just one little mole hill of dirty clothes to remind me of the way things were. The books aren’t right about everything. I definitely won’t pine for the endless “Mo-om!’s” when they tattle on each other.

I sometimes worry what my children will say about me when they get together as adults. Will they laugh or cringe? I think I know what they’ll say: “Remember how the windows used to rattle when mom hollered at us?”

“Yeah, that was so FUNNY!”

Kids Say the Darnedest Things

By Suzanne Olsen

On February 8, 2010

In Kids

My friend works for Headstart, and she was sitting at the lunch table with several four year olds when two of them got into an argument about whether the fruit one brought for lunch was a lime or a kiwi. The boy who brought it said it was a kiwi, but the other boy, who tended to get into trouble, was emphatic that it was a lime. My friend listened to them going back and forth until the argument started getting a little heated. She thought it had run it’s course, and look at the child who said it was a lime and said, “Demond, I’m going to put your mind straight right now on this – it’s a kiwi.”

Without missing a beat, Demond looked her straight in the eye and, in a slow, surly voice, said, “Shut up, bitch.”

My friend was taken aback at first, and then could barely contain herself from laughing. Meantime, the kids jumped to her defense. “Don’t call our teacher a bitch. She’s nice. She’s always smiling. You shouldn’t call her a bitch.” Another said, “Yeah, she’s not a bitch, she’s nice to us.” One protested on principle, “Demond said a cuss word. He called the teacher a bitch, and bitch is a cuss word. You can’t say bitch at school, Demond.

Several others chimed in until it got loud enough that the head teacher came over to see what was the commotion. My friend whispered it in her ear, and she could barely contain her laughter. She had to maintain her composure and explain to Demond why this was not appropriate language for 4 year olds at school.

Out of the mouths of babes…When I was a kid, there was a variety show called Art Linkletter Presents, and on one segment that lasted about ten minutes, he’d have five or six kids about Demond’s age sitting in chairs on the stage with their starched dresses and pressed slacks, and he’d ask them a question most of them probably didn’t understand, and they’d say funny little cute things that made the audience laugh and Mr. Linkletter smile like his pants were being charmed off because everyone was enjoying these little darlings on his show. I bet the director didn’t have to coach the kids on language, because nice boys and girls didn’t hear those things in their homes, on TV, or in the movies.

Fast forward to today and you can’t go anywhere without hearing cussing right out loud – in the check stand at the grocery store, on the baseball field, even at church. My priest has said “damn” a couple of times during his sermons to make a point.

Kids will repeat what they hear, and I remember my two year old son walking through the mall saying, “Damn, damn, damn,” because he’d heard it somewhere (not from me!) and I’d read it was okay to let kids say these words because it helped with their creativity or something. An older lady gave me the evil eye big time, and I told him to stop saying it. He did, because he liked me back then – before he turned 15 and decided that zombies must have slurped up my brain because I became the stupidest human on earth.

After that I didn’t let my kids cuss. For better or worse, I never got called about language, which was a good thing because I got called on enough other stuff over the years, kids being kids. I never had to un-train them, like Demond’s mom is going to have to do or else get in fights with teachers all through school. But quite honestly, I’m glad he said this to my friend because I laughed when I heard it, I laugh every time I tell it, and I was laughing as I typed it just now. As Art Linkletter used to tell us, “Kids say the darnedest things.” I’m mighty happy they do.

Addendum: I ran spell and grammar check and my computer thinks I should change, “Shut up, bitch,” to “Shut up and bitch.” What makes my computer think that’s a more grammatical way to say this? Who programmed this phrase as good English? It’s actually a contradiction – you can’t shut up AND bitch. I think I’ll complain to Microsoft. “Dear Bill Gates: Why are you telling me to shut up AND bitch? You’re married. You know this is not possible. What’s the matter with you?” I could have some fun with this.

Or I could go to bed.

Peter Pan Syndrome

By Suzanne Olsen

On January 25, 2010

In Kids

Some people never grow up. I’m one of them, and I don’t figure I need act my age until I’ve got one foot in the grave – which won’t be until I’m deep in dementia and can’t remember this pledge anyway.

I look at older people who’ve slowed way down and wonder if they ever said these words to themselves. After all, as time has gone by I’ve reneged on a few other pledges I made – like never saying to my kids, “Because I told you so!” Oooo I used to hate that when my dad said it to me. We’d be in the middle of a meal and he’d shake out the last drop of Worchester sauce and turn to me without the least remorse and say, “Here’s a couple of bucks, run down to Kabool’s and get some more.” If I dared question, he’d say, “Because I said so. Now git!”

Kabool’s was a half a block away, and I could sprint down there faster than most people could say “Worchester” and be back by the time they got out the word “sauce,” but it was the principle of the thing. Why did I have to leave my steaming pile of mashed potatoes and collard greens which for some reason I liked and dash off in the middle of a meal?

So I vowed not to ever say it, and then just a couple of days ago those words came out when I blew up like firecrackers in a mailbox and started yelling at my kids.

Another thing I pledged I wouldn’t do was get overweight. My mom and grandmother liked to eat, and my grandmother used to sit with her elbows on the table and shovel in big bites of fried chicken and buttered white bread like she was storing up for hibernation. I have to say it was – well, let’s just say I kept my head down a lot at the table. So I promised myself I’d never lose my will-power and pack on the pounds, and I haven’t done so bad except for the last few years when my breasts went flat and I started carrying around a spare tire.

I’ve hung on to at least one of my pledges, though. I was a waitress after high school and made lots of money in tips, but I decided I’d never do it again. It was very hard work and I got fed up with some of the people. There were the requests for separate checks and impatient, cranky people, but the worst were the ones who couldn’t make up their minds, or seemed unable to until they’d asked me if everything on the menu was good.

I generally had a boss in earshot somewhere, and I wasn’t going to say something on the menu was bad and risk getting in trouble, not at that age, and yet, to a teenager, most of the stuff coming out of the kitchen didn’t necessarily appeal to me, especially when I saw how it was prepared. But I’d try to put a nice spin on things. “The pork chops look very tasty and I bet no one ever complains about them.” I would have lost that bet if anyone would have taken me up on it.

After we’d gone down twenty minutes worth of menu items, and other customers were tapping me on the shoulder wanting their check or choking in the background for lack of a water refill, the woman would say, “Oh, I’m going to go with my first choice. I’ll have the catfish.”

This is why I pledged never to waitress again. I didn’t want to be strangle someone’s mother.

This old lady pledge, though, I think I’m going to stick with it. Sure, you never know what’s going to happen, and I may not have a choice, just like I didn’t have a choice when I blew my top at my kids a couple of days ago when I asked them to pick up their dirty clothes and they said, “Why?” BECAUSE I SAID SO!

I’m not going to quit acting foolish and silly or chase my dog down the street or run out to get the mail in my pajamas. I’ve tried being grown up, and I have to say I don’t care for it much. I work hard, and I’m lugged down with responsibilities most of the time, and if I want to act like a kid and pretend the world hasn’t heaped it’s troubles on me, that’s what I’m going to do. And if people don’t like it, they can go jump in a pond. Why? Because I said so.

And you’d better not ask me again.

It’s Just Easier to Do It Myself

By Suzanne Olsen

On January 24, 2010

In Kids

A warning to new mothers. The words, “It’s just easier to do it myself,” will come back to give you a knockout punch when your kids are teenagers.

Yesterday I was in a bad way. On Thursday I’d pulled an all-nighter getting a book finished so it could get to press on time. I was a zombie all day Friday trying to sleep in the afternoon when birds insist on squawking, cars must va-room up and down the street, and daylight pokes it’s ugly head into every crack in the curtains. Then Friday night was dinner out and a long swim meet, and Saturday a three hour morning meeting, and then home to the pig stye that had been neglected because of the book. I was tired and cranky, and when I saw my kids’ breakfast dishes all over the counter right above the dishwasher, I had a meltdown.

I called my teenagers in the room and started calmly lecturing them about the reason they need to clean up after themselves, to which they both denied the dishes were theirs. Then I mentioned the clothes, shoe, backpacks, and candy wrappers scattered everywhere, and my daughter, who is quite astute, pointed to my shoes in the front hallway, my husband’s coat slung over the dining room chair beside his gym bag, and my tea mug on the counter. “Why do we have to pick our stuff up but your’s and dad’s are laying around all over the place?”

I calmly responded that I was going to pick up my own things, and the discussion was about them picking up theirs. My son observed that I just liked any excuse to give these lectures, and my daughter chimed in that she didn’t see why it mattered whether they had things in the floor since all their friends’ houses were messes and why was I such a freak about it?

This is when I lost my calm demeanor and started screaming that no one ever does an effing thing around this effing house except me and can’t they see how tired I am and they just lay around watching TV while I bust my effing buns to make a nice home and nobody cares enough to even put their effing dishes in the dishwasher?

They looked on aghast because the f-word only comes out about every six months or so when I’m really in a bad way. They cowered while I unleashed my fury until I gave out, then scattered like wildebeests chased by lions, running to pick up their stuff – anything to get out of the room.

And I was left alone in the kitchen thinking about what an idiot I’d been for not teaching them to pick up after themselves when they were littlle. I always went into their rooms and tidied up, picked up their toys, wiped up their messes and so forth because I just knew my mother in law was going to drop by unannounced. I also thought I was being a sweet mother, just like my own mother had been. She was a true homemaker. I went to school and came home to a made-up bed, clean bathroom, a dining room table where food appeared at dinnertime, and the dishes disappeared when I was done. I never offered to lend a hand, and she never asked me to.

This was my role model, and this is what I did with my kids for the most part. On occasion I’d read the books that said to require your kids to do age appropriate chores and make up a chore list on the refrigerator. I tried some of those things but they didn’t last long. It was too little too late. By the time they were seven and eight, they’d gotten used to having a personal servant. I’d try to bribe them with money but that didn’t work. I’d make them clean their rooms before they could have friends over, which worked, but they’d just hide things in the closet and do a slipshod bed making that drove me nuts. It was easier to just do it myself.

I hate to admit it but the books were right. If you don’t teach them when they learn to walk, they’ll run all over you when they get older.

On a happy note, I must announce that THIS IS MY 100^TH BLOG POST!!! I’m almost a third of the way through my year of blogging every day!!! This calls for a celebration. I hope you will all raise a glass and toast this mammoth occasion. Champaign and applause all around! As Elvis says, “Thank you. Thank you very much.”

My Son’s Got a Job!

By Suzanne Olsen

On January 19, 2010

In Kids

Happy days! My son started working today. He actually got hired and went to an orientation last week, but didn’t know when he’d get any hours. He got hired as a floater, which is a strange word because I’ve heard it used to describe something in the toilet. But in his job, it means he’ll fill in where needed. This afternoon he was over at his friends’ house and got the call that they needed him to work tonight.

I had asked him to whittle down some of the pile of laundry in his room, and I think he got one load done, which I give him a ton of credit for doing. But apparently the clothes he needed for work weren’t in there, so he had to rummage through and find the least dirty things. Then he tossed them in the dryer for a few minutes to “iron” them and raced out the door.

I am so excited I could get drunk. But instead I have to finish editing a book TONIGHT, so this post is going to be very short. So I won’t feel guilty, I’ve included something I got in an email. I deleted the inevitable part at the end that says, “If you want to get rich in 24 hours, send this to ten of your friends.” Ain’t I sweet?

Mathematics & Arithmetic

Romance Mathematics

Smart man + smart woman = romance

Smart man + dumb woman = affair

Dumb man + smart woman = marriage

Dumb man + dumb woman = pregnancy

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OFFICE ARITHMETIC

Smart boss + smart employee = profit

Smart boss + dumb employee = production

Dumb boss + smart employee = promotion

Dumb boss + dumb employee = overtime

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SHOPPING MATH

A man will pay $20 for a $10 item he needs.

A woman will pay $10 for a $20 item that she doesn’t need.

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GENERAL EQUATIONS & STATISTICS

A woman worries about the future until she gets a husband.

A man never worries about the future until he gets a wife.

A successful man is one who makes more money than his wife can spend.

A successful woman is one who can find such a man.

_____________________________

HAPPINESS

To be happy with a man, you must understand him a lot and love him a little.

To be happy with a woman, you must love her a lot and not try to understand her at all.

______________________________

LONGEVITY

Married men live longer than single men do, but married men are a lot more willing to die.

______________________________

PROPENSITY TO CHANGE

A woman marries a man expecting he will change, but he doesn’t.

A man marries a woman expecting that she won’t change, and she does.

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DISCUSSION TECHNIQUE

A woman has the last word in any argument.

Anything a man says after that is the beginning of a new argument.

_____________________________

HOW TO STOP PEOPLE FROM BUGGING YOU ABOUT GETTING

MARRIED

Old aunts used to come up to me at weddings, poking me in the ribs and cackling, telling me, “You’re next.” They stopped after I started doing the same thing to them at funerals.

The Other Baby Terror

By Suzanne Olsen

On December 28, 2009

In Kids

I wrote about my daughter yesterday, so I suppose I should write something about my son today or I’ll be accused of playing favorites.

When I was PG with him, I could lay on my back and stare at the new mountain that was my midsection and see him rolling around in there like some horror movie creature that crawls up under your skin and moves around. He was never still – always kicking, always shifting. When he was born we had two weeks of relative quiet because the doctor had used a suction cup on his head to extract him, which left a big old blood filled hickey knot on his head that raised his billiruben levels and caused him to have jaundice. The doctor was late for a soccer game and was impatient with nature taking its course. What his haste meant to me was that my son had to lie under lights 24/7, why I don’t know, and go to the doctor every day to have his poor little heel pricked to see if the hemoglobin levels were improving. It made me very sad because I wanted to cuddle him all the time and instead here he was in a box thing at my house with a little Lone Ranger mask over his eyes sleeping in a diaper to expose as much of him as possible to the lights.

I should have counted my blessings, because at exactly two weeks of age he started crying and didn’t stop until he was seven months old. Everything made him miserable. I was on the phone to the pediatrician or in her office daily worried sick that he was suffering from some undiscovered disease that, if she would just examine him one more time, she’d find and cure and he’d stop crying. All I ever got out of her was the word, “Colic.”

That’s how I became an expert at quieting babies. I rocked him, put him on a clothes dryer, ran water, bounced him, sang to him (which made the crying worse even though, I’m telling you, my voice isn’t that bad). The things that worked best were perpetual motion of any kind – he got quiet when you moved and immediately bellowed when you stopped.

He’d quit crying if we rode in a car, but only to a point. Riding around worked great to get him to sleep, which he never wanted to do for any length of time, but you had to be careful because if you drove too far and turned around to come back, and he woke up before you were home, he’d scream his lungs out because he didn’t want to be in the car seat.

As a consolation, I had read that very smart children often were colicky because they were bored. BORED? This child had continual entertainment. How could he be bored? But I thought that if he were bored, at least it followed that he was smart, and that helped.

Around seven months he shut up. It’s the natural course of colic, but it just seemed like someone flipped a switch and he became a sweet, happy baby. Not that he wasn’t sweet on occasion before – there were delightful moments all along, it’s just that the colic overshadowed them all.

He learned to talk faster than any child anyone had ever heard of. His first word was “ite” for “light.” He loved that word and found an Ite everywhere he looked. Christmas was an ite delight. By nine months he was stringing words into simple sentences. I read in one of the baby books that it was okay to let your toddler curse because s/he didn’t know they were bad words and you shouldn’t restrict their creativity. So of course, through no fault of mine, he picked up the word “damn” and really liked the way it rolled off his tongue. “Damn, damn, damn,” he said. Isn’t that cute? I wasn’t nuts about the cussing, but I sure didn’t want to stifle him.

One day we were at the mall and he was about thirteen months old, toddling around in a quiet area saying, “Damn, damn, damn,” when I got a slap of a dirty look from an older woman who did not approve in the least. If she’d had soap in her purse, he would have been foaming at the mouth. That look was enough to get me to tell him not to say that word any more. He loved me at the time (or else he didn’t know how to argue), and just quit saying the word to make me happy.

In fact, he was a great one for listening. I could put his hand near something warm and say, “Hot,” and he’d repeat, “hot.” Then he’d feel the warmth and I’d say, “Don’t touch it. Hot,” and he’d say “hot” and wouldn’t touch it. Most other kids will touch something you tell them not to out of curiosity or bull-headedness, but he trusted what you said. At the time, anyway.

He was the most beautiful baby and toddler on earth. People stopped us everywhere we went to compliment me on his looks. I should have farmed him out as a baby model but I was afraid it would give him the big head.

One time I took him to the beach when he was about 9 months old. He loved the whole beach thing until he started eating the sand. He literally grabbed a fistful of wet sand and stuck it in his mouth and swallowed it. Over and over. I have a picture of him with sand running out the corner of his mouth. I guess he liked the salty flavor, which is also why kids eat PlayDoh. I tried to stop him, and scooped out as much sand as I could from his mouth, but the minute I looked away he had stuffed another handful in there. The next day was rough on both of us, if you catch my drift. That sand had to come out somewhere, and as it traveled along its way, it was like sandpaper. Poor little sweetheart – I should have told him the sand was “hot,” but I don’t think it would have done any good.

So thus ends the anecdotes about my son. I should do a word count and make sure both of my children got the same amount because they’d probably fight if one had more. They’re getting better now, but still, it makes no sense to take chances.