The Mighty Minion

Minions were hot this past Halloween.

We went to the Boo Fest Halloween soccer tournament in Sacramento, and saw lots and lots and lots of minions.  Mine was the best, hands down, and I am so totally not biased.  It's just a matter of objective fact.  Of course, she had the advantage of possessing that "Minion Personality" before she even donned the costume; those other minions, the ones who merely put on a persona, didn't stand a chance.  This minion was made for the role.  Which pretty much shines through, don't you think?

And really, most of the time, when she talks, this is all I hear anyway:

The best part of this costume is that the Uber Crafty Creative Moms on her soccer team made it.  Prior to the tournament, she wanted to be Wheezy, the squeaky and neurotic penguin from Toy Story.  But with only a few days left before Halloween, I had nothing on hand to make that happen.  After spending some frantic minutes searching for easy-to-throw-together penguin costumes online, I had resigned myself to a trip to Michael's and some time with a glue gun.

But lo and behold, the Boo Fest did come into my life, and the Uber Crafty Creative Moms did bestow upon my child a fully functional, fully kick-ass Minion costume.  In my best, most enthusiastic, most cheerful and "hey, I got a GREAT idea" voice, I suggested maybe she wanted to be a minion instead of a penguin?  Like, HOW FUN WOULD THAT BE?

Totally worked, natch.  She played right into my hands, and I didn't have to do one single damn thing to send her off in style to her school Halloween parade or to trick or treating.  Score!  Thanks Uber Crafty Creative Moms!

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Her brother pointed out to me that between her well-established penchant for destroying the house and her two days of barfing this week, she could have also made a very convincing Wreck It Ralph.  But the minion is way cuter.

Wreck It Ralph will have to wait.  On the morning of November 1, she planned out her costumes for the next decades worth of Halloweens.  "And next year, I'll be a Wheezy…and the year after that, I'll be Jessie…and the year after that I'll be a tree…and the year after that…"  For ten years.

No matter how far ahead she plans, I will always be a last minute lucy, hoping for some Uber Crafty Creative Moms to save me.

And now, it's time to raid the children's candy stashes for Snickers bars…

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Today's Silver Lining

Don't want to fail NaBloPoMo on Day #5, but this is all I have the time and energy for today.

After staying up all night with a barfing 7 year old, after cleaning an ungodly mess in her bedroom at midnight last night, after waging a bleach battle against germs at 2am, after soothing a tiny person who doesn't understand why things are catapulting out of her with such force and violence…

…there is one small thing for which I am thankful.

I am thankful that last night was one of the very, very rare evenings when I overcame my lazy-hair-doing ways, and braided my little minion's long, wild, curly mane.

The braid made the midnight clean up -- and all of the subsequent clean ups -- a kajillion times easier.

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And that, folks, is all I got.

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Our Family History

According to Little T:

Rick and Monica, sittin' in a tree.
K-I-S-S-I-N-G.
First comes love,
Then comes marriage,
Then comes a baby in a baby carriage.

That's not all, that's not all,
Now the little baby's drinking alcohol!

That's not all, that's not all,
Now the baby's kicking a soccer ball!

And there you have it.  This is how we ended up with a family full of drunk, soccer-playing babies.

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I Can't Explain It

I can't explain this feeling of melancholy I get when I find myself alone, doing something simple and ordinary like getting a cup of coffee, and I look around and see people doing simple, ordinary things like gardening, or jogging, or buying veggies and flowers at the farmer's market, or having coffee with friends, or straightening the garage.

How do they do those things?  How do they have the time?  What am I doing wrong, that I never get to do those things?

Because I always feel like I'm running, chasing something, falling behind, trying to catch up, tending to children, thinking about dinner, running out of time to make dinner, throwing together a lame dinner, and myriad other things that keep me distracted and frazzled.  

And then, on a rare occasion like this morning, when I have dropped off a kid at a soccer field, and I have an hour to kill before game time, and I don't have any other kids with me to distract me from noticing the rest of the world, that's when I notice the rest of the world.  Through my sleep-deprived, rosy-colored eyeballs, the rest of the world looks relaxed and happy on this sunny November morning. They look positively privileged.  They look like they have discovered the secret to a happy life, and it appears to involve doing things that they enjoy doing.

I'm not complaining.  At least, I don't think I'm complaining.  I don't want a different life, I just want this one to feel better.  I don't want fewer children (true at least 75% of the time), and I don't want to be rich (just less not-rich), and I don't want to a different job (I love my job).

But still there is this feeling of melancholy that I get when I see people who do not look distracted and frazzled.   It's an undefined, fuzzy thing to wish for, but I wish to be undistracted and unfrazzled.  I yearn to be...I suppose it's called peaceful.  Content.

Is that feeling coming someday?

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It Appears We Have Angered the Soccer Gods

I got up at 5am to do soccer uniform laundry, and then left the house at 7:15 to drive one hour to Lady E's early game.  I then spent the day first in freezing cold, then in sweltering heat, then finally in balmy blessed overcastness (thank you California autumn), watching four straight soccer defeats in a row, two for Lady's E's team, two for Little T's.  They were frustrating games to watch.

Elsewhere in AIRY5-land, my other daughter's team lost, and one of my son's barfed on his soccer field.

The soccer gods must be angry at us.

I don't know what we did, or didn't do, to bring down the wrath of Pele, but today we were definitely cursed.

The good news about being a totally nutso soccer family, though, is that each day brings with it new chances to bring home a victory.  Tomorrow actually brings SIX more chances for victory...although if that barfer referenced a few paragraphs up doesn't get better, the number shrinks to 5.  Not that I want the kid to keep barfing, but...well...silver lining and all that.  In case you are counting, this means that between our five children, we have a grand total of 12 games this weekend.  Plus one more that Rick is coaching for a team none of our kids play on.

The craziest part of that crazy schedule?  I kind of like it.

It only feels like a cult.

Here's hoping we have a bit more success tomorrow.

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Imma Do This Too, Momo

National Blog Posting Month!

Because I don't have enough going on in my life.

Because I don't already wake up every day behind on everything I have to do.

Because I am not already being chased by the failure to catch up.

Because there is way too much candy in my house.

Because I'm having perhaps the hardest Fall of my entire life.

Because I am already dreading the holidays.

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Because my husband told me I should blog more, to help me make sense of things.

I am doing NaBloPoMo, November 2013.

Let's give this thing a go, shall we?  I took my last minute inspiration from Momo Fali.  I hope we both make it this time!

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Today's anecdote.  It's a balmy November evening, and my daughters are watching too much TV in our living room, with the front door open.  Our mail box is built into our house, so that when our mailwoman drops off our mail, we hear it in our living room.  Mail comes around 5 in the evening.  When it got dropped off today, my seven year old heard and shouted from her comfy couch: "THANK YOU!" to the mailwoman.  And got a shouted back: "YOU'RE WELCOME!" in return.

That made me smile.  Hope it does the same for you.

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7 Quick Questions

My son told me last night that he has been invited to go Trick or Treating with some friends at school.  I do not know these kids.  And because he attends a charter school for the arts, and not a neighborhood school, his friends live in approximately a 30 mile radius of the school, and we live at the far edge of one side of that radius.  I don't know them, I don't know their families, I don't know their zip codes.  I know nothing.

I responded with the usual: "Who are they?  Where will you be trick or treating?  What time?"  And then gave him the usual noncomittal "We'll see."  My fall back delaying tactic.

A few weeks ago, he asked if he could go with some of his friends to a football game.  Luckily, we had other plans that evening, so I could answer no without having to delve into the whys and why nots.

Also, my daughter, who goes to the same school, has not one but two invitations to slumber parties, again from friends I do not know.

So I've been thinking about my gut level HELL NO responses to all of this, which leads me to the following questions:

1. Is it a problem that I do not want to let my middle schoolers go to football games, slumber parties, or trick or treating with their new friends?
2. What am I really afraid of?  Am I really one of those mothers who would rather they never went out into the world and met new people and found themselves in new territory? (yes)
3. The fact that I don't want them to go: does this mean I am inordinately suspicious about people in general?
4. Will my suspiciousness towards all of humanity rub off on my children, thereby turning them into paranoid sociopaths?
5. Will they take care of me in my old age if I never, ever let them go anywhere now?
6. Do I have enough children that I can "play the odds" and bank on the fact that at least ONE of them will take care of me, regardless of the choices I make right now?
7. Where is the nearest cloister?  And will they take boys?

Give me back my toddlers, please.  All this fledgling independence is giving me heart palpitations.

Also?  I need more delaying tactics.  They are on to "we'll see."

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Kid President! Socktober! Down with Selfies!

There is nothing about this video I do not love, love, love.



I think I will be voting for this kid in 20 years.  I hope so.

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Giving Myself Whiplash

I have teenagers.

So I find myself these days swinging wildly back and forth between being a high-energy, high-impact motivational speaker and being a hard nosed, hard assed, line-in-the-sand maker.

It's very disorienting.

And I think I have whiplash.

I really do think they have been invaded by alien life forms who have set up command and are calling all the shots.  My only question is whether or not I will outlast the occupation.

I hope so.  I really do love these altered-state boys.  But mothering them lately is requiring large doses of dramamine.

Mothers from the other side: tell me how it's going to be with the rabbits someday...


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Something Beautiful

'

Have a lovely weekend everyone: find something beautiful to look at!

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Wherein I Confirm That I Will Never Know What is Going On

I went to Back to School night tonight for my 6th and 8th graders.  Two things occurred to me as I sat and listened to educational philosophies and grading policies and anecdotes about middle schoolers.

First, I realized that I have only a tangential idea of what is going on for my kids each day, and that a few minutes of "speed schooling" at Back To School night wasn't going to change that.

And second, I realized what I'm up against.

Five kids.
Between them, and not counting PE, they have 18 teachers.
Each of those teachers has a blog and/or website (or sometimes both), the purpose of which is to help students and parents keep track of all homework and classwork and test dates and project dates and everything.  So if you're counting, that's:

18 (minimum) blogs and/or websites to keep track of.
4 different powerschool logons.
3 school websites to stay on top of calendars and parent responsibilities.
1 first grade online reading website.
1 high school "Edmodo" site.
Various links each teacher wants my kids or me to "check out."

People, that's a minimum of 27 websites I'm supposed to check.  So, to all 18 of the educational professionals who are charged with teaching the AIRY5 children, please know that when you say "Just check my blog" or "Just check the website," my new response is going to be: "Just shoot me, please."

No wonder I never know what's going on. And maybe it's not my fault that I'm totally lost. Well, aside from the fact that I'm the one who had the five babies.

Good luck, kids.  Because there's not a chance in hell I will be able to keep up with keeping track of all of the websites and blogs that are supposed to help me keep up and keep track.  I feel like pinning a note to each kid's sweater tomorrow that says something like: "This child's parents cannot 'just check' pretty much anything, so do not suggest it."  Or maybe: "This child's parents had far too many children to be expected to check websites."  Or perhaps: "This child's parents are crying uncle.  Check your own damn website and let us know how it goes."

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Come to think of it, maybe that's the way it should be anyway.  Maybe parents are just too involved in checking on all of these things for kids who could and should do it themselves.  Maybe exhaustion and overwhelm are the secret weapon of modern parenting.

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