I have decided my New Year’s resolution this year will be focused on my daughters. For their benefit I am resolving NOT to be the perfect wife and mother.
My teen daughters got cell phones for Christmas this year. I know that’s not a big deal to a lot of parents, but I’m not a big believer of cell phones for teens. My younger daughter got a cell phone last year because her school bus dropped her off in the middle of nowhere and I wanted her to be able to call someone if for some reason we weren’t there to pick her up. But it was Dad’s old, leftover cell phone.
We have many family Christmas traditions. When people ask my kids what their favorite Christmas tradition is, they’ll say seeing the Nutcracker on Whidbey Island with their grandparents, making Almond Roca for family, friends and teachers and making (and destroying) gingerbread houses the weekend after Thanksgiving to kick off the Christmas traditions.
‘Tis the time of the year to be inundated with holiday catalogs. We get so many of them with their shiny colors and magnetic quality I have to be careful where I stack them so no one is smothered by an avalanche of catalogs.
I never claimed to be a good housekeeper. There are just some things in life I really hate to do and housekeeping is one of them. So consequently, I put off many household chores until they are screaming for attention and I can’t ignore them any longer.
Soon the U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether making health care coverage mandatory for all Americans is constitutional or not. The principal question is whether the government should have the power to make people buy a particular product – in this case health insurance – regardless whether they want it or not.
I was never around children much when I was a teenager. We lived out in the country, so I didn’t have the opportunity to babysit or observe people with lots of children. Consequently, I really didn’t comprehend what children were capable of at what age.
Let’s just get the white electronic elephant out of the room… My husband cannot hook up electronics properly. I am usually the electronics hook up person.
I made cake!
I started making a wacky cake, which is a chocolate cake from scratch last weekend, an old favorite from my childhood. My oldest daughter came into the kitchen and asked me if I was making the coffee cake with the raisins, another old favorite called depression cake.
Let’s just get the white electronic elephant out of the room… My husband cannot hook up electronics properly. I am usually the electronics hook up person.
So when we remodeled a year ago, we moved the TV, VCR/DVD player and Wii. I had hooked it up in its previous location and my husband hooked it up in its current location. Everything worked; sort of.
As I write this I am chaperoning my daughters and several of their friends at an anime convention in the Bellevue Hilton Hotel. Anime is Japanese cartoons, movies, and drawings, but also includes any “cult” favorite character(I saw Where’s Waldo, the miner in Toy Story 2, a cheerleader from Glee and the phone booth in Dr. Who). Part of the fun of attending such a convention is cos-play, which is dressing up as a favorite character; the costumes range from simple to elaborate.
Last Friday morning as my oldest daughter was leaving for school she told me she didn’t have any clean pants. She was wearing Capri pants and although I noticed, I didn’t think anything of it because of our recent balmy autumn days.
The other night my husband and I were watching the news and there was a sports item about a relief pitcher pitching a record number of outs or something. I don’t really care; what piqued my interested was the term “relief pitcher.” I’d heard the term before, but I was suddenly curious to know what a relief pitcher was. Was it really what it sounded like? Was it really a pitcher who steps in to give relief to the main pitcher?
We had never been to Wild Waves theme park before last week. The kids had been asking me to take them for years and I promised them I would take them before the end of the summer. So with the end of summer breathing down my neck, I looked up the hours and prices. I discovered you can get in for only $20 after 4 p.m. in the last three hours of operation.
Most week nights we eat together at the table. It’s a time to decompress and connect as a family. In the summer our eating schedule gets off, but because my husband still has a work schedule, I try to cook dinner and gather the kids for the meal.
My youngest daughter has long, naturally blonde hair. I’ve read somewhere that blondes have more hair. That must be true, because my daughter’s blond hair is everywhere. It’s in the car, on the furniture, on the clean clothes I hang to dry, on the beds, on the floor, tangled around animals, and stuck in my sweatshirt sleeves and pajamas. I can’t be suspicious of my husband when he comes home from work with a long blonde hair stuck on his shoulder. It probably hitched a ride there all day.
This summer I’ve been trying to get my two teen daughters into some sort of a summer routine.
I’ve been limiting their electronics to try and promote balance in their lives. This has been met with nothing but resistance.
Food in a family is a precarious thing. Everyone has their likes and dislikes and finding a balance is a challenge for moms everywhere. I have learned to pick my battles.
Food in a family is a precarious thing. Everyone has their likes and dislikes and finding a balance is a challenge for moms everywhere. I have learned to pick my battles.
I usually plan my summers in January. It makes me feel warmer to plan summer camping in the middle of winter. Plus there are a lot more sites available at the state parks in the middle of winter. So I did it again this year, not anticipating the changes that were coming my way this summer.
