Syncronicity

Thanksgiving has come and gone, seems like forever ago now. We went up to Wisconsin and had an intimate dinner of 40+ people and although we didn't even sit at a formal dining room table but rather on chairs with plates on our laps, nor did we pass the "thankerchief" that Niko made at school, it was a great night. Here's the cast and crew who attended:

The kids once again got on their Persian outfits and danced for the adults - they sure know how to charm 'em!

But on a sadder note, my paternal grandmother, Lillian, passed away the week before Thanksgiving. She was 97 and we weren't very close, but I did feel a sadness about losing my last grandparent and felt very sad for my dad. It's never easy to lose your mommy, I can only imagine. So the day I found out that she had died, Nina brought home a book from school that she informed me she needed to read that night and there would be a quiz on it the next day. So we snuggled on the couch to enjoy the day's children's book, I'll Love You Forever.

For those of you who don't know this kid's book, it is a beautiful story of a mother's love for her child. We start reading this delightful tale of how, even though this cute little boy causes havoc at home throughout his toddler, child and teen years, at the end of each day the mom goes into her sleeping child's room, picks him up and sings to him about loving him forever. But then the story progresses. The boy turns into a man and leaves his mother's house. Still, she drives across town, brings a freaking ladder on top of her car, climbs up to her son's room and rocks him in his sleep. "This is sad," Nina whines as she's reading. Story continues: He gets married, she again breaks into his house to rock the giant man in his sleep. But then, turn the page, the man says goodnight on the phone because his mom is too old and sick to leave the house. Then, next page, the son is driving over to his mom's house. He goes into her room, picks up the shriveled up hunched over mama and rocks her to sleep, singing the same loving song. At this point I have tears running down my face. Nina looks at me, realizes I'm crying and then she bursts out in tears. We hug each other, sobbing profusely. Niko gets on the other side of me and we have an emotional experience, except Niko soon falls asleep on my bosom. We manage to finish the story and see that the son is now a father, and he holds his child and sings to her the same song his mother sang to him.

Now, I'm not the most spiritual person but the fact that she brought home that book on the same day my grandmother died is no coincidence. What it was I'm not sure, but ever since I've realized something important - I will die some day.

With that, happy holidays!!

All This Homework is Killing Me!

You'll notice in this picture of my adorable children that the boy is holding a teddy bear lovingly in his arm. Everyone, meet Barnaby Bear:

According to his over-priced and overly academic preschool, Barnaby has traveled all the way from England to "study abroad" with the children in suburban Chicago. Each weekend, a lucky student gets to bring the bear home and let him learn about our culture. This is surely exciting for the child. Yep, really cool. But for moms, at least this one, not so much.

First of all, there is a raging flu epidemic going around the country and the rest of the world (I think maybe even England!). But still, a germy, grimy stuffed animal is being passed from household to household where snotty, coughing, dirty preschoolers cuddle the bear like they gave birth to it. Does the bear get washed after each home visit? I do not have the answer to this question since my husband picked my son up from school on Friday. I smell the bear to see if I can detect germs via my olfactory sense. I do believe I smelled some germs, but at that point, Niko had been hugging and loving on the toy for a couple of hours already so the damage was done.

Not only do we have the germ bear in our house for the weekend, but there's homework that goes with it. We have to remember to take the thing everywhere we go, take pictures with it, get the pictures printed out and then make a collage with pictures and descriptions of all the fun and enriching things we did this weekend. And I use the "we" very loosely to mean my husband and I. So here it is Sunday night and Kaveh's scrambling to download the pictures, go get them printed while I try and think of things to write, in Barnaby Bear's first-person voice (English accent included) no less. Niko could barely remember what he did with his bear other than go down the slide with it, so I basically did the entire assignment and then coached Niko on what I wrote in case he was asked to summarize it in class tomorrow. I'm telling ya, preschool is no walk in the park these days!

And before the bear entered our life, I was helping Nina with an art project that was very loosely defined. She was given two milk jugs glued together and asked to make a character that the child would later write a story about. I have to say, Nina did most of the work - designed it, glued on the hair, drew the face, made the arms, legs, hands and feet. I just helped with the hot glue gun (from which I have a few third-degree burns to show). It turned out like this:


Pretty cute, eh? Sadly, I don't think some other students did much of the work themselves. Last week, when we were at Nina's school for conferences, we saw all of the other first grade's milk jugs. There was an Incredible Hulk that looked like it belonged in a museum, a horse back rider with a tailored jacket that fit the milk jug perfectly and another milk jug even lit up! Boy, some of those parents are really talented!
I bet they were the same ones who took Barnaby Bear to the opera.

Damn I'm Lazy

Yes, it's been awhile since I've been here, dear reader. I was going to use the excuse that I've been writing my first great novel for NaNoWriMo and must use every single keystroke for the purpose of completing that 50,000 word project. Well, it is now day 11 of the month and I've only got 2,800 words down. AND it sucks. As I'm writing I'm realizing I don't know how to write fiction, how to write dialogue or develop characters. Now if the story involved a report assessing a child's speech and language, I'd do a great job, but sadly I don't think that would be defined as "fiction".

I suppose the novel would be better if a) I had more time to write and b) I made more time to write. See, it's really just Buffy's fault. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, that is. This summer I started renting all of the show's DVDs and am now a full on addict. You really should watch some if you never have before. I'm on season six and the good news is that it only ran seven seasons, however, there is a spin-off series called Angel that I believe ran another seven seasons. Gulp.

Hopefully I will kick myself in the rear and get writing and my story will magically get better. But nothing will ever compare to Joss Whedon, so why am I even bothering??

Cyber Stalking

That's what it's come down to. I'm separated from most of my loved ones as I have chosen to reside in a cute Midwestern suburb. I've made a few friends but my old and cherished ones, as well as most of my family, are far away. How do I cope with this constant loss? Well, I peer into their lives as much as possible via social media forums. Facebook is a particular fave. I read it like some read the morning paper - scouring it for the latest news and gossip in my friends' and families' lives.

And then there are the few ex-boyfriends on there that I just can't resist checking in on. I mean, really, when else in history did we have the chance to snoop into an old flame's life so frequently without the cops issuing a restraining order? Most of them (not like there are that many) are leading the same boring life as me - professional, 2.2 kids, living in the suburbs, maybe forming a cover band to play at block parties if they used to be in bands in college; you know the type. But occasionally I get to peer into a life that is way different then mine - the life of the serial monogamist.

Take for instance a past love, I'll call him Rick, whose been engaged 3 times since we broke up in 1994 but never married. I've read his "wall" where he and his girlfriend at the time would exchange lovey-dovey messages, announce that they're moving in together only to post a month later "Rick went from being in a relationship" to "single". This has happened twice in the last two years. I feel guilty even looking at such personal news, but then again, it's out there. Maybe he's even reading this post right now. I guess I'll know soon if I'm "unfriended".

So yes, pathetic as it may be, I do it. I bet you do too - why else would you be here?
Oh and, please don't unfriend me!

Keep On Writing On

Wow - I was just going through my blog roll and I've noticed that many of my friends blogs out there are inactive. Where are you people? I for one know it's mentally straining to maintain a blog, come up with a creative topic that's not going to bore the 5 regular readers you have, then sit down with some free time to actually write the dang thing. But this masochist won't give up, dammit, and neither should you!

Even though my posts aren't that regular, I refuse to admit defeat. I will continue to pick my brain for oh-so fascinating topics such as sex, drugs and rock 'n roll. Oh wait, I'm a suburban mom now so I guess it will rather be subjects like martial hardship, self-medicating with alcohol and singin' the I'm Getting Old blues. And since I really love to torture myself, I've recently signed on for NaNoWriMo and will be writing a 50,000 word novel (that's 175 words, baby) during the month of November. Yeah right, you're thinking. Well, me too but November's a ways away and probably by that time I'll be snowed in the house anyway. Come join me and we'll be novelists together!! I can already tell mine will be somewhere along the lines of Judy Blume's Forever meets Jim Carroll's (RIP) Basketball Diaries meets whoever wrote Bridget Jones' Diary, but a little low-brow writing lightens the soul, right?

Now off to help needy children communicate.

Birthday Parties are Ruining the World!

Look at all that junk up there. It looks pretty for a few minutes but then what happens to it?

Although I've lost my fervor a bit about this issue since my kid's birthday party was a couple of weeks ago, I still want to vent about this. Birthday parties, especially children's, are killing the universe. Strangling it, poisoning it. And I'm just as much to blame as the next schmo or schmoess. Think about, from the balloons to the crappy plastic party favors to the plastic forks and knives used to eat the crappy pizza and grocery store-bought cake, which probably has more plastic crap on top of it, you're doing more damage to the planet in one day than you probably do in a few months. Add some more plastic crappy games you buy for a jacked-up price at the party store, like pin the crown on the princess or Superman bingo, combined with the cheesy plastic tablecloths with pictures of Disney characters you use once since the sugared-up kids get all their pizza grease and cake frosting all over it. All this equals one big earth unfriendly event.

This is why I, most superior mother of the year, didn't really give my son (you know, the one to whom I so lovingly wrote the poem below) a birthday party. Sure, I still contributed to killing the planet by ordering pizza, buying a few crappy party favors and using Superman paper plates, but I just didn't put forth much energy in throwing him a party. I mean really, he doesn't exactly have any friends. Poor kid. He'll play with his big sister's pals and our neighbors, but sadly there are no boys his age around so he spends a lot of time with the ladies. So it was a very simple event with a few neighbors eating pizza and cake and running around outside our house. I threw a few plastic fish in a dirty ole' paint bucket and voila! Fishing game!

Boy am I a bad suburban mom.

My Baby is Four

(Bear with me as I attempt to write a poem. I'm feeling pheklempt).

Four years ago, like yesterday.
I can still feel the burn, still hear the screams,
Coming from me.
(Didn't know I could even make those sounds).
I can feel your warmth and wetness in my arms
As your head bobbed around
Looking for nourishment.
I can smell the yeasty scent in your skin
And my own perspiration.

And later, when your big sister came in
Smothering you with kisses
I was nervous that you were getting smothered
But I tried to let her learn to love you
As I did.

Time went faster with you, the baby brother.
Held you in the sling most of the time
As I followed big sister around.
Soon you were on the move,
And even talking some.
Getting too big for that sling, or maybe I was just too small.

You've turned into a boy,
On your way to becoming a man.
Well, someday.
I guess you need to learn to read and write first.
But everyday you get a little smarter,
A little faster,
A little taller.
I'll try and grow with you.
Try and keep up.
All the while admiring you from a distance.