A Girl and Her Tree

Imagine sitting in your morning class, minding your own business, when someone plops a Christmas tree next to your desk and swears up and down that it belongs to you. What do you do? Well, according to my daughter, who had a tree delivered directly to her high school desk, you go from utter bewilderment to intense bonding, dragging it from class to class and hoping to god you that you don't knock anyone over in the stairwells (unless you happen to see an overly cute upper class man, then apparently, you graze him with it as a conversation starter). You will also text your mother and beg to get a ride so that you don't have to try and get a Christmas tree on a city bus. You will then take it directly into your room, spend hours decorating it, and claim it as the best gift ever. I don't know how she is ever going to part with it.

This may be the most brilliant secret Santa exploit ever.

The Holidays: Bits & Pieces

The bits and pieces that make the holidays wonderful:


Family comes to share their own delightful version of crazy...….

Lights that light up the dark....

Family traditions.....

Being together.......

There were so many moments that I would have loved to have bottled over the last few weeks. I hope that your holidays were equally as blessed.

The Beautiful Game

The strangest thing has happened to me over the last several months...baffling actually. I've fallen head over heals in love. Irrevocably, passionately, irrationally in love. The kind of love that makes you want to scream at the top of your lungs and show up in a public place wearing nothing but green body paint and a smile.

Wait for it.....wait fooooor it....it's Soccer. I'm in love with MLS soccer. Of all the damn things in the world.

You have to understand how strange this is. To say it's out of character would be the understatement of the century. I mean, sports are fine and all, and I've always enjoyed the atmosphere at Jeld-Wen field but I've never understood the fever pitch that other people reach towards a specific sport or team. If I'm being honest, I'd have to say that I've always found it slightly odd. (I live with a man from Wisconsin. If you think my blase attitude toward the Green Bay Packers hasn't almost led to divorce, you are sadly mistaken....) 

Then one morning I wake up....and BAM!... it's like I've imprinted on the Portland Timbers. I am bewilderingly obsessed. It's like standing aside and watching a foreign version of myself. I watch highlights, listen to sports commentary, and review game strategy. I follow soccer blogs and listen the the opposing team's views and strategy before and after matches. I scream at the tv like a crazy person or better yet, screech in the Timber's Army with all of the other poor imprinted souls at home games. I've cancelled plans with friends and refused to do any sort of mommy taxi during a match. Oh my God, this is soooooo unlike me. 

Tim thinks my obsession is hot. In my quieter moments, I check the Googles for obscure symptoms of early menopause. The way things are going, I'm afraid that this may be what the future holds for me:

So until we find out that I am suffering from some weird symptom of some strange disease, I seem to have no choice but to roll with this fever. If you can't beat it. Join it. Rose City 'Til I Die, baby!

Cha-Cha-Cha-Changes

I can't believe it's been months (with an s!) since I've last written a blog post. Actually, I take that back. I can believe it's been months...between work, playing extreme-mommy taxi, and preserving the bounty of our monstrously large garden, it's a small miracle that I'm sitting here right now spinning yarns. Then again, it's very possible that I'm writing a post because I'm avoiding at least one of the above tasks. Not to mention working out. I'm avoiding that too. 

There have been a lot of big changes in our family since the last time I wrote.  Here are some of the highlights:

Tim started a new job and as much as I enjoyed the irony of my Buddhist-leaning husband working for a Catholic-leaning shrine, he's now a hotshot at Providence as a Volunteer Coordinator for their Hospice program. He has not one, but two offices in the region....one that I wish he would consider giving to me because my office at work is actually a short glorified hallway that I share with one other person and sees more foot traffic on a daily basis than a box store on Black Friday....but I regress.

 

There are two things that I find slightly disturbing about Tim's new position...one are the 'dongs' that chime on his work phone to signal that one of the patients has died, and the other is that the crazy family morning routine now falls solely on my shoulders and requires me to get both my son and me up and out the door in the morning. Given that I am about the worst morning person that you will ever meet, this isn't going to play in anyone's favor. God only knows what I pack that poor kid for lunch in the morning with one eye open and zero caffeine in my system. It's not out of the realm of possibility that I've packed him a sandwich and a sock and sent him on his way. But I'm giving it the 'ole team try. 

 

Sydney has started her sophomore year in high school. She was also accepted to the The School of Oregon Ballet Theatre, which is recognized as one of the premiere professional ballet schools in the country. We are ridiculously proud of her as she is thriving in both environments, but I have to say, between school and dance, her homework and her social life, the probability of seeing Sydney for more than a few minutes on any given day is about equal to stumbling upon a Sasquatch in the wild. 

Alex started middle school and was excited about the new adventure for all of 30 seconds before he realized that although it involved a new building in a different part of town, it still was actually school and he's been feeling slighted ever since. Last year's announcement of being "in the puberty" has become more apparent as he's become slightly surly and the eye-rolling has gone up by a factor of ten. Oh, puberty...ready or not, here we come. Please be gentle with us. There are some glimmers of hope under the growing testosterone....he announced that he has joined the Gay and Straight Alliance at school because he "feels a responsibility to protect people and make them feel welcome." Makes me tear up to even see that in writing. 

So the world is turning and life is unfolding only slightly slower than the speed of sound. I'd like to think that I'm keeping all of the balls in the air, hoping to make all the simultaneous transitions semi-smooth for all of the players involved. Making sure that the day to day family business is, if not a fine-oiled machine, at least not a complete train wreck. I'm taking it one breath at a time. 

Driving Miss Daisy

I am a firm believer that people don't get old because they get old...they get old because they have kids. Case in point: as a parent, you spend a lifetime trying to keep your kids safe, right? You keep them from choking, keep them running into the street, keep them for wandering off and getting eaten by a bear. And then suddenly, they reach an age where you willingly (or in my case begrudgingly) hand them the keys to a car; a machine that can actually explode under certain circumstances. I mean, really. Does that seem logical? Because now that I'm dealing with it, it's not; I assure you. It is the most illogical thing on the planet. The modern world is wrecking havoc on my parenting instincts.

All that being said, the Universe seems to be enjoying an ironic twist in this situation that I could have never imagined. It looks a little something like this:


Me: ....Syd. You need to speed up....

Sydney: Why...?

Me: ....Because if I can actually get out and jog next to the car, you're going too slow...

Sydney: I'm trying to be cautious!

Me: .....but that really old lady just passed you.... I'm pretty sure she's going like 15 mph....

Sydney: I'm being cautious.

Me: ....That's great.  I'm just saying that if anyone is checking Google Traffic at the moment, it's suggesting people find a different route around this area....

Sydney: Well, aren't you funny.

Me: .....Seriously. There are like 20 cars behind you.....

And so it goes. Sydney's (cautiously) driving. I'm grateful to be eased into the situation by a generous if not comedic Universe and I admit that this is going better than I could've ever hoped for.
....And as a friendly reminder to my friends in the greater Portland area....you might want to check Google Traffic before you leave your house.

The Birds and the Bees

 Alex has developed a new affinity for after-school naps as of late...to the casual onlooker, this may seem to correlate with the rain that has been falling (and falling and falling) in Portland for the past week. But as his mother, I suspect there is something bigger happening. When Alex finds something he is interested in, he latches on with an intensity that can bend steel. He'll mill and question, consider and obsess, until he's moved onto the next thing that fascinates or confounds him...and repeat. Well, my friends, this newest fascination is a doozy.... and that new fascination is S-E-X, compliments of his new sex ed. class in school. Now, I have fostered an environment of openness in our family that I'm very proud of, no topic too big or small to be discussed...but because there are no topics we won't discuss, Alex thinks....well.... that we should discuss. And although I've been painfully open with the finer points of sex with my older child, you'd think I'd be prepared for a grenade being lobbed at me unexpectedly as I make dinner. It looked a little something like this:

Alex:.....Mom, I have a question....

Me: OK, kiddo.What's up?

Alex: Well...it's about sex. You know, some people think sex is dirty and some think it has something to do with religion or something....do you think sex is dirty?

Me: *shock* *silence*...I can almost see the thought bubble with the word HUH.....?! over my head as I try to figure out how we've made an abrupt left turn from talking about video games to the morality of sex. I began to tap dance with my mouth because I was suddenly faced with a very important conversation and I'd met the moment bewildered while holding a sweet potato.  I rambled more hoping that he could pick out the important details....stuff about how sex is far from dirty. That it's a perfectly natural and special experience to be had by two consenting adults. You know...the stuff you're supposed to say. I wondered if I sounded as shrill I seemed to in my own ears. Apparently, he didn't notice because he proceeded to describe the finer points of coupling to me with wide-eyed wonderment.

And it's continued. He's innocently cornered Tim in the kitchen...Tim...? What is masturbation....? (I heard Tim doing his own version of the tap dance as Sydney and I quietly giggled from the bedroom.). He's managed to yell across a crowded parking lot to a neighbor who asked how he was doing, and was met with: Terrible! I'm learning about sex at school!...

He's taking this whole sex subject very seriously. So he's sleeping. Sleeping it off. Given the way this is shaping up, the whole family may have to follow his lead on this one.

Catch Up and Cave Dwelling

I can't believe it's been six weeks since I put words out into the blogosphere! There's a good reason for that actually.For the entire month of April, I came home from work so exhausted that all I was really good for was dropping onto the couch into what looked remarkably like a coma every single night. Plus, there was Sydney's intense dance schedule that lead up to her big production and Alex's soccer and lacrosse to add to the mix. I was so burnt out by the end of the month that if there had been a traveling circus that happened upon my staggering, bleary-eyed shell on the way to my car one morning, I would have done my best to convince them that I am a hell of a lion tamer and left everything else in the dust. (Apparently, children aren't the only ones that consider running away.)

May's been crazy too (I'm seeing an unfortunate pattern here) but at least it's been fun. My parents were in town which meant some adventuring was in order.

Besides a fun day at the zoo....

Alex and his cousin, Kendra

Alex and my dad (and me heckling in the background)

Kendra and Alex in spaaaaaaaaace!

...A surprise Mother's Day High Tea from my wonderful brothers.....

.....Sydney's big dance performance (in which she was one of the leads) and the celebrating of her 15th birthday.....

 ...We skipped over to Washington for a day to explore the Ape Caves. In our naivety, we collectively thought we were going for a long, leisurely walk in the dark of a cave for the day, the big surprise being that it turned out to be mostly scaling over boulders in the dark for miles (which was a fun surprise for me because I used to spelunk in my younger days). I have to say, no one was more surprised than my mother whose entire worldly 'boulder scaling' resume before that consisted of tripping over rocks in her driveway. She was a real trooper though; she seemed to consider having Search and Rescue come get her and carry her out only once that I could count. I can honestly say that I never in my wildest dreams expected to spelunk with my mother. I am relatively certain that hell hath frozen over. And here is the proof.

One mountain of boulders down....345 to go

Hitting The Wall

March is my least favorite month on the calendar. With freakish regularity, March rolls around, I hit some sort of invisible wall, and I feel like I could just lay there, face-first in the mud. Just go around, people. Go around, is what the caption over my head would read. Everything seems more daunting for me this time of year. Given our track record, I really should just consider skipping March altogether. The chemistry between us just isn't there.

What I need is a vacation. A long vacation. A vacation that includes a bikini, blue water, and a drink with an umbrella. I've been thinking a lot about one particular vacation we took to the Yucatan Peninsula a few years ago: a woman actually came to our hut to bathe me in honey on that trip. Honey. I think that if there has to be March on the calendar every single year, then it's only fair that I should have to spend the duration in a hut by the sea being dipped in honey. I have the sneaking suspicion that the closest I'm going to come is a trip to the grocery store and cleaning spilled honey off the counter.

April, you can't come fast enough.

Life With Gumby

I find living with a serious dancer a bit disconcerting at times. Our daughter moves with a grace and agility that can truly inspire and amaze me. She contends that in order for her to maintain her grace and agility she needs to be stretching constantly. So she stretches. Constantly. It's not uncommon to see her all twisted up like a pretzel on the floor while doing her homework, or witness her trying to get her foot up over her head as she's scrounging for food in the kitchen, or looking like she's doing a one-woman game of Twister while texting with her friends. It's all sort of impressive in its own weird way. It also makes my own body object and revolt on her behalf, a sort of full body gag; a motherly-reptilian alarm signalling that my child's body is contorted in a way that under normal circumstances would require a hospital visit. (Alright, fine. It may also be true that the alarm is warning me that if I get a wild hair and decide to throw my own 37-year old leg up onto the refrigerator, I'll get a swift and intimate knowledge of the term shock and awe....)
So I stand aside and admire. And cringe. And gag.

She auditioned for and was cast as one of the leading roles in Portland Metro Performing Arts' Coppelia this year which is an incredible honor. Beyond intense rehearsals six days a week, it can only mean that we'll be seeing Sydney hopping on one foot with the other over her head while trying to catch the bus for school. I'll be sure to document.