Sam's Blog

While You Laugh At Your Parents, Your Children Laugh At You

2011-01-07T07:12:00.000-08:00

My mom just got into the texting scene. She has a Razr which doesn't have a qwerty pad, so it took her a while to figure out the 3 letters for each number thing. You know, she had to hit the number 6 two, then three times to type the word "No." It got so we knew what she meant when our questions were answered back with a "Mmm."

So while I've been having fun at my poor mother's expense, I came across this site called whenparentstext.com. It said, "When Parents Text... small keypad, old hands..." and is dedicated to the trials and errors of when parents handle a cell phone. I started reading through the submissions and realized that I've been texting my daughter just like these loser parents:

21st Century Parenting

Mom: I want a picture of u at her house. either outside w house showing or w her mom at home so i know ur there

Totally have done that with Abbey. I've played around with symbols like this lady, too:

:-)8

Mom: Can you please call me when you need to be picked up! Don't do anything stupid! :-)8

Me: What is that emoticon?

Mom: bowtie man! He doesn't do anything stupid

Or I've carried on brilliant coversations like this one:

Tacos For Dinner

Mom: Tacos or meat loaf for dinner?

Me: Tacos

Mom: Bring your appetite. When will you be home?

Mom: Eta?

Mom: ???

Me: Can you pick me up at 6:45? My phone is going to die.

Mom: Walnut St?

Me: Yes

Mom: How many tacos?

Me: Might be more like 7.

Mom: Tacos?

Me: No, my train gets in then.

Me: Tacos? 2?

Mom: How many tacos?

Me: Mom, chill with the tacos.

Good God. You know that your kids think you're lame, but you believe you've got it together. You've got your finger on the pulse of the world, you know where it's at, you can run with the big dogs in the technology yard... But seeing this blog, and recognizing how your children really see you, is like putting a mirror up to your face.

But, at least my mom is still more pathetic than I am. :)

Ladies and Gentlemen, The Class of 2014!

2009-06-22T07:02:00.000-07:00

I’m sure if you thought back to it, you’d remember how you suffered from “Almost Summer Fever” at the end of every school year. Sure, the teachers were still talking… and homework and tests still seemed to be happening… but school wasn’t really on the top of your mind - summer break was coming!

But not coming fast enough. When final reports cards were handed out, and your grades came as a surprise, you realized that maybe you should have paid a little more attention to the talking, homework and tests.

Now, even if you were the greatest student in the history of students, you always looked at the bottom of your report card to make sure you were moving on to the next grade. And although I knew I was never in any danger failing, I had to check – every time. I knew that there were teacher meetings, warnings, extra assignments, tutoring placements; a whole list of clues that let you know that you weren't passing, and even though I didn't go through any of those things, I still checked my report card to make sure I had advanced.

Abbey caught “Almost Summer Fever”. Steve and I have laid into her about slacking off and how she needs to do her best to get the best grade she can, but her grades did slip a bit. And even though she wasn’t in dire straits, she’s been checking the mail for her report card every day since school ended.

It finally came on Saturday. I open it up, look it over and then took it up to her room. I opened her door and said, “Ab, your final report card’s here. Why don’t you see if they’ve moved you on to the 8th grade?”

She sprung off the bed, grabbed the paper and scanned the report until she found the advancement status. A look of horror crossed her face and she said, “Oh no…”

“What?”

“I’ve been prompted!”

“What?”

“I’ve been prompted. That means that they’re prompting me to stay in 7th grade!”

I took the paper from her and said, “Dude, it says you’ve been PROMOTED… although right now I’m questioning that decision.”

Prompted. Good God.

You're Never Too Old to Learn

2009-06-09T06:39:00.000-07:00

Friday afternoon set the pace for the weekend; it was one of those Go! Go! Go! affairs with everybody running here, there and everywhere. At the end of it, all four of us were pretty drained.

On Saturday, Steve and I had plans to walk over to our neighbor’s house for dinner at 6 o’clock. By 4 o’clock, Abbey was at her friend’s house, Beau was at my mom’s for the night, Steve was watching TV, I’m on my own… so I said to myself, “I’m gonna have a glass of wine.”

I poured the glass, read a little bit, hopped in the shower, then did my hair, put on my clothes and thought, “I’m gonna have another glass of wine.” I finished that off and soon it was 5:45 and time for me to put on my make-up.

I soon realized that putting on your make-up after two glasses of wine has the same result as putting on your make-up in a fast moving car. You end up either looking like you’re about to go on stage or you look like your grandma at the end of your cousin’s wedding reception.

So how ‘bout that, huh? It just goes to show you, you can teach an old dog new tricks. Men, if this is not relatable to you, think back to the “Pants first, then shoes” lesson – you only have to do it once to never do it again.

“First make-up, then wine.”

Why I'm A-Prayin' For Rain

2009-06-02T06:59:00.000-07:00

I don't really mind rain throughout the week; after everyone's home from work, then dinner, clean-up, homework, blah blah blah we can only be outdoors for a little while in the evening. So we really enjoy it when weekends are as beautiful as this last one.

We spent most of Saturday outside. Steve took Abbey to her softball game and I needed to sweep up our driveway, so I gave Beau some sidewalk chalk to draw with while I did my thing. A couple of minutes later, I’m sweeping away and I hear Beau say, “Look Mommy, I drew a rocket ship!”

I looked over, and believe me when I say, this looked nothing like a rocket ship. However, with the cabin and the length of this spacecraft... it does bear a striking resemblance to something else... (Wink-wink, nudge-nudge, know-what-I-mean, know-what I mean?)

After the initial jolt of shock wore off, I had to force myself not laugh because he was so proud of his work. His back is straight, chest out; his little hands on his little hips with a smug little smile on his face... It did, indeed, look profane but what should a good mother do? I grabbed my camera and took a picture of it, that's what I did.

After I took the picture, I said, “Hey, I know! How about we add a window to the rocket ship?!”

“No! Leave it alone!”

“Don’t you think it would look cool if we added some astronauts?”

“No!"

"How about some... scary aliens..?"

"It’s MY rocket ship!”

I could see that even at 3 years old, he was starting to question my appreciation for his art and his feelings were getting hurt. But here's the deal, though: my driveway goes up at, like, a 45 degree angle so it's pretty much like having a neighborhood billboard. But, because it seemed to mean more to him than it did to me, I decided to let it ride.

The forecast today calls for rain... oh please, oh please, oh please...

To Vote Or Not To Vote... That Is The Question

2009-05-27T06:59:00.000-07:00

My daughter Abbey will be 13 in a couple of days, so we’re at that oil and water stage right now. I mean, if there was a subject chart with two columns marked “Agree” and “Disagree”, Disagree would win by a landslide. Well, except for softball. We both think softball is cool.

For the past 6 years, it’s been quite a ride seeing Abbey grow from playing in the infield dirt, to having solid seasons, and then to see the whole pre-teen apathy thing eat way her game. (That’s been a hair-puller, I tell you what. My arm goes numb just thinking about it.)
But this year… Oh, this year she’s been on top of it! She plays Short and Catcher and has been making exciting, intuitive plays... Her swing is back and it’s strong… It’s been an awesome season so far!

In past years, two girls from each team are chosen to make the All Star Team. Sometimes Abbey came close to being chosen, sometimes there was no way in hell, but if there ever was a time that she earned it, it would be this season. The coach decided to do something different this year; instead of him choosing, he sent an e-mail saying he wanted each girl vote for the two players they thought were the most deserving. When I read that to Abbey, she was quiet for a couple of seconds and said, “I really want this... What if it's a popularity contest? Should I vote for myself?"

Ah. Here it is. I remember being in this position many times, starting about her age. Project Leader, Homecoming Court, Captain of this, President of that, Most Outstanding blah blah blah… All things I wanted very much, but when I was sitting there with the ballot in front of me, I couldn’t vote for myself. I don’t know why… I guess even at a young age I was worried about karma; I figured it would bring bad luck if I was that self-absorbed. But on the flip-side, you gotta think, these are minor decisions - what about big time elections? How many times did we see the footage of Obama, McCain, Biden and Palin in the voting booth? You know they didn’t vote for the other guy because they were worried about cosmic backlash; they wanted themselves to win because they thought they were the best candidate…

So I said to Ab, “I can’t tell ya… What do you think?’ Her mouth shifted back and forth a little bit and then she said, “I’m going to vote for two other people I think should be on. But I swear, I will be sooooo bummed if I don’t make it!”

Well now... I guess we can check the “Don’t vote for yourself” in the Agree column. We also found out on Friday that she made the team.

The Many Sacrifices of Steve - Episode No. 190

2009-05-19T05:08:00.000-07:00

There’s a big joke in my house that my husband’s nickname is Martyr Steve. The joke is not because he’s always willing to put himself out, it’s because he always tells you that he’s always willing to put himself out, and I’m pretty sure the whole “suffering in silence” code is a key part of martyrdom.

The joke resurfaced this week when Steve was called to jury duty for the first time. How he explained the torment he went through would take too long, so here’s an edited account of how he interpreted the jury selection process:

Attorney: Steve, you seem like a kind and patient man. You haven’t shown one ounce of discontent sitting on this hard, wooden bench for the last 5 hours.

Martyr Steve: Don’t worry about me, ma’am, I’m okay.

Attorney: How sweet! I wish all men were like you. Now Steve, if you’re selected for this jury, common procedure is that we hammer you in the groin every 5 minutes. Would you be able to cope with that?

Martyr Steve: For God and country, ma’am, I will.

Attorney: Fabulous.

Now, I’ve been summoned for jury duty, but my panel has never been called to report. So I don’t really have any experience to fall back on, but since hundreds of thousands of people are on juries every day, I’m a little suspicious if that’s really how the process goes down.

Well, it turns out that Steve was indeed selected to be on Extreme Jury Duty. The judge said the trial will last about 3 to 4 days. I hope he makes Foreman.

Stolen Anger

2009-05-14T14:31:00.000-07:00

Wonder Woman and I have something in common. Is it the Lasso of Truth? The snazzy outfit? Nope. It seems we both have invisible means of transportation.

It was one of those “my life flashed before my eyes moments”. I was driving westbound on 22, traffic was pretty tight and I was in the left lane. Well, right at that goofy spot between the Mall and 15th Street, a white sedan next to me decides to move over into my lane. Oh no… Why doesn’t he see me?! What do I do?!

As I’m trying to figure out how to avoid being hit, while watching the car in front of me, I start yelling, “Hey! HEY!”… Apparently I think this guy can hear me driving 60mph in our enclosed vehicles. It’s not working very well.

At the last possible second, he sees me and does that spastic jerk back into his lane. My heart is pounding in my chest; rage is coursing through my veins! This irresponsible jerk could have hurt me – He could have taken me away from my babies, for the love of God! I’m running through all the options in my head for when I pass him: I could give him the finger – a little cliché, but always effective… I could give him the head-shaking, incredulous “What were you thinking?!” look… I could point at him and mouth serious declarations about his mother… Whatever I do, I just have let him know what a moron he is!

When my car gets next to his, I lock eyes with this guy…. He has such a horrified expression on his face that it pauses my anger. Then he mouths the words, “I’m so sorry!” Oh great... How can I stay mad at that? So instead of the finger, I gave him the “It’s okay” hand raise.

The incident obviously scared him just as much as it scared me. He's probably a good driver; I was just in his blind spot. It's happened to me before so I can't really hold a grudge. However, I’m not completely ruling out the Wonder Woman invisible transport theory. Maybe it's not that he didn't see my car, perhaps he actually didn't see my car...

I’d rather have those indestructible bracelets that ricochet bullets – DINK! DINK!... Much cooler.