The Long of the Short of It

Chase has been growing his hair out for a year. I hated it. I am all about children expressing themselves. Really, I am.  He has pierced ears, he wears those big colorful Nike shoes and skater clothes. That's fine if he could just look neat. His hair is thick and poker straight and the "long do" on him make him look like a little Amish punk.

I have begged him to get it cut. I have promised him he could have a day off from school, a trip to New York City, and I'm pretty sure once Marc offered him five hundred dollars to please look like a child with parents who care.

But no. No cutting of the hair. I really think that his hair became something to hide behind for the past year or so. My husband and I are going through a divorce. And the thing is, no matter how friendly your divorce is, it is still very stressful for everyone involved. I think his hair was a little barrier, a shield if you will, between him and the world. As long as he kept it growing we could concentrate on that and not what was really going on.
We are at the point now that my husband and I are best friends again. My kids see this. It makes all the difference in the world. They see we are happy and they are happy. Of course, like all children, they probably wish their parents were still living together but all they really want is for us to be happy. We are. So in turn, so are they.

Over the weekend while I was away, Chase got a buzz cut. Marc txtd me the pictures of him. He looks so good. I came home from California on Sunday night and walked in my house to my freshly hair cutted son and almost started to cry. For the first time in over a year I could see his very handsome face so clearly. I missed that face. He is so good looking.

Now his girlfriend wants to kiss him over Spring break. Seriously. And he thinks he might do it. I'm going to start looking into vacation plans to get him the hell out of here. Or call that girls mother and tell on her. Or, or, or, ground him for something. God knows he probably deserves it. What else can I do to control his life? I want full control. That won't ruin him at all.

I don't want him to kiss her. I want him to be my baby and watch Desperate Housewives with me, and play cards, and read books, and stop thinking about kissing his dumb girlfriend.

My Mom would tell me to put a brick on his head to stop him from growing.
I need a couple.

Reasoning or Punching In the Face? Tough Call

My little boy is almost eleven years old. I guess that makes him not quite so little anymore. I don't care though, he's still my baby. He is all boy though. To such a degree that if I wasn't so confident in his ability to share his thoughts and feelings with me, but especially with Marc, I would really worry. Thank God he's got Marc as a dad. I have friends who won't tell their husbands certain things their children do or say in fear that the dad will get mad. Chase and his friends tell Marc a lot. Sometimes more than he probably wants to know.

I was away this weekend so I was hearing the play by play of the goings on's back in Pennsylvania, via txt from three different sources. So I had already heard the edited down version of, "the hat incident," before I got home and Chase told me first hand.

"So what went on this weekend?" I asked him with a little squint to my eyes so he would know what I meant.
"Do you know already?" he asked.
"I do, but I want to hear you tell me exactly what happened," I said.
"We were at the ice skating rink and some 8th graders (Chase and his friends in 5th) stole Jake's hat," he said.
"Yes, continue," I said.
"Well, they wouldn't give it back and we were racing around the rink trying to get it. The big kid pushed Jake down. He got back up and raced after him. He hip checked the older kid. That kid grabbed Jake and pushed him up against the side with his forearm up by his neck (this was demonstrated to me, Chase didn't say forearm). So I went like this... " Chase showed me how he punched the kid in the face.
Oh dear...
God.
Boys.
"What happened then?" I asked
"We just skated off with Jake's hat," he said.

Now see, as the mom of the fifth grader it seems a slippery slope as to how to feel about that. I don't like hitting. I don't think it solves anything. But I'm not a fifth grade boy defending his friend against an 8th grader. I actually love the fact that he stood up for his friend. That part makes me so happy that I can overlook how it went down. I don't know how far reasoning would go at the ice skating rink with a bunch of nasty 8th graders. I know Mike Brady would have wanted to reason with him. Mike also understood when reasoning didn't work anymore.  And everyone knows that Mike Brady was a very thoughful man.

Marc was proud of him. I try to leave the boy stuff to him. That's his department. I'll be the one to wrap my little tough boy up in my arms and kiss his freshly cut hair and tell him he's sweet little turtle. He seems happy with both.

I think the moral of the story is that Chase is a good friend. I'm just going to leave it at that.

Breakfast Foods...

My kids generally don't like to eat breakfast on weekdays. They really don't. This is bothersome because breakfast is the one meal that I'm really good at cooking. I can make all the fan favorites, pancakes, french toast, eggs, pop eyed eggs, you name it, well, not really, but I do make breakfast well.

Of course every morning it's pretty much the same conversation...
"What do you want for breakfast, Honey?" I say in my most mother like voice.
"Can I just have a shake?" Thing One or Thing Two says.
By shake, they mean Slimfast shake. That's not weird at all.

So yesterday this is pretty much how it went. Just Saige was here and that was what she said she wanted. Then she was still a little hungry. Today was my grocery store day and pickin's were slim.
"Do you want a banana?" I asked as I eyed up the very black bananas hoping she hadn't noticed them before I could peel it.
"No! They look gross," she said.
"They're fine. They just look bad. I'll show you," I peeled off the skin and found a very smooshy banana. I broke it in half and handed it to her.
"What are you trying to poison me?" she said incredulously.
Silence.
"Can I have a granola bar?" she said.
"We're out of them. You know that. Why are you tormenting me about granola bars?" I asked.
"Well what can I have then?" she said.
"Do you want eggs? I can make you eggs," I said, as I crossed my fingers because this was really the only thing I had to offer up.
"No. I don't want eggs," she said.
Great.
I opened the fridge.
"How 'bout a pickle?" I asked.
"Can I just have some applesauce?" she tried.
"We're out of that too. How 'bout some ice cream?" I was kind of kidding about that but she was starting to make me nervous.
"No, I know, a Hot Pocket!" I said.
"Do we have the breakfast ones?" she asked.
"Kind of. Let's just pretend," I answered looking at the pizza kind.
She rolled her eyes at me.
I went shopping later that day.
Mother of the Year! Right?

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My Little Angel

I take Chase to my trainer. My trainer. The trainer I don't use right now but let my precious son go in my place. The issue is that Chase has this thing about his shoe size. He likes to tell me it's a size 8. Yeah, and I'm 29 and 6 ft tall. I will say that I believe Marc indulges this fantasy shoe size at times in order to avoid Chase's disgruntlement. It's fine. If he wants to walk around in clown shoes, have at it. I just can't bring him to my gym, to my trainer with shoes three sizes to big. Besides it being unsafe to work out like that, it borders on ridiculous and makes me look like a slacker Mother. I like to keep that under wraps.

Yesterday we went to the mall to get him running shoes before his training session. Of course in typical Chase fashion he chose the $150 mens running shoes. I told him when he started running with me everyday I would buy him those in a second, at this time, while I am still begging him to get the hell off the couch after school we are going to have to go with the hundred dollar pair. Mean Mommy.

The shoe guy comes over and measures his feet. Tension is building. Shoe guy has no idea.
"Oh, he's a kids size 5. Those shoes won't work," said shoe guy who coincidentally has the name as my son. Well kinda, in his case Chase is short for Charles he told me, but I guess that's really neither here nor there.
Chase is angry at me because his feet are a size 5. Clearly that is my fault.
"I'll just wear the shoes I have on," he mutters.
"Yeah, no. Dave told me not to bring you in those, Honey, sweet precious angel that I love so much. You have to wear running shoes."
"Let's see what we have in the kids section," says Chase/Charles.
Steam comes out of my Chase's ears.
I've had enough at this point.
We buy a pair of shoes that he hates but that actually fit him. I'm feeling nervous.

When we get to the car he gets in the back seat. This is a power play to let me know how angry he is. I ignore it and txt Marc, "Chase hates that I made him get shoes his size." Marc tells me he will talk to him about it later. I come to find out that at the exact same time as my txt was going through that Chase was txting Marc telling him that I was going to ruin his feet because I was making him wear Ben's (Lisa's youngest son) shoes to work out in.

Little liar.

Precious angel. I love him so much. Kids are fun.

Highly Unusual

I am a huge Apple (the computer not the fruit, I'm allergic to them) pusher. I don't understand why everyone doesn't chose a Mac. I love my computer like it's a friend. Sometimes I think it's the only one who really understands me. That's not weird. And I'm worried about children connecting with the outside world? Maybe I should take a lesson from myself. YOU learn something from my brother!

Where was I? Oh yeah, if you buy a Mac you can pay a hundred bucks to the Apple store and get 52 weeks of lessons all about your computer. The Apple store guys have helped Lisa and I set up our whole business. They optimized our web site. They helped with all the aspects of starting to build it. They helped us link our calenders. They taught us Pages and those spread sheet things that Lisa does and all sorts of little tricks. I really don't know what we would have done with out them.

The thing is it supposed to be a ONE to ONE. That would imply one trainer, one customer. Lisa and I come as a pair. We're a little side show for anyone that works with us. Our contractor loves us, our flooring guy likes to talk to us, our printer actually calls us "Overbearing" and "Distracted," in a fond and PLAYful manner,  even the township guy loved chatting with us, well, until he didn't give us our way about our sign and Lisa referred to him as "Your Lordship" in an email. Which made me laugh so hard at that Saige walked in my room and asked if I was okay. So far the only one that hasn't taken to us like peanut butter to jelly is our real estate lawyer. I don't like lawyers anymore. I have developed a prejudice against them all now and will hold that grudge for at LEAST 24 hours. After that I'll probably get distracted and forget about it.

Where was I again? Oh yes, so Lisa and I go into our ONE to ONE together. We circle around our question until Lisa finally says to the trainer, "It's like a game. We are going to give you clues as to what we want and you try to guess." It was at that point he said, "Normally people come in alone. This is highly unusual." Which only cracked us up. Of course it is. It's us. So we patted his sweet little Computer geek head and said, "Don't worry, next week we'll get two trainers at the same time, but we're still requesting you."

He was psyched. At least that's what we tell ourselves.

Distracted And Overbearing

Lisa and I continue on our mission of opening up the most innovative Art/Yoga studio there is. We have lots (millions) of plans in the works. All my life one of my most favorite things to say has been, "I've got the best idea," and to see who I could rope into my plan, whether it be trying to get tickets to see Shaggy on New Years Eve in Jamaica or jumping out of an airplane or picking up our entire lives and moving across the country. Sometimes my plans worked, sometimes they didn't. In Lisa I have found the perfect partner. She loves the follow through of one of my plans. All I really have to do is think it sometimes and she's right there with her pen (don't give her a pencil, she'll yell at you) and paper, takin' notes and makin' calls. She doesn't take no for an answer and she will push through until it has gone her way. It's the most fun.

Most of our business is geared towards children. We want to give them a place to go and be creative and stretch their minds and their bodies. We want them to be able to express themselves and feel good about that. We found this line of toys out of San Francisco called Kimochi's. They are really cute stuffed animals all built around feelings with one of the concepts being how to get children to recognize, acknowledge and understand their feelings better. When we first found them Lisa was so happy I think she started clapping. She can't wait to build a whole yoga class around them for... "the cheeellldren."

There are about five different characters right now and they all have different "personalities." There is "Cloud," he is unpredictable, angry on day, happy the next. There is a bumblebee, "Bug," who is thoughtful but cautious. There is "Lovey Dove" ( a dove) who is caring and helpful but worried a lot and "Cat," who is most persuasive and can be bossy and then there is "Huggtopus," a octopus who is all smiles and happy but can be overbearing at times.

Lisa has deemed herself, "Huggtopus," when she is not wearing her skull cap and making  you refer to her as her sanskrit name Sarat Shakti (or something like that) I think she wants to be called Huggtopus.

"I'm overbearing!" she says to me.
"Why yes you are," I agree.
"No, like the Kimochi, Huggtopus, that's me, overbearing. Have you seen the way it bounces around all the time?" she asked me a couple days ago.
"Not yet," I answered as this was before I had seen the website.
"Well check it out. I am totally Huggtopus." she said so proudly it made me smile.
"Who am I?" I asked.
"I don't think there is an ADD character yet," she said.
"Well maybe they could make one."
"Yes, then we could be Distracted and Overbearing," she laughed.
"I want t shirts made."