Babies

I really need to redo the photos on here.  That header?  Those kids don’t even exist any more.  Reagan has been through three hair colors since then, pierced her nose and added three tattoos (that I know of).  Hayden looks like a baby up there.  He’s probably six inches taller and has a beard for heaven’s sake.  Faith has probably grown that much too - her height I mean.  She doesn’t have a beard.

But a new header featuring my kids means all three in the same place at the same time in an agreeable mood with a photographer present.

So the header stays.

But here are updates on their lives:

That’s my favorite recent photo from Reagan’s Facebook page.  I haven’t seen her in person since August.  The cat is Persephone and is technically her roommate’s but they co-parent the cats.  Caspian is still alive and kicking … literallyReagan is a junior+.  If she sticks the “get me the heck out of college ASAP” schedule she’s set for herself, she will graduate next December.  I kind of wonder what the hurry is.  I suspect it has something to do with the fact that her boyfriend lives in L.A., but she says she’s just ready to get on with life and quit paying money to take dumb classes that she isn’t interested in but that a Liberal Arts degree requires.

A valid point.

In addition to the 15 credit hours she’s taking, she has a waitressing job and coaches a high school Slam Poetry team.  She’s also still heavily involved in Slam herself.  In August she went to Nationals in Oakland and competed for the Nebraska team.  The aforementioned boyfriend helps run a YouTube channel so she also gets roped into helping film events which she likes to do as it involves travel, Slam and the boyfriend.  

She’s kind of busy.  I marvel at all she juggles and miss her terribly.

This is a picture I took of Hayden when we dropped him off in August.  He does not participate in social media so I don’t have anything more recent.

Nor do I have any more than mere scraps of info about his life in college.  Here is what I do know:

• He has a roommate.  I guess they get along ok because I haven’t heard otherwise.
• The food in the residence hall is good.
• He’s going to class, not chronically oversleeping as I feared. This fact has been confirmed by other sources as well.
• He doesn’t like his Soils class.  I can’t imagine liking an entire class about dirt either.
• He says his grades are good.

That’s it.  That’s all I’ve got.  I need to see the boy soon as he’s much more forthcoming in person.

Faith is stuck up here in Minnesota with us.  That means she’s doing a LOT of adapting.  Adapting to a new town, new school, new dance studio, new church, new friends, new home, new dog … 

It’s a lot of adapting.

Most days she does pretty well, but I strongly suspect that if we were to pack up and move back to Lincoln tomorrow she would be thrilled.

Since that is not a choice, we keep pressing on.  That picture is from Homecoming.  She had vehemently decided to not go.  The thought of walking into the dance where she still didn’t know very many people (it was the second week of school) was overwhelming.  At diner the night of the dance she was scowling into her plate at dinner time, hating life. However, the young ladies who have befriended her kept bugging her until, an hour before the dance started, she decided to go.

Of course, shopping for a new dress was an impossibility so she pulled out one we bought a couple of months ago, brushed her hair, threw on some make up and was ready to go. (The friends in the athletic gear were dressed for the black lights.)

Oh to be 14 and lovely enough to pull off a trick like that.

Faith turns 15 on Saturday, which means that this post should definitely NOT be titled “Babies” but … 

that is what they will always be to me.

You All Should Start A Betting Pool On How Long I Stick With This

In an attempt to get back into the blogging habit, I am shamelessly copying Joyce by participating in the 31 Day Challenge using the writing prompts from Five Minute Friday.  It is important to note:

1. I have not read through the 31 Day challenge AT ALL so if I’m doing it wrong, that’s why.
2. I may or may not use the writing prompts every day.  I’m going to start with them, and then we’ll see how it goes.
3. I’ve already missed the first day, so I’m going to use BOTH prompts today.  You may interpret that as genius or laziness.  

The prompt for yesterday was Calling and the prompt for today is Family.  Setting my timer for 5 minutes and …

If I were feeling terribly spiritual I’d go with that kind of calling and apply it to my family, but I’m not so I’m going to talk about actually calling.  Like on the phone.  I like to talk on the phone.  I especially like it when I’m tackling an unpleasant chore because talking distracts me from scrubbing or folding laundry and makes it fun.  Some of my family members are good about talking on the phone.  My mom is always up for a chat and if I can catch my sister when she isn’t shuttling kids to activities, she will talk with me for a while.

My kids?

Not so much.  Reagan does a pretty good job, but she’s so busy between work and school and coaching high school Slam Poetry teams that it’s hard to get her for more than a few minutes.  I try though because I just love to hear her voice.  Texting is fine, but doesn’t fulfill my mama need to hear my kid.

Hayden, on the other hand, is phone phobic.  It’s killing me.  He will answer the phone if I call, but then I just get monosyllabic answers to my questions and I can just tell that he’s dying to get off.  I’m sure that’s typical of boys as his dad and my dad are the same but I’m just dying for a meaty conversation with that kid.  Makes me anxious to see him in person!

Five minutes are up and I’m not done, but I’m going to stick to the rules today because I actually do have things to do.

Until tomorrow … or not. ;)

Updating

When we last visited my brain, it was a sad place.  Sad and homesick.  That was a bad day but not everyday has been like that.  Most are pretty good.  The process is slow, but we are adjusting.  Things that have happened since then:

Reagan was here!

And, spectacular mother that I am, I did not take any pictures of any of us the whole week.  So you’ll just have to trust me when I tell you that she’s beautiful and lovely and wonderful and it was great to have her here.  I’m sure it was terribly strange for her that her family lives in a strange house in a strange town but she rolled with it.  We showed her around the town, and made s’mores in the fire pit and borrowed a boat to show here the river.  I did get a picture of that!  Sort of.

That’s Luna who thoroughly enjoys being in any moving vehicle.  We have to body block her if she’s outside when we get in the car or she jumps in.  Reagan liked her very much though Reagan likes all animals and all animals like her, so that’s not shocking.

We finished Faith’s room

Mostly.  It’s painted and the floor is in and her bed is set up.  We still need to find the perfect desk and a rug and a few more decorative touches, but it’s seriously so great.  Here are some pics she took.

Rich installed that gray floor in the bedroom section and it looks fabulous.  It’s very fortunate that we have spent years honing DIY skills because finding people to do this kind of thing in a small town is difficult.  We did track down a plumber to do the pipes in the bathroom, but Rich is doing the electrical, drywall and tiling himself.

Given that he has a full time job and occasionally like to actually enjoy life rather than renovate, the bathroom will be a few more weeks.

I’m getting a job

I’ve looked around a bit and considered the options.  I need something with flexibility and I need to be off work by 4:00 because I have to drive Faith to dance class an hour away several times a week.  I also want something not tedious or boring. With all of that, I have decided that my best option is to become …

a substitute teacher.

I’ll wait while you finish laughing.

No but seriously, I think it will work.  I’ve worked seven years in public schools.  All those years of recess duty and dealing with parents and students and teachers should be good preparation.  I checked about finding an office job in a school but there aren’t any.  In Minnesota, if you have a bachelor’s degree you can sub as many days as you’d like to, as long as it isn’t a long term position.

Faith has asked me to not sub at the high school, which is find.  I like middle schoolers.  They’re funny.

If nothing else, subbing will give me good stories, and you all know how I love a good story.

That’s all the major happenings right now.  In the upcoming weeks, we are taking Hayden to college and my parents are coming to visit,  Let’s hope I’m a bit better about taking pictures!

Painting and Parenting

Getting a house ready to be sold is not my favorite thing.  I like to think that we’ve kept up on projects through the years.  Goodness know it seems like we’re always working on something.  But now that we’re thinking about strangers walking through and evaluating everything and hopefully coming up with offers to buy the place?

Well the To Do list is daunting.

Little nit-picky things like paint touch-ups.  Great big expensive things like replacing most of the carpet.  Random things like replacing a light fixture that we haven’t used in ten years but the next owner might want to.  And sad things like painting over the pink, polka-dotted walls in Reagan’s old room with a neutral color.

Actually I managed to paint over the polka dots without too much pain.  Reagan hasn’t lived her in almost two years and if she were to move back we would paint over the walls because she’s not so much a pink and polka dots kind of young lady anymore.

Also?

Those walls were grimy.  Adults rarely touch walls and so once you paint a wall in your bedroom, it stays more or less in good conditions for years. Kids and teens see walls as vertical floors.  They lie on their beds or rugs and put their feet on the walls, manage to get hand smudges in unlikely places and just are generally hard on a paint job.  Not to mention the tape and other adhesives for posters and such.

So while painting those walls was a little hard, it was also necessary.  What I was not prepared for, was painting the closet.  I had mostly forgotten about this:

I think Reagan was in kindergarten or first grade when we had some friends over for dinner.  Their daughter, Ressa, was in Reagan’s class and the girls disappeared upstairs to play.  When we went up to check on them, we found them doing this.

I was furious. Furious!

Reagan was thoroughly lectured and I’m sure it included a phrase along the lines of “this is why we can’t have nice things” and … well now it all seems really stupid.

Why was I so mad?

I mean, no - it’s not okay to draw all over the closet door.  But really? Big picture?

Not worth getting furious over.

But these are the things you learn on your first child.  They teach you what is worth making a fuss over and what isn’t.  Rich and I are both oldest children ourselves and we turned out (mostly) ok so I feel safe saying that being the “practice kid” isn’t life shattering.  And there are plenty of mistakes to be made on subsequent children so it all evens out in the end.

Apparently I got over being mad about drawing on the back of closet doors because the art work seems to have continued for a few years.  It included memorials to several pets that came and went.

 I sat on the floor in front of that closet door yesterday and really, truly cried.  Cried over the fact that my kids aren’t little anymore.  Cried for the mistakes I’ve made.  Cried over the fact that I have to paint over this lovely childhood memento when I really don’t want to.  Rich came in and I told him, “I just can’t do this.”

But I can.

And after taking a lot of pictures, I did.

Which led to the discovery of something worth getting upset about.  Turns out that washable marker - even 13 year old washable marker - cannot be easily painted over.  It bleeds right through.  Two coats of primer and six coats of paint later, you can still vaguely see a cat head.

Parents of Littles take note:  If your kid draws on the walls, don’t get bent out shape over it.  In fact, tell them to have at it.  And then hand them a Sharpie which is MUCH easier to paint over.

My New Job And An Old Movie

Today was my first day at my new job and I am highly encouraged.  I met a lot of people.  I think some of them were named Linda and I believe there was a Mark or two.  And a Daisy.  There was definitely a Daisy.  Just don’t ask me to match any of those names to faces.  

Of course it’s miles less entertaining than the office of a middle school but everyone was friendly and I figured out a few things on my own which is encouraging.

Also?

I have a thermostat all to myself.  After sharing a thermostat in an office full of women who were never all at the same temp at the same time, my own thermostat feels like a luxury.

It’s the little things people.

On to more important subjects…

This weekend I used guilt to coerce invited my daughters to watch Steel Magnolias with me. I looked at it as an educational experience.  The movie covers cinematic history, Southern culture, feminism and 80’s fashion.  All important subjects for the modern young woman to study.

There was also the matter of the fact that I forgot about a locker room scene where several young, male bare butts are on display.

Biology? Check.

I had forgotten just what a good movie Steel Magnolias is.  Those actresses were flawless.  Each scene was better than the last.  And that graveyard scene where Sally Field loses it?

Epic.

This movie was released in 1989 when I was Reagan’s age.  The first time I saw it, I related to Julia Robert’s character and I was definitely touched, but this time?

This time I related to Sally Field and I started sniffling in the first ten minutes.

I just can not imagine that journey as a mother.  Don’t even want to imagine.

I thought it was interesting though how I’ve come full circle on that movie since it was released but the story absolutely still holds up.

And I will never, ever get tired of the magnificent 80’s hair and the “blush and bashful” wedding.

Love.

As for my girls? I think Reagan liked it.  She cried in the right places.  Faith, on the other hand, fell asleep.  It was criminal.  I think that her penance should be watching Terms of Endearment with me next week.

In case you missed it when I posted it on Facebook the other day, here is my menu for the next five weeks, including links to 18 recipes.  Enjoy.