Me: "Joshua! Lets go! You're the only one not ready to get in the car!"
Joshua: "I can't find socks!"
Me: "Get some out of my drawer!"
Ok. Admittedly it's totally ridiculous to send my son to my sock drawer to borrow some, but somehow Joshua's socks are frequently missing. Well. The truth is that he changes his socks often throughout the day- whenever they get dirty or wet or when he just takes them off because he felt like it. He won't put the same pair back on. And I have yet to purchase the right volume to accommodate socks that need to be in the drawer and socks that are in the laundry and socks that are missing.
Back to trying to get out the door:
Five years go by (maybe 35 seconds... but any mother knows what it feels like when you are TRYING TO GET OUT THE DOOR and you have a lagger).
Me: "JOSHUA! LETS GO!"
Joshua: "I can't get the sock on!"
Me: "YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME. Get down here and I'll help my super genius 7 1/2 year old figure out how to get a sock on. For pete's sake Joshua this screwing around is not helping us get out the door!"
Joshua sits down in front of me. Puts his foot up. I try to put the sock on. It doesn't go on. What. The. Hell. My 7 1/2 year old just out grew my socks. Me. My socks. A full grown adult's socks. He can't wear my socks. I don't have a back up plan for my failure to do the load of whites anymore. And worse... he's 7 and a HALF. And he can't fit into my 33-year-old grown up sized socks.
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
I Wish I Knew How to Curse in Polish
There are probably at least 100 childhood Christmas memories I could rattle off without pausing for a breath because they are all still so vibrant. But the ones that stand out the most that I'm pretty sure I understood the least about when I was a little girl was how special the time was with my grandparents.
My parents and my brothers and I would suck it up through the 4pm mass on Christmas Eve but really between the crowd, dying of hunger and literally insane with anxiety, that 4pm mass was the looooongest service on the planet. By the time we got out of church it was dark and things were definitely starting to feel in motion for Christmas.
We would then drive home and enjoy an extensive meal of ham and all the the trimmings and politely help my mother put the dishes away before retiring for the night. Yeah right... NO! Forget that crap. We would all pile in the car, shivering because it took the thing 9 years to warm up in the -9 degrees of heat Michigan sports in late December. We would also be without the ability to shut up or stop moving or in general stop bothering each other in the way only siblings can on Christmas Eve.
We would all actually have dinner at Como's Pizza which definitely wasn't empty for being Christmas Eve. That was also the only time all year that we ate at Como's but it was some darn good pizza! And we got to have pop. Except my little brother Mike who would order chocolate milk. And one of us would generally spill. Because that's the way we roll.
We would then start the drive from Ferndale to Royal Oak where my grandparents lived... a whole 15 minutes... trying not to cause my dad to pull the car over to drop one of us in the dirt pile of snow that seems to cover every street corner on Woodward from November until March. Luckily my dad was actually the worst instigator of the craziness because he was more kid at Christmas than grown up.
My dad would take us through neighborhoods to see the decorations and lights. Which was too bad for the sucker kid sitting in the middle seat of the station wagon! (HA HA MIKE!) I loved the houses on Vinsetta- so beautiful. When we'd finally get around to Hawkins there was usually another car or two in the driveway belonging to my Aunt Kate (grandmothers sister) or my Uncle Tim (dad's brother).
My brothers and I were assuredly still hopping from the pop from dinner and then LOW AND FREAKING BEHOLD, the kitchen table was covered with cookies and candy. There had to be dozens of these little tiny cookies and homemade candies, chocolates and fudge. My personal favorite were these small powdered sugar snowball looking things. My grandmother made a good majority of them herself and the rest were from the church cookie exchange. I don't get too far in to remembering Christmas without remembering those cookies! AND, the best deal of the night was getting shooed to go play in the basement or sent off on a beer run from the basement refrigerator because it gave you the chance to snitch more cookies on the way!
Everybody would eventually go out and sit in the living room and us three kids would have to sit there and try to be normal so that sometime before Easter we could open our presents. Our stocking was usually full of gumball machine quality toys that we would break on first use. Or the adults would break them showing us how they work. And when we'd get to the actual presents. Without fail, we got stuff like dress shirts. Dress shoes. Bathrobes. All the kind of crap you'd least want. But that you needed.
With my parents, two brothers and myself, plus my grandparents, my grandmothers sister, my uncle, a cousin or two and usually even my great uncle (my grandfathers brother who didn't drive so his car was never in the driveway!), all the family I really knew would be in that living room. They'd be telling stories, remembering their childhood with exaggerated angst. Remarking about who got shafted the most. Cursing in muddled Polish. My dad would hand out the gifts. My grandma would try to save the bows, my uncle would put them in the trash. My grandpa liked to be cute and write silly Polish names on the gift tags to confuse things or endearing cheesy names for his dear Helen. I can't remember any specifically but the joke never got old. It just got missed when it so abruptly stopped.
In December of 2000, I was having my first Christmas away from home. I stopped by my grandparents on the way to the airport. My grandmother was still sleeping (you don't wake her... no matter what). But grandpa was up and making himself breakfast and doing some daily puttering. I had a gift I was dropping off and he thanked me. He hugged me and said he loved me (not usual for this proud man). I left and had my first Christmas away, and missed the cookies, missed the cheesy gifts, missed the silly name calling and the Polish cursing.
About a week after Christmas my grandfather was admitted to the ICU with a brain hemorrhage. He would briefly wake here and there but eventually he stopped waking. I returned from my trip early but only could stand there to see him unconscious and not the grandpa who would smack his hands together as he laughed or the one that would swear in mumbled Polish and English at the stupidity of life's ways. Most of his family was around him as he took his last breath and died on January 6th, 2001.
Christmas gets different when you're not a child and when you grow up and when people move on or when you finally settle for the fake tree one year for whatever reasons. I still think of all of those childhood Christmases and hope that by writing it down I won't forget the details. It also makes me wonder what details my boys will remember when they grow up. I spend a lot of time thinking of their gifts, but I would be more than happy if when they grew up they never remembered a single present and instead remembered what they did, who they were with and what they would miss if it wasn't there.
-Sheryl
My parents and my brothers and I would suck it up through the 4pm mass on Christmas Eve but really between the crowd, dying of hunger and literally insane with anxiety, that 4pm mass was the looooongest service on the planet. By the time we got out of church it was dark and things were definitely starting to feel in motion for Christmas.
We would then drive home and enjoy an extensive meal of ham and all the the trimmings and politely help my mother put the dishes away before retiring for the night. Yeah right... NO! Forget that crap. We would all pile in the car, shivering because it took the thing 9 years to warm up in the -9 degrees of heat Michigan sports in late December. We would also be without the ability to shut up or stop moving or in general stop bothering each other in the way only siblings can on Christmas Eve.
We would all actually have dinner at Como's Pizza which definitely wasn't empty for being Christmas Eve. That was also the only time all year that we ate at Como's but it was some darn good pizza! And we got to have pop. Except my little brother Mike who would order chocolate milk. And one of us would generally spill. Because that's the way we roll.
We would then start the drive from Ferndale to Royal Oak where my grandparents lived... a whole 15 minutes... trying not to cause my dad to pull the car over to drop one of us in the dirt pile of snow that seems to cover every street corner on Woodward from November until March. Luckily my dad was actually the worst instigator of the craziness because he was more kid at Christmas than grown up.
My dad would take us through neighborhoods to see the decorations and lights. Which was too bad for the sucker kid sitting in the middle seat of the station wagon! (HA HA MIKE!) I loved the houses on Vinsetta- so beautiful. When we'd finally get around to Hawkins there was usually another car or two in the driveway belonging to my Aunt Kate (grandmothers sister) or my Uncle Tim (dad's brother).
My brothers and I were assuredly still hopping from the pop from dinner and then LOW AND FREAKING BEHOLD, the kitchen table was covered with cookies and candy. There had to be dozens of these little tiny cookies and homemade candies, chocolates and fudge. My personal favorite were these small powdered sugar snowball looking things. My grandmother made a good majority of them herself and the rest were from the church cookie exchange. I don't get too far in to remembering Christmas without remembering those cookies! AND, the best deal of the night was getting shooed to go play in the basement or sent off on a beer run from the basement refrigerator because it gave you the chance to snitch more cookies on the way!
Everybody would eventually go out and sit in the living room and us three kids would have to sit there and try to be normal so that sometime before Easter we could open our presents. Our stocking was usually full of gumball machine quality toys that we would break on first use. Or the adults would break them showing us how they work. And when we'd get to the actual presents. Without fail, we got stuff like dress shirts. Dress shoes. Bathrobes. All the kind of crap you'd least want. But that you needed.
With my parents, two brothers and myself, plus my grandparents, my grandmothers sister, my uncle, a cousin or two and usually even my great uncle (my grandfathers brother who didn't drive so his car was never in the driveway!), all the family I really knew would be in that living room. They'd be telling stories, remembering their childhood with exaggerated angst. Remarking about who got shafted the most. Cursing in muddled Polish. My dad would hand out the gifts. My grandma would try to save the bows, my uncle would put them in the trash. My grandpa liked to be cute and write silly Polish names on the gift tags to confuse things or endearing cheesy names for his dear Helen. I can't remember any specifically but the joke never got old. It just got missed when it so abruptly stopped.
In December of 2000, I was having my first Christmas away from home. I stopped by my grandparents on the way to the airport. My grandmother was still sleeping (you don't wake her... no matter what). But grandpa was up and making himself breakfast and doing some daily puttering. I had a gift I was dropping off and he thanked me. He hugged me and said he loved me (not usual for this proud man). I left and had my first Christmas away, and missed the cookies, missed the cheesy gifts, missed the silly name calling and the Polish cursing.
About a week after Christmas my grandfather was admitted to the ICU with a brain hemorrhage. He would briefly wake here and there but eventually he stopped waking. I returned from my trip early but only could stand there to see him unconscious and not the grandpa who would smack his hands together as he laughed or the one that would swear in mumbled Polish and English at the stupidity of life's ways. Most of his family was around him as he took his last breath and died on January 6th, 2001.
Christmas gets different when you're not a child and when you grow up and when people move on or when you finally settle for the fake tree one year for whatever reasons. I still think of all of those childhood Christmases and hope that by writing it down I won't forget the details. It also makes me wonder what details my boys will remember when they grow up. I spend a lot of time thinking of their gifts, but I would be more than happy if when they grew up they never remembered a single present and instead remembered what they did, who they were with and what they would miss if it wasn't there.
-Sheryl
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Noah-isms
Being related to Noah is truly a pleasure. It is. And I mean that. He's adorable. He can melt you with a smile. He says the best stuff. He pulls off the strangest shenanigans. He does the weirdest things. He is unfiltered in a way only a 4-year-old can be. But then there are those other times...
- Joshua and I both started referring to the upstairs hallway bathroom as "Noah's" bathroom. Why would a 4-year-old have his own bathroom??? I grew up sharing ONE with five people. Because he sleeps and pees. And misses. Joshua will walk all the way downstairs or use the master bath rather than risk wet socks.
- I woke up to a tiny finger poking the middle of my back while I slept away the 6am hour this morning. It was Noah. He had peed. And missed. Because he was in a hurry he says. He told me he was awake this time, just missed the potty. Great. He also mentioned "Joshua will be mad. He just washed my potty yesterday!" (Yes Joshua washes toilets at the age of 7. Nothing like a kid with a mild to moderate case of OCD to serve as an EXCELLENT toilet cleaner).
- Noah: "Did Santa and God see my tinkle accident? I don't want any of my presents to be fed to the orca whales." OH it STUCK! I told him three days ago if he didn't get his act together that Santa would pitch his presents into the Puget Sound and the whales would eat them.
We are suppose to go see Santa today. Five bucks says Noah confesses his tinkle sins in an effort to save his Christmas loot.
-Sheryl
Saturday, December 18, 2010
This was Joshua's first Christmas. I never think of Christmas without thinking of this picture and how HAPPY he was to get this gift- it was a toy piano. I don't know how he could even be happy or understand- he was 9 months old! He also fell asleep mid-morning thanks to the exhaustion of opening 9,000 gifts that always seem to get bestowed on a baby's first Christmas.
-Joshua
Friday, December 17, 2010
One Liners
I read a facebook post last night by Jill about smashing her smoke alarm via a bat after a botched Christmas cookie debacle. She's also told me about pitching her coffee maker into the driveway and various other sordid aggressions towards small appliances. Hmmm... immediate childhood flashbacks ensue... such as the incident with Jill's mother hurling a lawn sprinkler through the yard. Or showing up to ask to play with my pal Jill only to be greeted by various pieces of appliances littering the porch steps that had met their demise. On these occasions I generally headed back home rather than make that knock on the door. It seemed safer.
Jill forced me in to using Twitter and has been generating enough one liners that she could start a t-shirt company to support the replacement of her appliances:
Jill forced me in to using Twitter and has been generating enough one liners that she could start a t-shirt company to support the replacement of her appliances:
-so far today i've been projectile vomited on,lost the teacher xmas gift&had a chunk of hair ripped out by my psycho baby.Good times!
-here's a tidbit of helpful info. Smoking while pumping gas is not the best idea. I guess the idiot next to me is unaware.
-visiting the bachelorette section at the party paper place was just what i needed to cheer myself up!
-Costco is full of jackassery toinght.
-Leggings are not pants. I don't care how rockin your a** is, cover that shit up.
-Asked Alex to go get the Santa decoration out of the garage . 10 minutes later he comes back & says "I dont see a Llama decoration". Wtf?
I miss the comic relief that Jill exudes, even if its at her expense and my benefit!
-Sheryl
Saturday, November 27, 2010
I downloaded this picture from my camera this morning and it's 8:42pm and I'm still thinking about this picture. It's just... one of those. You can't ask Noah to pose, smile or even LOOK at you if you want to snap a picture. Every single one comes out like hell. I have over 5700 photos taken on my 'good' camera I realized today. I don't have even half of that on my hard drive because of all the ones I delete thanks to ill-fated "SMILE FOR ME!" attempts.
It's frustrating not to get a perfect picture.
But.
If my little blond boy wasn't so genuine when he smiled, this picture wouldn't be as perfect as it is.
-Sheryl
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Detroit Thanksgivings
When I was a kiddo Thanksgiving was a giant pain because one, my Thanksgiving dinner consisted of a roll and cherry jello, with fruit cocktail in it (Serious. This is all my brother and I ate. We didn't like anything else and there was no making grilled cheeses on Thanksgiving) and two, no friends allowed. That meant a whole day off of school and no Jill and Sheryl rendez vous.
But when we were in high school there was a few Thanksgiving Days that Jill and I spent together. One of my absolute favorite parts of Thanksgiving was the Detroit Thanksgiving Day Parade. My dad would take my brothers and I when we were little to see the parade. To say it was blistering cold 99% of the time is an understatement. The thing about doing anything with my dad is that he was 7% relaxed and excited and 93% on a mission. It was a funny mix. So when he woke us up to go to the parade- and he would be hyper and excited and being silly, you also had approximately 7 minutes to use our 1 bathroom, get dressed, get your snow gear on and pile out the door. Serious. The car was already running.
So out the door we all get. Sometimes when we saw the parade we would meet up with my dad's old high school friend and his family or more often, we would meet up with my uncle and two cousins. As soon as we got in to Detroit and found some place to park, game on. Do you know how these days when a child is lagging behind the mama or daddy turns around with their hand out and says "I'll wait for you Madison/Ashley/Cooper..." or whatever sweet name their hallowed child has? Yeah no that's not the way to drive results. My dad would just start walking and if you didn't keep up- that's your problem. In general he could hear if he had all three of us as we stomped behind him running in our moon boots, snow pants and hollering at each other to get a move on.
There was a typical 'corner' we'd stop at to park ourselves. It was right where the People Mover was (above ground public transportation train). This presented some added entertainment because all of the people with those giant balloons had to slide them under the People Mover. It wouldn't be fun to just watch the parade... that would be monotonous. It was fun to watch the potential for disaster. Once in a while there was the occasional trip up where people were running around trying to recapture their balloon hold strings like children who lost hold of their kite. It was all part of the fun.
The acts in the parade were not exactly Macy's Parade Superstars, but... there were traditions. The dudes that danced with their briefcases... I wonder if they are still there. Because nobody uses briefcases anymore... do they use laptop bags these days??? Just wondering. There are clowns that run around with little wagons and shovels to pick up after the horses. There are floats and balloons that are the same every year and those dang giant head things with people bodies underneath that had a way of making it in to my nightmares.
And then there are the marching bands. Folks. There is a giant difference between suburban Detroit schools and Detroit school bands. The suburban schools are dutifully playing their Christmas medleys- which is all well and good. But the Detroit schools- are all wooping it up, dancing and getting the crowd rolling. Except for the parents of the suburban kids who are just confused.
There were two occasions once I got to high school where I was actually part of the parade- Jill too. We were marching band nerds together and during our freshman and sophomore years of high school we got to be in the parade. Nothing is quite so contrasting as hundreds of clearly suburban kids standing in the middle of some of the pits of Detroit wearing a band uniform. Standing over sewer grates that had steam floating from them to keep warm. Not to mention, the homeless and other clearly less than fortunate folks that were milling around as we stood there holding instruments worth more than the cash they had to spend for six months of groceries... yeah not always a nice feeling.
But as the parade started and we rolled on, I couldn't wait to get to the People Mover to see my family. It takes for freaking ever by the way, because the parade does have to accommodate things like commercial TV breaks and rogue balloons and way-ward horses and the homeless guy that pees in the middle of the road. But as we started getting close... mind you I was a freshman... I realize, there is no question where my family is sitting. Because they are holding a damn eight foot sign with SHERYL spray painted on it. The band director came over to point it out to me in case I some how freaking missed it.
I wasn't embarrassed- I was giggling to myself actually. I had been over the top excited to be in the parade. I seriously had been counting down the days from the minute I found out that we were going to get to do it. I felt so... how-come-I'm-so-lucky. Grateful. Thankful.
This Thanksgiving is a bit different for me- I'm skipping it technically. The boys are in Denver with their dad and his family, which, poor Joshua and Noah, they are in DENVER. But I'm thankful for those little resilient men and can't wait to meet them at the airport tomorrow. Some other Thanksgiving I'm sure we'll make it to Detroit so those little boys can appreciate the difference between urban and suburban, they can run behind my dad to catch up, eat cherry jello with fruit cocktail that my mother made and in general, have something to remember and lots to be thankful for.
-Sheryl
But when we were in high school there was a few Thanksgiving Days that Jill and I spent together. One of my absolute favorite parts of Thanksgiving was the Detroit Thanksgiving Day Parade. My dad would take my brothers and I when we were little to see the parade. To say it was blistering cold 99% of the time is an understatement. The thing about doing anything with my dad is that he was 7% relaxed and excited and 93% on a mission. It was a funny mix. So when he woke us up to go to the parade- and he would be hyper and excited and being silly, you also had approximately 7 minutes to use our 1 bathroom, get dressed, get your snow gear on and pile out the door. Serious. The car was already running.
So out the door we all get. Sometimes when we saw the parade we would meet up with my dad's old high school friend and his family or more often, we would meet up with my uncle and two cousins. As soon as we got in to Detroit and found some place to park, game on. Do you know how these days when a child is lagging behind the mama or daddy turns around with their hand out and says "I'll wait for you Madison/Ashley/Cooper..." or whatever sweet name their hallowed child has? Yeah no that's not the way to drive results. My dad would just start walking and if you didn't keep up- that's your problem. In general he could hear if he had all three of us as we stomped behind him running in our moon boots, snow pants and hollering at each other to get a move on.
There was a typical 'corner' we'd stop at to park ourselves. It was right where the People Mover was (above ground public transportation train). This presented some added entertainment because all of the people with those giant balloons had to slide them under the People Mover. It wouldn't be fun to just watch the parade... that would be monotonous. It was fun to watch the potential for disaster. Once in a while there was the occasional trip up where people were running around trying to recapture their balloon hold strings like children who lost hold of their kite. It was all part of the fun.
The acts in the parade were not exactly Macy's Parade Superstars, but... there were traditions. The dudes that danced with their briefcases... I wonder if they are still there. Because nobody uses briefcases anymore... do they use laptop bags these days??? Just wondering. There are clowns that run around with little wagons and shovels to pick up after the horses. There are floats and balloons that are the same every year and those dang giant head things with people bodies underneath that had a way of making it in to my nightmares.
And then there are the marching bands. Folks. There is a giant difference between suburban Detroit schools and Detroit school bands. The suburban schools are dutifully playing their Christmas medleys- which is all well and good. But the Detroit schools- are all wooping it up, dancing and getting the crowd rolling. Except for the parents of the suburban kids who are just confused.
There were two occasions once I got to high school where I was actually part of the parade- Jill too. We were marching band nerds together and during our freshman and sophomore years of high school we got to be in the parade. Nothing is quite so contrasting as hundreds of clearly suburban kids standing in the middle of some of the pits of Detroit wearing a band uniform. Standing over sewer grates that had steam floating from them to keep warm. Not to mention, the homeless and other clearly less than fortunate folks that were milling around as we stood there holding instruments worth more than the cash they had to spend for six months of groceries... yeah not always a nice feeling.
But as the parade started and we rolled on, I couldn't wait to get to the People Mover to see my family. It takes for freaking ever by the way, because the parade does have to accommodate things like commercial TV breaks and rogue balloons and way-ward horses and the homeless guy that pees in the middle of the road. But as we started getting close... mind you I was a freshman... I realize, there is no question where my family is sitting. Because they are holding a damn eight foot sign with SHERYL spray painted on it. The band director came over to point it out to me in case I some how freaking missed it.
I wasn't embarrassed- I was giggling to myself actually. I had been over the top excited to be in the parade. I seriously had been counting down the days from the minute I found out that we were going to get to do it. I felt so... how-come-I'm-so-lucky. Grateful. Thankful.
This Thanksgiving is a bit different for me- I'm skipping it technically. The boys are in Denver with their dad and his family, which, poor Joshua and Noah, they are in DENVER. But I'm thankful for those little resilient men and can't wait to meet them at the airport tomorrow. Some other Thanksgiving I'm sure we'll make it to Detroit so those little boys can appreciate the difference between urban and suburban, they can run behind my dad to catch up, eat cherry jello with fruit cocktail that my mother made and in general, have something to remember and lots to be thankful for.
-Sheryl
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