‘BECAUSE I’LL HAVE TO BUY FORKS’ AND OTHER WORRIES OF TEENAGERS

So my son has this little group of friends – very cool teens, girls and boys, all smart and funny and college-bound and trying to change the world and at the same time hoping they don’t have to.

I often get a glimpse of their world when my son tells me stories at the dinner table. He’ll tell a conversation they had at the lake, or something someone said when they went to a dance after the football game, or something someone said on a date. One of the lines that has stuck with me – because I found it so sweet and so profound at the same time – was from one of his female friends (we’ll call her “Shelby”).

As my son and Shelby and a handful of their other friends were sitting around on a picnic table, contemplating their futures, she said that maybe she wasn’t so ready to grow up: “Because we’ll have to go grocery shopping … and then … buy forks and stuff,” she reasoned.

 

WHERE DO YOU STORE ALL YOUR CHILD’S MACARONI ART?

Hi! I’m blogging over at Health Bistro today — continuing my series of “Mom Tips” for back-to-school chaos.

Today, I talked about where and how to store all those adorable turkey handprints and macaroni snowflakes that start coming home from your child’s art class … I mean, how many watercolors can you really squeeze onto your refrigerator? And where do you put them when you’re done? Can you (*gasp*) throw them away?

Come on over to Health Bistro and share with me any ideas you’ve had about storing kids’ artwork. We moms need to stick together and share tips!

I featured my friend Dawn because she had the most brilliant idea I’ve heard yet …

The post is here.

 

MAKING SCHOOL LUNCHES AND OTHER THINGS I ALWAYS NEED HELP WITH …

Whew! Busy week! I’ve been kind of M.I.A. — but just busy with work and writing and editing and such. …

Today I’m over at Health Bistro, giving more parenting tips for the start of school. This one is about making kids’ school lunches every day and keeping it to a reasonable amount of time. I’d looooooove to hear others’ tips and ideas on this, so please come over and visit, and share your strategies. Do you make lunches in the morning or evening? Do your kids help? Do you have a “lunch station”? I’m here: Mom Tip 2: Making School Lunches.

 

THIS IS PETEY …

This is Petey, our rabbit. He belongs to Rene. On really hot days, she freezes giant 2-liter bottles of ice for him, and puts them in his cage. He just sits here, like this, with his paws up on the bottle, cooling himself off and looking at me through the kitchen window. … I’m sure he wishes he had A/C. …

 

A LITTLE BROTHER’S VIEW …

"Someday ..." - Photo by L. Sanchez, 2009

We’re in full “football mode” already. Nate watches his older brother’s varsity scrimmage, and you can just see the wheels churning … What will I play when I go here? Will I run like that? Will I be that big? …

Do you remember watching the “big kids” like that?

 

SOAKING UP EVERY LAST BIT OF SUMMER …

Riding the Trolley in Laguna Beach - Photo by C. Sanchez - 2009

We’re trying to soak up every last ray of summer before the kids go back to school after Labor Day. There are so many things to do for back-to-school: shop for shoes, shop for backpacks, stock up on underwear, inspect locks and P.E. clothes. We need to get school supplies, finalize contacts/glasses (we are a very bespeckled family), fill out a million pieces of paper for registration, write a hundred checks to the school district (how did public school get so EXPENSIVE, anyway?), and clear out our “homework centers” at home to make sure we have things like pencil sharpeners and extra paper (which we never do, come November).

And that’s not even starting the school-clothes shopping – ack. Although I keep clothes-shopping pretty basic at first - We usually start with just one new “first day of school” outfit (usually involving new jeans and new shoes). Then – being the frugal mama I am – we do the rest of the clothes shopping in October, when all the back-to-school clothes go on clearance and Southern California finally cools to a temperature we can tolerate without needing to sit in front of the fan every five seconds.

 

DARLING DAUGHTER

Merced River - Spring 2009

Our daughter’s birthday is this month, and we’re celebrating with a couple of her teenager friends this weekend.

I can’t believe my little girl is a teenager. I remember when she was just a little thing, we’d ask her if she knew her birthday, and she’d say “Au-gust.” In my head, I still say the date like that.

Time sure does fly. But I couldn’t ask for a more lovely development of a more lovely daughter. She has the most beautiful heart — the thing that was always most important to me. She’s grown into the kind of person who sees the lonely new girl at school and will go over and ask her to have lunch. (She’s actually done that a few times.) She goes out of her way to remove herself from pettiness and negativity at school (a tough chore — I admire her resolve). She is the friend to others who will always listen.

She’s quiet, artistic, beautiful, left-handed, a bit Bohemian, fabulous with color, funny, can eat with chopsticks like she was born doing it, is learning to play the guitar, loves children, LOVES animals, loves to bake, and just has the biggest heart you could imagine.

We’re taking her and her friends to an amusement park for some evening-hour fun. To celebrate her birth — truly a joyous day for our whole family.

We wouldn’t be the same without her.

Happy Birthday, Rene!

 

THE BEST PART OF BIRTHDAYS

I had a really fabulous birthday weekend!

As I posted here, I was able to spend the whole, long 4th of July weekend at a terrific little “beach getaway” with my sister-in-law, nephew, and my hubby and kids. Then I took a few additional days off and just enjoyed the time to officially welcome summer.

The best part of birthdays, though, is always what cute things my kids do. The teens are older, now, and not as silly (although I have many fond memories of seranades with 4th grade violin-playing, “concerts” performed by grade-schoolers, and breakfast in bed run by a “restaurant” of people under 4 feet tall).

But Nate is still of an age where he wants to put together “special” table decorations and make the day really memorable. He will run out into the front yard to find hibiscus or daisies and put them in little vases (usually a drinking cup from the cupboard). This picture was from a previous birthday when he set the coffee table up like a restaurant, complete with a comforter as a tablecloth.

Here were my favorite things from this year:

• Having Nate turn around when we were on Balboa Pier (and I was a victim of some fierce winds off the pier, with my hair “twist” falling down and my bangs blowing all over the place) and saying, “You look really pretty, Mom, with your hair all *made a motion all around his head.*”

 

30 REASONS I LOVE MY MAN

Here, on this Father’s Day, are 30 of the many reasons I love my husband Superman:

1. He has the most fabulous arms.
2. He never leaves the house without saying “I love you” to each of us. He will walk up and down the stairs to make sure he accomplishes this.
3. He makes me laugh every day.
4. He snuggles with each of the kids on the couch anytime they ask. (Which is pretty much every night.)
5. He loves that our teenage son still hugs him in public.
6. He makes the Most. Amazing. Salsa. Ev-ah.
7. He writes me e-mails in the middle of the day just to say he loves me.
8. He has a great body.
9. He loves all manly things: football, motorcycles, golf, surfing, beer, gadgets, women and blue jeans.
10. He looks great in his blue jeans.
11. He makes me and the kids Sunday brunch every week (usually egg burritos and salsa — yum).
12. He pulls over if he sees a car stranded in the middle of the road and helps push it like some kind of superhero.
13. He calls my mom just to talk to her.
14. He instituted a Saturday night sleepover for the kids when they were small, and it’s a tradition we continue to this day.
15. He loves traditions.
16. He’s very generous and helps me be more so.
17. He has interesting interests and follows them with a passion. They change over the years, but I love that he has them. Examples: tikis, midcentury modern design, presidents, WWII, football, baseball.
18. He knows an outrageous amount of trivia about tikis, midcentury modern design, presidents, WWII, football and baseball.
19. He does crossword puzzles every day.
20. He takes each of our kids on a “10-year-old’s road trip,” which is a weekend road trip of their choice with just dad. Child 1 went to Oregon to see a Ducks game. Child 2 went to the coastal city of Carmel and to the aquarium there. Child 3 turns 10 next year — we’re not sure where he’ll choose!
21. He keeps a “Happiness Book” of the kids’ drawings and named it such because it brings him joy.
22. He had to bury a brother and his mom, and, perhaps consequently, loves his family like there’s no tomorrow.
23. He hates to fly, but will.
24. He loves Tahoe and Yosemite as much as I do.
25. He holds my hand over the console in the car.
26. He encourages me to do things that make me happy, whether it’s running out to the book store or scrapbooking until midnight.
27. He still gets nervous about buying me presents.
28. He taught our daughter how to throw a football.
29. He shows our kids every day how to treat a woman with respect.
30. He is quite possibly the best father on earth.

Happy Father’s Day, babe!

 

LESSON NO. 1: PEOPLE ARE IMPORTANT

My former editor Dixie taught me a ton of things, but one of them was this: Life is short. Spend it on the people you love.

I was reminded of the lesson the other day when I read this post by Ruth Pennebaker at The Fabulous Geezersisters’ Weblog: The Trip I Almost Didn’t Take. I read Ruth’s tale and nodded my head through the whole thing. She’s so right. And it’s a lesson I, too, seem to need to learn over and over again.

But Dixie did a lot to get it into my head.

Dixie was one of those really great bosses who truly “got” life. She’s a cancer survivor, and was always eager to help other people understand what she now understood: Life is short. People are important. She always encouraged us to spend time with our kids, go to their school plays, stop working on the weekend so we could be with them. She knew that those things would make a difference in the long run – not silly details like whether or not we added that second “m” to “accommodate.”

While I was on her staff, my husband’s grandfather passed away in Texas, and he and I bit our lips about attending the funeral.