A Blog Post

I pondered whether to write a funny or emotional post today. I'm still not sure which I'm writing yet.
But I will tell you that when I got up this morning, I saw the cat on my laptop.
"Get down!" I chided him.
When I sat down at the keyboard later, I realized he had turned off my wifi connection and turned on airplane mode.
I tried to move my mouse and realized he had also turned off my keypad.
As I began grading papers, I saw that he had taken my one-page grading rubric and turned it into a 791-page document.
He's more prolific at writing than I am!
For some reason, I thought I needed to delete those 790 pages and get back to my first page. After several minutes of highlighting the pages from the end, I realized that I could just spike that document and start a new one. I'm not letting a cat outsmart me!

That was such an easy dilemma, compared to what we went through on Monday.

Tucker and two friends had driven to New York City to visit his former roommate then the four of them went camping in the Catskills. On Sunday, they drove back into the city, planning to drive home Monday.

At 7:10 a.m., I received a text -- "On our way." It's about an 8-hour drive, so he should have been home by 3 p.m. An hour later, he called. He was at an auto shop because his battery light had come on. The mechanic said he needed a new alternator.

"Get out of the city!" my husband urged. 

Meanwhile, I called the mechanic who had changed Tucker's oil and put new brakes on just the week before. He called back and said that the battery was new, but he hadn't changed the alternator on the 2002 Subaru. So it could need a new alternator. 

But he hypothesized that if Tucker drove home without lights or windshield wipers, the battery might just last. 

Tuck and his friends searched for a Firestone as they drove down the New Jersey turnpike and found out the price was higher than it had been in the city.  They stopped at an Autozone and bought a new alternator, with Tucker's friend installing it, before hitting the road again. Then they called from the Pennsylvania turnpike. They had broken down when it started to rain, and they turned the windshield wipers on. After 30 minutes on hold with AAA, a turnpike worker came along and ordered them a tow truck. 

Of course, the entire ordeal was dotted with phone calls and texts and dying cell phones -- along with attempts to check out the eclipse. 

The tow truck driver told them that Autozone had a history of selling faulty alternators, so, for $68, he towed them to Autozone, where they found out they had the wrong alternator for their car. So an even exchange, a new alternator and they headed toward home again. 

They had had to pay $22 when they were towed off the turnpike halfway. 

After they drove the remainder of the turnpike, they couldn't find the card they received from the toll booth attendant, so they had to pay the entire amount, $44. 

What an expensive lesson.

The entire day, I just thought how much easier it must have been to parent before cell phones. Then I might, or might not have gotten a phone call to say that he had broken down, but he would have had to handle it. 

I love when a series of misadventures turns out okay, and you know that it will be a story he'll tell someday about the fun time they had camping in the Catskills.  

Young Adults Now

Finally recovering from the graduation festivities this weekend and on Tuesday I dived right into summer classes.
So I'll just share with you this selfie taken by my two oldest children at graduation.
Spencer, home from college in Florida, and Grace, home from college north of Columbus, patiently sat through the speeches and pictures on Sunday. They let it all be about Tucker.

Hope you all are having a great week. 

Dreaming of France

When I visit France, the things that mean the most are the everyday living. The idea that life is more important than work.
And, of course, since we're on vacation, we have time to relax and enjoy life.
When the kids were two, four and six, we visited France and spent some quality time in Luxembourg Gardens in Paris.

Someday I'm going to get all of these pictures put on my computer rather than taking pictures of them. They don't have very good quality that way, but you can still get the feel of France. 

Also in the Luxembourg Gardens, is a shot of Tucker playing in a blue car. He had a cute French girl next to him and was making his cute flirty face.

One thing we were surprised by at the French playgrounds was the play equipment. Since the French aren't nearly as litigious as we are in the United States, they have things like this climbing contraption that would never fly here in the U.S.

Here's 6-year-old Grace at the top of it. 

Maybe this week I'm dreaming of France and dreaming of those halcyon days when my kids were little. 

Thanks for playing along today and I hope you'll all visit each other's blogs to see more. 

Saturday Snapshots -- Babysitting

To participate in the Saturday Snapshot meme, post a photo that you (or a friend of family member) have taken. Then leave a direct link to your post on West Metro Mommy. Photos can be old or new, and be of any subject as long as they are clean and appropriate for all eyes to see. How much detail you give in the caption is entirely up to you. Please don't post random photos that you find online.
My week got very busy.
I started teaching three new classes in the evening; Tucker's high school musical opened and I've been helping with costumes for a couple of weeks; Suddenly, I had to babysit two days this week because my sister-in-law was struck down with the flu and ended up in the hospital.
My sister-in-law usually watches her three grandkids on Thursday and Friday. So I took a shift watching the three kids both days. Exhausting but exhilarating.
Caroline is 4. She's not allowed to eat wheat, so I introduced her to chocolate-covered raisins. We decided this was a healthy snack. You can see she is delighted.

Regan is 20 months old. She was supposed to be napping but had a dirty diaper and unfortunately decided to explore. She needed a bath before I could put her down for a nap again.
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Grant is 14 months old. He stacked these cans up by himself very meticulously. When I looked up childhood milestones, I saw that babies should be able to stack 2 to 3 blocks at the age of 18 months. He has six cans stacked up here. I guess he'll be an engineer or an architect.

Hope you all had a good week.

Breakfast Test

Last night when I got home from work after 9, I found my 17-year-old sitting on the couch in the dark watching college football. I plopped down beside him for a few minutes to chat. Before he went to bed, I asked whether he'd like pancakes for breakfast.
"Yes," he replied.
"Scrambled eggs too?" I asked.
"Sure."
So he went to bed and when I woke up Friday morning, I realized I'd have to cut short my run in order to get back in time to cook breakfast for Tucker. That was fine.
I just ran a couple of miles and headed to the kitchen.
Pancake batter at the ready, eggs beaten, blueberry sauce simmering in the pot, I listened for the shower to turn off so I could cook the eggs and pancakes.
I scrambled the eggs, making sure to get them dry the way he liked. I carefully cooked the pancakes to be sure they were done, but not brown.
By the time Tucker moved to hang up his towel in the bathroom, dressed for the day, I called to him that his breakfast was ready.
I set the plate on a place mat and poured an oversized glass of milk, which is what he drinks most mornings.

As he walked into the dining room, he looked at the plate and said, "I don't have time to eat that. I need to leave."

I shrugged and didn't make eye contact. 

"What am I supposed to do? I can't possibly start eating now."

"Do what you have to do," I said. 

So he slipped his shoes on and approached me as I stood over the sink washing the skillet I used to cook the eggs. He bent down for me to kiss him on his bearded cheek.

"Thanks for the breakfast, Mom," he said.

Then he paused at the wooden cabinet and pulled out a pack of Pop Tarts before he closed the door behind him.

I stared at the plate. I hadn't been home from my run long enough to be hungry yet and I thought about being angry at my selfish teenager. But I think selfish teenager is redundant. 

Tucker spends a lot of evenings at home alone while I teach. Many evenings dinner is just pizza or something we pick up at Subway. 

I spend a lot of time juggling classes, talking to Grace or Spencer at college, spending time with my husband. Tucker may feel the need to test me, to see if I'll change my schedule to kowtow to his needs.

And this morning, I did. I passed his test. 

But because I didn't throw a fit about him skipping the breakfast I lovingly cooked, I'm pretty sure that guilt is nibbling at him somewhere. 

Dreaming of France -- French Zoos

Please join this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.
Maybe we can all satisfy our yearnings for France, until we get there again.
French zoos are not like American zoos.
Well, they have animals, like ours do.
Let me preface this by saying that I haven't been to a French zoo in seven years. But I visited a few zoos in 1998 and in 2006. At a little zoo outside Bandol, we were allowed to feed the animals caramel popcorn. The meerkats were chubby from all the caramel popcorn they ate. I wonder if they could still get down in their holes.

Another difference was the fact that we saw animals mating in their cages -- not something we would see in the U.S. where parents don't want to explain that whole "piggyback" ride to their kids. Plus, zoos are careful about which animals they breed and seem to want them to do it in private.

Plus, animals still lived in cages rather than habitats. I think American zoos are trying to give the animals natural habitats these days, and maybe French zoos have changed too. 

One thing that isn't different about French zoos is that kids love them. 

Here are my three, ages 14, 12 and 10 during our 2006 trip. 

Have you ever visited a French zoo?
Can't wait to see what you are all sharing about France today. Thanks for playing along.

Easter Askew

I knew this was going to be a strange Easter.
Spencer is away at college and Tucker left for a school trip to France. But I still didn't anticipate how off kilter things would be until Grace started throwing up Saturday evening.
She was really sick all evening and finally fell asleep.
Earl and I felt compelled to cancel our plans with his sister and family since we didn't want to spread the stomach virus to anyone else.
So this morning, I wandered the grocery aisles, wondering what I could fix for someone who has been recently ill, and two people who might come down with the same virus.
Grace slept and slept. I asked Earl to fix her Easter basket and hide it while I went to the grocery store.
We didn't go to church, again not wanting to spread the virus.
Earl and I were at loose ends as we waited for Grace to wake up. For the first time in 21 years, we didn't have kids looking throughout the house for their Easter baskets.
Grace's basket had candy, which I knew she wouldn't want to eat after being sick all night, and a copy of the DVD Les Miserables.
"If Grace would wake up, we could watch Les Miserables," I told Earl.

Here's a photo from our first Easter with Grace.
Love those floral print dresses and big glasses.

When she emerged around 11, she wandered into a chair at the dining room table where Earl and I were both on our laptops.
"Hurry up and find your Easter basket so we can watch Les Miserables," Earl said to Grace.
I turned my head and stared at him. Grace looked confused.
"I can't believe you  just spoiled the surprised," I said.
He looked a little sheepish but shrugged it off.
Grace wandered in the living room until she found her basket hidden under a blanket. She set it on the table and we all looked at it expectantly. Was the DVD hiding behind the chocolate bunny? Nope. We hadn't even put it in the basket.
I went to the closet and grabbed the movie from its hiding place.
So after our subdued meal, we spent the afternoon watching Les Miserables. It was just as wonderful as Sim at Chapter 1 - Take 1 predicted, and as moving as Grace told me.
I hope your Easter was a little more traditional than ours.

Saturday Snapshot -- My Kids (Adults?)

To participate in the Saturday Snapshot meme post a photo that you (or a friend or family member) have taken then leave a direct link to your post on Alyce's blog At Home With Books. Photos can be old or new, and be of any subject as long as they are clean and appropriate for all eyes to see. How much detail you give in the caption is entirely up to you. Please don’t post random photos that you find online.
I got to enjoy having all three of my kids home during a long Christmas break so here are a few shots of them.
Tucker and Emma went to Winter Formal at her high school. She is a senior and Tucker is a junior.

Can you see the cut outs on her shoulders? Va va voom!  Boys clothes for formal aren't nearly as exciting. Tucker revised his black pants, black shirt and this time a blue tie.

 

Spencer flew back to school on Monday after a six-month break. I got this shot of him holding baby Regan.

It isn't often that a 19-year-old boy will agree to hold a baby, but he had finished eating so he got a baby in his lap. He thinks she is hilarious. Don't they both look happy?

 

 And last weekend was Grace's 21st birthday.

One of her gifts was an owl mug. Her sorority, Chi O, has an owl  as the mascot, so she loves all things owl. I love having her home during this respite.

Playground

I love taking care of our niece's little girls, but as I stand here at the park watching Caroline go down the slide for the 100th time, I can't help but think how mind-numbingly boring it is to take care of little kids.

I guess I had too few brain cells to notice how bored I was when my kids were little.

Saturday Snapshot -- Lions of Munich

To participate in the Saturday Snapshot meme post a photo that you (or a friend or family member) have taken then leave a direct link to your post on Alyce's blog At Home With Books. Photos can be old or new, and be of any subject as long as they are clean and appropriate for all eyes to see. How much detail you give in the caption is entirely up to you. Please don’t post random photos that you find online.
I'm so excited about my two kids in college coming home this week for Thanksgiving, that I decided to run a picturre from the past.
Here are my kids ages 14, 12 and 10 on our European vacation (yes, it was very Chevy Chase) with one of the lions of Munich. I don't know if they still have them, but they had lions dressed in very designs in front of businesses.

The kids don't look like that, but you gotta love the swagger and confidence they were feeling her.

Saturday Snapshot -- France with Kids

To participate in the Saturday Snapshot meme post a photo that you (or a friend or family member) have taken then leave a direct link to your post on Alyce's blog At Home With Books. Photos can be old or new, and be of any subject as long as they are clean and appropriate for all eyes to see. How much detail you give in the caption is entirely up to you. Please don’t post random photos that you find online.
This month, I'm also participating in Paris in July sponsored byThyme for Tea and Bookbath, so, of course, I need a France related photo. I wrote yesterday about the wildfires in Corsica when I visited there more than 25 years ago. I have some great photos from that trip, but they aren't all on the computer yet. Instead, I'll post a photo from one of our visits to France with the kids.
We took the kids to France when they were 2, 4 and 6. Yes, we were slightly optimistic and a little insane, but we have some fun photos and memories of this trip. We've forgotten the exhaustion and frustration.

Here we are outside our friend's apartment in Paris having returned from
 a successful day hunting and gathering for a baguette.

Here's Earl and the kids in front of the Arc de Triomphe. We had just visited a bakery.
Grace got a Saint Honore cake and Tucker got a pain sucre pastry; Spencer asked for a KitKat candy bar. He was not convinced
of the goodness of French pastries at that point.

Making Connections

It's a funny thing, the difference a button can make.
Last week, Spencer came home from basketball practice with a picture of himself in his basketball uniform posted on a big button. He proudly presented it to me and I attached it to my coat.
When I arrived at work, I told the secretary and the department head that "Yes, I have become one of those people who wears pictures of my children on my coat."
When I got home from work that day, Spence was sitting on the couch and I leaned over to kiss him. "I like your button," he said.
It's good to make him feel proud or happy that I'm wearing a picture of him around the city. However, I've been surprised at the conversations that people strike up based on the button.
People I know comment on it, but people I don't know too.
Like the guy at 7/11, which I never stop at, but had to run into last night on my way to teach a class. I needed a box of spaghetti as a building supply for my class lesson on teamwork. Who would have guessed that 7/11 sells spaghetti, but it does, so I carried the expensive ($2.79) box of spaghetti to the counter and plunked it down. The clerk asked about the boy on the button.
"Is that your son?" he asked in his singsong accent.
When I confirmed, he asked how old he was and where he went to school.
Isn't that strange?
Then at the downtown Columbus library, I was greeted by a librarian who offered to find the books by call numbers that I had written on my Post-it note. I handed over the yellow note and traipsed after him through the stacks. Yes, I can find a library book myself, but it seems rude to turn down his offer. After he found the books, he asked about the button on my coat.
"What school does he go to?" the librarian asked.
I told him and he said his brother teaches science at the school. Believe me, in such a small school district, the odds are rare.
I laughed and told him Tucker has had his brother as a teacher both freshman and sophomore year.
So the button is helping me make connections and making my son feel loved. I guess I'll keep wearing it. At least until he goes away to college.
I'm sure Tucker will have a button to replace the one Spencer gave me.

Impending Troubles?

How do you respond to someone's prediction of doom?
I'm not really sure what to do with this. Maybe you can help.
Just this morning, I called Sheila, asking her to review how she handled her 20-year-old son's teenage years. Tucker seems angry whenever he's home. I want things to be better, but I end up getting angry back at him. Sheila and I talked for awhile but, as usual with parenting, we didn't come up with a solution. As I dropped Tucker at school this morning, the slam of the door resounded like an exclamation mark on our relationship.
I've been worried about Spencer the past few days too, since he came home at 9 p.m. Saturday. He hasn't hung out with his friends since then. He claims everything is fine, he's just decided to stay home more. That makes me nervous. He's the most social person I know. Is he fighting with his friends? Is he trying to avoid trouble?
So worry about my boys was nibbling at my brain when I got home and checked my email. One of my former students, Muhanned,a smart man who I trust and stay in contact with, sent me an email. Muhanned was born in Saudi Arabia, grew up in England and the U.S.
His email was titled "I had a dream." I figured he was sending me another video of his baby daughter. But not. He wrote about his dream that "some harm came to your son" and "you were offered $300 million in compensation." He woke up with a feeling of foreboding and wasn't able to shake the feeling for the past few days, so he emailed me.
I felt tears fill my eyes.
Should I go pull both boys out of school and keep them home -- forever -- to keep them safe?
I don't know whether Muhanned has prophetic dreams like his namesake, but the idea of something happening to either of my sons is frightening. And when I thought about it, I realized there is nothing I can do to protect them from the world.
Of course, I analyzed Muhanned's email. I wanted to shoot back questions: Which son? Have you had dreams come true before? Did something happen during the day that made you think of me, which could have spurred the dream and had nothing to do with my future?
And I looked at his carefully chosen words: "some harm." He didn't say "die" but why would I get compensation if said son was still alive? $300 million compensation meant some sort of accident and a big corporation responsible. I brooded on his words. I needed to make sure my boys were safe.
The thing is, there's nothing I can do to make sure my boys aren't involved in an accident if Muhanned's dream is correct or if it isn't. The only thing I can do is to make sure that the boys know how much I love them, to be certain our relationship is fine in case anything should ever happen to them or me -- whether it's related to Muhanned's dream or just to life.
So I asked Tucker to go to lunch, but he turned me down. He wouldn't mind if I gave him his weekly allowance though. So I dropped by the school. Tucker and his buddies filled the car and asked me to drop them at Qdoba. He leaned over and game me a kiss before he got out.
Then I saw Spencer walking with a few friends on their way to lunch on this beautiful, sun-drenched day.
Whatever the future holds, I hope we can all say we didn't waste our time together fighting or complaining.
And I'm thankful to Muhanned's dream for forcing me to go make peace with Tucker and take a few minutes out of my day to remember how much I love my kids.

Fun With Boxes

We ordered bean bag chairs for the basement and they came in big cardboard boxes. Just like when they were little, my kids decided the boxes were better than the chairs.
Tucker captured Grace under a box.
Then he climbed in the box himself.
My iPhone is taking grainy pictures when I use the zoom lens,
but I wanted to show you that the cats, and Grace also climbed in the boxes, before the boxes tore.
Aaah. Simpler days when kids could be entertained for hours with packing material that doesn't connect by an electrical cord or a cable cord to anything.

Forced Labor

Children forced to do dishes can get carried away with the suds!

The other day I asked Grace whether she wanted to unload the dishwasher or load it. She brought me a copy of an article she read for English class. It was by Jane Smiley, the author of A Thousand Acres, and made a case for not requiring kids to do chores. It turns out Smiley never did chores as a child. Her mother followed her around cleaning up until they could afford a cleaning lady.I'm sure this is similar to the life many of us led. Smiley learned work ethic by taking care of horses, which she really loved. Smiley also isn't making her children do any chores.
The case she made was that children are asked to do the worst chores. For instance, Mom will cook dinner and the daughter will be asked to do dishes. I have no problem with this, if Grace wants to cook dinner, I'll be happy to wash dishes.
Smiley also claimed that it takes four hours maximum to keep a house clean these days, I guess that was her reasoning for why children shouldn't have to participate. I'm flabbergasted by that suggestion. On Friday I did not do a lick of cleaning, but probably still spent four hours after I got up to make lunches (hate making lunches already), went to the grocery store, and made dinner. And this was in between working from 9-2 then 6-9:30. Why shouldn't my kids help out?
I think it would be nice if we could all have someone to take care of the chores we don't want to do. I would be happy to cook a few times a week, but that isn't my choice. I have to cook every day if I want my children to eat something other than chips and salsa.
I'm not certain if I would ever say, "I really could get into cleaning the toilet today," but, face it, it needs to be done.
Simply put, kids should do chores because everyone lives in the house together and we should all contribute. They don't contribute nearly as much as my husband and I do, but some small token is required. Unloading the dishwasher, scooping the kitty pan, running the vacuum. This will not kill them and will help them realize what is involved and necessary to keep a house running at a minimum level of cleanliness.
So Jane Smiley, I disagree with your essay. I'm not sure what advantage children get from not pitching in, other than more time on their facebook pages and the inability to figure out how to run a vacuum when they're older.