Conversations

Goodnight 14-year-old

Jack will wake up a 15-year-old! Gah! When did this happen?

Well, technically he will turn 15 at 4:36pm… but still! He has friends coming over tomorrow for an escape room adventure, then a hibachi dinner then X-box. Just as it should be.

Jack has had a week of midterms and a week of a head cold. Both are just about over now. Studying can wait a day and resume on Sunday night for the dreaded Algebra 2 test on Monday. 🤮 Then he’s done! Wooo! I have felt as though I’ve lived through 10-th grade again with all the study help I’ve given Jack.

I hated Algebra, loved Geometry! Jack takes after me. Right brain!

So, I am currently mourning my 14-year-old, looking forward to another stellar cake tomorrow and realizing that I have to change my blog title. Which I will do right now. I’ll share the cake tomorrow as I always do. (Rowing theme!!)

I will leave you with this little exchange from a few minutes ago. Oy! Does anyone else out there get this from their teen??

And, Goodnight everyone!

Conversations

All I wanted was a bowl of cereal and a book…

My favorite thing to do in the morning, well it used to be… read a book while eating a bowl of cereal! Now it’s Jack’s favorite thing to do, while I run around getting things ready for the day. School snack, homework, my lunch, feed the cats, empty the litter box, get Jack to brush (GAH!), wash his face, fix his hair and get dressed, “no, we can’t watch just one episode of anything”, get me showered/dressed/etc, pack my gym bag. Should I go on?

(You’ll notice I’m not going to mention anything about Jack’s sleepover birthday party in this post. It will take me a day or two to be able to write about that one hahahahaha…  It’s soon to be time for Sh*t My 10-Year-Old Says…next week!)

So yesterday I found myself with a bit of free time when I woke up. Things were all ready for Jack’s party. All pre-planned, just like a good little Virgo… I decided to eat that bowl of cereal and finish my book. Ahhhhhhh…..

I sat down at the counter with Jack next to me with HIS cereal and HIS book. Ahhhhh…

Jack finished first and ran upstairs to play Legos for a few minutes. I slowly chewed and turned pages. AHHHHHHH!!!!

Jack: Um… MOMMMMMMMM!!!!

me: (snorting my lactose free Almond milk up my nose) GEEZ what??!!

Jack: Come up here NOWWWWW!

I literally carried my bowl of cereal with me, as I was so anxious to finish it before it got soggy… 😦

me: What the heck is going on?

Jack: Look. (he pointed to his bed.) Ed.

me: Ed what? Ohhhhhh….

Jack: He pooped on my bed.

me: Sighhhh. Second time this week. Bleh. (Down goes the bowl with the uneaten cereal developing more sog.)

I cleaned up the poop. Checked for pee. None, thank the holy you know what. But then realized that the poop had polluted through all the layers on the bed. Comforter. Fuzzy blanket. Sheet. Some stuffed animals that were close by. UGH! Everything went down into the laundry room. Of course the laundry room was full of things being washed and dried, so I piled this stuff on the floor. I ran up, grabbed my bowl of cereal with every intention of dumping it and starting again. Ahhhhh. I could salvage this!

I came down to the kitchen and saw the butt end of Bella sticking out of the sink as I walked through the living room.

I put the bowl down and ran.

me: BELLA NO!!!

She was in mid drain cleaning and didn’t hear me coming so she leaped right out of her fur and crashed across the counter to get away from me. Things went flying. Dish towel. Semi-dry bowls and silverware. I think I was swearing like Yosemite Sam “why you no good razza frazza varmit” as I tried to put everything back together. Okay. Can we just all calm down.

My phone beeped. Ohhhhh, okay. Jack’s dad had decided to come up for a visit and he was going to be at the train station at 9:30. Ugh, I had a half hour to get ready!

My phone beeped again. The lady that made Jack’s cake (soccer field with giant soccer ball! I know I said I wouldn’t type about the birthday party, but this part was great!) …said she was going to be here in 15 minutes. Gah!

It was just going to be one of those days. I got the cake, picked up Jack’s dad, returned some things at the store, bought Jack some soccer cleats for (yay!) spring soccer, went shopping for some last minute things, did some party prep to keep myself busy, brought Jack’s dad back to the train station, etc.

Later, after Jack’s dad had left, and before the sleepover gang arrived, Jack wandered by and saw a bowl of “something” on the ottoman in the living room.

Jack: What the heck is this??

me: Ugh. Gimme. (my bowl of soggy cereal had swelled into a lump of puffy brown stuff)

Jack: Too lazy to put the bowl away huh?

me: Grrrrrr….!

Holidays

9-year-old Minecraft Birthday Party! Finally…

Balloon

Well…we waited long enough for the actual “friends” party! Two weeks!! That’s like forever when you’re turning 9. Lazer tag was just all booked up…so we had no choice. The party finally happened yesterday. I can assure you that in typical fashion, almost everything went wrong, but we still had an awesome time. Why do we always have so much drama?? Want to hear the story? I hope you’re sitting, it might take awhile.

It was a cold and stormy night. I mean dark. Well, actually it was a cold and sunny morning. Very freaken cold. Cold enough that my mountain of a driveway which NEVER has seen the sun due to its position on the earth was a sheet of ice. That didn’t stop our cake lady from trying to drive up in her new car. Nope. She was determined to get that Minecraft cake in our hands in time for the party. The only problem was that her car turned sideways and lodged itself partway up the driveway and wouldn’t move. Well, rather it would move, but just not in the way that she was prepared to have it move…sideways, very fast, down my driveway and into a snowbank, and then possibly down my neighbor’s driveway which is the opposite of mine, and heads down into the woods into a frozen stream. So she waited while I threw some sand down, almost broke my neck, and hoped her son would show up to move her car. (psst, I could have moved it but she was too nervous to let me try).

I put down 200 lbs of sand in my sweats, in non-regulation ice-walking shoes and bare hands. I was filthy, cold, and my sort of good hair day had long blown out the window. But, it looked like we would be able to move her car and get the show on the road, as they say.

Jack’s friend showed up while we were waiting for the cake lady’s son to get here. His mom called my cell. It was too icy for them to walk up. Of course. So they were trapped in the street. This was getting “funner” by the minute. 🙂

Meanwhile…

Oh wait, first look at the cake…

Cake9

Cool eh? It’s all blocky and Minecrafty. Loved it.

So, back on the driveway, the son shows up (Really cute too! Though, probably 20 something…phooey. And he was late because he stopped to get SAND! LOL! I have 500 lbs of the stuff right here, point-point..) and says that we better take the cake out of the car first. So I grab this huge cake on a board and start walking up my driveway in a tiny path of dry tar surrounded by a skating pond, wearing slip on Sketcher booties. HAHAHAHA. I wouldn’t trust myself to carry the cake across the kitchen. But it HAD to be done! Inch by inch I walked up the driveway, and though it was freezing, I poured sweat right through my shirt out of sheer nervousness. It was heavy too.

me: Jack get out of the way.

Jack: Look! I’ll kick the snow out of your way so you can see! (he almost slips and leg swipes me)

me: Get OUT of the WAY!

Jack: Sheesh what a grouch. (he starts walking slowly on purpose)

me: MOVE! (he runs to the top of the driveway wearing crocs and almost breaking his face). Now you have to open my hatch and I’ll slide this into the back of the car okay?

(I look down the driveway and they are inching the car down into the street)

Jack: Wait, is that block thing my CAKE? It’s just a block!!

me: Jack, get the hatch open. Go.

Jack: WHERE’S the STUFF? It’s just a block!! That is the worst cake ever!

(I’m ashamed at this next part, and if you’re not someone who cares for swears, please click off this page and move onto some other nicer blog with a nicer mom. Sorry.)

me: Jack! Shut the F up and get into the F’ing house right now. That is the rudest thing I ever heard!

(yeah I said it…It’s the first F bomb I’ve dropped to Jack in 9 years I think. I said Freaken once, and Shit a bunch of times, so really I’m not too too bad, right? heh heh…)

Sigh…

So Jack has this open-mouthed look of Holy Crap on his face and goes in the house. Now I feel guilty and don’t really care about the cake, but I get it into the car and go down to walk his friend up the driveway holding his hand. Stupid F-ing driveway. I pay the cake lady and say thanks and Bye. We walk about halfway up the driveway and the cake lady comes back down the street. She had forgotten to leave me all of the Minecraft cake topper stuff. That’s why the cake looked like a block. That’s why Jack was upset. That’s why I swore at him. Sigh. She leaves it in the snowbank because my mailbox got PLOWED OVER in the last storm and lay frozen under two feet of solid ice.

I think there are bills in there. 😦

She yells up at me “Don’t forget these when you leave!!!” Ohhh of COURSE I won’t forget them. HAHAHAHA! That’s foreshadowing btw.

Anyone else see that I’m getting all “funned” out by this time? So I run in the house and see that we have to leave NOW! I yell to Jack and his friend to put back ON all of the shoes and sweatshirts and coats and turn OFF all of the games that they were able to turn on and start playing in 5 minutes, and GET IN THE CAR! I run and throw on any stupid thing I can find, and don’t even fix my hair. Who cares what I look like, right?

We all get in the car, I make sure we have the favors, the balloons, the cake cutter, the lighter, the candle and secure the cake. Off we go. My car is absolutely fine going down the driveway. Well of course now it’s like the Sahara Desert with all that sand. We are SOOO going to be late. I get about 2 miles away and suddenly think of the little cake toppers sitting in my snow bank. Are you F-ing kidding me. This time I do yell SHIT, but make it sound like SHOOT (or SHIIII-OOOTTT), and screech to a halt in an intersection. I hope Jack’s friend’s mom isn’t reading this.

I kept him safe at ALL TIMES! Really!

I reversed about 2 miles back through 2 streets and then turned around to get the toppers in my snow bank.

me: Jack unbuckle now and get ready to jump out.

Jack: Why?

me: You have to grab that little baggie of stuff in the snow.

Jack: Why are you so lazy?

me: Lazy? I’m driving! Jump out!

So he picks up the baggie and now off we go for realz. We get to the party in pretty good time, and I pull up right in front in the rotary and jump out leaving my car double parked with the hatch up. I carry the cake and Jack carries the bag.

Jack: Are you moving your car?

me: Nope. It can rot there. Those people shouldn’t have parked in the unloading zone anyway.

Jack: Uhhh… Ok.

We get checked in and get ushered into the party room. All is well. The cake made it in one piece, some people were a few minutes late so we had some breathing time, and the kids started to get excited to play lazer tag. Whew. I had a massive headache, was dehydrated and hadn’t eaten anything yet. My friend walked in with his son. “Hey, you should see some crazy person that parked there car out front and just left it! All the doors are open and everything!”.

Heh Heh…

Well that’s the story. Here’s the epilogue, of sorts:

1. The candle was broken, so instead of being 9, Jack was 0. The little stump fell off.

2. Half of the kids didn’t show up. Some didn’t even RSVP. We’re living in a “society” people! We have rules! 🙂

3. I videotaped everyone singing Happy Birthday and it was really funny because all of the kids sang their own version of it. But then when I went to watch it, I had somehow only taped 4 seconds of it. And the photos I thought I took after that were nowhere to be found.

4. I ate 3 slices of pizza, had a piece of cake, finished Jack’s mountain dew that he swore he wanted and then swore he hated, then finished his piece of cake. Awesome. Bleh.

5. After the party we had to rush up to Massachusetts to visit my mom in the hospital. Literally. Zoom!

6. And last but not least, let’s look below at the photo of how the entire day started. 🙂

punish

How does Jack think that “dumb butt” and “jerk face” will get him anywhere in life??

Here are some more photos from the party and from Jack’s actual birthday 2 weeks ago. And thanks for listening. It really does feel like therapy! And I don’t have to bore any of you with this story again! Because I know there are a few of you that heard this entire story and suddenly “had to go” off the phone. You know who you are. 😦 Sigh…

Jack9

JackCake

MinecraftSteve

JackGoofy

Food

7-year-old birthday party…finally

Jack’s birthday was last month, but the party kept getting postponed. One thing or another. Finally, FINALLY we had it yesterday at our Taekwondo studio. Not like Jack and I don’t spend all of our time there already. He’s a red/white belt, I’m a blue belt. We haven’t been going as faithfully as we’d like to… I’ve been sick and I’m SO behind on my form and self defense…sigh!!! (really huge red-tailed hawk is swooping by my window as I write this). Plus, I’m easily distracted these days.

What?

Oh yeah, the PARTY. It was a lot of fun actually. A big room full of crazed kids and lots of “get moving” games and activities. The kids loved it. Jack wasn’t entirely thrilled to have a “mock” TKD class and had sort of an attitude. But, let’s face it. He’s had an attitude at every single one of his parties. He was the only kid who had to sit out of his own 4-year-old birthday party bouncy house for not playing nicely. I have that kid. 🙂 Too much noise and sensory overload. But yet we still invite 30 kids. Hmmm. Next year we’re going to a museum. (downy woodpecker is like RIGHT there pecking outside my window)

I just bumped a JarJar Binks toy out of Jacks hand and he yelled “What the hell’d you do that for!”. Sigh.

Anyway…I gotta get in the shower one of these hours, so let me get to the good part. The CAKE! As you can all remember (or just go back and search the blog) Jack’s cakes are magnificent every year. This year was no exception. Check out the hand-crafted cake! Yum! (click to enlarge)

Strange to believe I have a 7-year-old. He’s at a great age though, and is really tons and tons of help around the house. Right now he’s complaining that I’m using him as a slave while I type my fancy blog, as he calls it. Since his dad moved out, Jack has really stepped up and done his fair share of the chores. LOVING it!! 🙂

Jack: Why do I have to stack up all these presents. GEEZ! You make me do all your slave work! I just want you to get off the computer so I can go on it so can’t you go take a shower already?? Sorry, I’m not trying to be rude, but Moms and reason are like oil and water!

me: Want to repeat that?

Jack: No. You taught it to me anyway. So it’s your fault if I say things you don’t like. Who would I learn them from, huh?

Well, maybe he’s not always 100% cooperative, but we’re working on it. I will go take that scalding shower now. It’s freezing outside, the wind is howling. I’m not sure why there are so many birds flitting around. Maybe they don’t want to freeze to death by sitting still. Anyway, I’m rambling. Talk to you later.

Uncategorized, Weather

Back in the USSA

art by pixelmancer.deviantart.com

Because you can’t just sing USA. Need that extra S. I promise I will post the rest of my photos. It’s taken me a day or two to cycle back to CT time. I’m pretty good today, and actually feel like posting. And, since I’m taking a break from the BIBLICAL storm that we had last night, I figured I’d write a bit.

What the heck happened out there? A foot of snow. Wet heavy snow. Topped by an inch of thick ice. Wet heavy ice! Every single tree in our yard, and there are about a hundred or more, are touching the ground. 4 have snapped completely. 3 are totally blocking my driveway. I have a very long driveway. So long I’ve had to label it sector A and sector B. Sector A is from the midway point to the street. It’s the steepest. If you clear sector A, you’re usually golden for getting up the driveway. If you don’t clear it, then you slide back to the street, in an embarrassing sideways skid. Makes for good entertainment in the burbs.

When Jack and I woke up and looked outside, Jack had some sound advice.

Jack: Chainsaw.

me: No way.

Jack: You have to do it. That’s the only way to clear the trees.

me: No.

Jack: Mom, it’s just like using a machine gun. I can do it.

me: Oh really?

Jack: The blade is big on one end and then gets small on the other end. I saw Daddy use it so I can totally do it.

me: I think we’re just gonna pull the branches out of the way.

Jack: Boys are just better at this stuff than girls, so you just have to step aside and let me do it.

me: Ok.

I’ve cleared all downed trees and snow from sector A. By hand. Without a chainsaw. Jack discarded that idea as soon as he saw that his friend next door was outside playing. So much for his help! I’m beat. Sector B is the biggest section. It has the flat area in front of the garage, which has a downed birch tree and a downed tulip tree, plus some huge branches. I’m dreading that part.   [p-=,beqz   (Ed says hi by walking on the keyboard.)

So, since I’ve been home I’ve gotten so much blog material that I don’t even know where to begin. You’ll notice that my Russia posts don’t have much in the way of sh*t my boy says, because we didn’t talk very much. 😦  But in the two days, or day and a half, that I’ve been home, he’s been on a roll! I’m gonna have to save some of this for a rainy day when I’m out of material.

Yesterday we went to a birthday party, in the middle of the biblical storm. Jack had so much fun! It was at a small gym, and the kids all went nuts on the equipment. They had lots of fun games that they played as well, and Jack burned off a lot of energy. At the end of the party, they all had Halloween cupcakes.

Party Assistant: Hi Jack, would you like another cupcake?

Jack: I’ll take anything that raises my sugar intake.

Party Assistant: (looks at me)

me: (shrugs)

Earlier in the day we talked about the birthday presents that we had for the little girls. It was a double birthday party for 2 sisters. I liked what we had picked out for each of them, but Jack wasn’t impressed.

Jack: If it was up to me, I would have just given them each a coupon for a free play date. That wouldn’t cost you anything.

 

Maybe that’s why he’s not in charge! 🙂