Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack

Posted on April 8, 2014 by missemtoo

Ahhhh. The snowpiles have been reduced to the ones we see, filthy and gray, pushed aside in parking lots. The birds are making enough noise in the morning to make it thoroughly hard to fall back asleep if one awakens at 5:30 a.m. to use the commode (and also if one has ADHD and notices every. little. sound). The dogs are darkening the kitchen floor with layers of mud, brought in from each trip out back because where we once had “grass” we now have “dirt.” The kids are beginning to wear shorts to school (despite the temperatures not making it out of the lower 40s). There are no buds on the trees yet, but I did glimpse three crocuses poking defiantly out of the ground at one of my piano student’s houses.

It would appear that spring is – finally – officially springing, which can mean one thing: it’s baseball season.

For… oh… as long as I can remember, I guess, I’ve enjoyed baseball. Or, should I clarify, I enjoy watching and cheering on baseball. (I am terrible at the actual mechanics of baseball, myself, although I did play softball when I was in fifth grade and my dad proudly said I had “the nicest practice swing of anybody on the team.” I couldn’t hit the ball to save my soul, mind you, but my swing was beautiful.)

I grew up in a staunchly Yankees-rooting house, and they became “my” team sometime in high school. Right around the time I graduated from college, the Bronx Bombers acquired some incredible players – Jeter, Rivera, Pettitte – and went on a hot streak, scooping up several World Series titles in quick succession, and it became even more fun to be a fan of the team. (That’s one of the benefits of rooting for the winningest team in all of professional sports; I recommend it. Although this year hasn’t started off quite so grandly. Hm.)

Playoffs, 2004, with Ella on board. I’m normally an avoid-messing-with-the-pregnant-belly-at-all-costs-because-ew-gross kind of person, but how often do you get to get to dress up like a baseball when your team is in the playoffs??
Okay, it’s still pretty ew-gross. Fair enough.

Nick had the misfortune, sports-wise, of growing up in St. Paul, which made it natural for the Twins to become his team. I married him anyway, and have grown to root for the Twins myself (so long as they’re not playing the Yanks). In fact, the only MLB game that either of our girls has attended was a Twins game, back in ’05 when Ella was new.

It may have been a Twinkies game, but she’s still in proper Yankees gear. Duh.

My mom and stepdad have had season tickets to the Yankees for quite some time, but making it down at exactly the right time for Ella or Annie to see a game just hasn’t happened. Plus also, there are only two tickets, meaning only one of our girls could attend… and, given that the seats cost about as much as rescuing an endangered dolphin pod, it seems a bit of a waste, considering that our offspring become bored with baseball almost immediately after the first pitch has been thrown.

Enter our minor league team, the Rochester Red Wings (who are, funnily enough, the Twins’ farm team). What it lacks in terms of major league grandiosity it makes up for in just about every other way. The stadium is less than twenty minutes from our house and parking is a breeze. Every seat is a good one and there’s room for the kids (and antsy adults) to run around on the grassy areas beside the field. The food is dandy (for a ballpark) and no one minds if you switch seats mid-game, so long as the seats you move to weren’t already occupied. (Given the lackluster attendance rates, it’s a good bet that they weren’t.)

And, at $8 a seat (when purchased at the box office; they’re cheaper online), Nick and I don’t care if the girls last half an inning or all nine; either way, we’ve gotten our money’s worth.

That the baseball itself is pretty damn good is a lovely bonus.

The Red Wings’ home opener was supposed to be on Saturday but, due to poor weather, was postponed till Sunday. Nick and I asked the girls if they’d rather attend a local children’s theater production of Pinocchio or the ballgame and they voted enthusiastically for the latter. At first, I chided myself for not doing a better job of properly raising little supporters of the arts, but then learned that the reason they’d chosen sports over theater was because Dippin’ Dots were available at the stadium.

And that, my friends, is something I can get behind, because I will do almost anything to get myself some good grub. Look at my little foodies in the making! Amen.

We arrived only minutes before the game’s slated 2:05 start, just in time to catch the Boy Scout color guard and the fireworks that were set off just outside of the stadium. I’ll admit, it was the first time I’d caught fireworks in the middle of the day, and it was kinda neat; good on ya, Red Wings. We were easily able to get ourselves four tickets to the game – third base line so we’d be in the sun (because even though it was nice out, a sharp chill still hung in the air) – and watched the first pitch under 55-degree, cloudless skies.

It’s not the majors, but it was fantastic.

See: Really lovely.

Within minutes, ironically, we discovered that our “sunny” upper-deck seats placed us squarely in the area that was overtaken by shadows as the sun moved across the afternoon sky, and suddenly 55 degrees felt quite nippy. Rather than shiver it out in our original seats, we simply moved forward one row… and then another… and another… always inching ourselves into the sun-warmed bleachers.

We were hardly the only ones doing so, either. Rather, it seemed that the entire stadium’s worth of fans was ebbing and flowing, amoeba-like, seeking out the sunny spots like a dog looking for the warmest place to lie down for a nap. Around the fourth inning, I noticed that the fans on first base side had not only moved downward, but inward, in their search of the sun, crammed into one thin sliver of un-shaded glory.

To wit:

If we just move a bit to the left – yep, just one more, keep scootching down – we’ll all fit in here…

Can’t see what I mean? How ’bout if I move in closer?
Squeeeeezed in. Such is the benefit of a minor league ballpark: empty seats are free game, baby.

As predicted, the girls lost interest in the actual game as soon as it began, despite my whispered explanations (“See how that guy’s not touching the base? That’s called leading off…”), so we entertained them in the best way we knew how: by getting food. Yes, of course there were Dippin’ Dots — and also hot dogs, sausages, and some really nifty fresh-cut potato chips with dipping sauces.

Some families like to take selfies of their faces while at the ball game. I prefer to catch us doing what we do best: eating.

It got exciting for a while – the Red Wings scored in the first inning and then had a three-run homer in the second (the girls’ first home run sighting) – but once the food had been gone through and my explanations began to fall flat, Nick did what fathers have been doing since the dawn of time to entertain their children at sporting events: he bought them silly trinkets and attempted to bribe them.

Their first foam fingers! They were quite psyched.
I can’t even see the words “foam fingers” anymore without thinking disturbing thoughts (not like I was really seeing the words “foam fingers” a lot before). Thanks, Miley.

When Annie began poking us in the head with her finger (and, subsequently, Nick threatened to take it away for good) and Ella began muttering about how cold she had become (we finally reached a point where we could no longer move forward, and were swallowed in shadow shortly thereafter), we agreed that it was time to call it a day. Hey, they lasted five entire innings; that’s pretty much a double-header in our house.

Is our minor league park like attending a MLB game? Nope. Not at all. Everything’s pared down, the atmosphere isn’t quite as intense, and the fans are more subdued.

Case in point: the crowd cheered the loudest when this sign came up on the field.
This makes sense to me, though, because tacos are definitely something I support. WOLF WHISTLE, baby!

But that’s okay with me because, after all these years, it turns out that I just love baseball, any baseball. Some day, Ella and Annie will make it to Yankee Stadium (even if it’s not really Yankee Stadium anymore), and they’ll be able to sit through the entire game. With luck, they’ll even enjoy it. For the time being, though, being able to share baseball with my girls in a way that works for all of us is a pretty cool thing. Especially when the water is running and we don’t have to unzip our snowsuits to use the port-a-potties.

And it is the umpteenth reason why moving to Rochester was such a stellar decision those seven years ago.

Yet another minor league ballpark perk… Bored? Looking for more sun? Just want to stretch your legs? Then get out of your damn seats and have a sit on the lawn, why don’t you!

If we can just make it through mud season and settle into spring that actually feels like spring, then I’ll really feel like giving Rochester a high five.

Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnny Ray…

Posted on April 4, 2014 by missemtoo

I’ve always had a knack for remembering arcane bits of knowledge, ever since I was a really tiny tyke. I could “sing” the Star Spangled Banner before I was two (thanks to the Yankees making it into the 1977 World Series, which meant my NYC-area family had reason to hear the anthem each night on the broadcast) and my brother has been known to roll his eyes at the bizarre details I seem to recall when discussing family stories. “Can you tell me what color shirt you were wearing when we visited the White House? How about my shoe size on my 8th birthday?”

But it wasn’t until recently that I’ve begun to think my retention of certain “facts” is taking up so much space in my already-crowded brain (not because I’m so brilliant, but because there’s far too much stuff in our daily lives that I take it upon myself to remember) that I’m no longer able to recall things that actually matter.

Case in point: My seventh graders recently completed a unit on media music – and, specifically, music motifs (think of, say, the theme you hear for Darth Vader and how it differs from the one you hear for Luke and the Jedis). To drive the point home, I decided to have them compose musical motifs of their own for various cartoon characters. Since I wanted to avoid current cartoons (too much outside influence), I decided to use one from my childhood, ultimately deciding on He-Man (the most powerful man in the universe, duh).

While surfing YouTube for appropriate clips, I found myself going down memory lane for at least a dozen cartoons – Smurfs! Jem! Transformers! Inspector Gadget! I then glimpsed a teaser for a cartoon that looked vaguely familiar – The Gummi Bears – but for which I could not remember watching a single episode. And yet… the instant I saw the graphic, the lyrics to the Gummi Bears theme song sprang to mind.

“Dashing and daring, courageous and caring…
Gum-mi BEARS! Bouncing here and there and ev-‘ry where!”

Sing with me!
“Magic and mystery are part of their history, along with the secret of gummi beary juice (wtf?)… Their *key change!* legend is growing, they take pride in knowing they’ll fight for what’s right in whatever they do! GUM-MI BEARS!! Bouncing here and there…”

You guys. I knew every single word to the Gummi Bears theme song, even though I could not recall ever watching this show. NOT ONCE. Why on earth is a jingle about forest bears singing out in chorus taking up valuable real estate in my brain?

Real estate that could, oh, be used for something useful, like remembering what Pi really is. Right around the time I was tripping down cartoon memory lane, we were invited to a friend’s delicious Pi(e) party (we brought a gluten-free nutella cream cheese confection and a savory potato tart; both were awesome, along with all the rest), and Ella and Annie – understandably – asked me to explain what Pi was. “Well, it’s 3.14…” I began, but quickly realized that 3.14 means absolutely nothing yet to my offspring. But when I started trying to explain what the 3.14 part meant, it didn’t go so well… “It’s, um, a measure of a circle. There’s, like, the… diameter? Which is all the way across? And then there’s the circumference, which is all the way around… And maybe the radius is involved? I think that’s what it’s called? And Pi is, uhhh… I think maybe you divide one of the numbers by one of the other numbers… And Pi never ends, it just goes on forever, and people memorize the numbers and it’s hard because the numbers don’t repeat and…”

Nope. I have NO IDEA what Pi is, other than 3.14. And a funky-looking symbol.

Now this is the kind of Pi(e) I can get behind.

Did I know, long ago and far, far away? Sure. But the part of my brain that was devoted to understanding what Pi is has now been overtaken by the Gummi Bear theme song. Or perhaps all of the colors of Joseph’s Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. (In case you were wondering, it was red and yellow and green and brown and scarlet and black and ochre and peach and ruby and olive and violet and fawn and lilac and gold and chocolate and mauve and cream and crimson and silver and rose and azure and lemon and russet and gray and purple and olive and pink and orange and blue/gold, depending on whether or not it’s the reprise. No, I am not kidding, and no, I did not look that up.) The colors of Joseph’s coat have edged out anything I may have remembered about Archduke Ferdinand and how he was involved in the start of World War I. It was World War I, wasn’t it? Some kind of assassination? I DON’T KNOW ANYMORE, because the colors and the bears are taking up too much room.

I would love to remember how to get to the house of my farthest-away piano student, but I cannot seem to commit the directions to memory and have to rely on my cell phone each time. Yet, when Ella (who is Maleficent crazy because “I like evil things”… Awesome…) was looking into the upcoming Maleficent movie and she and Nick remarked how young Aurora was played by Angelina Jolie’s daughter (because she was the only child who didn’t burst into tears at the sight of her mother in full-on evil witch makeup), I chimed in with, “Oh, that must be Vivienne.” When Nick looked at me sideways, I sheepishly admitted that I know the names of all of Brad and Angelina’s children, in order of age (Maddox, Pax, Zahara, Shiloh, and, of course, the twins, Knox, and Vivienne).

Why on God’s green earth have I memorized the names of random actors’ children??? While I’m sure they’re delightful human beings, it’s not like they, themselves, are famous, nor like they hold personal meaning to me (unlike, say, the fictional Von Trapp children — Liesl, Friedrich, Louisa, Kurt, Brigitta, Marta, and Gretl — or the ginger Weasley children — Bill, Charlie, Percy, Fred, George, Ron, and Ginny). Whatever brain space has been reserved to remembering these offspring, fictional or not, is undoubtedly space that could have gotten me to my piano student’s house without needing my iPhone. BUT NO GO. It’s a losing cause.

I can tell you the names of the first eight winners of American Idol (after that, I kind of stopped watching) but not exactly what’s going on in Crimea/Russia/the Ukraine. I have no idea who the current French Prime Minister is, but I do know all of the lyrics to “We Didn’t Start The Fire” (which is kind of like being a historian, no?), as well as the year it came out (beginning of freshman year, so 1989, obviously).

I know enough to know that GMOs are bad (right?) and to avoid HFCS, but I have not yet taken the time to educate myself on the yuckiness of all kinds of chemicals in food. This is probably because the “nutrition” portion of my brain is all filled up with the lyrics to the McDonald’s menu song – not the short one from the commercial, but, you know, the really long one from the promo where you got a RECORD that you’d play at home to see if you won a million dollars (Side note: my BFF and I each memorized this song and performed it, with harmony, for complete strangers on the monorail in Walt Disney World. People applauded. It was really… something.)

We’re in Epcot here, not on the monorail, but you can see how our amazing sense of style clearly would have garnered attention.

So, no, I can’t quite seem to recall when each of my (two) children has Art, nor which facial cleanser a friend recommended, nor how to multiply certain kinds of fractions. It’s not that I’m not interested, and it’s not that I’m just terrible at The Math… it’s because my brain is already SO FULL of completely useless information, there is simply very little space to retain much else.

If you want me to remember that I signed up to bring an h’ors d’oeuvre to the party, I can put it in my never-ending To Do book, but also, please email me a short reminder. If you’d like to actually discuss politics or learn my opinion about the earthquake near Chile, let me know in advance so I can brush up and hope that the last-minute cramming helps those tidbits to stick in my head for more than twenty minutes.

But if you’d like me to rap out every single word to all five minutes of “Parents Just Don’t Understand,” no advanced notice is necessary. I’ve got this.

“I remember one year, my mom took me school shopping… It was me, my brother, my mom, oh!, my pop, and my little sister all hopped in the car… We headed on down to the Gallery Mall…”

Gotcha?!

Posted on April 2, 2014 by missemtoo

So, aside from cackling with glee as Annie and Ella encountered the various pranks I’d set for them, I thought that the best part of yesterday was going to be the chocolate-covered strawberries that the girls made me for dessert. Or maybe learning that a fantastic project I’ve been doing with my seventh grade students has finally been completed, to my utter delight. Or perhaps realizing that I had not heard “Let It Go” in twenty-four entire hours.

Upon further reflection, the lack of “Let It Go” was definitely the highlight of my yesterday. Or so I thought, until Nick came home from a brief trip to Minnesota and gave me something even more amazing.

Stop it right now; I don’t mean it like that.

This past fall, both girls were unexpectedly diagnosed with eczema. (Between that and the cold urticaria, they sure the got the best of Nick’s and my genes, skin-wise. At least we make super cute offspring.) In addition to suggesting that we use the extra rinse cycle on the washing machine, forego dryer sheets (static cling, you vixen), and liberally apply (unscented, un-dyed, totally ~~boring~~ hypoallergenic) lotion after each bath or shower, our pediatrician also strongly recommended that we switch the girls to a bar of soap without fragrance or dyes. Enter unscented Dove, which they have been using for the past six months or so.

I have kept Nick and me awash (pun intended) in Irish Spring or Zest, mostly because I like their commercial jingles, plus Dove is a bit more expensive. Also, I know where our soap has been, unlike the bar that the girls scrub themselves and the shower with every time they’re in there. (Okay, so I know where their soap has been, too, which is why I don’t want it spread all over my body.)

Yes, this relates to Nick coming home yesterday and totally making my night. Patience.

Even though my green bar of soap was nestled beside theirs, I knew – because they hate applying the lotion and understand that using soap other than theirs might result in drier skin – that the girls wouldn’t use anything other than the Dove, which meant that my nail-polish-on-the-soap-bar prank had a decent shot at succeeding. I also knew that I wouldn’t have the soap trick backfire on me (unlike, say, the blue-dyed water faucets, which I doused myself with not once but twice before remembering that I was pranking the girls, not me), because I’m afraid of using their bar. Win-win.

The only bummer was that Nick was going to be out of town all day, so he couldn’t participate in any of the shenanigans, nor could I prank him in any way. A bummer, but hardly the end of the world. There’s always next year.

Upon his return at nearly midnight, I couldn’t help but recount the tales of the day, chuckling with each remembrance of the girls’ reactions. He was beyond bushed, having awakened at 4-something in the morning to catch his flight to the Twin Cities (after having returned home after midnight – yowza! – following his final hockey game of the season), but still I pressed on, ending with the final prank of the day – the lacquered soap – and told him how Ella had been thoroughly bewildered by its lack of suds-ability.

At this, his sleep-heavy eyes popped open as he cocked his head slightly to the side and half-asked, half-reasoned, “So that’s why it wouldn’t work this morning!”

Turns out, Nick has been using the girls’ Dove for months now, and – in his punch-drunken, 4 a.m. exhaustion – had been quite confused when it didn’t perform as usual.

“It felt, I don’t know… Oily or scaly or something. Definitely not right.
And that was because you’d coated it in nail polish??”

Yes. Yes, it was, because I had no idea that he was commandeering our daughters’ special hypoallergenic soap for his own purposes, so I saw no reason to warn him of said prank before he attempted to lather up. Wife of the year, that’s me.

Then again, even if I had known that he was co-opting the soap, I probably wouldn’t have warned him. Nay, especially if I’d known that he was co-opting the soap, I wouldn’t have warned him… because while it’s one thing to pull a fast one over on your seven and nine year-olds, it’s quite another to successfully pull one over on your nearly forty year-old husband who senses your high jinks from a mile away and cannot be fooled no matter how hard you try.

Having done so by accident, and then imagining him wondering what the hell was going on as he tried in vain to wash up with soap that mysteriously “wasn’t working”?

Oh, it’s no contest; that was absolutely the best part of my day.
(xoxo, babe)

Our 2009 April Fool’s Day dinner, where Nick was undoubtedly more cheerful than he’d been yesterday morning.

Just foolin’ around…

Posted on April 1, 2014 by missemtoo

April Fool’s Day is one of my favorite days of the year. This was not the case growing up, where my brother was known to pull pranks not just on the first of April, but all year long. (I cannot count the number of times I was serenaded with “birthday” songs and candle-lit treats at restaurants where the unsuspecting servers were roped into believing that it was actually my big day, and I had to feign polite surprise or risk looking like one of those people who is always pooh-poohing her birthday. Or the time when he was about twelve and convinced me he’d been arrested. Orrr the time we were riding a chairlift with another passenger – a teenage boy [who I’d taken it upon my teenage girl self to, if not impress, at least not repel ] – and Taylor wedged his snow-suited elbow underneath my snow-suited elbow and began making my arm jerk wildly up and down, as though I suffered some kind of frenetic tic. When – mortified – I attempted to laugh off this odd behavior to the teenage stranger and explain that my meddling brother was the culprit, Taylor leaned in sympathetically and told said stranger that I hadn’t taken my medication yet, but not to worry, I was really quite harmless. Fantastic.)

SO ANYWAY. Having been subjected to endless pranks and jokes at my expense, April Fool’s Day wasn’t really on my radar as something to be eagerly anticipated, but rather something to be feared.

Until I had kids.

Suddenly, as is written in the Parenting Manifesto, teasing and goofing around and finding new ways to pester my offspring became some of my favorite pastimes, with delightfully evil satisfaction being achieved with each giggling “Gotcha!” (Perhaps it’s in my genes, given that my mom’s father wore an impish smile for a great many of his activities, either having recently “gotten” someone or actively plotting to do someone in. I also still recall – with equal parts annoyance and amusement – when I was about eight years old and my own father bet me a quarter that I could not stop talking and just stay quiet while we ate dinner. This may not seem like such a huge deal, but people… Not. Talking. It was torture. About ten minutes into the bet, just as I was getting into my silent groove, the phone rang, and after my father answered it, he called me over, saying, “Em – it’s for you!” The moment I held the phone to my ear and hopefully uttered, “Hello?”, my dad pointed a triumphant finger at me and cackled, “AH HA! You lose!” [Unbeknownst to me, he had snuck out of the room and called a friend with one bizarre request: “Call back and just hang up, please.”] He eventually felt so bad about tricking me, he gave me an entire dollar. Who’s the winner now, dad?)

This is the reason one has children, is it not? To bug them? Well, that and always having an explanation as to why there are stains on your pants. “Omg, the girls spilled something on the chair; I didn’t even see it…”

There is the usual, everyday silliness, of course, as well as the purposeful tomfoolery, but when it dawned on me that the girls were old enough to be properly bamboozled on April Fool’s Day, all bets were off.

Pink milk on their cereal was met with astonishment…
Annie, age two, totally rocking her Dora utensils, enormous bangs, and her Carol Brady mullet.

… and convincing Daddy to eat mysteriously blue eggs was cause for extreme fits of the giggles.

No, really, they’re delicious!

The girls still talk about the year we ate lunch on the table instead of at the table.
Is Annie wearing pants? I honestly have no idea.

A fried egg or some hardened bakers chocolate? Only a bite will tell…

Hint: I am all about dessert for breakfast.

We have seen frozen breakfasts.

But it looks normal, does it not?

I… can’t… eat… mine…. Well, would you look at THAT.

A year later – still damn funny.

The peanut-butter-and-jelly-rolls-turned-sushi were cute, but a pain in the neck to make.

You’re saying this is supposed to be fish?

And the “baked potatoes” were messier but yummy.
There’s just no un-messy way to roll potato-shaped ice cream in cocoa powder, am I right?

Wait… we can really have ice cream with lunch? Fo’ realz?

Just a minute… Is there something in the toilet?

Hi, there.

Speaking of “Hi, there”…

They had their eyes on us.

————————

This year, I went for an old favorite…

“Look, my milk is purple!”

… and some new tricks as well, courtesy of my buddy, Google.
They didn’t mind that the Reese’s were missing…

… because oodles of chocolates replaced their peaches.

“Mom! How’d you get the water to be blue?”
I’ll be keeping that information to myself, thanks.

You know your kid’s a sound sleeper when you can paint “April Fool 🙂 “ on her nails and she doesn’t so much as move.

She got a huge kick out of her manicure when I pointed it out this morning.
“I am a really amazing sleeper!”
Let’s not get too ahead of ourselves.

Turns out, no one really likes Jell-o… but it was wickedly fun to see their eyes light up with recognition when they understood that their “cranberry juice” wasn’t actually potable.

I hadn’t been sure about this one – where you paint clear nail polish over a bar of soap and then, supposedly, it won’t lather – even though Google had shown it to me at least a dozen times. But the girls’ soap was down to just a scrap anyway, so I decided to go for it. They needed to shower tonight, so I reminded them (rather forcefully) to make sure and really suds up to get extra clean… and then I waited with baited breath.
At last: victory.

“Hey, Annie. There’s something weird about this soap.”
“What is it?”
“It’s… dry.”
“What do you mean it’s dry?”
“Here – try it!”
“Huh… Oh wow, it really is dry. That’s so strange.”
Perhaps you need another bar of soap?
“Oh, thanks Mom. That’d be great.”
“I wonder how it got that way…”
… Maaaybe someone decided to coat it with clear nail polish as an April Fool’s Day joke? Just an idea…
“Mo-om!!”
………………
“Wow. Mom really had a lot of tricks ready for us!”
“I know, right?”

At the end of the night (after climbing into their beds ever-so-gingerly, wondering if I’d short-sheeted them – I hadn’t; I mean, come on, that is so last year [literally, which is why I didn’t repeat it this time around] ), Ella proclaimed this “the best April Fool’s Day ever!”, which is a bit of a dubious distinction – like declaring a piece of fruit to be your favorite dessert – but I’ll take it.

Annie wandered into my bedroom shortly before tuck-in, asking me how I’d “learned about so many tricks and treats.” I told her that some of it was my own brilliance, but a lot came from online.

“Gosh. The internet is a crazy and wonderful place.”

Yes it is, sweetie. Yes it is.

How to make dinner in 65 easy ste — Squirrel!

Posted on March 29, 2014 by missemtoo

I’ve had ADHD all my life, although my parents didn’t know it when I was little; back in the ’80s, such terminology wasn’t exactly mainstream. Plus, I was fortunate enough to not struggle academically (as so many folks with ADD/ADHD do), so no “red flags” were raised. Yes, I was somewhat of a disorganized, super-talkative whirlwind, but my teachers were kind enough to use such phrases as, “I like to refer to her desk as ‘creative clutter'” and “Emily is a bit distracted at times,” which were vague enough to not be terribly worrisome. (I was too much of a goody-goody to purposely cause trouble at school, but I do distinctly remember the time I was sent into the hall because I wouldn’t stop blurting out the answers to my classmates’ oral spelling words. Every time anyone would walk by me, I’d make my way over to the drinking fountain. What? No, I’m not in the hall because I’ve been disciplined. I’m just absolutely parched is all.)

It wasn’t until high school that my mom was looking over an ADHD questionnaire (that, ironically, had been suggested for another family member) when she realized that he met very little of the criteria… but I met nearly all of it. I know there are a lot of misdiagnoses for things like ADD and ADHD, and I know that the term is bandied about far too freely, but as for me? Let’s just say that, once, when I was taking a “Do you have ADHD?” quiz, I got to the question, Are you impulsive when… and checked the Yes box before I’d even finished reading. POSTER CHILD.

So, I definitely have ADHD, which is neither good nor bad, but simply part of the fabric of who I am. But it can be confusing sometimes, especially when other people don’t seem to understand what having ADHD is really like. When I try to describe my hyperactive tendencies, how easily I can become distracted, how difficult it can be to just have “down time,” or why I have to work hard to get anywhere on time, people tend to chime in with a story of their own. “Oh, I lose my keys all the time, too.” “My bedroom is such a pigsty – I bet I have ADHD!” “I totally jiggle my knee when I’m bored. I know exactly what you mean.”

I can relate to all of those, and it’s great that people “get it”… to a degree… but being forgetful or disorganized or having a hard time sitting still do not, in and of themselves, indicate that anyone has ADHD. It’s… different. It’s all-encompassing. And it’s really, really hard to fully explain (especially without sounding like I’m just making excuses for putting my purse in the refrigerator), like trying to describe a color that someone has never seen, although they’ve glimpsed shades of it.

But, a few weeks ago, something happened while I was making dinner that made me stop and think, THIS is what ADHD looks like. At least, one tiny, distractible portion of it.

And so, HERE is what making dinner looks like – in just 65 easy steps! – through the eyes of this mom with ADHD.

—————————

* I know the photos are tiny; they’re the largest that this blog format will allow. You can click on them, though, if you really desire to see them closer. HAHA.

1) Begin making dinner – soup (whose recipe says it will take 20 minutes to prepare) and a salad. Wash the veggies and strain them. Leave the strainer and the cutting board on the stove (duh). Leave another cutting board on the counter. Wonder how many times you’ve heard “Let It Go” today.

2) Get wine out of the fridge and pour yourself a glass. Leave the bottle on the counter – not because you’re having more, but because you forgot to put it away.

3) Notice that, good heavens, the kitchen looks like a bomb went off in it. How can anyone cook in this mess?? Decide that you must start cleaning and reorganizing this very instant.

4) But, before you do, snap a photo, because you realize that this may just be the photo series you’ve been looking for to illustrate what having ADHD is like.

5) Take the photo. Notice immediately that, for some very unknown reason, a cupboard, a drawer, and a twirly cabinet (there must be a better name for that) are wide open. Wonder why that is.

6) Notice, also, that the dishwasher is open, but reassure yourself that it’s because you were putting away the clean dishes before you started cooking. Pat yourself on the back for multi-tasking.

7) Decide to put away the carrots and onions that you were done using ages ago.

8) Ahhhh. Major progress.

9) Hear the song change on Pandora, which is playing through your laptop, and remember that you haven’t checked email in a few hours. Check your email.

10) Hear the soup blurping in the pot. Leave your computer and go stir it.

11) Put the cutting board (that had been on the counter) in the sink.

12) Get out a few of the ingredients for the salads.

13) Take notice that the silverware drawer is open. Close the silverware drawer.

14) Take another photo.

15) Look back at the counter and decide, now that you’ve tackled the misplaced food, that you absolutely have enough time to put away all of the cooking items; that’ll only take, what, two minutes?

16) Put the strainer, cutting board, tupperware bottom, and enormous knife in the sink.

17) Put away the clean dishes that are sitting in the other sink.

18) Drink some wine.

19) Go back to the computer to fast-forward the song that Pandora is playing. Why on earth did they decide to play “Baby, it’s Cold Outside” in March?

20) Pet the dogs.

21) Remember that you have a task at hand that does not involve the dogs: MAKING DINNER. You reaffirm that dinner will be made, stat.

22) Fifteen minutes after you began putting the cooking items away, put the blender back in the twirly cabinet.

23) Close the open cabinet. Even though you just used it – and, thus, might have thought it wise to close it – leave the twirly cabinet open.

24) Pause to take a photo of your daughter who has just come downstairs wearing her Gryffindor costume.

25) Realize that you needed the blender to puree part of the soup.

26) Get it back out of the twirly cupboard and use it.

27) Do not close the twirly cabinet.

28) Take another photo.

29) Declare that not nearly enough progress has been made and promise yourself to really buckle down now and finish the damn soup already.

30) Sip wine.

31) Reach to get bowls into which to begin ladling the soup and discover that all of the clean bowls are in the dishwasher.

32) Decide that right now is the perfect time to unload the entire contents of the dishwasher. It’ll only take five minutes.

33) Set one bowl on the counter for soup. There will be four people eating tonight, but this does not matter.

34) Hear children say that one of the dogs is running around in the street. Tell them to get the damn dog (but do not actually say the word “damn” out loud) and to go back outside and close the damn gates (but maybe do actually say the word “damn” this time) that they must have left open earlier.

35) Climb up to the cabinets above the fridge to fetch a lantern when said children complain that it is too dark outside to close the gates.

36) Finish putting away the dishes. It’s only taken ten minutes; not bad.

37) Turn back to counters and finally realize that the twirly cupboard has been left open all this time for no reason. Close it. AMEN.

38) Put the wine bottle away; one is enough, thanks. Two glasses is clearly too much.

39) Where were you? Right, dinner. Must finish soup and make salads, pronto.

40) See the dirty dishes piling up in the sink and decide to wash them immediately.

41) Take a photo and then stand back and admire your far tidier kitchen.

42) Become annoyed with the clutter by the dog kennel and spend five minutes rearranging it.

43) Look more closely and notice the salad makings that are still on the counter. Decide to make the salads once and for all.

44) Stop to put a french braid in your daughter’s hair so she can method act as Elsa.

45) Listen to “Let It Go” for the 37th time. Today.

46) Decide that you mean business about the salads.

47) Make salads. THANKS BE TO GOD.

48) Turn off the heat on the soup so it doesn’t burn the girls’ mouths.

49) Drink some wine.

50) Call the family down to the twenty-minute dinner that took eighty minutes to make.

51) Take a photo.

52) Distribute the food.

53) See the clean dishes in the sink and decide that you need to put them away right now before you eat.

54) Put the dishes away.

55) Tell family you’ll be joining them for dinner in just a moment; they can start without you.

56) Wash your hands.

57) Realize you need to use the bathroom.

58) Wash your hands again.

59) Notice that the floors are dirty; sweep the floors a just bit.

60) Check Facebook.

61) Remember that, oh hey, you’re hungry.

62) Close the computer to turn off Pandora.

63) Take a final photo of the kitchen (where all you were supposed to be doing is making dinner).

64) Notice that the lantern is now sitting on the counter after your daughters brought it back inside.

65) Decide to put it away. Tomorrow. Because heaven only knows what will happen if you allow yourself to become distracted and flit from task to task.

———————-

And that is what “making dinner” looks like when… Wait, it’s nearly ten a.m. and I haven’t had breakfast yet? I do believe I’ll do that now. Catch you later!

Throwback Thursday: All Cold Things Must Come To An End

Posted on March 27, 2014 by missemtoo

When the girls were babies, I remember being confounded time and time again. Their sleeping is bad! They cry for no reason! They think it’s funny to poop in the shower!

More often than I can recount, exasperation was met by the sage advice: Don’t worry. They won’t still be using pacifiers in college. It has to end sometime.

Half of the time someone uttered such a phrase, I wanted to knock their teeth out. They may not make it to college if she won’t stop shouting “fuggin'” at the top her lungs each time we go out in public. The other half, however, I found some sort of comfort and consolation in the idea that this, too, would pass. They would eventually sleep. They would stop crying for no reason. Pooping would be kept to the toilet. Maybe.

I’ve found myself offering similar statements when local friends talk about the weather. (Heck, I’ve found myself saying it to the checkout people at the grocery store; the weather is a hot topic of conversation here in the ROC, let me tell you.)

“OMG, more snow. More cold. THIS WINTER WILL NEVER END.”

Well, yes… Except I tell myself that summer will actually get here sometime. It will not be winter forever. So, even though I’m not so great with The Math, it has to end at some point, does it not??

I know this to be true. And yet, there are times when I need proof… and I can find it in my (oodles and oodles) of old photographs.

To wit: It was a deliciously warm St. Patrick’s Day back in 2011.

Annie does her best, cheese four year-old smile.

Ella is six going on sixteen in this photo.
But the missing teeth give her away.

‘Twas so warm, in fact (by Rochester standards, anyway, which probably means it was about 60 degrees), that Ella took to lying on a towel outside in her pajamas to celebrate St. Pat’s in all her glory.

Yes, that’s an iPad, which should probably not be allowed outside – nature vs. technology and all. I like to be a rebel.

But then… While walking to the talent show on March 24th of the same year… There was snow.

Have I mentioned how much I love living so close to school?

And on the 25th, there was this:

Annie’s like a robin flitting about in the corner. A large, loud, hilarious robin.

By two weeks later, however? Gone. And green. And spring.
April 14, 2011 – just hanging around.

So, spring will surely come. One of these days. It can’t be winter forever.

Saying naughty words while we’re out in public, though, is something Nick will still have to work on.

Lightweight

Posted on March 25, 2014 by missemtoo

I love my job – today, the periods were shortened to thirty minutes each (from the usual forty) because of the talent show, and when I reminded my seventh graders of this, one kiddo burst out, “Why is it that the best classes are shortened??” – and it’s been going really well. The logistics have been tricky, and I’m behind in basically every other area of my life, but it’s all been good and worth it.

With that said… great googly moogly, I am SO FREAKIN’ TIRED. There’s just too much to squeeze into each day, and, in order to actually spend a few moments with my children that don’t include screaming over hair-brushing or standing at the thresholds of their bedrooms and uttering some form of, “How is it possible to create such a huge mess in so little time?”, I wind up doing the majority of the “extra” stuff after the girls go to bed. Which means that I, myself, routinely don’t manage to turn my own light off until at least 1:30 a.m.

I’m usually a morning person, but when that alarm goes off before 7:00 and it’s my fourth consecutive day getting only five hours of sleep, I’m do not have a wonderful feeling that everything is going my way, let me tell you.

I don’t nap. I don’t know why, but I just don’t. I realize that this is a foreign concept for many people (especially my husband), but, as appealing as the couch seems and as cozily as I nestle my head, napping simply doesn’t happen for me unless I’m coming down with some major illness. Or a man cold. Likewise, sleeping in a car or on a plane are out of reach for me, too, no matter how much green eggs and ham you throw in. And falling asleep while watching TV or reading a book? Fuggedaboudit. I am broken when it comes to sleeping anyplace other than my bed, or any time other than when I climb in for the night.

A few weeks ago, Nick asked if I’d like a glass of wine with dinner. I agreed, and then decided to throw caution to the wind and have a second with dessert. (I know, crazytown – but it was Friday night, so you’ll forgive me for really letting loose.) At bedtime, we decided to split up reading with the girls; Nick went to Ella’s room and I settled next to Annie as she opened up her latest Princess Posey tome. She began to read to me (thank God she now pronounces the heroine’s name correctly; she used to call her “Princess Pussy”), and I think I heard the first few words… but I’m not quite sure, because the next thing I remember, I was wiping drool off Annie’s pillow and trying to making up an excuse about how I’d been listening, I was just doing it with my eyes closed. When she finished the chapter and turned off the light, I kissed her goodnight as always… but then asked if she would mind if I just stayed put for awhile. I mean, I was already cozy and warm, and it’s been such a chilly winter…

I awoke around 9:30 p.m. and peeled myself out from underneath her covers. Instead of migrating to the living room to pull out my laptop, however (with hopes of editing some photos, or maybe laying out yearbook pages, or researching lessons, or writing plans, or answering emails, or any of the other myriad items on my To Do list), for the first time in… well, I honestly can’t remember, so it must have been forever… I trudged up to my own bedroom. Nick was already lounging on the bed – technically on my side – but, being so tired that I quite literally couldn’t keep my eyes open, I merely grunted a greeting his way and crawled into bed on his side, sound asleep the instant my head hit the pillow.

Good grief, two glasses of wine and I had passed out faster than free samples at Sam’s Club!

I awoke with a start – comically, like you see in the movies, practically sitting bolt upright from a dead sleep – when Nick (who had also nodded off) got up to use the bathroom, and it somehow registered inside that, Holy crap, I actually went to bed before midnight... and I accomplished NONE of what I needed to that night. Slightly panicked, I glanced at the clock – 1:30 a.m. (great balls of fire!, I’d been asleep for four hours?!) – as I realized that the dogs had not yet been let out for the night. In fact, if Nick and I both had dozed off (or, in my case, passed out cold), the dogs hadn’t been let out since… oh… 6 p.m. or so, and asking them to “hold it” until 9 a.m. was probably a bad idea.

It was then that it dawned on me that I was… damp...?… absolutely everywhere. Because, in my complete and utter exhaustion, I had gotten into bed wearing all of my clothes — including my thick socks, jeans, long-sleeved shirt, and a sweatshirt — and, after lying beneath the sheet, duvet, and comforter for four hours, I had basically sweated myself into oblivion. I managed to shake myself awake enough to remove my (damp) clothing, clean up a bit, and get into some pajamas, and then went downstairs to let the dogs out to do their business.

I did what I always do – open the sliding glass door in our playroom (which is otherwise closed all of the time) to let them romp straight into our backyard – and began to wake up slightly as the chilly night air snuck in. Joey came in almost immediately, as usual, and gobbled his treat as I tucked him into the kennel. Jambi returned shortly thereafter and wandered upstairs, but Langston… Sweet Jesus, y’all, that dog can pee. We are talking, I kid you not, three or four minutes straight and the stream still continues. It’s truly like nothing I’ve ever seen – where does he store all of this liquid? Is he a magician? A sorcerer? – and, quite frankly, sometimes I get bored and check back in with him later.

Joey was all, Why the hell are you putting my in my kennel in the middle of the day? For a photograph?? Are you nuts?

As Lang continued to pee… and pee… and pee... I remembered that the dishwasher needed to be run, so I went up to the kitchen and turned it on. While there, I was greeted by the many other things that I’d intended to do that night – tidying up the kitchen, going through the girls’ school folders, making juice for the morning – so I figured, hell, as long as I’m up, I might as well take care of this stuff, too!

Who knew that a four-hour nap can be so energizing?!

After about ten minutes, I heard Langston nosing around in the garage, so I let him in through the kitchen; he and Jambi went back upstairs to the bedroom to wait for me (and their treats). At last, my burst of energy faded, and – feeling satisfied that I’d finally checked off several To Dos – I settled into bed for good around 2:30 a.m. and slept straight through until the girls woke us at 8:30 the following morning.

They don’t usually share a bed, but they’re cuter that way, no?

TEN, ladies and gentlemen. I got over TEN hours of sleep(!), which is almost double what I normally get, and, good grief, I felt like a new person. There was a spring in my step as I showered and got ready, then made my way downstairs around 9:00 to help the girls with breakfast.

Nick had already beat me down to let the dogs out, however, and was engaged in a lively… discussion… with Ella about some infraction that she, supposedly, had committed.

“Why would you have opened that door? You know you’re not supposed to use that door!”

“I didn’t open it, Daddy!”

“But it’s wide open! It’s freezing down here!”

“I didn’t open it, really. It must have been open when I came downstairs to play.”

“How on earth did it get open? Do you think Joey got out of his kennel and opened it?”

“No, that’s crazy. But I didn’t open it. I promise.”

“Well, if you didn’t open it, why didn’t you at least close it?”

“Because I didn’t know it was open.”

“You didn’t know it was open?? It’s ten degrees outside! This playroom is like ice! How did you think it got so cold down here?”

“I don’t know! I knew it was cold, but it’s always colder in the playroom because it’s near the basement, so I just thought it was regular cold.”

“IT’S TEN DEGREES OUTSIDE!! IT’S ABSOLUTELY FREEZING IN HERE!”

“I just thought it was normal!!”

And that is how I made a horrifying realization: my daughter’s sense of temperature is clearly warped.
And also… in my flurry of “accomplishments” the night before, while waiting for Langston to finish his epic pee, I had inadvertently left the sliding glass door open. All night. When it was ten degrees out.

Whoops.
On the bright side, at least no bugs got in!

I immediately ‘fessed up to my mistake, thereby clearing Ella of any wrongdoing (although, seriously, I don’t know why she didn’t think anything was amiss – it was cold!). I then apologized to Nick, both for leaving the door open (but I did take credit for extracting myself from our nice, warm OMG IT WAS SO WARM AND HOT AND WARM LIKE A DAMN SAUNA AND I NEARLY SWEATED TO DEATH bed in order to let the dogs out, thank you very much) and for drinking enough to knock myself out cold.
That finally got him chuckling.

“Uh, Em. You can’t be serious.”

What do you mean?

“You had two not-at-all-big glasses of wine last night. You drank them an hour apart AND you ate a full dinner and had dessert in between.”

Yes, and…

“And I know you’re the cheapest date in the world, but even you cannot get so drunk on one-and-a-half glasses of wine that you black out at 9 p.m.”

Well, it doesn’t really take a lot to…

“How do you feel this morning?”

What?

“How do you feel right now? Are you hung over?”

WHAT?! No. I’ve been hungover exactly once.* I feel just fine.

* true story. I’m sort of proud and sort of mortified by this at the same time.

“So, yeah. No. You did become even remotely drunk last night. You don’t need to apologize for passing out, are you crazy??”

But then how…?

“I believe it’s called tired. As in, you’ve been staying up SO DAMN LATE recently, your body absolutely couldn’t handle anymore. Sure, the wine may have mellowed things out a bit, but this wasn’t you drinking too much. This was you realizing, somewhere in the back of your mind, that you could let things slide for just one night, and your body finally giving out because you’re exhausted. Actually, I think it was one of the best things that could have happened to you.”

Oh. That might explain why I feel so good this morning after getting so much sleep.

“It might.”

And it might explain why I fell asleep in Annie’s bed. And why I fell asleep on your side of the bed with my clothes on. (GREAT SCOTT, THAT WAS DUMB.) And why I slept for FOREVER.

“Yeah.”

Which would also explain why I forgot to close the sliding glass door, which essentially lets me off the hook entirely…

“Not even remotely.”

Fair enough.

I’d like to say that, since my Friday night snoozefest, I’ve treated myself better and have gotten to sleep at a better hour each night. I’d like to, but that would be lying, so I won’t. I have made it to bed before 1:30 (several times), however, and I have proudly fallen asleep before 9:00 on more than one Friday night since then. DO I KNOW HOW TO HAVE A ROCKIN’ GOOD TIME ON A WEEKEND OR WHAT!

Maybe, someday, I’ll learn how to better balance all of this stuff and I’ll finally figure out how to get more sleep, but until then, at least I’m happy. Happy at my job, happy that the girls are happy, happy that my kids let us sleep in on Saturdays, happy that my husband knows I’m not a lush, happy for wine, and happy that no wild animals snuck into the house and made nests in the heating vents.

Silver lining, people. There’s always a silver lining.

Is it bigger than a bread box?

Posted on March 20, 2014 by missemtoo

Recently, Annie and I (and occasionally Nick) have been playing epic rounds of Disney Hedbanz, which is just like regular Hedbanz except with only Disney characters. Or things. There are sometimes things and those are really hard (like the rose from Beauty and the Beast, the pumpkin coach from Cinderella, etc. HOW DO YOU GUESS THAT YOU’RE A POISON APPLE??).

The object of the game is to determine what character is pictured on your headband (which you cannot see, because it’s, you know, on your head) by asking questions about it – essentially Twenty Questions, except the number of questions isn’t limited; you can ask as many as you want until the sand runs out of the hourglass. Or, in Annie’s and my case, you can ask questions for all of eternity, because it’s exceedingly rare that one of us gets the answer right our first go-round, so we decided that you can just keep asking questions about the same character when it’s your turn again until you finally get it right or become so frustrated, you debate lighting the card on fire, and give up instead.

Playing Hedbanz can be challenging, period, but it is made especially so when you’re playing with someone who is of a different generation than you. Or who does not recognize half of the characters. Or who says “Maaaybe?” when you ask if your character is a boy. Very helpful.

It certainly keeps the mystery alive, because you never know how each round will go. To wit:

When Annie had Eeyore…

“Am I sad?”
Yes.
“Am I grumpy?”
Yes.
“Am I the sad and grumpy guy from Winnie the Pooh who’s always sad and grumpy?”
Yes. All you need is his name.
“I need his NAME? Come on, what kind of game is this?”

When I was Captain Hook…
headbanz6
Am I a bad guy?
“Yes, mom. Ohhh, yes.”
Do I have a beard?
“Ummmm… Nope.”
You hesitated.
“I was just thinking!”
So I don’t have a beard?
“No! I just said that!”
Hmmm. All of the villains I’m thinking of have beards.
“Then you’re not really thinking very hard.”

When Annie was Tinker Bell…

“Am I a boy?”
No.
“Am I a girl?”
Yes.
“Am I a person?”
Well… You’re kind of a person.”
“Am I an animal?”
No.
“I can’t be kind of a person.”
Actually, you can. You’re also something else.
“SOMETHING ELSE? I don’t even know what that means, ‘something else’.”
That’s why you need to keep asking questions.
“Man, you’re really tiring my hands here.”
I don’t think that phrase means what you think it means, either.

When Annie was Squirt…

I’m not sure you’ll know this character’s name, but that’s okay. If you can just tell me about him, I’ll count it.
“Great, mom. You’re giving me characters I don’t even know.”
I didn’t say you don’t know him. You just might not know his name.
“So, he’s from Nemo?”
Yes.
“But he’s not a fish?”
Nope.
“And he’s not a frog?”
Nope.
“There’s nothing else in all of Nemo!”
I beg to differ. We saw a character like him in Disney World.
“Walking around??”
No. On one of the rides. Or, to be more specific, on one of the attractions.
“WAIT. I know! Am I a turtle?”
Yes!
“Am I related to CHUCK THE TURTLE??”
I think you mean Crush.
“Whatever. You said names don’t count.”

When I was Prince Naveen…

Am I a boy?
“Yes, mommy.”
Am I human?
“Not right now.”
Um… Okay. Am I an animal?
“Yes.”
Am I furry?
“NO! Not at all, Mom!”
Could you fit me in your pocket?
“You could. I mean, it would be kind of disgusting, but you could.”

When Annie was Simba…

“So, let’s reveal. I’m a boy.”
Yes.
“I’m an animal.”
Yes. And I think you meant ‘let’s review’ instead of ‘let’s reveal.’
“What? You’re revealing the answers, aren’t you?”
Fair point. Carry on.
“I sing songs.”
Yes.
“I’m the main character in a movie.”
Yes.
“My name is actually THE TITLE of the movie.”
Yes.
“And I’m a lion.”
Yes.
“So… I’m a lion. I’m a boy. I sing. My name is the title of the movie…
Nope. Can’t think of anything. Can you help me out here?”
Actually, at this point, I think you’re beyond help.

They say that the family that plays together stays together, but in our case, I think the phrase is more like, The family who survives a dozen rounds of Hedbanz together earns a beer and a Xanax.
That is, when I stop laughing long enough to look for the bottles.

“Am I an animal?”
Yes.
“Can I fly?”
No.
“Can I swim?”
Yes.
“Am I blue?”
Yes.
“Am I another color, too?”
Yes.
“Am I yellow?”
Yes.
“I KNOW! AM I DORY??”
No.
“What? I HAVE to be Dory.”
Nope.
“I don’t think you know how to play this game!”
Time’s up.

STOP. THE. MADNESS. !!

Posted on March 19, 2014 by missemtoo

Nope. Nothing to do with basketball. Sorry.

I’ve had an idea about a Pinterest post percolating for a good couple of months now, but haven’t found the time to write about it. Today, I was going to post a quick St. Patrick’s Day recap when I happened to read this article that was shared by a friend on Facebook… and suddenly, my percolating idea and my St. Pat’s post ran into one another full-speed (it was a real pile-up; not pretty), and I so now I’m going to attempt to do write both posts simultaneously.

A mom-guilt/ Pinterest/ St. Patrick’s Day mash-up, if you will.
I do love me a good mash-up. Until Glee got lame last year. But I digress.

I’ll cut to the chase: I did a whole bunch of stuff with the girls for St. Patrick’s Day, even though we’re not Irish! I got a lot of my ideas off Pinterest! I did it because it made me happy, and I loved every minute of it!

All green lunch, complete with neon cream cheese bagels. Annie’s my pickle girl while All’s the celery with blue cheese kid. I’m more of a mint chocolate kind of gal myself.

Some people hate Pinterest. They feel guilty because they’re not doing the stuff they see on Pinterest. They feel bad because they’re not doing the stuff their neighbors are doing.

That sucks.
But just because we’re not doing what “everyone else” seems to be doing doesn’t doesn’t mean any of us is doing it wrong or that we should stop. Unless we’re water-boarding our kids and eating a diet consisting of only Easy Cheese. Then maybe we should reconsider.

So, here’s the gist of Kristen Howerton’s above article: celebrating the holidays (especially with kids) has gone overboard. Each one brings about crazy activities (An elf will come to our house and be all funny and cute at Christmas time! Cards aren’t enough on Valentine’s Day – you need bags of loot! Is the Easter Bunny leaving footprints at your house, too?) that can be difficult – or all but impossible – to complete. Kids are then left disappointed and parents feel like crap.

The article was well-written and funny, and I hear Kristen. I really do. To wit: Annie came home yesterday informing us that her teacher had told them all about leprechauns and their magic. She then set about decorating several plastic cups which she left on the dining room table so that the “leprechauns can visit, make the cups tiny, and leave a prize behind!” I looked at Nick like, The ever-loving hell they are, and might have contemplated sending her teacher’s future children a drum set in retaliation.

So, I get Kristen’s point. Annie had high expectations that something super-awesome was going to happen, and she was bound to be disappointed if the “leprechauns” didn’t follow through. But to do so meant a lot of… work… on the other side, and frankly, I was too damn exhausted last night (after having put in a full day’s worth of my own St. Pat’s celebrations, thanks very much) to even consider pulling this off. And so I did the only thing I could think of: I threw the cups in the garbage.

Yep. Just tossed ’em right out.

When Annie came downstairs this morning excitedly looking for the goodies that the leprechauns had left behind, I told her matter-of-factly that I’d thrown away the cups, so there were no goodies. That went over well. I mean, I wasn’t a total monster about it – I said it sweetly and all that (“Oh, honey, I’m so sorry, but while I was cleaning up last night, I threw away the cups!”). She was bummed, yes, but I then explained that I didn’t want her to be disappointed – maybe the leprechauns only work their cup-shrinking magic at school, and I didn’t want her to come down to un-shrunken cups – so, to avoid that possibility, I just got rid of them. She perked up immediately and agreed that, yes, the magic was probably a school thing, and she was on her merry way. Thank God, too, because turning myself into a leprechaun last night was just not in the cards.
Not. Happening.

Kristen (I’m back on the article now; bear with me) expressed the same sentiment, saying, “I don’t like the feeling of disappointing my kids. But I refuse to give into this holiday madness.” Amen, sista. Preach it! But she then goes on to request the following:

Fellow parents… teachers… sunday school workers… I beseech you. BRING IT DOWN A NOTCH. Ya’ll are setting up expectations that I just can’t maintain. Wouldn’t we all be just a little happier if we returned to the slacker days of store-bought valentines and kit-dyed eggs and JUST WEARING A GREEN SHIRT AND CALLING IT A DAY?

For the sake of overwhelmed parents like me, I beg you. Stop the madness.

And here’s where we might just have to agree to disagree because, well, quite frankly… No. I won’t. Might it be easier in some ways if we returned to the “slacker days” and skipped the extras that so many people seem to engage in today? Sure. But would we be happier? Would I be happier? Nope. I wouldn’t.

Because, as simple as it sounds, I’ll say it again: I do this because it makes me happy.

It’s not entirely logical, I’ll give you that. I am still only getting about five-and-a-half hours of sleep a night, I’m way behind on emails, and I’ve stopped attending church because something has to give, for the love of God (see what I did there?). But when I remembered on Friday night that St. Patrick’s Day was to occur three days later, I panicked because I had done absolutely nothing to get ready for it.

Which, yes, is ironic anyway, because there is less than no Irish in us, so “celebrating” St. Patrick’s Day is wholly unnecessary. That’s not why I do it, though. I do it because it makes me happy. Looking online for ideas makes me feel really, really good; it’s simultaneously cathartic and energizing. I was practically giddy shopping for little goodies for the girls’ scavenger hunt. I absolutely loved composing limerick clues (even if they were some of the most pathetic rhymes ever written), and browsing for Irish-themed dinner recipes made me all kinds of cheerful.

What’s a lunch without a (bad) joke?

Is that madness? Perhaps. But it brings enormous joy into my life. That it also brings joy into my daughters’ lives is a bonus, but that’s not why I do it. My motive is purely selfish: (say it with me) it makes me happy.

This is not a new phenomenon, this “madness.” I’ve been doing some form of it since forever; it’s how I’m hardwired. I’ve always had a thing for collecting quotes; now, they’re pinned to my Pinterest wall, but I’ve still got my “nothing books” from my middle-school camp days, filled with colored-marker quotes, cartoons, and oodles of photographs. Today, I might send a friend a video montage for her birthday; back when, I plotted out how to get her locker code to sneak in and decorate so that streamers and balloons exploded on her between first and second period.

In my current life, I spend days planning the events my daughters’ birthday parties. In my former life, my college friends and I staged an elaborate “Jeopardy” skit in the middle of the student center – complete with costumes that we purchased from a local thrift shop – to celebrate a buddy’s 19th birthday. This year, I’m browsing Pinterest for ideas on bento lunches; in my first years as a teacher, I made heart-shaped Rice Krispie Treats and put them on sticks to make heart-pops for my students on Valentine’s Day. In 2014, I spend time in Photoshop designing our holiday cards. Back then, I took pictures of Nick and me with our dogs (or even me with my students – a practice that would, um, definitely be frowned upon now), printed out actual photos at the one-hour developer, and inserted them into Christmas cards with pithy themes like “Where The Wild Things Are” for when I taught preschool.

I have always been like this.
Because it has always made me happy.

Don’t worry, fruit made it into breakfast, too. But really, all the girls cared about were the marshmallows.

I’m not (completely) stupid. I understand that there are differences between then and now, most notably that technology – especially social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Tumblr – makes it much easier to see what other people are doing. And, in turn, what you’re not doing. The whole Keeping Up With The Joneses thing has been around for forever – what the Joneses are doing is just much more in-your-face than it’s been before.

And that can lead to feeling inadequate, which can lead to feeling guilty, and we all know that there’s a whole Mom/Parent Guilt thing going on. (Type “mom guilt” into Google if you really want to kill an afternoon.) And, again, I get it. There are so many expectations on moms – hell, on parents – these days, with seemingly contradictory messages: spend time with your kids because it all goes by too fast, but don’t smother them because helicopter parenting is the devil and your children will be living in your basement until you die. Make sure to find time for yourself, but for God’s sake, don’t let that time be spent on a smartphone because those things are evil and are probably destroying humanity. Offer your children a variety of organic, gluten-free foods, but, my goodness, don’t spend so much time worrying about it – a cupcake now and again won’t hurt. Foster independence but always be there for them no matter what, except when you’re allowing them to fail in order to succeed. Breast is best, except that that makes bottle-feeding moms feel bad, and so it’s perfectly fine to bottle-feed, except breast is really best – but only nutritionally, because really it’s just love that matters, so a bottle is fine. Except you should try to breastfeed. Probably. Unless you’re miserable, because everyone knows that if Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.

Much of this “advice” has been around since probably forever, but again, technology and the media make it so much more available and prevalent that it can feel as though you’re surrounded by a roomful of angry people all shouting at you that you’re doing it wrong.

Which is undoubtedly why there has been such a backlash against it – and, in many cases, rightfully so. The so-called “standards” are unattainable, and we all know that Keeping Up With The Joneses was never a good idea to begin with (grass always being greener and all that). But then there’s this sub-culture of anti-Pinterest, anti-SuperMom, pro-slacker parenting that seems to have taken root — Screw the cutesy sandwiches, my kid’s lucky if she gets a Lunchable! Our Elf on the Shelf hasn’t moved in eight days!! Fuck the fondant-covered cake; that’s why Betty Crocker was invented! — and suddenly the “solution” to the problem seems to be, yet again, telling people that they’re doing it wrong.

I’ll absolutely admit it – I’ve been completely fed-up with today’s “standards” on a gazillion occasions. And, as a result, I’ve taken the slacker root many, many times (see above: leprechaun cups in garbage). But I don’t ask other parents to “tone it down a notch” so that I can feel better about myself. Because, let’s admit it, that’s what this is: our own feelings of inadequacy. Pinterest isn’t making you feel guilty; that’s on you. No one is “doing” this to us; we’re doing it to ourselves.

Put another way: my doing St. Patrick’s Day activities with my kids isn’t setting up expectations for you that you can’t maintain. I shouldn’t have to stop doing what I’m doing so that you can feel better about yourself. Not to go all Stuart Smalley or Dr. Phil on you, but the only person who can make you not feel inadequate is… wait for it… you.

Home run!

No one is good at everything, and no two of us enjoy the same things. This may seem really obvious, but apparently it’s not, because we continue to measure ourselves up against what other people are doing. It’s like trying to squeeze a hippopotamus into one of those little sweaters that’s been woven for a dachshund; it may seem like a swell idea at first, but in the end, you’re going to wind up with a pissed-off dachshund with stretched-out sweater and a hippo with a self-esteem issue. Or something like that.

In case you’d like to hear it directly from me, I will be the first to tell you that, while I have loads of good qualities, I suck a a lot of things, too. I may have made a cute green lunch for my kids on St. Patrick’s Day, but, yesterday afternoon, I also discovered a layer of dust on my living room bookshelf that was so thick, I could have removed with a shovel (that is, if I actually got around to dusting). Sure, the girls handed out themed, homemade Valentines, but Ella wore duct-taped boots to school for a few days, too – yay, arts and crafts! My clothes keep coming out of the dryer with oil stains on them and I don’t know why. Whenever I wear a dress to work, the girls ask me what the special occasion is. I have fallen so far behind on my family’s photo editing that, in about two weeks, I will officially be one year behind. I will have lapped myself with editing. Last week, I fell off a treadmill, and I still have the scar to prove it.

I could go on (and on… and on…), but I think (I hope?) you get my point.

If you head over to my Pinterest page, you’ll see ideas for hairstyles, crafts to do with the kids, teaching activities, and loads of recipes. Some, I’ll actually get around to doing. Others are just there because they seemed neat to me at the moment and I thought, why the hell not pin this? What you will not find is: anything having to do with knitting or crocheting or sewing. Anything about scrapbooking. Any pages devoted to “beautiful spaces” or really lovely fashion photos, or pages about makeup or fancy nails.

Knowing I wouldn’t be home when Annie and Ella arrived from school (and I wouldn’t see them at all until 5:00), I created a St. Pat’s scavenger hunt for them to do with our babysitter.

Each clue was a limerick (man, those took some time. Phew), and at the end, they giddily won $3 off of the scratch cards. That’s almost as good as a pot of gold!

Why not? Because I’m not interested in those things. There’s nothing wrong with them; they’re just not for me, so I move on by. I pin the stuff that makes me happy or inspires me or makes me laugh or makes me shake my head or makes me wish I had a glass of wine. The rest of it, though? I just don’t care… and I also don’t give two hoots about what you have on your Pinterest page (unless it’s only about Easy Cheese; then, maybe we need to talk).

Why can’t the same go for real life? If one of your daughter’s classmates just got a puppy, and you’d like to get a puppy, then go get a puppy. If you’d rather eat a handful of sand, then don’t get a damn puppy. If someone at work starts bringing awesome leftovers for lunch and you want awesome leftovers for lunch, then cook something awesome and bring the leftovers in. Or ask your coworker for extras. But if the thought of having to actually cook and reheat makes you break out in hives, then skip it and buy a sandwich instead… but don’t tell your office mate to leave the coq au vin at home.

I’m never going to be a good housekeeper, but I don’t want you to let your dust bunnies start mating because your level of cleanliness is one that I can’t attain. I’m not going to ask you to please start spilling your beverage on your shirt because I can’t seem to keep my clothes coffee-free. And I won’t request that you please refrain from posting photos from your incredible trip to Europe because it makes me feel shitty that I’ve never been to Europe. If I feel shitty about it, that’s on me.

This is not to say that I’m not jealous or envious of other people, or that I don’t think snarky things about them from time to time (or, okay, a lot). “Well, look who had the time to go and see a movie in the theater, while the rest of us actually had to work and pay bills and run errands and spend time with our kids. Must be nice.” ‘Cause I do. But I don’t want you to stop seeing movies because I’m bummed that I don’t see more of them. That’s just weird.

Found these little grow-your-own clovers in the Target dollar bins and was like, score! So I put them downstairs in the playroom, making sure to leave dog-appealing items – like gum and lip balm – well out of reach…

… annnnd then I received this text from Annie while between my piano lessons.
Yeah. Fail. 😐

So, to get back to the request made by Kristen (from a blog post that I recognize was written a year ago and totally not aimed at me in any way but that resonated strongly today when I read it)… No, I’m sorry. I will not bring it down a notch because you’re feeling overwhelmed. It sucks that you’re feeling that way, truly – I’ve been there oh-so-many, many, many times (in fact, that’s pretty much were I live) – but I’m not responsible for you feeling like you need to live up to (what you imagine are my) expectations, and then feeling bad when you can’t maintain those (imagined) expectations. That’s madness.

See, I like what I’m doing. I don’t want to return to store-bought Valentines and just wearing a green shirt for St. Patrick’s Day. (We do still kit-dye most of our eggs, though; the PAAS “extra bright” pack yields really rad eggs.) I enjoy thinking up Elf on the Shelf poses, and we attended our first actual “Pie Party” last Friday (where everyone, you know, brought a pie to share…) and it was not only fun, but delicious. And it meant I didn’t have to cook dinner. So I’m going to keep doing those things.

Bathroom loot.

Yeah, it’s all cute and WTF, you wrote a million limericks! until you actually READ the limericks… like this one.
I don’t have any explanation other than that it was really, really late. And I suck at limericks?

I don’t really care so much about the 100 days of school, so when those things come home, we tend to throw something in a bag and call it a day. Although I’ll dye a bazillion eggs (using the store-bought kits) and we do host an egg hunt for our neighbors, Easter is a pretty easy affair in these here parts; last year, our “official” Easter dinner came from Five Guys (I am not making this up). We’ll probably wear red, white, and blue on the Fourth of July, but beyond that, our “patriotism” will likely be limited to the American pastimes of eating hamburgers and hotdogs and drinking beverages from red Solo cups.

In short: if it works for you, great. If not, don’t worry about it. Or, to bastardize Nike, just don’t do it, simple as that.
Neither is better than another, and there’s really no reason to feel that you’re not living up to expectations… because the expectations are imaginary to begin with.

My kids’ only knowledge of New Orleans comes from The Princess and the Frog, but by golly, we have beignets and gumbo on Mardi Gras each year. We will absolutely eat Mexican food on Cinco de Mayo… because it makes me happy. For me, life is too short not to celebrate as often as we can (especially if it involves chocolate). When it stops being fun, and when I stop getting joy from it, then it’s time to call it quits – but so far, so good.

Making mint chocolate-chip ice cream (because it’s green, duh) seemed like a good idea… until I neglected to correctly calculate the proportions and my cup ranneth… over…

I know it’s not always so easy, the just-let-it-go part. I am hardly immune from self-doubt or feelings of guilt or worries that I’m not measuring up, that I’m doing it wrong. In fact, the reason I’m absolutely certain that I do these things simply because they make me happy – and not because I’m, I don’t know, unfulfilled in other ways or trying to make up for a childhood slight or some other crap – is because I’ve been so concerned that maybe there was a nefarious motive at play, I’ve discussed it with my therapist.
Turns out, nope. No motive; just happy. Go, therapy!

I still struggle with feeling like I don’t measure up, but it’s been a huge weight off my shoulders to realize that the bar I’m rising to was set by me. I think we all do ourselves an enormous disservice if we outsource our happiness instead of taking charge of it ourselves, and if we don’t acknowledge that the source of our feelings of inadequacy and guilt is… us. There is no International Committee of Expectations reigning over us, telling us what standards we have to maintain. Yes, of course there are societal pressures, but in the end, the only ones who hold us to those pressures are ourselves. (Maybe I’ll try to pin that idea.)

So I’m going to keep on making green-themed lunches and setting out Lucky Charms on St. Paddy’s morning. On the last day of school, the girls will come home to some kind of celebration because that’s how I roll. That doesn’t mean I think I’m better than you, and you certainly don’t need to feel overwhelmed because of it. If you don’t want to turn holidays into madness-inducing fiestas, then don’t. No biggie. No one expects you to. Really. (I know, when your kids expect things because they see “everyone else” doing it, it can make for some crappy parenting moments. I’m not saying that’s fun. But still… the neighbors shouldn’t have to tone down their Arbor Day festivities because your kids feel left out.)

Despite my technical difficulties, the ice cream tasted damn delicious.

To those of you who make sure your kids are all decked out on crazy hair day, I salute you. To those of you who have crock pot meals ready to go for the rest of the month, that’s awesome. To those who’ve made it home just in time to read to your kids every night this week, good on you. If you’ve found a new pattern and are knitting socks in just two days, congratulations. If the only cookies you’ve ever made come from the Pillsbury tube, that sounds great to me – I love me some cookies. To you who’ve taken to hiding in the bathroom just to read an email because it’s the only peace and quiet you’ll get all day, I sympathize; go ahead and lock that door.

Whatever you’re doing – and not doing – is fine. It’s all good. And if you’re content and your family is content and everyone is still alive at the end of the day, I’d declare it a success. The lawn over at the Joneses may be green, but their water bill is crazy. Plus also, if you look closely, you’ll see that some of that grass is technically weeds, anyway.

So, let’s make a deal: I won’t expect you to make first-day-of school welcome-home brownies. As long as you don’t expect my floors to be clean (or my pants to be stain-free or my cupboards to be organized…), we’ll get along just fine.

Baby, Why Don’t We Go (Aka: Cruisin’ Part Deux)

Posted on March 10, 2014 by missemtoo

And now, the thrilling conclusion to our Disney Cruise chronicles. I know you’re pumped!!

The first night, we sailed (is that the right term? Boated? Cruised? Went?) to Nassau in the Bahamas, where the ship docked for the day. Instead of disembarking (do you like my cool cruise lingo?), we opted to stay on board and take advantage of the ship’s offerings while everything was a little less crowded.
Nassau lighthouse that was just begging to have its picture taken. Hellllllllloooo, lighthouse!

We swam. We watched movies by the pool and got ice cream from the self-serve machine just for the hell of it. Twice. The girls went to the kids’ club. We tried the drinks of the day and went down this absolutely crazy water slide that sucked you through a tube and then swung out over the side of the ship. We ate more food. The girls went to the kids’ club. (Yes, I know I said that twice.) We explored the ship and got to know one of the bartenders and then ate more food. We saw shows and waved to the myriad Disney characters who were greeting ecstatic lines of kids. We donned bandanas and eye patches for pirate night. We ate more food. And we collapsed into our beds that night so fully exhausted, we could no longer keep our eyes open.

The following day, we arrived at Disney’s teeny private island, Castaway Cay (which is pronounced KEY; I know, it’s weird, but it’s a fact).
It really was small – that’s it in its entirety.

This time, we had no intention of remaining on the ship. As soon as we deposited our bags and towels on the gorgeous, pristine beach, we were off to our first adventure: petting, feeding, and snorkeling with stingrays. (I’d like to pretend we were ~~stupid~~ brave enough to do this with potentially dangerous stingrays, but these guys had had their stingers gently filed down so that they couldn’t harm us.)
Hungry, dude?

I’m not gonna lie… it was a little weird having these floppy, slippery beings suck the food out of your hand like an rabid vacuum (they don’t really have teeth, but their mouths are… knobby?). They were quite majestic, though, undulating and gliding through the water, so we soon got over our fears. Or, at least, Nick and I did; we couldn’t quite convince the girls to participate in the feeding. And, actually, Ella never quite worked up her courage to associate with the stingrays, period, but Annie was game to snorkel with them once the Hoover portion had concluded.

After our sixty minute sojourn was over, we donned our snorkel gear once more to explore the reef. Proving that her earlier trepidation was due to an extreme dislike of stingrays (who knew?), and not of snorkeling, Ella joined Nick in swimming as far out in the bay as was possible, ooohing and ahhing at the sunken ship (“Mom, I think Disney probably put that there… but it was still cool!”) and the many tropical fish.

Hunger soon got the best of us, so we eagerly piled our plates high at the BBQ buffet (more food!), listening to the sounds of the crab races that were being held only a few feet away. (I mean actual racing of crabs; Annie watched as the winning crab was crowned. It was pretty damn funny.) The rest of the afternoon was filled with highs (more snorkeling) and lows (a bicycle ride to “lookout point” that proved too arduous for Annie, who got partway before collapsing into a heap and declaring she needed to walk back. In the 85 degree Bahamian sun. Which I’d sworn not to complain about, given how freakin’ freezing it’s been at home, but which I might have cursed while hissing at Annie that she needed to get back on the bike and just pedal a little harder, for God’s sake. Absolutely my finest moment of the trip).

We splashed and swam. We ate and shopped. We snorkeled and played in the sand. We laughed and relaxed. And we promised, as soon as possible, that we’d take another cruise.
A play area in the middle of the water? Why not! Yes, those are the girls, waving to us from the bouncy bridge on the right.

Everyone who’s gone on a Disney cruise can’t say enough about the ship’s staff – how welcoming they are, how friendly, how helpful, how gregarious. Although we’re terribly unoriginal here, we absolutely echo those statements: our cast members KICKED. ASS. We did not encounter a single employee – from the crews quite literally swabbing the decks to the performers to the waitstaff to the front desk people – who was anything shy of tremendous. Every single one – all of them! EVERY SINGLE ONE! – greeted us with a smile, whether it was at 7 a.m. or 1 a.m., whether there were screaming children all around or it was silent, whether it was the beginning or the end of their sixteen hour work day (I’m not kidding; these people work their butts off). In fact, not only did they greet us smiling, they seemed honestly happy to see us.

Our housekeeper even found the time to fold and twist our towels into adorable animal shapes every night when he turned down our covers, turned the sofa into a bunk bed, and laid out the chocolates and the following day’s itinerary. I know this is standard practice, but doing this for every room in his block has got to be tedious, man.

Even “Bolt” got the sunglass treatment!

We had the same waitstaff for all of our sit-down meals (hi, Emilia from Italy and Ilham from Indonesia!), and every time they saw us, they made us feel like we made their nights. Ordering more than one appetizer? No problem. You’d like to trade this for that so your menu can be gluten-free tomorrow? We’ve got it. They used steak knives cut the girls’ meat so we could enjoy our own meals. They refilled our drinks without us asking. They chatted with us and answered our never-ending questions. “No” was never an option; “I’ll see what I can do!” was.

In fact, that seemed to be the mantra for the entire staff: we’ll see what we can do to make this trip incredible for you. Case in point… The very first afternoon, while I ordered myself the spiffy (alcoholic) drink of the day, I spied a super-cute Disney Cruise Line cup behind the bar that was emblazoned with Olaf the snowman and the Frozen logo. My BFF had requested Frozen paraphernalia for her daughter, and I’d struck out so far (apparently, the Frozen merchandise disappears as soon as it arrives ; the cast member at the Disney Store in Downtown Disney – the world’s largest Disney Store – told customers they were all sold out and their best bet would be to check online…!), so this was a find! But, seeing as the only way to procure the cup was to purchase the non-alcoholic drink of the day and my daughters were currently occupied (see above: kids’ club), I figured I’d just pick up the Frozen cup at a later time.

Naturally, I completely forgot about buying the cup until the very end of our very last night on the cruise. At 11:50 p.m., I asked our server – at an adults-only club on the third deck – if he knew whether or not they had any Frozen cups at the bar. His response: “Let me see what I can do!” After bringing us our drinks, he informed me that, no, they didn’t have those cups, but that the bar up at the pool might – and that he would check for me. And so he trekked up to the ninth deck at midnight (which was after the poolside bar had closed) to look for a damn kids’ Frozen cup… and returned five minutes later carrying this:

Yes, this is the actual cup, which means – no, I haven’t mailed it to my BFF yet.
Surprise, Evie!!

I don’t even know if he charged us for it.

The reason I do not know this is because we did not buy our drinks that night (not that round, anyway). Which brings me to to the very best part of our trip: free drinks!

No, no. I jest.
The drinks are most definitely not free.
But I am in the dark about whether or not we were charged for the cup.

See, we didn’t pay for those drinks because the best thing happened: we made friends. (Slow claps all around. I’ll wait.) But hold on – hear me out, because this is really spectacular.

Nick, Ella, Annie, and I went on this trip as a little foursome, and were very happy to do so. We didn’t plan on “meeting” people beyond folks to say hi to near the pool, and we certainly didn’t expect to make actual, for real friends. We did know that we’d be seated with the same people each night for our sit-down dinner (each table “rotates” through the full-service restaurants, retaining both the same diners and the same wait staff each night) and, secretly, we hoped that we wouldn’t hate these people. No, truly – Nick and I discovered after the fact that we each had our fingers very, very crossed that we didn’t despise the thought of sitting next to these people night after night; anything short of outright loathing would be a bonus.

Imagine our delight, then, when we arrived that first evening to discover that we’d be dining with four other folks — a mom and a dad (I’m going to call them Miss L and Mr. D), their daughter, J, and Miss L’s cousin’s daughter, S. Both L and S – who are best friends – are in third grade, just like Ella, and they hit it off immediately. Although we’d arranged the seating so Annie and Ella would be next to Nick and me, by the end of the meal, we’d switched places so that the four girls could be next to one another and yuk it up.

Mom! Look who we found by the pool! Can we get more ice cream??

Disney is not stupid, y’all. It is exceedingly unlikely that we were coincidentally seated beside a family with two girls our own daughters’ ages. While that kind of engineering is great, there was no guarantee that it would manufacture actually liking one another; that was just wonderful serendipity. Nick and I were happy for the girls, but were even more surprised and tickled to learn how much we liked Miss L and Mr. D.

It started out gradually, as so many relationships do. As Nick and I fell into bed that first night, we remarked to one another how nice Miss L and Mr. D seemed. They were funny. They were smart. They were our age. They used correct grammar. They knew how to eat (and eat… and eat…). It seemed a good match; we assumed that dinner the following night wouldn’t suck.

When we found them by the pool the next day (see photo above), we were pleased to chat with them again as the girls ran off and terrorized the kiddie pools and slides. We further cemented our bond when Nick, Ella, Mr. D, his daughter J, and I went down the plunge-to-your-death-and-go-over-the-side-of-the-boat slide, leaving Miss L to watch Annie and her cousin’s daughter, S. I mean, when you’ve stared death in the face and left your child in someone else’s care, it’s hard to go back to casual again.

By that night, we were lingering just a little longer over dinner, and then splitting forces so that half of us saw the live “Villains Tonight” show (that would be Ella, satisfying her Maleficent fascination) while the other half attended a Frozen sing-along. By the next day at Castaway Cay, we found ourselves actively looking for Miss L, Mr. D, and the girls. By that night, we four adults had ditched the kids and were shouting out answers at a Music of the 80s Trivia contest and forming human pyramids on the floor to earn our team extra points. (I kid you not; Miss L and I got down on our hands and knees as Nick climbed on our backs and Mr. D – who is approximately 385 feet tall and might have a had a difficult time safely hopping aboard – gesticulated and called from behind.)

So, yeah. From strangers to human pyramids in just over 48 hours, because, hot damn, we really, really enjoyed these people’s company. (And also: alcohol. It amuses me that Miss L and Mr. D may think I always drink like this. Ah, well... Who am I to burst that bubble…) In only a few short days, they had become our dear, wonderful, true friends in that intense, we-shared-this-experience-together kind of way that’s typically reserved for retreats or summer camp. Or maybe prison.

As we docked again at Port Canaveral bright and early that third morning, we were not ready to leave – not the ship, not the weather, and especially not our newfound friends who were kind enough to buy the last round, which included the aforementioned Frozen cup (hence, why I don’t know whether or not we were ever charged for it).

Ella and Annie felt the same…

Alas, Disney frowns upon stowaways, so we had to disembark and make our journeys back home – us to New York and our new cruising family to Georgia. Not to worry, though; we were Facebook friends before we’d even left the port, and now regularly gripe to one another about how much we wish we were still on vacation. It’s good to have people who understand you.

I’m the king of the world!

So, there you have it. To say that it was just the very most fantabulous vacation ever really doesn’t do it justice, so rather than continuing to search for super grown-up adjectives, I’ll simply say that it was perfect. Not just Mary Poppins’s practically perfect in every way; no, actually perfect. I can’t recommend a Disney cruise highly enough – and not just because I’m a Disney fanatic. It is joy and laughter and fun and memories and magic, pure and simple.

We will absolutely be going on another Disney cruise.
Along with these crazy people, of course.

Next time, I call the top of the pyramid.

All Together in a Scattered Sort of Way

Finding humor in even the most inappropriate places

Category Archives: good life