Wine and Cartoons

Living Life on Limited Sleep

Running

Written By: andrea - Apr• 30•12

This isn’t a post about the kids. Shocking I know because they have done some really funny things this past month. Charlotte randomly told me that “I have a big butt and I can’t lie”. I am still trying to figure out where she heard that from. I really hope it wasn’t me because I think it probably was. One of my talents is randomly quoting old school rap lyrics. I wish my talent was knitting but my loved ones are  not that lucky.

So, I am signed up for two races, a 10k and a half marathon. I really really don’t like telling people I am doing these races because I hate the reactions. Usually I get looked at like I have spinach in my teeth (well sometimes I do have spinach in my teeth). The next thing I hear is “Why”? I really don’t want to tell people the “why”.  My “why I run” sounds really crazy. I run because I sucked at gymnastics. I run because I never finished my Master’s degree. I run because I usually quit so easily. I run so I can feel closer to my grandpa. I run so my kids can’t catch me. Running to me means I can finish  anything I really work for. And that’s the key, work for. I never work for my own personal goals. I just let life happen to me.  So here I am, training for a 10k in June and a half in October.

Here is the other part to me running. I run at night quite a bit. I know what you are thinking.  Chances are I will get murdered because I am a mom, running at night. Well, I am not letting that happen to me. I run prepared. Being prepared means I look insane.  Although in my head, while running, I think I look awesome. Like this woman in the picture below.

What I actually look like is this:

And when I run, I look like this:

Wish me luck. I need it.

Crazy Weekend

Written By: andrea - Apr• 16•12

I usually dislike busy weekends. Usually. This weekend started out with a trip to the Maryland Ballet and any weekend that starts with ballet is OK by me. I took Madeleine with me because while she might hate performing with a hot burning passion, she does love watching ballet.  I practiced ballet when I was a child and I had it it my head that Madeleine would love it too. She does. Just not dancing it. If she dances it then someone might look at her and if someone looks at her dancing then she will turn to stone. I’m not sure if this is actually true, its a theory of mine.  Anyway, I learned a big parenting lesson from Madeleine when she was younger. Your kids will probably not enjoy the same activities you did because they could turn to stone. Again, I’m not sure if she will turn to stone but there has to be something that is keeping her from loving to perform.  She will eventually be given the opportunity to show a horse she rides for lessons. I might have to put the horse blinders on her so she won’t notice people are watching her.

 

March is a Pain in the Ass

Written By: andrea - Mar• 27•12

I wanted to write that March is a giant whore but my mom reads this so that wouldn’t be appropriate. Instead I will say that March has kind of pissed me off.  It’s been freakishly warm for March and I don’t appreciate skipping over spring and heading straight into summer. I make no apologies for my hatred of Maryland summers. The intense humidity has been known to make me violent. So all I’m saying is that we had better not skip spring.

March has also pissed me off because of Baseball. I like baseball. I don’t love it, but I like it. Aiden has just started his 4th season playing baseball. Last year was machine pitch and this year is kid pitch. This year is apparently a big freaking deal. Like three practices a week big deal. Like three hour and half long practices a week big deal. Fantastic. Now add  Charlotte to practice. Madeleine will read and draw while cheering Aiden on. Charlotte will not. Charlotte enjoys stealing bats and mitts from the kids. She also loves to bother Madeleine. Her favorite activity is to run really fast past Madeleine while spitting at her. Yeah she is a true gem. Madeleine had finally had enough of being spit on so she spit on Charlotte. (Yeah, the whole thing is just gross). Charlotte was so horrified that she was spit on that she dropped to the ground and cried for a long time. Well long enough to have everyone in the field staring at us. That is such a nice feeling.

April will be here in a matter of days and I swear we better have a spit free spring.

March

Written By: andrea - Mar• 05•12

Aiden’s hockey season came to a close on Sunday.  We were so thrilled with how hard he worked this season. It’s a hard sport to learn and it did not come easy for him.  It was Aiden’s first season on a team, last year he played at the instructional level. We all had some valuable lessons to learn this season.

1. Hockey early is anytime before 6am. Hockey early is never good and i’ts really not good on a Sunday.

2. Stay away from the girls on the other teams. They are usually the toughest players.

3. It’s not a good idea to stop and wave at your mom during play. Although I thought it was nice that he was thinking of me.

4. Hockey players smell. At any age and any gender, they smell. It never ever leaves your equipment.

5. Sock tape is awesome and can be used for awesome things. Like taking all the used tape and turning it into a giant ball of tape. Its important to have the biggest ball…of tape.

6.It’s fun to play “did that hurt”? It’s a neat game that players play instead of paying attention to the game. They take turns hitting each other on the head with their sticks trying to make it hurt. The coaches really like this game too.

7. Parents have been known to bake their kids skates to help the skates form to their feet better. You really have to follow directions carefully on this one. It could end in tears.

8. Asking your mom if she is late repeatedly does not get you to practice or games any faster. It will probably do the opposite because she probably pull over, grab your stick and begin to play “did that hurt”.

9.Midway during the season you slowly become feral. Cutting your hair is no longer a good idea. In fact, none of the kids seem to cut their hair. I have yet to figure this out. Hair cutting + youth hockey= equals??? Something.

10. After publicly declaring that you would never ever be a goalie, you suddenly want to be a goalie. You begin to play as if you are a goalie. A right wing/center/goalie. It really involves throwing yourself in front of the net whenever a puck is close by. This is a huge change from the kid who kept telling us that he would never be a goalie because he did not want a puck to the face. Which was smart.

 

 

Happy Birthday Blog

Written By: andrea - Jan• 28•12

My blog is like 5 years old. I should buy it a cake to celebrate. You know what’s annoying about my blog? When people still ask me if I have a blog. You know what else is annoying about my blog? The name blog. Blog is a horrible word.

Running

Written By: andrea - Jan• 28•12

I really really love running. Outside. I love running outside. I hate running on a treadmill. I spend the whole time staring at the millage tracker, praying for it to move faster. It never does. I swear a mile is twice as far when I am running inside. I was running consistently this fall and then I became incredibly lazy once “winter” hit. I put quotes around winter because we haven’t really had a winter so I have no reason for not running outside.

Yesterday I forced myself to get outside and run. I brought my fat lazy dogs along with me because I was feeling generous towards them. They love the hell out of running with me. I have mixed feelings about running with them. I like having them along because the likelihood that I will be abducted and murdered goes way down. If you can get through my two dogs to get to me then I just wasted a lot of time and money feeding those dogs. I have this awesome running leash system that goes around my waist so I can have my hands free. In theory its amazing. We are still working out the kinks. Here is what my typical run looks

0:00-0:05  Leash up the dogs and start my running tracker so I can watch how far and how fast I have run.

0:05-0:10 Begin walking quickly so I can warm up. I have a dog on each side of my waist. Meadow wants to be near Poppy so she abruptly walks in front of me. I trip three times and kick Meadow twice.

0:10-0:15 Begin running while pushing Meadow out from my feet. Trip three more times. I haven’t fallen once so I consider this a success.

0:15-0:20 Poppy stops and this is where I realize I forgot her crap backpack. Yeah. She feels the need to go to the bathroom every damn time we run. Frick. I don’t have the waste baggies and I can’t just leave it in the street. I would like to say I care about the environment but I really care about getting yelled at for leaving crap around the neighborhood. It’s a valid concern. SO we run to the next doggie waste disposal station. (Did I mention Annapolis is dead serious about leaving crap around)? I grab a waste bag and we run back to collect her crap. We then run back to the crap trash can and continue on with our run. Have I said how nasty it is to run, even briefly, with a dog crap bag in your hand? It’s nasty. I have brief visions of drowning the dogs.

0:20-0:25. Meadow decides she needs to crap. God DAMN IT. I have to go back to the waste station and repeat the same routine all over again. I now think about stabbing and eating my dogs. Don’t judge me until you have tried to train for a run with a dog crap bag in your hand.

0:25-0:31 We run nicely together and I decide to love my dogs again. They are really furry and sweet.

0:31-Stupid beagle comes out of nowhere and tries to attack us. Dogs go nuts and my running leash goes insane and traps me. I am now trapped in between three dogs. Totally not happy.  It takes a bit but the owner finally comes outside and helps. Yeah, I have never liked beagles and now I really don’t like them.

I decided to stop timing my run and attempt to get home quickly. I am now over this attempt at exercise. I am also over my dogs.

This is why I really love running on my own. Sadly, I will probably take them running today.

 

 

I blame the horses

Written By: andrea - Jan• 16•12

Madeleine has recently developed a whole lot of courage. Or rather her really sassy attitude is coming out full force. After years of ignoring people when being asked questions, she has suddenly started answering people. I give a lot of credit to her riding instructor Marie. Marie doesn’t take any crap off the kids and doesn’t care if the kids are shy. They need to learn to ask questions and speak up during lessons. So yeah, I have been feeling proud of Madeleine’s new voice. Unfortunately, the talky version of Madeleine came to bite me in the ass. She had a dental appointment to have a cavity filled two weeks ago. I was nervous about how she was going to handle the filling so I gave the go ahead for her to get laughing gas. Yeah. Madeleine + laughing gas=family secrets. The dentist fitted
her with the “mask” for the laughing gas and then asked Madeleine what she did over her weekend. Her reply?

“My mom had a horse fart on her head”. Ah thanks Madeleine. Glad you are so chatty now.  Madeleine didn’t even explain the whole story. She made it sound like I was just hanging out behind the horse. I promise I wasn’t. I was actually cleaning the hoof of the horse she was going to use for her lesson. I made sure to clear all that up quickly with the doctor. Really quickly.

 

The New Principal

Written By: andrea - Jan• 07•12

Aiden and Madeleine love their principal. In fact the whole school loves her. She has earned the love through her crazy stunts to promote learning. The poor woman has been duck taped to a wall, hit with a pie, and eaten grasshoppers. I think the grasshoppers were covered in chocolate so it’s not that horrible. You might not think throwing a pie at someone would encourage children to perform well on math tests but…A pie in the face is really awesome.

 

School has been going well under the guidance of the principal. Life was cheery for all the lovely children. Until three weeks ago. Three weeks ago the bottom fell out. The fantastic principal had to have minor surgery which put her out until the 9th. Hopefully.

Cue grumpy old retired substitute principal. He has taken the place of the beloved principal. This sent the kids into a tizzy. An absolute frenzy of kid anger and kid resentment. Wild rumors are flying around about this man. Apparently he hates kids, makes everyone walk in straight lines, yells at you randomly, and even insists on silence in the lunch room. Gasp. I’m all like suck it up kids you didn’t have my mean first grade teacher. She was really something to fear.

Right before winter break Aiden was refusing to go to school. I questioned him as to why he didn’t want to go to school. This is a snippet of our conversation.

“Aiden, why don’t you want to go to school”?

“The principal is so mean. He told me to hurry up at my locker. Why would he do something like that”?

“Well because you can move very slowly, but you are still going to school”.

“You would send your son to a school where the principal hates kids”?

I could smell utter nonsense at that statement. But I pretended to look shocked.

“WHAT? He told the students that he hates kids. Oh my gosh. I have to call the school board about that. That’s not even legal to say that”.

As I was grabbing for my phone Aiden looked rather uncomfortable…

“Ah mom, I was hoping to keep this just between us”.

“But he hates kids Aiden. Who did he tell this to”?

“Um, one of the kids in before care. And those kids know stuff. They are at the school first”.

Right that clearly makes you know stuff. Being at the school first. Let’s just hope the principal returns before the kids know anymore “stuff”.

Merry Christmas

Written By: andrea - Dec• 31•11

I have been so so lazy about writing. It’s just that every time I try to write something distracts me. So in the past month we had Thanksgiving. That was cool. There was mashed potatoes and a turkey involved.

Right now we are enjoying the Christmas holiday with family. When we fist arrived in Michigan it was stressful for the adult because the snow was nonexistent. Stressful because all we could hear from the boy child was his wish for snow. I was about ready to dump flower on the ground and tell him to sled down that. A day after we arrived we had a dusting of snow. Just enough to make sledding worthwhile. It was all they needed. Christmas passed by and now we are looking at a New Year. I’m interested to see what the New Year will bring.

New Year’s Day:  Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions.  Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.  ~Mark Twain

 

My Favorite Story

Written By: andrea - Nov• 19•11

This has to be one of my favorite kid stories. Seriously its that good. A month ago Aiden came down with the ear infection that never seemed to go away. His fever was high and it was really worrying me. We ended up at the doctor and medication was prescribed.

Later that day, I stopped into see his teacher while I was picking up Madeleine from school. One of Aiden’s best buddy’s was in the classroom as well. In the middle of me explaining to Mrs.B about Aiden’s ear infection, his buddy (I’ll call him Buddy) piped up with his own opinion about the illness.

Buddy: “Mrs. Aiden’s mom. I think I know what’s wrong with Aiden”.

Me: “You do”?

Buddy: ” Yes, I think he has the Aspergers”.

Me: I actually said nothing. I was speechless.

Buddy:”Another friend on the playground has the Aspergers and he is always playing with Aiden. I think he gave it to Aiden. You should tell the doctor.”.

Me: Yeah, nothing. Still speechless.

At this point Mrs. B was horrified and was trying her best to explain to Buddy that you can’t get Aspergers from anyone. I thanked Buddy for caring about Aiden and I let him know that he just has an ear infection. I can tell you right now that I laughed pretty hard on my way out of the school.  A seven year old diagnosing his friend with a disorder is really something else.

Very simply explained, Aspergers in on the Autism spectrum. Having a child on the spectrum is life consuming. My best friend has a son on the Autism spectrum. After years of watching her fight to keep her little guy healthy, we have learned that sometimes you have to laugh. And laughing at a seven year old diagnosing his friend with Aspergers is really very funny.