Day One

This crappy rainy weather is doing nothing to improve my mood.  Took Jables to the airport today for the first of 10 flights he has in the next 11 days:  home, Chicago, Tokyo, Manila, Cebu, back to Manila, Beijing, Dalian, Tokyo, Chicago, home.

Yes, I was bummed.  I actually like him.  And I don’t mean the typical, “I love you but I don’t like you.”  I like him and I hate being away from him.  (Gag, barf, puke, I know.)  I was a little weepy as I pulled away, which was super-helpful as I drove through the steady rain.  I was nearly home when I got a call from a strange number.  I decided I had better answer it and it was Jables.  He had left his phone in my car.  I think he just wanted another kiss.  ;)

I got to turn around and drive back to the airport.  Yay!  I gave Jables his phone, got another kiss and drove home where I managed to accomplish these things: 

1.        Made the kids a warm and nutritious breakfast of toaster waffles and Flintstones chewables.

2.       Took a nap.

3.       Dragged the kids to the grocery store and bought them a nutritious meal of Wal-Mart popcorn chicken and potato wedges.  It was a throw-back to the old days when I used to bribe them with that meal.

4.       Put the groceries away.

5.       Took another nap (There was a cat on my lap.  It was mandatory.)

6.       Shuffled the kids to and from their practices.

7.       Spent 30 minutes on the treadmill.

8.       Made a real dinner:  spaghetti, homemade meatballs and salad.  (Actual green food.) 

9.       Watched part of the Grammy’s and had some ice cream with Magic Shell. 

10.   Cleaned up the kitchen and edited some photos.

11.   Bored you with this post.

I think that today was an all-around victory.  Even KJ fell prey to the cat-napping monster. 

Boo was able to resist and get some crocheting done. She wins for most productive day.

 

Life Lessons

Here is my son, on his 9th birthday, putting on his Oakland Raiders Darren McFadden jersey.  He loves that jersey with all of his heart. 
Some may think it's silly to allow a child to invest that much time and energy into an NFL team (or any professional sports team for that matter) with their bad attitudes, insane salaries and giant egos, but the way I see it, you are only little once.  And I kind of think that a life without passion gets pretty boring.  I'll take the sports obsession over girls any day. 
Fast forward to tonight.  He'll be turning 12 this week.  I think that this jersey has easily been worn over 100 times in the last three years.  McFadden is the leading rusher in the NFL as of this week.  The Raiders are competitive this year.  KJ is so proud to wear it.
We had a softball game and he was playing football with his buddies while his dad and I played.  He took the jersey off because he didn't want it to get dirty.  He folded it up and put it in the dugout.  When it was time to go home, the jersey had disappeared.  Yes, out of our own dugout.  He is crushed.
My gut reaction was the be really upset with KJ for not taking better care of his stuff.  He had been waving it over his head and celebrating/bragging about McFadden's rushing yards.  I am a HUGE believer in personal responsibility, and all of this could have easily been avoided if he had just kept the stupid jersey on.  Or put it in the car.  He could have prevented this from happening.
But then I started thinking that I am placing all of the blame in him, the victim.  Sure, he could have kept the jersey on and he'd still have it.  But how sad is it that he couldn't trust that the darn thing wouldn't have disappeared right out of our dugout?
I hope hope hope that there was some misunderstanding and that it's going to show up in someone's bag.  But if it doesn't, you had better believe that he'll never be so naive and trusting again.
And that kind of breaks my heart.

My Boys

What is it about baseball that keeps us young? That allows men to feel like boys? That creates this bond between father and son? Bryant Gumbel said, "The other sports are just sports. Baseball is a love."

I never thought that I would feel that way, but it has this quality of being something bigger, something to be revered. I love going to my son's games, learning the strategy involved, watching these 11-year-old boys turn double plays and steal second and lay down beautiful bunts. I'm afraid it is getting into my blood.

This photo was entered into the I Heart Faces photo challenge

Eleven

This child, my first-born, eleven years old, lover of sports, speaker of a million words, maker of random noises, is going to be the death of me. I adore him. He is a good boy. He is smart. He has fantastic manners. He is kind-hearted. He is goofy and makes me laugh. He is also competitive. I won't say where that came from. It certainly wasn't from his mother. (Ahem.) Yesterday, we were out in my mom and dad's backyard, playing catch. Now, I'll be honest with you: until a couple of years ago, playing catch was not exactly fun. It consisted of me tossing the ball to KJ and praying that it didn't hit him in the face. And then he would chase it down then throw it back to (nowhere near) me. Lather, rinse, repeat. As he has gotten older, catch has actually become fun. We are able to both throw the ball and catch it. It's a miracle. This year, KJ is playing travel ball for the first time. So, we've ramped up the competitiveness just a bit. Let's go back to the bakyard, where mother and son are enjoying a nice game of catch. I finally feel confident enough in KJ's ability to catch the ball that I don't need to throw nicely with him. So, after we warmed up, I started throwing a little harder. I let loose with one and his eyes got all big and he said, "Mom, I didn't know you could throw the ball hard." What's a mom to do? I started throwing a little harder yet and he kept making these faces at me like he was absolutely amazed. I'll admit, it made me smile. I love the fact that my throwing ability impressed an 11-year-old boy. What more can a mom ask for than to amaze her kids? We kept throwing and it didn't take long for me to get a little wild. KJ thought I was doing it on purpose: throwing risers and curveballs. He kept asking me how I did it. I don't have a clue. I just grab the ball and throw and it does wacky stuff (just ask my sister, who played first base to my shortstop for several years.) But I kept throwing because I was impressing my kid. And that made me happy. And I woke up this morning with a seriously stiff shoulder. All in the name of winning the adulation of my eleven-year-old son. Yes, it was worth it.

5th Grade Boys and Cameras

Today, my son went of a field trip to Springfield, Illinois. The 5th graders visited Lincoln's Tomb, the Lincoln Homestead, The Capitol Building, had lunch at the Governer's mansion with our state rep, Keith Sommers, and finally visited the Lincoln Museum. (I highly recommend it if you haven't been.)

I was a little heartbroken that I didn't get to go (serious photo ops, people!) and since I couldn't go, I twisted poor little KJ's arm until he agreed to take my point and shoot. I hoped that by giving him the camera and the freedom to shoot what he wanted, I would end up with some precious memories. I remember BEGGING my mom to take the camera with me, and I'd get 15 exposures with that Kodak Disk. And have to wait for-ev-er for processing. Painful

Controlling Mom Alert!!! Before he left, I had to set the camera to a mode in which the flash was OFF. I've become a bit of a flash snob in the past few months. Down with flash!

was not disappointed. The kid came home with over 250 shots. Some of them were of the backs of people's heads and his thumb, but all in all, I had a ball looking at them. It was so much fun to see what he thought was important. And to see the 30+ self-portraits he took because he "got bored by the old dudes talking."

My point? Take pictures. Let your kids take pictures, even if they are of Abe Lincoln's outhouse. This is your one chance to record your life, their lives. My husband always makes fun of me and wonders who is going to want all these damn pictures when we are gone. I don't care. I want to have them when I am a 97-year-old-widow, living with my sister, 23 cats and room devoted entirely to pens.

If you want help or inspiration, check this out! 31 days to a better photo. It's fantastic! http://my3boybarians.com/2010/08/31-days/

Look Mom, I'm spitting

At what age do boys start this whole spitting ickiness?

Here's my son, getting ready for baseball practice with a wad of sunflower seeds stored in his cheek. I asked him to pose for me and as I shot this one, I caught the spit flying out of his mouth.

And he was proud. And he wanted me to take more pictures of him spitting. And I did.

But, I must ask again. When do boys start spitting? He certainly didn't learn it from me.