Long weekend

I took yesterday off because I went to a concert Sunday night out of town and we stayed overnight. It was a Christian rock concert, which I don't typically listen to, but the show was simply amazing.
We got all the energy and power of the music and the fans and musicians with none of the drugs, egos, bad attitudes, etc. that you usually see at concerts.


Everyone felt so connected and just....happy. It inspired me. If only I could hold onto that feeling for a month...a week...a day..
but it's so hard.



I was really feeling the demands of life last night when I got home. I was excited to see the kids, but didn't really get to BE with them. Emily had to rush off to gymnastics, dinner needed to be cooked, Caliana needed a bath. Patrick and I talked for a bit after dinner, and we're just both feeling in a rut right now. Everything feels in limbo. I know this too will pass, but I don't like being in limbo dang it!

Some Highlights of the weekend were:

-I ate out a lot and didn't blow my weight watchers diet
-We stopped at the IKEA store on the way home and stayed for like 2 hours
-I discovered Diet Dr Pepper doesn't taste much different than regular
-Patrick borrowed an original nintendo from his brother and I played Super Mario Bros. for like an hour last night
-Noah won this thing from those claw vending games, and once again we can't figure out what the heck it is, so yeah, any guesses, leave a comment.

Friday etc..

I have been following the Weight Watchers point system since Wednesday and it is hard, but I've already lost a pound so I think I'll stick with it for awhile. I'm 15 lbs from my pre-Cali weight and I am determined to get there. My wardrobe is mocking me and I just won't take it anymore. Clothes shouldn't be so snarky. They need to be put in their place.

I'm in a great mood today, even though my purse strap broke just as a I left the house and then after I put Cali in her carseat, my hair got stuck on the "dry cleaner hook" in the car and I squealed like a little girl. I think I'll go buy a new purse at lunch.

Caliana is experimenting with names and nicknames recently. She's taken to calling us Bandi and Pachick when she's talking about us to other people and she's started calling everyone "Honey" (which she picked up from me) and it is absolutely adorable! I fall all over myself every time she does it.
Here she is with her uncle Noah


I hope everyone has a great weekend. Mine is going to be fabulous, because I command it to be so.

Bridging the gap

When it comes to parent-child generational gaps, the one between Emily and I is not very large. 18 and a half years to be exact, but alas, the time of my childhood (80's) is now considered retro. Emily has developed a great fondness for many icons from my past though, which gives us some awesome bonding material, and helps me stay young.

When Emily was 2, we used to go to the local video store every Tuesday. Tuesday was Kids' night and you could rent 2 kids movies for FREE. Yes, that's right F-R-E-E. Since we had just moved out of my mom's house and I was brand new to the world of "paying my own bills", that price was unbeatable. They had a pretty tidy little selection of kids movies, including about 7 Rainbow Brite videos. If you don't know who Rainbow Brite is, you can just leave my blog now, I have nothing to say to you.


My baby Emily fell promptly in love, and we watched hours of adventure in Rainbow Land together (that is until she discovered Barney, and I opted for more entertaining activities, like scrubbing the toilet. Ok, that's a lie, I was probably sleeping.)
Anyways, she still has a fondness for Rainbow Brite, and even dressed up as her for Halloween when she was 6. Most of her friends had no clue who she was, and she was baffled. Who doesn't know Rainbow Brite? Exactly my dear.

Next came Care Bears. Care Bears had quite the retro comeback, so they were everywhere, and for a couple years, they were also everywhere in my house. I think they released 12,000 different ones and every one came with a video.

We stopped at about 20. Every Christmas and Birthday we would get phone calls from relatives to find out if Emily already had this one or that one. We only ended up with duplicates twice. A couple years ago, she traded the whole collection to a neighbor boy for some Pokemon cards.


We're also halfway through the first season of Punky Brewster, and Emily has great plans for Cali for Halloween in a few years. She'd do it herself, but Punky has dark hair. What a shame.

A few days ago we were sitting in the Taco Bell drive thru and I had to pee major bad and I was sharing.
"Oh MAN, I have got to PEEEEEEE! Hurry up car, just get your damn chulupa and go, this is a potty E-merrr-gency" (A la Wacko from Animaniacs (once again, if you have no clue, just....go...get out of here)).
Emily was looking at me like I was nuts, and I was like
"what, that's how Wacko says it"
"who?"

I added some Animaniacs to my Netflix Queue.

She is well versed in the icons of her own generation also, but she'll be the first to tell you that she does NOT like Hannah Montana and she doesn't get what the big deal is about her. She does really like Pokemon and Littlest Pet Shop, and Avril Lavigne, but I can't help but feel pride when she asks me to add Def Leppard and Journey to her Ipod. She's her mother's daughter.

And yes, we've already started the Care Bears brainwashing with Caliana....we have over 20 videos people, someone has to watch them.

I get it

I'll admit, I've judged, I've mocked, snickered and rolled my eyes...at other parents. They're typically called "soccer moms", at least around here, but they're there in every sport and activity, helping, cajoling, pressuring, buying private lessons, equipment to practice at home...and in some cases going way too far.
But I understand. I totally get how they can be swept up. It feels wonderful when your child succeeds at something, and in this world of competetive parenting, where we're all feeling at least a tad insecure, it's like getting a parenting gold star.

Last night at cheer practice, Emily landed her front flip. Her face lit up, and she looked not to her coach, or to her teammates, but to me, with that look in her eyes, that one that says "Did you SEE what I just did!" and the thrill of it shot from her eyes to mine, and I shared her victory. I flashed her a giant grin and a thumbs up... and I patted myself on the back. The confidence that I could see radiating from her across the gym is one of the great rewards of parenting. Sharing in their successes, from the first time they roll over to watching them thrill in the birth of their own children, I imagine it never gets old.

I'm still going to do my best to encourage and not pressure, and to help them make choices, not force my choices on them, but in that moment, I understood.

Behavior chart part 2

After Emily's terribly disappointing wheel spin last week, I was nervous when Damien finally reached 100 on Saturday. He spun the wheel, and ta-da!!..........ice cream. I braced myself for refusal, crying, begging for something else, but no. My good boy just said
"Cool, ice cream!"

We went last night, just the two of us. We debated the whole ride over about the number of scoops this reward was worth. Usually one is plenty, but I was willing to go for two since this was special. He wanted 3. I knew he probably couldn't eat that much and warned him that if he did he'd probably end up puking it back up, and who wants regurgitated mint chocolate chip? Nobody, that's who. But I finally relented and let him try.

He skipped around Baskin Robbins picking out his flavors while the teenager behind the counter waited with eyebrow cocked holding his giant waffle cone. She must have thought I was the most over indulgent parent ever, cheering him on...
"Sure, whichever ones you want, it's your ice cream...yeah you can have toppings."
I tipped her 2 bucks.

The result was one monstrocity of a drippy ice cream cone with neon ice cream and one happy kid.




I got myself a kid cone and we ate outside on a bench next to a fountain. I ended up dumping two scoops of "weird tasting" ice cream in the trash so Damien could get at his old favorite mint chocolate chip, but I never said "I told you so." The sugar eventually got to us and we ended up running around the fountain and doing "pretend ballet" moves on top.

A homeless man about 60 was sitting in the corner near a building watching us, and I found myself wondering what he was thinking. Did he have fun carefree outings with his mom when he was a boy? What choices or circumstances had brought him to where he is now? Where would my little boy end up? I just soaked up every smile, every giggle, and prayed for the best.

Sheep assassin on the loose

I started this blog for myself mostly. I wanted a place to write and to document my life, and I'd read a few blogs recently that had inspired me. And it is great for those reasons, but I've come to find that a blog serves another, greater purpose. This world is seriously weird, and sometimes we encounter some strange happenings, when no one else is around. And people, some of that shit just needs to be shared with anyone who will listen....or read as the case may be.

I live in the wine country in Northern California. Sound kind of pretentious? It can be. It's one of the most expensive places in the country to live, so there is definitely no shortage of Lexus SUV's driving around. However, we're also not far from San Francisco and Berkeley, so there is a fair share of what I call the "granola crunchy" population. You know the kind, they wear only organic cotton, never shave their armpits, and drive around with bumper stickers that say "Earth first, we'll screw up the other planets later" and "grow your own dope, plant a Bush"

A few days ago I was behind an SUV with the license plate VGN MOM
My first thought was "virgin mom?" How is that possible? Maybe she adopted? Maybe she's a stepmom? Haha. Ok it took me a minute but I finally understood, Vegan mom! Aha! This woman is paying $50 a year to flash her dietary choices at us. Good one. Do I feel bad riding behind you eating my egg and sausage Mcmuffin, no, sorry, I love me some pig and chicken.

This is all pretty typical for this area, so I was quite taken aback (to put it lightly) when I was behind a truck on Friday that had a license plate frame reading "Eat Lamb, wear wool"
What. The. Hell.
This woman obviously has a vendetta against the woolly population. All I can gather (get it? Wool...gather. I know right? Where have I been all these years?) is that her family are sheep farmers and she's trying to drum up more business. Either that, or she has a psycho hillbilly husband with a ewe fetish and she's trying to eliminate the competition. If the latter is the case, she should be more clear and just have it read "Support monogamy, Shoot a Sheep"

10 years ago

Today is my mom's birthday. Happy Birthday Mom!!
It's also the day I found out I was pregnant 10 years ago. I was 17, 3 months out of high school, lived at home and worked at a movie theater. My boyfriend was also 17, I had known him exactly 1 month and 1 day, and had lost my virginity with little fanfare exactly one month earlier, on the kindergarten playground of an elementary school. The same school coincidentally where my children now attend 1st and 4th grade.
I was not using birth control and should'nt have been surprised, but I was. I cried for about 5 minutes, and then with the supreme optimism that only teens can possess, I decided everything was going to be great. I owe a lot of that mental ease to the extreme support I was given (thanks mom!).
Surprisingly my teen romance lasted 4 1/2 years (but that's another story for another day), and I have no regrets. Who possibly could, I mean look at this face!



Here's to 10 years, and my transition from kid to mom.