Mommy Monday

It's Monday.  Monday morning with three kids is normally pure chaos.  Monday is also a writing day for me.  It's the day I try very hard to complete as much as I can of my weekly writing goal because, well, I  have kids and you just never know when one of them is going to throw up or crack their head or have a friend crisis that supersedes my writing needs. 

Today seems different, amazingly peaceful.  Maybe it's because I got a lot of writing done over the weekend and don't feel like I'm in catch-up mode, my normal mode for Mondays.  I'm glad I'm caught up on my writing - this week is less about me and what I need to get done and more about my kids. 

Later this week, my oldest is testing for her temps.  Eeek.  I lost her social security card about ten years ago.  It turns out she needs it this week or she can't test.  I managed to get her to the social security office just under the wire to get the document she needs.  I also had my hand on her student ID (also needed to take the test) - I sort of remembered putting it somewhere in her room or maybe somewhere not in her room.  I searched the house, and then we cleaned every inch of her bedroom - teenager bedroom, the kind that looks like the aftermath of an earthquake.  Just when we gave up on finding it and the room was sparkling clean, it was right there mocking us.  So this week, she gets to take her driving test.  We're both really excited about it.  I wish she could test today.

My middle son is having a birthday this week.  Yesterday I noticed he's almost as tall as me.  I'm short, but his dad is incredibly tall - I expect my son will loom over me by summer. 

My point is it's completely in my face today that my kids are growing up.  I know it's a cliche, but just a second ago, they were both babies.  One will be driving this week, and the other is turning into a man before my eyes.

Today I don't feel anxious about it - I feel peaceful and proud of them.  They are great kids, and I can't wait to see what they do with their lives.  I already know what kind of people they are - I don't think that changes when you get older unless something tragic happens.  My kids are cool, generous, understated, kind, funny, and perceptive individuals, awesome people to hang out with. 

I just wish they wanted to hang out with their mom more.  Lucky for me, I have one tiny person that likes to be my shadow.  He likes to be my "co-worker" and do whatever I'm doing.  I hope time slows down a little while he grows up.  Or just stops.

Cookies

My daughter loves to do sculpture, but doesn't think of herself as an artist.  Except when it comes to this:  painting cookies.

This weekend, she made a batch of sugar cookies.  At first, she did it to preoccupy my preschooler.  She gave him dough and helped him roll it out with a tiny roller.  He picked an arrow-shaped cutter and got to make a whole tray of cookies.  She helped him decorate them however he wanted. 

When he was done (by done, I mean he was screaming, "I'M DONE!! GET ME DOWN!"), she made beautiful cookies with the rest of the dough.  She added food coloring to some and blended the colors so they looked tye-died.  She even made the icing (equally yummy).  The cookies were delicious and beautiful.  She came up with several designs that she loved.

This one is my favorite - a broken heart.

We told her she should sell cookies to make money for college.  My sister (who is also an artist but doesn't call herself an artist despite the fact she teaches art classes) sells pottery at art shows nearly every weekend.  She told us the art shows that would be good for selling cookies and suggested my daughter should sell them at school - black-market style - in the halls, under the desk, in the cafeteria but out of sight any authorities who might suspect...well...special ingredients.

As she painted more cookies, she eventually came up with an amazing idea - an idea to sell cookies as a fundraiser for the middle school in our district, specifically for the music program.  Every student in 6th grade is required to choose an instrument or join chorus.  She has a lot of friends that hated to sing but had to choose chorus because they couldn't afford an instrument.  Violin rental for a year is something like $180.  Cellos and bass are twice that amount. 

Her idea is to sell cookies at school events, craft shows, outside our neighborhood pool, out of a bag while walking a 5K, anywhere she can imagine - to raise money to pay for instrument rentals for kids that need financial help. 

I've never seen her so excited.  She is planning every detail and even emailed the principal at the middle school to ask for a meeting to discuss her plan and to get permission to sell cookies at events at the school.  She's working on figuring out the cost of ingredients for a batch of cookies, how many cookies she can make in one sitting, and how to package them.  Now she wants to take a business class next year, something she wouldn't have considered before.  Yay!

Getting the Writing Done With Sick Kids

I'm finally back in writing mode.  Over the last week, I managed to write 2200 words of a short story and added 1000 words to my novel.  Monday through Wednesday are mornings I have set aside to write and do nothing else.  This week I was going to dive into my novel and get a huge chunk of it knocked out. 

But the mommy gig comes first, and one of my kids is sick. 

My immediate impulse this morning was to give up on writing for the day and try again tomorrow.  But he's comfortable on the couch watching TV and resting, he isn't puking, he's been fed, and I'm right here at my desk if he needs me.  So I'm going to write in half hour chunks this morning and see how it goes.  I feel like I should be sitting next to him and feel incredibly guilty, but the fact is he's fine and isn't feeling neglected. I am probably annoying him by fussing over him instead of letting him sleep it off. 

I know it's mostly mommy guilt that makes me want to walk away from my desk.  We can never do enough especially when our kids are sick, even if we are doing everything.  And maybe a little bit of what I'm feeling is procrastination - a sick kid is the most excellent excuse for not writing.  But I know I'll feel great about myself if I write even a few pages, and I'll feel terrible if I don't.  So I write.

An Outing with My Kids

This weekend I did something I haven't been able to do for a very long while. I took my kids out. For hours.

For those of you who don't know me or my story, up until a few months ago I walked with a cane and not far. I couldn't drive more than a few miles without getting very uncomfortable. I couldn't stand on a hard surface like tile or cement more more than a couple of minutes. 

I drove them into downtown Cincinnati, farther than I've been able to drive in a very long while. We went to the Cincinnati Museum Center to see the train display. When we got to the parking booth just after a solid rain, a full double rainbow graced the sky. One end of it was amazingly wide and bright and ended on top of a really ugly and apparently abandoned industrial building. It was amazing. We pointed it out to the parking booth guy and held up traffic so he could gawk at it with us.   

The surprising thing about the exhibit is it was less about the trains (no trains in the pictures) and more about the buildings. Half a floor of the Cincinnati History Museum was dedicated to a miniature Cincinnati complete with the original baseball stadium and Coney Island. My kids were mesmerized by the detail in the display as was I.


In addition to the train exhibit, we decided to see the Omnimax movie about trains. We have a three-year-old who has never seen a regular movie in a theatre. We came up with an exit strategy for the little guy while we stood in line forever. The forever part, standing in line for more than twenty minutes on tile, was not good for my foot. I kept my eyes closed for half of the movie to combat the motion sickness, and I felt my foot swell up. 

My little guy did great - he was the only one of us that kept his eyes opened for the whole movie. He laid back on his dad's lap and took in the whole experience. I think he's going to be disappointed when we take him to a normal movie. 

We wanted to go to another museum after the movie, but I couldn't do it. My kids didn't seem disappointed at all, just happy we were able to do everything we had already done. I can't remember the last time we've done something like this as a family. I am looking forward to many more outings this year. My kids were so happy. So was I.