Monday mornings are generally crappy. Monday mornings when it is supposedly spring, but there is an inch of fresh snow on the ground, are especially crappy. Monday mornings when there is an inch of snow on the ground and it is windy-butt cold and I have to cart a three month old out into the world so I can drive to the Police Station are the crappiest of the crappy.
I filled out something called a “Fraud Packet”, which sounds official, but it is really just lots of pages stapled together. And the pages have a ton of questions on them, which are general and boring and make you want to fall asleep except that you know you have to sign the whole thing at the end, so you’d better pay attention. There was a section that can be thought of as the “essay” portion, where I had to explain in detail the events surrounding some idiot stealing my credit card number. I turned it all in and now I’m just waiting for a call from the detective. I’m insanely curious to find out if the thief is someone I know.
Then I officially reported the theft of Jachin’s bike. Jachin’s $350 bike. Jachin’s bike which looks pretty much like this, except black:
I dug around this morning until I found the serial number (I knew I had it somewhere… because I rarely throw anything out). I am now armed with the bike’s serial number and a case number from the police department. If I see some kid riding it around town, I get to knock the kid off, load the bike in my car, and drive the kid to his home where I will let the mother know what a horrible parenting job she is doing. Then there could be some punching.
Okay, not really.
But I do get to take it. It’s mine. We paid the frickin money for it. We paid for the bike lock that Jachin used to lock it up… except that he likes to click the lock together and then not mix up the numbers, because what a pain that is to have to spin the numbers around to the right order. With any luck, I’ll recover the lock as well.
The bike is my white whale. I am obsessed with finding it. I am fueled by my hatred of theft and my tight-wad mentality that forbids me from buying Jachin another bike. The whole idea of buying him the Trek was that it would be the last bike he’d need until he’s an adult. That whole concept is out the window if we are replacing it every two years.
So I don’t care if it takes me all summer. My eyes are sharp, my senses are heightened. It may be at the pool, at the Rec Center, at the school, at the mall. But when I see that bike, it’s mine. And if you are the punk kid riding it… Heaven help you.
I’m in a bad place… a place where tensions are high and F-Bombs are wanting to be dropped. In the last week and a half: my credit card number has been stolen, Jachin’s $300 bike has been stolen, and there was an attempt at Jon’s car (not that there’s a whole lot in there to steal).
I’m sick beyond sick of theft. Sick of people thinking they can help themselves to whatever they see.
I am angry. Irritated. Discombobulated. And just plain put out.
So now, for a moment, I am going to a happier place. A place with catchy rhythms and snappy rhymes. I think I had a dream about this song the other night, because it’s been in my head for a couple of days. And every time something else from this house goes missing, I close my eyes and count to ten and sing this song… doing so forces dark images right out of my head. Images like me kicking the ass of some friendly neighborhood vandal/thief.
*sigh* There… doesn’t everything feel a little better now? Not totally better, but y’know a little better. Not like, look Jachin’s super expensive bike is back in the garage better, but a little better.
Biddy biddy bop, funky funky… I’m still sitting up with a shotgun tonight.
There is a saying here in the Beehive State: If you don’t like the weather in Utah, wait 10 minutes. It is ever-changing. It is seemingly random. Always in a state of flux. It is a jealous mistress. (That last one doesn’t really make sense or apply here, but I like saying it.) As of last Friday, it is officially spring. Everywhere. Including Utah. But Utah doesn’t always seem to want to be on board. Some days it does. Some days the weather is lovely and breezy and fragrant. Like last Saturday.
Last Saturday was nice and we took Deac to the park down the street for the first time ever. (Until recently, he had thought that his whole life would be made up of an unrelenting, frigid winter.)
Then last night was Zoe’s first game of the spring soccer season. Soccer means spring, no matter what the weather actually feels like. And last night? It felt like the girls were playing soccer somewhere smack in the freezing center of Mother Russia. Because Utah likes to remind you that it is in charge of its own meteorological destiny. If it wants to freeze the shin guards to the legs of a bunch of unsuspecting 7 year olds then, by all things holy, it will do it.
Yeah, that’s the ONLY picture I took of last night’s game… and it wasn’t even one where she was playing. I was too shivery to take a lot of pictures, and I was pretty preoccupied with keeping the comforter secured over Deacon’s car seat so he wouldn’t get hypothermia. (She scored a goal, by the way, and her teammates mustered the chilly energy to lift her into the air and yell congrats into her frosty ear.) The girls had to layer long johns and sweats and sweaters under their jerseys. One freezing diva on the opposing team played in a fur coat. It was priceless. (Also priceless: Jachin hiding under a blanket the entire time, playing his DS… occasionally yelling out “Go Purple Dragons” like he was paying attention. I wish I would have snapped a picture of that.)
But the undeniable fact remains: soccer means spring, regardless of what Utah wants to think. Spring has sprung. Really. Truly. But try telling that to the shivering birdies in the neighbor’s blossoming apricot tree, or to my sad, chilly little peach tree that Jon planted in the back yard for me for my birthday. They, along with everything else in view, were blanketed with snow this morning.
But Utah, that jealous mistress, is supposed to see 60’s again by Saturday. 60’s. That’s garden-planting weather, guys.
Around here, Saturdays are chore days. Each Saturday morning, the kids know that they have to complete their list of chores before moving on to the fun stuff (and the list of fun stuff options is growing now that the weather is warming!). The kids each have the same chores every week. They have them memorized. They do them in their usual order: most fun to least fun, saving the suckiest for last. Zoe — resident mother hen — likes to make lists of everyone’s chores, just to see that everyone is towing the line and equally unhappy, making sure that no one is trying to pull a fast one by claiming a chore is completed when in fact it is not. We have a white board for this purpose; so Zoe can make her lists and be as “in charge” as she can be.
Here is the white board from last Saturday:
Jachin usually breezes through his chores while Zoe can successfully drag hers out for hours and hours. In her defense, it does take longer to do a list of chores when you have to periodically pause to dance to Radio Disney, have a snack, count your hair bows, give snacks to your stuffed animals, sing in the mirror, dance some more… all the while checking the job board every five minutes to make sure everyone else is still doing their chores in a timely manner. It’s tiring, I’m sure.
Though Jachin is fast, it was Deacon who finished his list first:
He’s a real overachiever. This past Saturday was actually the first week his name made an appearance on the job board. No free rides for anyone. In this house, as soon as you turn two and a half months old, you have to start pulling your own weight.
Just a note: though the toilets got scrubbed in a timely manner, I’m not totally sure how well they were scrubbed (especially under the seats). Also, the dusting job in the piano room is a little questionable. If you come to my house, please just avoid these areas…
… it’s all in the name of teaching kids responsibility.
Last week the uncles came out for their annual ski trip. Last year we got to go up with them one day and they taught my kiddies how to ski (because while we live in Utah and are surrounded by mountains of powder 11 1/2 months out of the year, we rarely actually go skiing). This year, sadly, we didn’t get to go up. For one thing, the conditions were crap this year. It was windy and frigid, and the snow was crusty and hard. For another thing, I couldn’t figure out the logistics of taking Deac skiing… although the kids’ idea of tying a leash to his car seat and dragging him down the mountain wasn’t a bad one.
Every year, uncle Matt brings out shrimp and crab from the Chesapeake Bay, because while we are surrounded by mountains of powder here in Utah, we are short on local seafood. This year he did it again, although he told us the story about how the shrimp and crab cakes almost weren’t this year. Apparently there was some drama surrounding the obtaining, packaging, and hauling of said seafood. But in the end, it was all crammed into suitcases and brought 2,000 miles to a group of happy mouths.
When the uncles come, there is always an abundance of laughing and jokes… usually with jokes getting raunchier as the evening progresses. Zoe said to me last week before they came: “Mom, do you remember last year when you said that Jachin and I had to leave to the room because the uncles were going to swear now?” And while I didn’t remember that happening, I don’t doubt it. This year Grammy tried to nip the dirty jokes in the bud. First it started with Paul and his Chuck Norris jokes, which segued into Paul’s Helen Keller jokes. When off-color Michael Jackson jokes started circulating, Grammy went to her bedroom and pulled out her stash of “clean jokes” clipped from magazines. Then she came back into the kitchen, sat down, and started reading them… whether anyone was listening or not. My sister filmed some of the punchlines. I was half-unconscious from lack of oxygen from laughing. Not because the jokes were funny, but because Grammy and her mission to keep it clean was priceless.
It makes me sad that I only get to see these guys once a year. I do love them so. Uncle Beezer is only 8 years older than me, and I still have so many fond memories of us playing as kids. He was like a sweet older brother when I was very small. Uncle Matt is a saint in that he and aunt Robin took me in and gave me a place to stay when I was a homeless, punk kid fresh out of (barely graduating from) high school. That in and of itself makes me completely in debt forever. The fact that he still likes me and brings me crab cakes every year makes me giddy beyond words.
The other day I was driving in the car with the kids, listening to New Kids on the Block. What? They wanted to listen to it…
Okay, not really. I wanted to listen to it, and because I was the one driving, I got to decide what was blasting from the speakers.
“These guys are stupid,” Jachin said.
“No they aren’t,” I said.
“Uh, haven’t you noticed that all they sing about is girls? And they always say the word ‘baby’?” And he says the word baby with all the disdain one might use when saying the word poop stain.
“Yeah, that’s because they’re a boy band,” I explained.
“What is a boy band?” Zoe asked.
“Well, like the Jonas Brothers,” I said. “When I was young we didn’t have the Jonas Brothers, we had New Kids on the Block.”
“Yeah, except now they are really old,” Jachin said.
“That’s true.” I had to agree. Jon Knight is in his 40’s now.
“Old and stupid,” Jachin added.
“But how can you tell that it’s a boy band?” Zoe asked.
“Well,” I said, “when it’s all guys, and they sing about girls; getting girls, thinking about girls, breaking up with girls, missing girls, kissing girls–”
“Walking on the beach with girls,” Zoe said. Because she does like the song “Summertime” by New Kids, and the lyrics do indeed revolve around some girl walking on the beach.
“Right,” I said. “Plus, in boy bands they always sing like OOhhhooohhAAAAhhaaahaaa.” You know, how they do the up and down voice thingy… the thingy that every early contestant on American Idol thinks that they do really well, but it really sounds crappy and the judges roll their eyes at one another and Simon scowls and crosses his arms tighter and the audience at home laughs uncontrollably. Yeah, that.
Then we were quiet for a moment as we listened to “Summertime“. Well, I should be specific: Jachin was quietly wishing we were listening to something from the Guitar Hero soundtrack, I was quietly rocking out with a head bob, but Zoe was trying to sing along.
…in your strapless sundress, kickin back, no stress, as long as we was together…
“Wait a minute,” Zoe said incredulously. “Why did they sing that wrong? It should be ‘as long as we were together’!”
And here is where I realized beyond any doubt that she is my daughter (in case the curls weren’t enough), because obvious bad grammar is cause for some real irritation.
“Yes honey,” I said, “that’s another thing about boy bands. They don’t use proper grammar.”
And here I sighed, because it’s my favorite New Kid, Donnie, who utters the ugly phrase “as long as we was together”. And I realize that a marriage between us never would have worked. Ever.
“They say ‘we was‘ and ‘ain’t’ all the time,” I said. “It’s very annoying, I know.”
Jachin snorted and piped up from the back. “I told you they were stupid.”
And then we had a discussion about how when cute boys aren’t smart enough to become rocket scientists, they start boy bands.
The end.
(for your viewing pleasure, the song that gets put on repeat on my iPod as I cruise in the car… as my kids try to strangle themselves with their seatbelts.)
Deacon has taken to thrusting his left fist in the air. And leaving it there. For hours or days. Honestly, I can’t believe it hasn’t cramped up so bad that it’s snapped from his body. (Try holding your arm up in the air like that for hours on end… you can’t.)
Also? I am so thrilled to have a baby with hair. After two baldies, it is so much fun to play with his hair, molding it into different little configurations. I can make it into a mohawk. Can’t see it in the picture up there? Here’s another shot:
Seriously, is he not the cutest punk you’ve ever seen? When he comes to me asking if his band can use the garage for practice, I will have to say yes. Because — hello? — could you say no to that face??
Zoe has a new favorite hobby: making flower hair clips. My neighbor, Shahara, showed me how to do them a couple of months ago and I finally went to the craft store and picked up the materials. Once I showed Zoe how to do it, she was hooked. We made dozens of them. When we ran out of materials, she sent me to the store to get more materials to make additional clips.
“What are we going to do with all of these?” I asked.
“I’m going to sell them,” she said. “I want to have my own bouquet.” (She meant “boutique”.) She then explained to me how she plans to sell them on the sidewalk when the weather gets warmer. I told her that we should do one better and sell them on Etsy. She was so excited about that, I thought she would explode into a million happy pieces. (She and Jachin both have real entrepreneurial spirits… and they’re both totally little capitalists. I think they’d do okay if they had to live on the streets.)
The other night Zoe’s BFF came to play. Zoe broke out all of the stuff and she and her BFF made even more clips. I mean, they were totally cranking them out. My kitchen looked like a sweat shop… only the working children looked surprisingly cheerful, and there was a lot of giggling.
When they ran out of materials — again — they decided to put them ALL on and model them.
See, flower clips can be put anywhere. Not just in your hair.
But they certainly can be worn in the hair.
Yep, a little too cheerful to be a sweat shop.
These are all for sale (the clips, not the girls), if you know someone who could use some flowery cheerfulness in their lives.
