family life Articles

This weekend we snuck out of town for some family time. Since we’d unplugged Jane from her friends it seemed only fair to take the family funishment to the next level and make her spend quality time with us. We had a blast.

What was interesting about this trip is that we stayed in a hotel I wouldn’t recommend to anyone. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t one I’d recommend. It wasn’t budget friendly, and no matter how much I lowered my expectations they simply couldn’t be met by the hotel staff. They were a friendly staff, adorable even, but they weren’t particularly competent.

We told the kids we were heading to San Diego and my son packed for the beach. I don’t know how we didn’t double check his clothing choices, but we didn’t and he ended up with shorts and tee shirts and not enough socks. Although San Diego is, in fact, the beach, it was February in San Diego and it was quite cool at night. Jane’s hair wasn’t behaving as she thought it should (though I maintain that she has the most incredible hair I’ve ever seen).

With all this, with not very interesting food, cold and windy nights, waiting until 9pm for a bed to be made (and by “made” I mean it had no sheets) and Mr. G’s back hurting him it sounds like a horrible weekend away. Don’t worry, it’s only a sound.

Jane finished book seven in Pretty Little Liars and we had to beg the bookstore owner to please let us in, “we don’t need to browse.” I explained, my foot wedged into the closing door. We just want to grab a book and go. A toddler was in the back pooping in her diaper under a table, her father thought it was adorable. We got a book and Jane had a dose of birth control all at once.

During this weekend I was reading, obsessively reading, The Man Who Quit Money. It’s about Daniel Suelo who quit money in the beginning of the millennium. It’s a fabulous book and it touched me because it was written by a man with whom who I grew up. I still make his mother’s pancakes from the Co-Op nursery school cookbook. Obviously I wanted to like this book, but somewhere midway I realized it was me. He was writing about me (and so many of you) when he talked about the dilemma of reusing a Ziploc bag. Is it worth the water to rinse it? Am I adding to the plastic in the landfill? Why the fuck did I buy this bag in the first place? To hold apple slices? Next time I’m sending the kids to school with an apple and a knife (braces make it impossible to bite into one whole).

The book might have made me nicer over the weekend. There was only one moment where I lost my cool with the hotel manager (who was approximately 15 years old). I looked at things a little differently. It didn’t matter how I wanted to see the world. It didn’t matter what I expected a resort to look like, it mattered that I was with my family and I was gifted time and attention. 

In fact Monday morning Alexander looked up at me and said that even though it’s a bay and not a beach and even though and even though… this was the best weekend of his entire life.

I’m not sure why our family is having such a nice time just being together. I’ll never really know how a crappy hotel and terrible food gave us all such pleasure, but it did.

Sometimes people ask me when I learned to use computers. I sort of shrug, because I consider myself to be a digital native.

In the mid 80′s my brother was doing things with computers and telephones. I didn’t quite understand at the time, and right now I still don’t quite understand the advanced networking that he does, but I am comfortable and competent in my own way. 

I can’t really remember a lifetime before computers. I remember typewriters but I hardly used one after I was 10. I remember my brother’s middle school English teacher freaking out that he used a word processor to write an essay, she thought the word processor wrote the essay for him.

This machine did not write essays but it did launch careers.

I love that October 16th is Steve Jobs day because October 16th is also my brother’s birthday. Both are kind men who look amazing in black, both are brilliant but my brother… well, everything about him makes me smile.

It’s been a little bit challenging around here lately. Ever since the arrest of one of the local moms I’ve been given the silent treatment by a mutual friend. The feedback I get is, “you don’t need her anyhow”. But the reality is that I do and it’s a loss.

I’m not even mad at her because the Grifter Mom is such a talented con artist that I’m not sure I wouldn’t believe her if I was in another woman’s shoes. Fortunately I’m the mom that spent a hour on the phone with a police officer who gave me the details of the nine most recent felonies. I can’t unhear those things and I’m a lot less gullible than I was just a few months ago.

In addition to feeling like an asshole for believing a liar I feel a little lonely being shunned by the folks who were sucked into her world. Which is why I was so happy when Mr. G. came home from work with a giant box. I assumed he had a gift for me (shut up you might have thought so too). In reality he had something better than a gift for me.

“What’s in the box?” I asked him.

“An Emmy.” He said, sitting down to remove his shoes.

“Oh how fun, can we open it?” I asked, knowing that my husband has won several Emmys but since I never go to his office I haven’t actually seen one in real life.

“No, it’s for Loren.” He began, “Do you think you can give it to him or Anna tomorrow?” And then I danced around the house a little bit because I was going to get to deliver an Emmy.

I made a move to my iPhone so I could text Anna and make a plan and to say “OMG this is Loren’s first Emmy and I know there are going to be so many more because he’s SO INCREDIBLY TALENTED….” but I was interrupted by Mr. G. telling me that Loren didn’t know he’d won. So I texted Anna that I needed to see her in the morning and told the kids the fabulous secret, because everyone knows that kids can keep secrets, right? Anna and I would meet behind the school after dropping them off and I would bring her something.

This morning I got out of the car to bring Anna the giant box and she said, “Now I’m so curious what this is.” I told her it was something wonderful. She asked if it was from me or from Mr. G., I said it was from him. He face lit up, “Is it something from the Steelers?”

“It’s that awesome.”

Fifteen minutes later Anna texted me:

Wait. Is this real?

I swear I was so incredibly happy when Anna tweeted this.

This morning I was an Emmy Presenter. What did you do?

As a blogger I have a unique opportunity to tell you about brands that I interact with on regular basis. It’s easy for me to tell you when they’re not doing things right, but it’s much more difficult to show you a brand that’s exceeding my expectations. Mostly it’s difficult because I have ridiculously high expectations.

For Alexander’s tenth birthday all he wanted was a pair of Reebok Zigs. So I bought him a pair, my mom bought him a pair, and then he looked online and saw that you can personalize your zigs. I swear that little red head of his almost spun right off his shoulders. He was so excited to build his own pair of zigs that he went a little crazy and built these.

On the inside they say “I rock”. Alexander’s self esteem appears strong and healthy.

There were only two problems with Alexander’s shoes.

1. They cost $135.12 after tax and shipping
2. They take approximately 5 weeks to arrive.

Again, since it was his tenth birthday and the boy really don’t love anything quite so much as a good baseball cap or a pair of shoes I went ahead and made the purchase. They arrived a little late (I had no clue when we went to order that it would take up to five weeks) but that was fine because he had his other new zigs.

Alexander went on to wear those shoes to school every single day from August 15th until last week. Last week the sole began to separate from the shoe. Since Alexander is a little boy I’m very used to buying new shoes in quick succession, but I’m also used to paying $60 or less for a pair of shoes. When they begin to fall apart I don’t typically feel upset by it. When I pay $135 I’m looking for my son to outgrow his shoes.

So I called up Reebok and spoke a really nice lady on the phone. I explained to her that the shoes were beginning to separate from the sole and that they were about 6 weeks old. She gave me an email address and asked me to please snap a picture of the defects and send it along.

I thanked her and hung up the phone and promptly forgot all about it.

The following day I came home and there was a voicemail message to please remember to email a picture to Reebok. Are you kidding me? They’re calling me to remind me to ask for my money back? I upload the pictures and about two hours later I get a call from Reebok. They would like to send me another pair of the shoes.

I thank them profusely because they really are doing the right thing, but with a 5 week wait time we have two issues.

1. Alexander will be at least another half size larger
2. Red and Blue will no longer be interesting to him

I was put on a brief hold and the customer service representative gave me a coupon code to be used on the website for the $135.12. Alexander can pick new colors… whatever he needs.

I’m a convert. Not only do I absolutely adore Reebok for going above and beyond in a clear attempt to delight us, but I love Reebok.com because they have all your order information right there and you can forget about paper receipts and putting on pants to go out of the house.

Yesterday was the opening day for Fall Ball at the local Little League. If you follow me on Twitter then you may have taken note that the culture of Little League has a lot of parental involvement. Or possibly you might have noted my unparalled disdain for The Baseball Mom.

Little League seems to rival Pop Warner for the most involved parent awards. Unlike soccer, volleyball or tennis more than one coach is required so at least three dads are on the field at a time. Once in a while a mom makes her way onto the field, but the dads do a pretty good job of moving her along to snack duty like a good mom.

Like other sports there is a draft. Presumably this is to keep the teams balanced.

Baseball is about one kid and a ball. Unlike other sports the play is where the ball is and the spotlight is on the boy with the ball. It can be a lot of pressure on a child so moms like me supplement Little League with a pitching, catching or hitting lesson. My son goes for an hour a week and the cost is $85 an hour. To keep that in perspective a really great Math or English Tutor runs about $65 an hour.

I know it’s silly but Alexander loves those lessons and we can swing it. So why not? Why not indeed. I’m morphing into a baseball mom.

This weekend our Little League has hit their stride. You may or may not know that a season of Little League is a little over $200, then you buy a bag, bat, glove, cleats, batting gloves, and more. It’s a fairly significant expense as compared to sports like soccer or volleyball, where you pay $100 or less, join a league and buy the kids a pair of shoes and a ball. After paying the $200+ (I think it was $230 last year?) you are asked to help fund raise. This is typically where I lose interest. The fundraising supports lights on the fields… ummm I don’t want my kids there in the dark, I want them home for dinner. Sometimes the fundraisers support the off season teams, again, that’s not my boy, you’re on your own.

Apparently this year the Board of Directors of the Not For Profit Little League, which is responsible for providing young children (boys only at our park) with the opportunity to play baseball, has decided that the best way to use those tax free funds was a parent donated** drumroll please…… (more…)

This is the seventh night in a hotel, which means that this is the seventh night of Jane and Alexander having no playmates but each other other and sharing a room most nights.

One of the things I’m quite certain I got wrong was not having the kids share a room. I know that at this age they’d have to be split up already. If I could go back in time there isn’t a ton of parenting I’d like to change but this is a big one. I’d have taken my boy and my girl and I’d have put them in the same room until they asked for their own. I wouldn’t care if I had three bedrooms of thirteen.

On this vacation (like so many others we’ve taken) we all take turns running around with Alexander. Jane and Mr. G play football with him in the park, then Jane sits and reads a book while Mr. G and Alexander throw a baseball for eightybazillion hours. I rest under a tree or check out San Francisco’s Dahlia Garden, and then we buy some street food and head over to Union Square.

Jane and Mr. G are exhausted so I drag Alexander around for three more hours and wait for him to fade. It doesn’t happen quickly, but he does get a little tired of motion.

As Jane approaches thirteen she has left Alexander a bit. It used to be two kids and two adults trying to find activities, and now it’s sometimes three of us wanting to do something and then Jane is sent like a scout to convince Alexander to go along with it. She’s neither fish nor foul, certainly not an adult, certainly not a child (in her own eyes at least).

Jane and Alexander don’t seem to fight and bicker on vacation. In fact they enjoy each other more than ever, for this and this alone I’d pack up everything and become a nomad. The two people I love most in the world loving each other makes my heart swell and my eyes water.

He asks a lot of questions and he remembers the answers. Alexander is a smart little boy, sponge-like in his need to gather information. Unlike a sponge he is never full, and everything seems to be retained. At night when we put the kids to bed and over the whispers and giggles the constant that we hear is Alexander querying Jane. Her name is always part of a question, Jane? Can you… Do you… Would you…? And she dispenses information that may or may not be correct, but delights her brother. From the foyer that connects the rooms Mr. G and I eavesdrop and delight in our children. Both of them, for very different reasons.

I wish I could go back in time and give him many more years of rickety data and a shared bedroom.