Margarita Mama

More Happy than Sad

Wow, I finally did it. All three of my children in the same school, at the same time! Don't get me wrong, I feel some major tugs on the heart strings when I watch my little baby go off to kindergarten. But it really helps that she only goes for 2.5 hours. So she and I still get to spend the afternoon together. She's not really gone yet. Next year, maybe it'll be more difficult. I don't know. But I have to laugh, the woman who cuts my hair, Mandy, told me of her awful experience last week. She mistakenly started cheering to a client of hers about how the children would be back in school. Mandy said the woman became very pissed and said "How could you talk about your children that way? I MISS my children when they're at school." HA! Ok, when Rodrigo first went to first grade, I missed him a little, it was odd having him gone for so many hours. But after I got used to having them at school all day, when the end of summer comes, (sometimes when the end of a long weekend comes) I'm ready for them to be in the normal routine, and they are too, by the way.  My kids love school. Sylvia couldn't wait to go this morning. She was very disappointed that school was cancelled due to power outages on Friday.

I've had many crazy psychopaths ask me what I'm going to do with "all that time". Well, first of all, we usually walk to and from school. Even if I share the walking with neighbors; seriously parents, 2.5 extra hours in your day is nothing. Maybe half of what we need to start catching up on all that we're behind on I'd say. I always look at the idiots who ask me that question and say, "Don't worry, I have a list." I still haven't fully recovered or organized my life from the period when I was simultaneously working and moving. There are things to be done. Honestly, no thumb twiddling or bon-bon eating going on over here.

Embarrassing

We went out to dinner at Noodles the other evening and Clara kept complaining about how embarrassing Sylvia was. The way she was dancing was embarrassing, why is she walking that way? No longer is Sylvia the cute little baby doll for Clara to play with, she's officially graduated to annoying little sister. And boy does Sylvia play the part well. As soon as she caught wind that she was embarrassing Clara she began to dance wackier and talk louder. She knew she was being funny.

Clara and Rodrigo began talking about something that happened "before Sylvia was born" and Sylvia got this evil grin on her face and said at the top of her lungs, "So, how do you make a baby anyway?" I couldn't help but be overwhelmed by her comic timing. The mortified look on Clara's face was priceless. We've been talking about periods and reproduction, (just Clara and I) so she has an inkling of how it all works. Rodrigo (who knows the WHOLE story now) looked at me expectantly. I actually began to giggle. Looking back, I'm trying to figure out: how does Sylvia know that the topic of making babies is an embarrassing one?

The Terrible Tweens

Clara's always been an early bloomer. I don't really know the official age when the tweens begin, but she's SO there. She took all her winnings from her solo and duet at dance competition this year (when she places first she gets about $50 or $75, which is hysterical when I think about how much I spend on dance) and she bought herself a pink IPod Nano.

She kind of wiped herself out financially, but instead of letting her learn her lesson and wait until a birthday or until she earns some more money, Miguel took Clara to the store today and bought her an ITunes gift card. (way to go Dad). Because, you know, there weren't enough cd's in the house for her to go through.

After her first session, she had downloaded 5 songs. Unfortunately, Rodrigo helped her and the session was not supervised by me. So she ended up with a couple of Hannah Montanna (Disney Channel) songs and then you know that song Glamorous? "No". Oh and Also. Fergalicious?

K, because I've been to a billion dance competitions I happen to be aware of that lovely tune. So I said, "Is that song appropriate for you?" This is where Rodrigo pipes in and says, "Don't worry Mom, we downloaded the CLEAN version."  (Duh, mom, it's ok to listen to skanky hip hop music if they substitute "mother-father" for "mother-fucker". I did hear that once. But it wasn't a Fergie song. I don't even know if she uses that term. But that's not the point.) So I said to Clara, "You are 8, and you shouldn't be listening to music that has a clean version." And she said, "But Mom, she's Emily's favorite singer and she's like a month younger than me."

Seriously, I don't know if I'm going to make it through all this. I just gave her a book about periods, and now she's listening to music that's probably played in every strip club in America.

Oxymoron

My mini van takes the cheap gas, if you can even call it that anymore. It took my breath away this afternoon, when I went to fill up my tank, with the 87 grade gas, and the tank took over $80 to fill! This is a threshold I have not yet passed. I remember when $50 was a big deal.

Don't get me started on the RIDICULOUS piece on NPR that compared the cost for a family of four to travel from DC to Boston, by air, bus, train and car. And came to the conclusion that gas would have to get to $15 a gallon before families would abandon their cars as a cheaper way to travel. Excuse me? Am I supposed to feel better about my $80 tank of gas after hearing that? I also know people who last summer flew their entire family to Boston from Chicago on a Southwest fare for the same price that it cost us to drive there and back because we had to also stay in a hotel one night each way, and eat meals.

And what the hell is up with TV screens at the gas stations? Must we be entertained while we pump gas? I suppose it will help the time go by more quickly when I'm standing there in the frigid cold waiting for the tank to fill up, but today I found it royally annoying. I'm not a child who needs to be entertained every second of the day. I can think thoughts while I'm pumping gas, or make faces at my kids through the windows, or stare off into space. Can't a person stare off into space anymore? Today, while pumping gas I learned that "There is a reason all cars come with safety belts". Wow, shouldn't all people old enough to pump gas already be aware of that fact? And I learned that "All children deserve to be loved."

Then they cleaned out my bank account.

Then Julio (seriously, he introduced himself) came up to me to offer me a free demo of this great wax product they were trying to sell. Dude, I just put $80 worth of gas in my van, I don't care if it's shiny or not, as long as it runs, k? As I brushed him off, he said "Ma'am, I can get rid of that paint transfer here." He points as I close the door in his face. Julio. I just put $80 worth of gas in my car! I don't care if you vomit fluorescent green acid onto my hood; I would not be interested in spending any money to fix it.

Our VW does not take the cheap gas, while it's tank is smaller, I shudder to think what it will cost to fill that thing up.

Growing up too fast

I've recently finished a major overhaul of all three kids' rooms (for some reason, the rooms are still messy, go figure) And Clara and Rodrigo are 100% grown out of those cute "kiddie" hangers I used to buy at Target by the dozen to keep up with their ever expanding wardrobes. They have big people clothes on their bodies that are rapidly growing almost as tall as mine! I had kind of already switched over Rodrigo, but even he had a couple of things hanging on the itty bitty hangers.

It was just an odd milestone, removing the little hangers from their closets, admitting after kind of using both for the past year or two and constantly picking clothes off the floor  when they slid off the itty-bitty hangers.  Their coats I've been hangning on adult hangers for quite some time, but their closets have been stocked with the same red, white and blue plastic hangers that held their onesies. Sylvia can still use them, but um, I've got like 3 kids worth of plastic hangers in my house if anybody's interested?? I am on a MAJOR cleaning out rampage, so they won't last long.

How I spent my Spring Break

Wow, once you turn 10 it's all down hill from there!

From the High Society of the ballet at the Civic Opera House on Sunday:

To Friday night, hanging with the boys at a bar, playing pool and listening to shady characters playing the blues:

Whew

You won't believe this, but back in December I got my panties all in a twist about dry cat food after reading on some website about how wet cat food is so much closer to a cat's natural diet. And how it contains so much more water and that keeps them from having all those kidney/urinary problems that older cats can have. Well, I went out and bought the best canned cat food on the market, which was some kind of Nutro brand and gave it to the cats. Coco loved it, but would only eat a small portion of her half of a can made for kittens. Snowbelle would sniff it, look at me with one of those slow, deliberate blinks that is universal cat language for "Whatever, bitch" and walk away. After throwing away most of several cans of cat food and deciding that the stuff stinks too much for my taste; I basically gave it up. But then I spotted the "cuts and gravy" style bags. Surely the kittens would find these interesting! I bought 5 bags and over the course of a few days split 4 of them between the kittens to see if they would find them more interesting. Coco licked the gravy off of her portion. Snowbelle turned her nose up and walked away. She may very well have saved her and her sister's lives. I gave up because I didn't want her to starve and I wasn't about to feed them two different diets. I was buying the very brand they are recalling, in the timeframe it's being recalled. I had forgotten about the 5th bag. I threw it away last weekend. Wow, that was a close one.

Pet Food Recall

10!?

Last night at 10:35pm, I became the mother of a 10  year old boy. Here he is, on his 5th birthday, standing in front of his sister exactly 1 month before she came into this world:

What a cutie. Let's see what a difference 5 years can make:

Gasp! I've got heels on here. We have a running bet as to whether or not he will pass me up in height before he leaves 5th grade.

The prevailing thought I've had about motherhood these past few months is "How do put this thing on pause"  Between my son passing into the double digits and registering my baby for kindergarten, it's been one scary milestone after another.

It's all good. I want nothing more than to raise independent, intelligent human beings who eventually leave me alone for a couple of days at a time. But it's all happening so fast, I can't keep up anymore! And we're in a really good place where we can do fun things together, so its a good place to pause and enjoy. We can all have fun together now and I don't have to stop and change anybody's diaper or worry about them falling down the steps or running out into the street.

Speaking of fun and growing up. We took the kids on their first trip to the Civic Opera house to see ABT perform Romeo and Juliet. We knew we were being a little bit ambitious with Sylvia not quite being 5. But she loved the Nutcracker (a local one, not the Joffrey) and she has sat through so much dance over the years, we just knew that she'd be fine. Anyway, Miguel and I wanted to go, and we knew Clara would love the ballet and we told Rodrigo to sit back and enjoy to the live orchestra as he happens to be very into playing his violin lately. As it turned out, there was a ton of sword fighting between the Capulet and Montague families, so I caught Rodrigo enjoying the show more than he said he would.

Afterwards, we checked into an Embassy Suites in the very touristy section of town, just off Michigan Ave and we ended up having dinner at this great Italian place called Quartino. You gotta love a place who's motto is "Where wine is cheaper than water" The menu was structured a lot like a Spanish tapas place. So this worked well with the children, even though they didn't have kid's meals, we could order them pizzas and pastas, and then Miguel, Clara and I could order and share all the good seafood and meats and enjoy them. Have you guys ever been there? We're totally bringing Miguel's parents back there.

Then we took Rodrigo to the planetarium for his birthday. What an awesome day to be hanging out along the lake front.

And a good time was had by all.

Going To Hell in a Grocery Basket

After 9 days of unrelenting viruses, (3 different ones passed between 3 children) I had decided that although Rodrigo's fever was gone I was NOT sending the kid back to school for one last day before spring break, to bring home yet another illness to top it all off. He's still tired. He wasn't contagious though, so I took him out for a much needed haircut. Sylvia came with, as she was also enjoying her first fever free day in sometime. Clara, still feverish, we left in bed, with Miguel working at home.

It felt really GOOD to be out of the house. We stopped at the grocery store for Orange Juice and a man I had never seen before asked me to come check out in his line. Sylvia, like she does all the 800 other times per month we are at that exact same grocery store, had the gall to ask for a "sticker". You know, those orange "paid" Dominick's stickers they hand out so freely on any other occassion? Well, my daughter, who just got over the illness of the century asked him for a sticker and he looked at me and he said "The stickers only go on store products." This store happens to be located right next store to Sylvia's preschool. And being the scatter-brained mom of 3, I cannot pull it together enough to set foot in that store less than 4-5 per week. In the last 8 years that I have been bringing young children into said store; I have never, ever encountered such a policy.

As I gave him the look of disbelief and considered what the hell to say in response, Sylvia said to me "Mom, why won't that man give me a sticker?" And, I stood there and I said in a really loud voice "Because that man is an asshole" And she stopped blinking back her tears and just blinked a few times in surprise, looked at Rodrigo, who smiled and shrugged, and then we walked away. I didn't look at the guy again.

Maybe it was too early for us to go back out in public.

Ask and You Shall Recieve

Jackie wants to know how I found time to read with all the sickness in the house?? Ha, ha! Only because I demanded some alone time after my whole week alone with the kids! My week alone was going well. My drive to get house projects done was humming right along. We've got grandparents from Portugal coming to see the new house this summer and the house is going to be completely unpacked and decorated and lovely (goddammit!). Shelves were going up on the walls, closets were being gone through. I thought I was going to have all the kids rooms done last week. Heh. Heh.

Then Tuesday night Sylvia told me she had no underwear. I convinced her that it was ok for girls to sleep commando, that Clara and I do it all the time and she should to anyway and that I'd have clean underwear for her to wear the next day. So she did and when she woke up the next morning, her underwear was in the dryer, waiting for her. But we are lazy and don't get dressed first thing in the morning, because Rodrigo and Clara walk themselves to school. Well, at 10:30, I got a call from the school to come and get Rodrigo because he had a fever. We threw clothes on, and went to get him. By the time I got him settled and Sylvia her lunch, it was time for pre-school and the underwear in the dryer was completely forgotten. And so I would like to now and forever thank Sylvia for NOT having some freak potty accident at school that day. The teachers would have been like, "Why isn't this kid wearing any underwear?" I am already "that mom" who is always late. Thank you Sylvia for not making me into "that mom" who sent her daughter into pre-school without any underwear on. Heh. Heh.

So I spent the rest of last week NOT reading, and NOT doing house projects, but just making sure that Rodrigo was ok, and didn't spread his germs to the girls because we had our first dance competition last Saturday. Rodrigo was able to compete with the help of some judiciously timed Motrin. Miguel made his first appearance as a drag queen and lived to tell the tale. And Clara performed a jazz solo on stage in front of a couple hundred people, and I have to say, she really rocked the joint. When they gave out awards in the overall Petite Solo categories, Clara won 1st place! All of their dances did very well and it was a good start to their competition season despite the invasion of influenza B.

As to how I managed to finish a book in the middle of all of this? I declared, after the week I had endured that Sunday was my day to close the door to the bedroom and NOT COME OUT. When you're a mom nobody is ever handing out the free time, you've got to reach out and grab some for yourself.

Of course, my day in bed was cut short as Clara woke me up at 6am vomiting! Once I saw that she was doing quite well at getting it all in the toilet, I asked her to start bugging her father. He managed the kids for half the day and I resolutely kept the door closed and sat on my butt reading for a couple of hours. Not the day I had planned, but I still snuck in a little relaxation between viruses.

Check out my next installment, when you too can learn how to lose 4 lbs in 2 days! (Hint: it involves catching your daughters' stomach flu).