Filed under: Middle Age, Misc. Humor, Posts | Tags: adulthood, children, communication, employment, humor, jobs, Middle-Age, office, office etiquette, preschool, south, southern, subourbonmom, teaching, work
Hey? Did you hear that flapping sound? That’s me, flailing around in my new job. Yep, I did it—I stopped teaching 5-year-olds so I can work with much taller 5-year-olds in the grown-up world of business.
I won’t go into all the boring details, but suffice it to say (who says “suffice it to say” anymore?), I am having to re-work some of my mental processes as I make the transition from teaching to having a “big girl job,” as my teacher friends like to call it. One of the things I decided would help me through, is to make a list of things to remember while I’m sitting in my cube:
- Do not talk about poop at work….or pee, or green boogers or vomit.
- You don’t have to get someone to stand over your cube and make sure nothing happens while you go to the bathroom.
- Crayon and markers are not acceptable modes of communication.
- Do not display your finished work on the board outside your cube.
- People can hear you if you’re whispering on a conference call (found that one out yesterday).
- You cannot tell irritating people to take a time out.
- Do not send back edits with smiley faces on them.
- There is no “Question of the Day;” there hundreds of questions (usually asked by me) every day, and the answer usually involves three emails and trying to figure out how to work the phone that has no labels.
- You don’t have to write everything in words of one syllable for the beginner readers…usually.
- Don’t expect the supply closet to be very inviting—there are no paints, stickers, glitter or construction paper, even though every office in the working world desperately needs these things.
- Sitting on the carpet to sort out your papers just looks…odd. Sit in the chair whenever possible.
- Do not spin in the chair just because it’s fun. People will look at you funny.
- Relax—no one is going to look under the bathroom stall door to see which teacher is in there with them.
- It is now safe to talk about The Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy without the fear of damaging a child’s imagination—but Santa’s still real, right? (In our house the rule is, “If you don’t believe, you don’t receive.”)
- Seriously, don’t talk about poop at work…ever.
Filed under: Misc. Humor, Parenting, Posts | Tags: adulthood, children, dances, Dancing, dresses, family, high school, humor, kids, Middle-Age, mom, parenting, prom, shopping, south, southern, subourbonmom, teenagers, teens
Ahhhh…spring. Cheers and whistles ripple across athletic fields as the sports season winds down. Pollen hangs in the air like a miasma, and prom dresses fly off the racks at all of the local stores faster than the NBA punished Mr. Sterling.
Looking at prom through parent goggles is a strange odyssey.
Let’s start with dresses. Our newspaper listed some numbers associated with prom. Apparently, the amount spent on average for prom dresses: $250 to $500. I was floored—until I went prom dress shopping. (Word to the wise—waiting until three weeks before prom is not a good idea. There are only size 00 and size 16 left.)
For a mere $100-$200, you too can own a cheaply-made dress with plunging neck- or backlines that would make Christina Aguilera blush, and enough fake jewels sewn on to make Cher look like a Quaker. God help you if you want something else—which is (thankfully) what Daughter #1 wanted: something less flashy but still long, and in a regular size.
We found a great resource, “Rent the Runway,” where you pay a minimal amount ($25-$150) to rent a brand-name runway dress for a week. While none of those dresses appealed to Daughter #1, I’m keeping it in my back pocket for the next event I have to go to. (If anybody ends up using this catalog, let me know how it works out!) In the end, we bought a beautiful dress (for you women who care, it’s a glorified maxi) that she will be able to wear a dozen times, and not get stuffed into the closet as a precursor to all the bridesmaids dresses she will be wearing in her twenties.
The average amount guys spend on a tux these days? $120.
As for transportation, I don’t think many of my friends took limos to prom. These days, the amount many teens (i.e. their parents) spend on transportation: $400.
Seriously? What’s left for the wedding?
My generation was the first (I think) to instill the school-sponsored after-prom party, which we attended for the least amount of time required before going out on our own to a party at someone’s house, and usually with a fair supply of “social enhancers” to go with us. Lately, I’ve heard some parents talking about what their kids are doing after the prom, and a couple of them mentioned the kids might be getting hotel rooms.
Um, maybe I’m out on a limb here, but I’m pretty sure nothing good ever came from a bunch of (or two) teenagers renting hotel rooms.
And of course, there’s the increasingly popular “asks” to prom: signs on overpasses, messages on car windows, and a bedroom filled with balloons, just to name a few. It sure makes my wedding proposal, which was perfectly romantic and in no way public, seem like we were Ward and June Cleaver. I would hate to be a guy and have to ask someone to prom these days—talk about pressure! It seems that if you don’t do something spectacular to ask your date, you’re just not really trying. And, if you do something spectacular, God forbid she says no. Talk about humiliation! I don’t know if I’d ever recover.
As long as we’re skirting the prom/wedding border, why don’t jewelers come up with a “prom ring?” For a mere $100 or so, you can rent a specially-designed ring for your date, which indicates she has been asked and accepted—it would help eliminate any questions or guesswork. Plus, it’s just anther step closer to an actual engagement ring.
Or why stop there? Why not just schedule spring break right after prom? Since so many kids go to the beaches or other exotic places on spring break, why not just make it a practice honeymoon? It would probably be cheaper than an actual spring break trip, since many of the Caribbean locales are just starting their off-season in May.
So again, I ask, what’s left for the wedding? Just sayin’….
Oh, and no, I didn’t forget that I promised the underwear post this time…it just had to take a backseat to prom–some rituals just need to be commented upon.
Filed under: Middle Age, Parenting | Tags: adulthood, brownies, children, cooking, driving, family, humor, kids, Middle-Age, mom, parenting, parents, soccer, south, southern, sports, subourbonmom, teenagers, teens
As many of you know, spring is an especially crazy time of year in our house: sports seasons wind down (“Has anyone seen soccer my jerseys? They were due yesterday…”) and start up simultaneously (“What do you mean none of your riding pants fit?”); prom (“A new dress is going to cost How Much???”) and general hormonal mayhem ensue (“I’m going to put all my projects off until I stress-cry”); and preschoolers finally start losing it with each other (Teacher: “Why did you poke him?” Child: “I don’t like him anymore.”).
So, my apologies for not posting for a while. I haven’t started stress crying yet, but it’s only because I don’t have time. Even now, you’re only going to get what I like to call a window post—I’m just going to give you a peek through the window of my life, so you can see what I’ve been hearing over the last couple of weeks…
Daughter #2: “Mom, if you hadn’t married Dad, we’d be ugly.”
Daughter #2: “I’m going to make sadness brownies.” A week later: “I’m going to make sickness brownies.”
Daughter #1 (driving) to Daughter #2 (behind her in the back seat): “Stop pressing on my seatbelt with your toes!”
Daughter #2: “You can feel that?”
Daughter#1: “Yes. It’s pressing into my ovaries!”
Me to Daughters: “The dishwasher makes things smell because you don’t rinse your dishes. Eggs turn into cement of you just throw the plate in the sink.”
Daughter #1: “Well, why did Dad get that dishwasher?”
Me: “It’s super-quiet and has a delay setting.”
Daughter #1: “It’s super-quiet because it’s not cleaning anything.”
Next post….”Underwear and how many pairs women supposedly have” (working title)…seriously, that’s the next one…enjoy your week beneath the fine powder of pollen.
Filed under: Middle Age, Misc. Humor, Parenting | Tags: adulthood, cell phones, children, family, humor, kids, Middle-Age, mom, parenting, sleep, sleep texting, smart phones, subourbonmom, teenagers, teens, texting
I recently read an article about “sleep texting.” Apparently, this is becoming an issue, especially with teens, who have their phone attached to their body, sucking their communication skills away as fast as the Seahawks sucked away Peyton Manning’s dreams.
This happens at my house, too!
Similar to sleepwalking, people are now reading and responding to texts while asleep. Some of those afflicted have even resorted to wearing mittens and socks to bed to prevent this from happening. Wow—that’s a generational difference. We older people have been known to wear socks with lotion in them to bed to keep our feet and hands from cracking–not so we don’t text our friends. In fact, I have no desire to hear from anybody after 8:00pm, much less contact them in my sleep.
One doctor said having your phone where you can hear it buzz while you sleep is similar to how a mother is conditioned to respond to a baby crying in the middle of the night; the slightest sound wakes her up. For those of you who had babies, you remember that sleep-deprived stage when you woke up to every little scratch and squeak your newborn made? Well, teenagers are sleeping as lightly as we did, and it is making them even more pleasant to be with during the day.
But in a world where communication is becoming such an issue, with bullying at the forefront, just imagine the drama that could ensue from sleep texting in high school. (Please note I am aware of how pathetic my attempts are at mimicking the texting shorthand Daughters 1&2 use–I still can’t bring myself to use the word “totes.”)
It’s 2:00am and “Julie” is woken up by the buzz from the phone on her night table:
Samantha: you up?
Julie: ya y?
Samantha: Jack just broke up with me
Julie (dreaming about Grey’s Anatomy, which she’s been watching non-stop since Christmas break): McSteamy?
Samantha: wut?!? Since when do you like jack… (red, angry face emoticon)
Julie: he’s hot but he likes Lexi
Samantha: Lexi? In Algebra?
Julie: Lexi loves him.
Samantha: how do u know?
Julie: they had sex
Samantha: when? how do u know? I thought she was a virgin!! (seven confused emoticons)
Julie: but he has a kid and she’s mad
Samantha: ???
Julie: (back asleep–no response)
Samantha: WTF I hate it when u do this u r so weird why don’t u answer me?
Julie: (no response—asleep)
Samantha: I knew u couldn’t b serious about it u always make a joke about everything u r supposed to be my best friend don’t even talk to me at school! (fifteen crying emoticons)
Now, imagine Julie trying to explain that she has no memory of sending those texts to an irate Samantha, just after Samantha has crucified Lexi and Jack at school. (is there a shaking head with pity emoticon?)
Filed under: Middle Age, Misc. Humor, Parenting | Tags: adulthood, children, Christmas, Christmas Trees, family, Holidays, humor, kids, Letters to Santa, Middle-Age, mom, parenting, parents, Santa, subourbonmom, teenagers, teens, Traditions
Like everything with teenagers, Christmas at this age is a mixed sack of coal and gifts.
These days, we no longer have to scramble to hide their gifts and the special Santa wrapping paper (which I found out later they already knew about). Now, I just remind the family, “If you don’t believe, you don’t receive” (we all receive, and there is no mention of the questionable fat man in a body stocking stuffing himself into our chimney like a sausage.) We no longer stay up until 1:00am putting together brightly-colored plastic, cursing every Chinese company that decided heavy-duty plastic was a good idea. But we also don’t have those magical moments, like when the kids would pause at the top of the stairs and survey the loot under the tree like they had found the Holy Grail; or the morning Daughter #1 burst into tears on Christmas Day. When I asked her why, she said, “I’m just so happy!”
I also miss letters to Santa. Every year, the girls would carefully compose their letters to Santa, or dictate them to me. We would address them to the North Pole and stick them in the mailbox. About a week later, our wonderful mail carrier would deliver a hand-written letter back, addressed to each child by name. These days, I get gift list updates from my kids via email and text (from the next room), with links to the different catalogs and stores for my shopping ease.
But one thing that is definitely better is the tradition of getting the tree. We still go to the same lot, and we still wander around letting the girls make the decision. But now, the girls can articulate their opinions:
Daughter #1: “I don’t like this one—it has a hole.”
Daughter #2: “Your face is a hole.”
Me: Sigh….
Hubby: “What about his one?”
Daughter #1: “I don’t like it. It lacks originality.”
Decorating the tree is also better. Now the girls can put the ornaments higher than our knees. They re-hash the family trips we’ve taken, since we try to get an ornament form each new place (“Mom, do you remember the time Aunt Cindy tried to get on the ski tube and her face landed in your lap?”–followed by hysterical laughing). Unfortunately, they also like tinsel, and every year they glob it on heavier than Troy Polamalu’s hair, and every year I take a little off each day, trying to minimize the tackiness (of the tree, not Troy’s hair).
But the best thing about having teenagers during Christmas is that even though they send me shopping lists on-line, and they no longer burst into spontaneous tears of joy, they appreciate the family time. As I write this, they are decorating the tree, laughing over the toilet paper tube ornaments and debating whether the Redskins are worthy of having their ornaments adorn our tree (we’re hardcore fans, so they’re going on, but with serious reservations). They may not remember all the toys or the letters to Santa, but I hope they will remember the time we spend together.
Subourbon Mom 