It's a Sign

I've got this morning routine.

I wake up and IMMEDIATELY go to the bathroom sink and brush my teeth.  I don't pass Go, collect $200, or even start a cup of coffee.  I brush my teeth.

And there's really only one kind of toothpaste that I like.  It's Crest, and it's cinnamon flavored.

Yesterday morning, true to form, I woke up, hit the bathroom, grabbed a tube of toothpaste off of the counter, squirted it onto my toothbrush and stuck the thing in my mouth.

Not cinnamon.

Not even mint.

Bubble gum.

I would like fifteen minutes alone in a room with whoever thought it was a good idea to make bubble gum flavored toothpaste.

Anyway, I took this as a sign that yesterday was going to be, in the famous words of a little boy named Alexander, "a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad, day."

But it wasn't.

It was a great day!  The weather was beautiful. I had a great morning with some of my dear friends. I found hardback copies of all of the "Divergent" books for J dirt cheap at Costco.  I found OU vinyl clings at our Target for N.  OU stuff--at a Target in Southern California.  I'm still confused, but whatever.  We've been looking for some for months and I finally found them.  I spent the evening with my kiddos eating homemade macaroni and cheese and watching The Voice.  Then J and I read in bed for awhile before turning in.  It seriously was a really great day!

So this morning, I double-checked the tube of toothpaste when I woke up.  My brushing routine went off without a hitch. I took this as a sign that today was going to be a great day.

  I looked at the clock, remembered it was my spring break, and decided to start my great day by going back to bed for a little bit.  I had some extra time, due to late start at the high school on Wednesdays.

I apparently cannot read signs.

I woke up half-an-hour later completely panicked.  Sometime during my morning doze I remembered that Corb had to be at school an hour earlier than usual due to a field trip.  Good thing he's a boy, because he totally ROCKED getting ready in fifteen minutes.  We even got him to school with five minutes to spare.  I dropped him off, pulled out of the parking lot at school, and the phone rang.

"Mom, you're gonna kill me, but I left my permission slip at home.  And we're leaving in 10 minutes."

It's kind of hard to be rip-roaring mad at your kid for his lack of responsibility, when some of it is your fault.

I drove all the way back home, got the permission slip, and took it back to the school.  Then I went back home to pick up J and take her to school.  While I was waiting for her to get ready, I turned the water on in the pool.  The level had gotten a bit low.  I set the timer on the stove to remind me to turn it off when I got back from dropping her off.

J was out of sorts this morning.  Math tests do that to me, too, so I totally get it. But it made for a less than ideal ride in the car.  I got her delivered to her school and then headed BACK home to pick up Nelly, who has late start on Wednesdays.

By this time I'd been driving my car for an hour and used close to a quarter of a tank of gas.  I still hadn't had a shower or a cup of coffee.  But my teeth were clean and shiny!

When I got home, our power was off.  The security system was beeping, I needed some information off of the computer,  Nelly was trying to get ready for school with no electricity.  Lucky we have lots of natural light in our house.

And in the mad dash to try to find out what are electric company is even CALLED out here to try to look up the number and report the outage, I completely forgot that I was topping off the pool.  And since the timer on the stove that I set is electric, well...

I dropped Nelly off at school, went back to J's school and did some volunteer work (which went pretty well considering no coffee) and headed home.  As I pulled into the driveway, I remembered about the pool.

My pool is now VERY full.  I am certain it is also now VERY cold.  And our next water bill is going to be VERY high.

So now I'm going to go pour that cup of coffee I've been needing since 6:30 and try to head off the rip-roaring headache that I know is coming.  I'm going to grab a book, set my alarm on my phone for 12:45 (when I need to head out to pick J up from school) and spend the rest of this "terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad, day" outside reading.

I had grandiose plans to clean the kitchen and start de-junking the garage, but with the kind of day I'm having, I'm going to play it safe.

Especially since I'm still not sure where the nearest hospital is located.

Things I Love About Living Here 2

I looked at the calendar the other day and realized that I have been a California resident for over six months.

Some days, it feels like it's been the longest six months in the history of my life.

Other times, it feels like we moved here yesterday. This could be because there are still unpacked boxes in my garage and pictures leaning against the walls where I'd like them to be hung.  Someday.

Looking at my calendar reminded me that I was going to put a note on my calendar to remind myself to periodically add to my list of things that I love about living here that I wouldn't have back in Kansas.

I never put the note on the calendar.  My personal road to hell is TOTALLY paved with good intentions.

But since I remembered I was going to do it, and I can't think of anything else to write about, today seems as good of a day as any to add to the list.

So in addition to Trader Joe's (which I now love even more than I did last August--totally due to the fact that a few months ago, a checker-guy had bona-fide plans to card me for my "alcohol" purchase until he realized I was buying olive oil), I would like to add the following things to my slowly growing list:

~The weather. I love that 50 degrees is "freezing."  I love that I feel justified in being completely teed off at weather.com if they post a high of 71 and it turns out to be 75.  I love that the difference between 71 and 75 here is a seasonal wardrobe change.

~Snow.  Yes.  You read that correctly.  I LOVE snow in Southern California.  Snow in Southern California is very well-behaved.  It knows its boundaries, limits, and purpose.  It stays where it's supposed to.  On the mountains, where I can see it as I stand in my 70 degree yard.  Where I can visit it and ski on it if I want to. Where it will eventually melt and replenish our depleting water supply. It doesn't intrude where it isn't wanted.  It's never in my yard, on my street, or covering my driveway.

~No state assessment tests for students K-8.  This is a fleeting thing.  Just for this year. But still. I think it was super-decent of the state of California to give teachers and students a free pass on testing this first year while everyone tries to figure out Common Core.

~I can buy wine at the grocery store.  And at Target.  And at Walgreens.  And on Sundays, even.  And since I don't know anyone, no one judges me for it.

~Bicycle helmets are legally mandated for anyone under 18.  My kids will actually ride bikes to school here and I'm no longer considered the crazy mom who wants my kid to look like a nerd and have no friends.  At least not as far as bike helmets go.  I'm working on figuring out how to get that job back, though.  I've kind of missed it.

~Two words.  Cheap. Produce.  Like, three entire reusable bags of fresh produce for under $25.  And year-round farmer's markets on Sunday mornings.

That's it.  For now.

Now lest you think I've become some blow sunshine all over the place Pollyanna, a quick reality check:

I'm still lonely.

Watching our kids play baseball here is one of the loneliest things I do.  We miss the kids' old teammates and their families and their coaches with a fierceness that is physically painful.

The traffic still sucks.

They still let kids out of school an hour early for the ENTIRE week of parent-teacher conferences.  I'm still not sure what parents did to teachers in years' past to get paid back with that one.

Stuff is still way too expensive.

There seems to be a corporate attitude of Bigger and More Expensive = Better and Necessary.  And yet the way all of these programs and activities seem to want to fund this mind-set is to ask me for money.  Or worse--to ask my kids to beg it from innocent family members and friends.

But it's growing.  Slowly, but surely...the list of good things about this place is growing.  So that's something.

Fleeting Moments

I love my children.

I want them to have happy childhoods.  I want them to look back on growing up and feel like they'd give the experience at least three-and-a-half out of five stars.

So we've put them in activities.  We've had play-dates and sleepovers.  I've baked birthday cakes and made Halloween costumes.  We've volunteered to be sponsors for stuff.

But all of this is contrary to my personality.

I'm not a joiner by nature.  I don't feel comfortable with it.  I don't want to be the room parent, sit on the executive committee of the PTA or be in the booster club.

I watch people who do this sort of stuff and like it.  I'm even friends with them.  I admire them.  But I don't understand them.  At all.

So when we moved here I figured that I could be more true to my personality.  My kids are older.  The parents of the kids they go to school with aren't my friends, so I don't care what they think about my involvement--or lack thereof.

I've somewhat adopted a "don't ask" and "don't offer unless specifically asked" policy.

If my kids don't ask to do it, I don't offer it.  If someone doesn't specifically ask me to do something, I don't volunteer.

When the automated computer calls every evening from the school, I don't answer.

I know.  Lazy.

J brings me the papers in her backpack once every three months or so.  I think when it gets so full that she can't get her own stuff in it anymore.  The last time she brought me the stack I realized we had missed deadlines for a basketball camp, volleyball camp, after school choir program, and tryouts for the community theater musical.  I don't ask for her papers every day because honestly?  I don't want to know.  I don't want to know that I'm supposed to be selling raffle tickets, getting sponsors for a Spell-A-Thon, making soup for teachers, or taking my kid to a dance team clinic.

I'm already overwhelmed by the position papers, debates, and science fair projects that are for a grade.   And frankly, that stuff already takes way too much time away from the full-scale depression and pity-party I'm trying to have here.

Enter the elementary school sock hop.

I got the email last week sometime.  It said "sock hop" in the subject line.  I didn't even open it.  Whatever it was, I wasn't interested.

But then J and a friend were hanging out one day.  And J's friend's mother mentioned it.  In front of J.  As in, "Is J going to the sock hop on Friday?"

You know where this is going, I'm sure.  Yep.  Sock Hop.

Which meant a costume.  No problem.  We have a dress-up box.  It has a poodle skirt in it.  With a huge sticky stain on it.  Fantastic.

So one late night and four hours of sleep later, we had this:

Poodles are so 1950.  The 2014 sock hop girl wears a cat skirt.

These people who organize this stuff weren't born last night, that's for sure.  Turns out, this sock hop isn't drop-off. If your kid wants to go, you have to stay.  It's sold as a fun evening for the "whole family."  Which I totally get.  I do.  You couldn't pay me enough to be in charge of any activity where as many as 800 kids might be left in my care with no parent supervision.  It's why I've never aspired to be an elementary school principal.  Ever.

But let's face it. There's nothing about this evening that was going to be fun for MY whole family.  

So at 6 pm on Friday night, J, her friend, and I head to the school for two hours of sock hop fun.  They looked amazing.  Really.

And I prepared to endure two hours in a dark multi-purpose room, surrounded by hundreds of strangers.  Say what you want about e-reader apps on smartphones, but the Kindle app has proved to be a very faithful friend in these situations.  

I told the girls to have a great time, found a corner, and settled in with my "book."

I'm not a totally rotten mother.  I looked up every now and then to check on the girls.

And as the evening wore on, I found myself looking up more and reading less.

There was a "best dressed" contest.  These guys got second place.  

It may be second place, but it got the best prize.

I watched my girl giggle, dance, laugh, and hang out with her girlfriends.  

She even dragged ME out on the floor and tried to teach me some moves.  The upside of knowing absolutely no one is that I don't think the dance lesson disaster was caught on film anywhere.

At some point during the course of the evening my perspective changed.  

Instead of seeing this experience as a "good mom duty,"  I began to view it as the treasure it truly was.

My baby girl is twelve.  

There will be more dances.  Some of them will even have themes.

But all too soon, they will start being drop-off.  

There's a possibility that she will promise me anything she can think of to keep me from volunteering to chaperon them.  

Instead of giggling and laughing and dancing with her girlfriends in a costume that I got to help make, she'll shyly navigate dancing with boys.  She'll tell me that she's not wearing a costume, because none of her friends are.

Some day, boys will come pick her up at our house and take her to these dances.  My job will be to pay for the dress and  take some "before" pictures for her to post on Instagram.

Hopefully, she'll still come home with a smile on her face and tell me that she had "the best time," but it will be a different kind of "best time."  

In the grand scheme of things, this is such a short season of her life.  And last Friday night was an inconsequential event.

But I'm so glad I got to be a part of it.