A Note To The Middle Child

Dear Charlie,

Since you have officially started working on the 6th grade end-of-year biography project and we will be spending a lot of time talking about your life up to this point, I thought I should take a minute to let you know how proud I am of you. I know that I get mad, and yell, and scream, and sometimes you may think that my eyeballs are actually going to come shooting out of my head, but at the end of the day when you are asleep and I'm finally able to sit down with a drink in my hand, I am proud of you.

You were the easiest baby imaginable, then you were an easy-going toddler and even now, in your last year of elementary school, you're still a pretty great kid. Sure, we've had our moments of disagreement -- like that time you forged my signature on a missing assignment notice and I found the dreaded piece of paper in your backpack two weeks later -- but we always manage to work things out.

Since it seems that sometimes the bad moments are more memorable than the good and I'm not well known for dishing out excessive amounts of praise, consider this note as my way of being a dorky mom, embarassing you and saying "job well done" and "way to go."

• I love that even though you will never turn down a violent video game, you have a soft spot for every animal created and are still trying to convince me that we should get a cat, even though we're all allergic.
• I love that you never complain about wearing hand-me-downs.
• I love that you enjoy vacations on the beach as much as I do. I will never forget when our week in Jamaica came to an end, we got on the plane and as soon as the landing gear left the tarmac, you burst into tears.
• I love that you never get sick.
• I love watching you practice the piano while wearing tennis clothes or a baseball uniform.
• I love that you could care less about having your own iPod.
• Even though your sister yells at you almost more than me, I love that you will still voluntarily play with her and laugh at the funny things she does.
• I love that you never ask me to take a trip to hell so that you can attend "Turkey Bingo, Spring Fling" or any of the other school fundraisers.
• I know this makes me slightly irresponsible, but I love listening to you rip on the dorky things that other sixth grade kids do.
• And I love listening to you rip on their parents even more.
• I love that, until recently, you still believed in Santa Claus.

I know that there are times that I am frustrated and sometimes I wonder if you might be deaf, blind, clueless, illiterate and, even though you're standing upright, asleep, but I am also constantly impressed with your intelligence, athleticism, musical ability and generosity.

There are only about three months left in this school year and then you will be headed to the junior high with your brother. Before September arrives, though, there are three things I can guarantee for the summer vacation:

1. We're going to be spending a lot of time at the pool.
2. At some point, but hopefully not everyday, I'll yell.
3. I love you.

As far as the biography project goes, let me know if you want to include this picture since it seems to sum up your personality better than any of the others I found:

Jr High Choir Attire

When Zach brought home all of the information from his various classes at the beginning of the school year, I made a list of all the supplies needed for each class. In addition to the standard items like notebooks, folders and pencils, he needed colored pencils, a flash drive, a TI30 calculator, graph paper and combination locks. Surprisingly, though, the class requiring the most expensive supplies turned out to be choir.

There are three choir concerts during the school year and the boys are required to wear black pants, a white dress shirt, a tie and dress shoes to these concerts. Because he plays in several piano recitals each year, Zach is unlucky enough to already own a pair of dress shoes, which is lucky for me since I hate shoe shopping for my boys and the choir teacher has pointed out no fewer than half-a-dozen times that no tennis shoes are allowed. I headed to Target to find the shirt and pants and judging by the depleted stock of size 14 black pants and XL white shirts, I was not the only one spending over $50 on two articles of clothing that would be worn exactly three times before they were outgrown.

Imagine my surprise when the rehearsals for the second concert started and Zach brought me a note from the choir teacher saying that gee, the kids are working really hard and learning new songs for the Disney-themed concert and gosh, wouldn't it be fun and wacky if the kids all wore matching t-shirts with a Disney logo on them for the low price of $10? I thought, um, of course it wouldn't. I have a perfectly good pair of almost-new black pants and a white shirt hanging in the kid's closet specifically for choir concerts. I even ironed goddammit!

Assuming it would be useless for me to complain, I filled out the t-shirt order form, wrote out the check using my 24-pt. "I'm Annoyed" font and handed it to Zach. It was then that I noticed that I could be generous and offer to pay for one, two, or even more shirts for other kids who may not have the financial means to purchase an extra shirt at this time. Okay, so if the school thought that some families might be financially inconvenienced by having to purchase a $10 t-shirt after they've already bought the previously required dress pants, shirt and dress shoes, wouldn't a person with as little as 25% brain function think maybe the matching $10 t-shirt idea is stupid? I guess this says a lot about his choir teacher.

I didn't offer to pay for any additional shirts because I was hoping that if enough kids didn't turn in their order forms and money maybe they would chuck the whole idea into the incinerator and just let the kids wear whatever they already owned. Unfortunately this did not happen and Zach brought the shirt home on Tuesday, the day of the concert:

After the concert I asked Zach what he wanted to do with this fine piece of blue apparel and he said to just throw it away, but I'm thinking that maybe I'll add it to the same pile that my dog shit-stained Gap sweats are in. I'm also prepared to shop for another dress shirt and pair of black pants for the May concert since, due to Zach's growth spurt, I'm pretty sure he's outgrown the one-time-worn pants hanging in his closet. Oh, and if I haven't mentioned this before, I am ready for this school year to be over.

Yes, They Practice

When people find out that Zach and Charlie take piano lessons, one of the first questions they ask is, "How old were they when they started lessons," and then they always ask, "How do you get them to practice?" Zach started lessons when he was four, Charlie was six, Zoe will start this fall and as far as practicing, it depends on the day.

Thanks to the monotony of Monday through Friday I never have to remind them to practice during the week because it's something that has become as automatic as brushing their teeth or being a smart ass. But any time there is a change to our schedule, like a day off from school or a weekend, I usually have to remind at least one of them that the piano isn't in our house for decorative purposes.

Did their practicing schedule fall into place the instant they started lessons? No way. After the initial excitement wore off, they discovered that learning how to play the piano is hard. It took at least three or four years before they actually wanted to practice and wanted to get better without being reminded by me, in a very loud voice, to put their ass on the piano bench five times a week.

Fortunately for me, the boys are both really competitive and don't like to publicly suck at the things that they have put time into. They've both seen other students show up at recitals unprepared and have watched them cry on stage, make huge errors, and sometimes even forget how to play their song. Neither of them ever wants to go through this embarrassing experience and they know that the only way to be prepared is to practice.

Since I took several years of piano lessons while growing up and still try to play when I have time, I think that a big motivator for them is that they want to be better than me. After all, they can kick my ass at tennis, they're better at video games than me, so eventually being able to play more difficult piano pieces is bound to happen. I figured since Zach's been taking lessons for about 10 years, I still have a slight advantage over him. And then I took a look at what he's currently learning:

Hmm...maybe I'll start encouraging him to not practice and I should be putting my ass on that piano bench more often.

P.S. Happy birthday, dad. Thanks for paying for all my piano lessons.

The Brown Stain, Vol. 2

Now that March has arrived and the temperature is slowly rising the snow and ice is finally melting. While this is great for the streets and sidewalks, it's not so great for our backyard and more specifically, our patio. I guess I should be happy that the dog finally quit crapping on the deck and I don't have to look at the equivalent of an overturned outhouse every time I open the door. But unfortunately now that the snow melted on the patio, we have a turd field that is visible from the great room window. Over the weekend I got sick of staring at the ever-expanding appetite suppressant so I ventured out there wearing shoes that I didn't care about and a pair of rubber gloves. During this disgusting half-hour of my life, I discovered the following:

• My dog shits a lot.
• A pooper scooper is useless on previously frozen dog shit, and instead creates the visual equivalent of a poop snow cone.
• A garden trowel is a multi-seasonal tool and can be used to scoop more than just dirt.
• Maybe stapling a dog's ass shut shouldn't be considered abuse.
• A sense of smell is an overrated luxury, and should come with a switch.
• A gag reflex is easier to trigger than I thought.

To think that this is only round one of the spring de-shitting makes my head spin, but considering the fact that our dog is really old and hasn't ventured off of the deck or patio since it snowed, there can't be much crap in the yard. If spending one disgusting, nausea-inducing, hellacious Sunday morning dealing with dog shit is the grossest thing I'll have to do for the next month, then I guess I can handle it. After all, moms deal with gross things all the time, right?

While Doug and I were watching a movie on Sunday evening, the dog wandered over to where I was sitting on the floor and actually sat on my lap so that I could pet him. By now I had pretty much forgotten about the horrific experience that had occurred just nine hours earlier, so I happily scratched his ears and said "good dog" instead of "get away from me you stinky shit factory." After a couple minutes he left, which is good because something was starting to smell weird.

After he got up, I pulled my knees up and noticed a sticky brown smudge on my leg (and of course I was wearing my favorite cream-colored Gap sweats). At first I thought maybe I had sat on a chocolate chip from the trail mix that the kids were eating earlier, and even though I hate chocolate and the thought of chocolate on my pants pissed me off I really hoped that it was a chocolate chip, because if it wasn't a chocolate chip then that means it was...(sniff sniff) OH MY GOD! THERE IS DOG SHIT ON MY LEG! MY DOG WIPED HIS ASS ON MY LEG!

I guess when I go out in a month and complete the disgusting chore of picking up the winter crap I won't bother using another pair of rubber gloves because I'll just use my favorite Gap sweats instead. Stupid gross dog leaving shit on my leg. Yuck.

BINGO!

A few nights ago while we were at a local bar eating burgers, a lady parked herself at a table next to the pull tab bins and started calling out Bingo numbers. Every five minutes someone would yell out "Bingo!" and then some dude wearing a Mountain Dew cap walked through the bar selling Bingo cards for the next round. I asked the boys if they wanted to play but they just looked at me like I was crazy. I was relieved that they said no since I didn't want to waste beer money on Bingo cards and said, "Oh, it's probaby good you don't want to play, since I think you have to be 18 or older."

"Are you sure about that?" Zach asked. "It looks to me like you have to be 60 or older."

I wanted to argue with him and tell him that wasn't a very nice thing to say, but I couldn't stop laughing. I looked around and sure enough, everyone (meaning 28 women, two men) that had a Bingo marker in their hand was wearing a moose-printed fleece coat, adjusting a pair of reading glasses as they strained to read the numbers on their cards and was bitching out the number caller because "we can't hear you!" Whenever "Bingo" was yelled out, it was quickly followed with groans and a couple "tsk-tsk's" as these people leaned in their chairs and strained their necks, trying to get a good look at the winner and give a nasty glare over the top of their glasses.

Midway through the third game, Zach wanted to yell out "Bingo!" while waving his arms around, just to see the reactions. I said no, he said yes. I said no that's not very nice. He said come on it'll be funny. I texted Doug, who was out of town for work, expecting to receive some long-distance parental support in the form of a reply, but instead all he said was "Tell him I dare him."

I told Zach he probably shouldn't, since these women seemed to take their Bingo pretty seriously and I wasn't about to save him from this angry mob of Buick drivers. And then I felt a little bad for promoting the stereotype that "only old women play Bingo."

Zoe has been reading book after book lately, and when she finds one that she likes she reads it over and over again. One of her current favorites is "The Grandma Book" by Todd Parr. The book is filled with bits of wisdom about grandmas like "some grandmas have a lot of cats, some grandmas give you a lot of advice" or "some grandmas drive slowly." Right after she read "some grandmas like to dance" she got to this page:

So I guess you're right, Zach. The minimum age for Bingo isn't 18, but is in fact 60. Except for Zoe's grandma, of course, since she prefers slot machines and she drives her Buick fast.