Mobile Multitasking

A few fun facts:

1. My kids play tennis. Clarification, Zoe plays tennis, but my boys play a lot of tennis.
2. We live in a northwest suburb of Minneapolis.
3. Apparently, the Tennis Court Construction Guys feel that indoor courts are an unnecessary luxury for those of us in the northwest suburbs.
4. After a hop, skip, jump, leap, dos-y-dos and gallop, along with jamming my foot down on the accelerator and cursing at a few other drivers for 17 miles three times a week, we safely arrive at indoor courts.
5. Don't even get me started on how far we drive for weekend tournaments like, for example, I did this past weekend.

When I made the conscious decision to sign my kids up for extracurricular activities, I knew that I would be spending more time in the car than if they were to just sit at home all day with an Xbox controller in their hands and a bag of Chex Mix wedged next to them on the couch. What I wasn't prepared for, though, was how much time I spend in the car. Between the tennis lessons and tournaments, orthodontist appointments, piano lessons, errands, elementary school pick-up and drop-off, more errands and more tennis lessons, it gets to the point where I don't even want to get in my car to go to the bar on a Saturday night. And that's wrong. So very, very wrong.

Most mornings, I try to be organized before I head out the door. This usually means a grocery list, an errand list, a to-do list, maybe a tennis bag or two thrown in the back and a bag of snacks in case someone is absolutely starving after they get picked up. Also, if there are any calls I need to make or emails I need to return, I bring a list of numbers. Then when I'm singing along to the radio and waiting for a kid to appear, I can get something done besides just feeling like an idiot, waiting. And waiting. And getting angry because I'm waiting. This way, when the kid finally appears, I feel productive and angry.

There are times, though, when I find myself sitting behind the wheel with nothing to do. And it's moments like these that make me wonder: what else could I be getting done? I mean, I know I can't cook a pot roast or shake up a martini, and I could always pass the time spying on what the other moms are doing in the school parking lot, (Like last year when, I shit you not, I saw a woman trimming her nose hair.) but there has to be some sort of task that could be completed to make me feel like I'm not wasting decades of my life in the car. And then I found these ideas in the newspaper:

Do menu planning. I think this means I should plan nutritious meals for the entire week that are to be cooked in my home, with ingredients that I have written down and will have time to purchase, and then served at a reasonable time. What this fails to take into consideration is the fact that during the week, when we walk in the door at 6:30 or later, there isn't a lot of time for chopping, braising, saucing and serving. It's more like nuking, yelling, scarfing and homework-ing. At least I can get my grocery list done: hot dogs, buns, noodles, jar of sauce, limes, tonic.

Make doctors' appointments. This suggestion would work for someone that hauls around a ginormous planner with their entire life etched out in ballpoint pen. And although I have a color-coded wall calendar at home (stop laughing), most people I know, including myself, have switched to electronic calendars for when we're on-the-go. Which means that in order to schedule an appointment from my iPhone I'd have to keep saying "Hold on a second, I'll see if that day would work" and then hope like hell that I don't accidentally drop the call while I'm seeing if I can wedge the time between an ortho appointment and a tennis match. Luckily, I don't have to schedule very many doctor appointments. On the other hand, vet appointments for a puppy? Don't even get me started.

Plan date night. For me, hearing the term "date night" churns up the same nausea that the term "play date" manages to trigger. And everyone knows that if you plan anything that requires reservations of any kind, advance tickets, the booking of a babysitter and the purchase of a new piece of apparel, the babysitter will cancel and/or a kid will get sick, probably all over that new piece of apparel. If Doug and I happen to find ourselves with a free Friday night and we're extra thirsty, we go to the bar for beer, onion rings, more beer and hopefully a live band where people are dancing so that we can laugh at them. And we don't call it "date night," we call it "having fun" or "getting drunk."

Pay bills. I won't be doing this in the car, since the sounds of my screaming and crying might make other people worry.

Read. The article says I'm supposed to rip out newspaper and magazine articles and throw them in a tote bag for moments just like these, and this tip makes me laugh. One of my most vivid memories from my childhood is riding around on Sunday mornings in the back of my parents' Buick. The sun was blinding, I was tired and my brothers were on either side of me, still reeking of whatever party they were at the night before. Worst of all, my parents always brought a thermos of coffee and a couple sections of the Sunday paper. The amalgam of all those smells, paired together with the sloshy suspension of a Buick sedan, always resulted in the same thing for me: carsick. So now, even though I can tolerate the smell of my brothers and even like the smell of coffee, one whiff of a newspaper in a car makes my stomach turn. And I'm pretty sure no one needs to see me barfing in the school parking lot.

Catch up with a friend with a phone call. I try to limit the amount of time I spend talking on the phone when I'm actually driving, but because I'd like my conversations to consist of more than "Green means go, Moron!" I admit that I will never not answer my phone. Unless it's that one person. You know who you are. Anyway, for those times that I find myself sitting in a parking lot for the 18th time in a week, this tip is actually useful. But it only works if I'm waiting by myself, because even though it seems like my kids never hear a word I say at home, they hear everything I say when I'm on the phone.

Write birthday cards. Since most people I know would rather receive a phone call or email on their birthday, I don't waste $4.00 (or more) to send birthday cards anymore. I suppose, though, if all birthday cards were like this one, I might reconsider...

What? We Don't Live in Cupertino?

Since we live in Minnesota, spring weather is never predictable and sometimes it seems impossible to dress appropriately. One day it will be 75 degrees, but the next day might include snow. Therefore, I never fall prey to the first nice day and instead delay storing the long & warm and pulling out the shorts. But now that it is the end of May and the daytime temperature is consistently above 70 degrees, I have pulled out the sandals, stocked up on sunscreen and completed the laborious task of switching the clothes over in my kids' closets.

Since I'm trying to encourage a little bit of self-sufficiency and also didn't want to be known as a fashion bitch for an entire month, I decided to put a few pairs of shorts in the boys' rooms and told them to start checking the weather forecast on their phones each morning. If the high for the day was over 65 then by all means, wear shorts. Otherwise, pull on some pants.

Even though the weather has been nice lately, a couple weeks ago it was the absolute opposite of nice. Rainy, windy, gross, cold, depressing, a little bit of snow, below-freezing mornings, basically a typical Minnesota spring. So sure enough, one morning when it wasn't quite 40 degrees and the high was supposed to be 43, Charlie came down the stairs wearing shorts.

"Why are you wearing shorts? The house is freezing! (because I refuse to turn the furnace on in May) Didn't you check the weather? You have your phone in your room and I told you two weeks ago that it has to be over 65 for you to wear shorts."

"Duh, I did check my phone. It says it's supposed to be 74 and sunny today." This was one day that the alarm clock managed to wake up Charlie's body, but obviously not his brain.

I didn't say anything, but instead gestured toward the window. The snow-specked, soaking wet window that looked out onto a saturated yard under nothing but gray skies.

"Oh. Well that's weird. I checked the weather, see? It says 74 and sunny in Cupertino. And why does it say we live in Cupertino, anyway?" I am not making this shit up. He was being completely serious.

After I pointed out the fact that Cupertino, CA meant CALIFORNIA and added Minneapolis to his weather forecast app, he looked at his phone and discovered that it was nothing but 40's and rain in the forecast for the next week.

"Crap. I guess that means I have to go change. I kind of wish we lived in Cupertino."

I said yeah, that would be nice. But then we would have missed out on having this whole conversation, and what would I write about then!?

User Error

The school year began last September and that means, if my calculations are correct, we've had eight months of mornings that include getting up at the same time, putting on an outfit that doesn't say "Hey, look at me, I'm a colorblind idiot," grabbing a backpack and heading out the door. I thought that after eight months, this routine would be drama-free and dependable. Since Zoe's still in kindergarten I'll cut her a little slack, but I thought that I'd be able to rely on the people in this house that are between the heights of 4'9" and 5'5" to get their asses out of bed on time and be able to dress themselves.

These thoughts can now be found in the same category as "I thought that someday I'd grow boobs" and "I thought that my feet had reached their maximum width after two pregnancies," and that category is labeled: I WAS WRONG.

Over the last couple weeks, Charlie has been busted a couple of times for oversleeping, even though his alarm clock was set correctly and had went off. The problem isn't that the alarm clock is defective, but that it's suffering from user error. You see, Charlie was getting annoyed that the music waking him up in the morning was annoyingly loud, so he turned the volume down. Way down. So he couldn't hear it down. Because then, you know, it wouldn't annoy him. Apparently he didn't consider the fact that it would then NOT WAKE HIM UP!

His solution was to then turn the volume up a little bit, but then for some reason he also set the alarm to go off twenty minutes before he needed to actually haul his ass out of bed, kind of like a snooze button for morons. This would have worked fine, if it weren't for the fact that after he turned the alarm off, he fell back to sleep. And unlike the actual snooze button, a second alarm didn't go off 9 minutes later to wake his barely functioning brain back up. I have a feeling that he's going to get up on time by himself now, though, since he's discovered that waking up to your mom shouting "APPARENTLY YOU DO NOT KNOW HOW TO OPERATE AN ALARM CLOCK, BECAUSE YOU ARE STILL IN BED! GET UP! NOW!" is even more annoying than waking up to music.

Zach gets up earlier than anyone else in the house (well, except me, of course) and uses the alarm on his iPhone. In a perfect world this would work great, since there are several times when he has to wake up earlier than normal. The night before one of these mornings, he told me "I have choir rehearsal in the morning so I need a ride to school early. I'll get up at 6:15." I said okay, that's fine, don't forget to change the time on your alarm and he assured me that "duh, yah, it's been done already. Geez."

The next morning, I got up to make him breakfast and myself a keg of coffee and waited to hear his feet hit the floor. And waited. And then did shots of coffee and waited some more. Finally, I went upstairs and asked him if today was in fact the day he was referring to when he said he needed a ride to school, and if it was then "WHY ARE YOU STILL SLEEPING IF YOUR ALARM IS SET!" He sat up and gave me a look that pretty much said "why in the hell is my mom standing in my room what day is it I'm completely confused what the fuck is going on right now," and then said "Oh crap, what is going on? Something weird must have happened because I know I set it right. I don't know why it didn't go off." I said yeah, gee, it's really weird how every other feature on your phone works perfectly except that pesky alarm. Hmm, I guess it must be broken, since it couldn't possibly be because it's being SET WRONG and suffering from USER ERROR! I guess I should just return the piece of crap and park a rooster on the roof outside your window!

Yesterday morning, on Mother's Day, I got up at my usual time and was emptying the dishwasher when I got a text. I thought it was from someone wishing me a happy Mother's Day, but instead it was from Charlie, who was still laying in bed, saying "I want Apple Jacks for breakfast." Although my boys have difficulties operating the alarm on the iPhone, at least I know that they're always able to text, and apparently Charlie has developed an interesting variation of a Breakfast in Bed App.

A New Leaf

With the arrival of cute, furry spring animal babies, fragrant spring flowers, green grass, leaves on the trees and the exposure of acres of extremely pale flesh, I have decided to make some changes to my life/family/perspective/attitude. Some of these changes might take a little more effort than others, but hopefully with a lot of dedication and focus, I'll be able to pull it off.

• When one of my kids talks back to me or gives me an answer that I don't entirely agree with, instead of automatically launching into a yell-fest and pointing out how crappy their behavior is, from now on I'll remain silent, assume that they must be having a hard day and get them a cookie.
• If/when my neighbor vacuums his cars or uses his lawn mower/leaf blower/weed whacker three times a week at 9:00 p.m., instead of glaring at him and wishing for a disfiguring accident, I will simply shut all of my windows and doors and wait patiently for him to finish.
• While shopping, if someone is on the phone and in my way, instead of "nudging" her cart out of the way or saying "excuse me" using my outside voice, I will assume that her phone call is about something very, very important. Therefore, I will turn around, go back down the aisle and find a different route that doesn't inconvenience or interrupt her.
• When someone has 24 items in the "15 items or less" line, I won't glare at the back of their selfish, clueless head until they start to squirm with discomfort or wonder if they're so stupid that they don't know how to count, but will instead just assume that they're in a bigger hurry than me.
• If I go into a fitting room to try clothes on and the pants/shorts/ swimwear ends up looking more like sausage casing/shrink wrap than apparel, I won't automatically start cursing the fashion industry and starve myself, but will just go get a different size. A much larger, roomier, oh-my-god-I'm-not-18-anymore size.
• When my kids piss me off, instead of automatically yelling before I reach for a beer or the bottle of Ketel One, I will take a deep breath, count to 500 and if needed, leave the room until I feel calm.
• Even though perfect drinking weather might occur at some point between Monday and Friday, I will only drink on the weekends.
• Oh yeah, happy April Fools Day.

Boil the Water!

My kids are the luckiest kids in existence. Not only will they not have to go to church on April 4, but they don't have to wait until Easter morning to get their baskets of loot because the big bunny stopped at our house a week early this year, kind of like he did last year. He must have known that the kids are home from school next week so getting new movies and books and Nerds Ropes the day before they went back to school wouldn't be beneficial to me in any way. Plus, the boys got new phones in their baskets and Doug and I were really, really excited to surprise them.

Since the company that makes these phones doesn't need any free advertising, I'm not going to say what kind of phones they are, just that they rhyme with sigh-moans. And to say that they were just a little bit excited when they opened their phones would be the understatement of the year. They immediately started dowloading apps, I was excited that they were excited and Doug was excited about the fact that he would no longer have to share his phone, which also rhymes with sigh-moan.

When Charlie was entering all of his contacts I told him to double-check everything and make sure that the names and numbers matched up. He crumpled up the paper that held all of the information and said "Got it. It's done. No problem." and then started playing "Assassin's Creed."

While we were on our way home from tennis (seriously people, when am I ever not on my way home from tennis? Oh, I know. When I'm on my way to tennis.) I told Charlie to send Doug a text telling him to "boil the water," because I was making pasta for dinner. Two boys with tasks of texting and boiling -- damn, I'm a slave-driver.

After half-a-minute of silence (during which I'm flying down the freeway and getting closer and closer to home), Charlie says "Oh, that's weird. I sent the message to dad, but the phone says that the message went to Austin. Why would it do that? Dad's name isn't Austin."

"I don't know, but figure it out. Because if you didn't send the message to dad then there will be no water boiling when I get home, and I'm starving and I want to eat NOW! What number did you send it to?" I said this as I drove past Granite City, then Famous Dave's, then Don Pablo, then Champps. All of these restaurants probably had water boiling, and they had bars.

It turns out that when he was entering his contacts, he gave his dad the wrong phone number and that number happened to belong to Austin. So, Austin, I'm sorry if you were confused when you received a random three word text from Charlie that instructed you to boil some water. You can disregard it, and I'm assuming you'll probably be getting another one in the next day or so that says "My mom is mean, and she's even meaner when she's hungry."

Practice Makes Perfect

While looking at the calendar this weekend, I realized that it is the last week of January, which means that there are only about four months of school left, which made me say, "Holy shit."

Since there isn't much time, I figured now would be a good time to make a list of things that my kids could start working on if they want me to stay sane this summer, because after all; practice makes perfect. I wouldn't go so far as to call this a list of demands, since it's more like "suggestions that they should strongly consider if they want to experience summer vacation living in a house where mom isn't screaming all the time and threatening to run away."

1. When taking your socks off, if you notice a hole in one of them, it's okay to throw it away instead of putting it in the laundry basket. I really don't need to wash the sock before it ends up in the garbage.
2. When you see something on the floor that isn't yours, but you know where it belongs, instead of just stepping over it, please inconvenience yourself for eight seconds by picking the item up and putting it away. I promise, you won't burst into flames.
3. It's a cell phone, not a magical teleporting device. If you need a ride home, a little bit of advance notice would be helpful. As shocking as this might be, I don't pass the time while you're gone by standing next to the door with my shoes on, keys in hand, waiting to leap into action.
4. Like the phone, the car is also not a teleporting device. If you need to be somewhere at 2:00, and that somewhere is a place other than the end of our driveway, we will need to leave before 2:00.
5. While I don't expect to hear, "Thank you for driving me around this afternoon, and I heard everything you just said to me and won't forget any of it," hearing "Um, yeah, what?" is more than a little bit irritating.
6. Stop abusing the rewind feature of DVR, and start paying attention.
7. I don't answer your absurd requests with a "No" just so that I can hear you say, "Why?" If you think I'll say no, then don't ask.
8. There is a bag inside the kitchen recycling bin, and despite appearances, even when it's full, it's not very heavy and it's removable. And for your information, full is defined as: Nothing else, no matter how much you smash and shove, will fit.
9. When you're getting dressed in the morning, if you think the shirt and pants/shorts don't match, go with that thought.
10. Stop having a "let's see who can make the most annoying sound in the world" contest, because believe me, you're all winners.

Ten New Rights For Twenty-Ten

Winter break is officially over! Now that Doug is back at the office and the kids are out of the house and enjoying school's nurturing atmosphere, I can finally get back to my hobbies, which alternate between running around and running around maniacally. Since this is Minnesota and, for the next two months, the temperature will rarely crawl above 25 degrees, the running is pretty much limited to errands and kid-related crap. Once it gets nice out, though, I'll get busier and the crazy people will start to surface, pasty-white legs and all. In order to keep these outings as pleasant and stress-free as possible, I have decided that since I'm not making any New Year's resolutions, I needed some new rights.

1. If I am behind someone that is driving more than ten miles under the speed limit, weaving between lanes, failing to accelerate at a green light, sitting at a stop sign with no intention of proceeding, or basically being a shitty driver, and this person is obviously texting or talking while simultaneously trying to fetch French fries off of the car floor and shove a double cheeseburger into their mouth, I have the right to honk at them no fewer than five times. Gestures are also acceptable as long as there aren't any kids in the car with me.
2. When another shopper at Target or the grocery store repeatedly gets in my way, and they're talking on the phone, I have the right to say "Excuse me" in a voice louder than necessary, while simultaneously giving them a look that says: "You're an inconsiderate moron. Get off the fucking phone."
3. I have the right to not have to love all of my neighbors, especially the one that specializes in using loud yard equipment after 9pm.
4. If, while at the park, someone starts talking to me about potty training, ECFE, moms clubs, sleeping habits, or is bitching about their spouse, I have the right to say: "Those topics bore me. Go away." If, however, the person compliments me on my cute flip-flops, shares details about a little-known happy hour, or wants to rip on the mom who is talking about potty training, I have the right to ask her to move in with me.
5. If a teenager that doesn't belong to me shows up in my backyard at noon for the 16th day in a row this summer, I have the right to ask him where he's having lunch and say, "Sorry, but we're all out of food."
6. If someone gives me a backhanded compliment, I have the right to not always accept it gracefully and with a smile.
7. If a little kid with a giant booger hanging out of his nose asks me for help on the monkey bars while his mom sits her bib-overalled butt on the park bench talking about potty training, I have the right to say: "NO! I'm busy. Go ask your mom."
8. When some skinny bitch fishes for compliments by saying that she "looks fat" and is "getting lines around her eyes," or asks me, "Does this Brazilian-cut bikini make me look fat?" I have the right to agree with her and answer "Yes, it does."
9. If unattended kids are throwing fistfuls of rocks at the park, and my daughter is in the direct line of fire, I have the right to yell at someone else's unattended kids and/or throw rocks back.
10. I have the right to grill more steak, less chicken, and drink more vodka.

Feel free to add to this list of rights, or use some of them for yourself as needed. After all, sharing is fun, even though I always reserve the right to say "No, it's mine!"

How About A Carrier Pigeon?

Providing a cell phone for your kid isn't really considered an extravagance anymore, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be appreciated by the child. I admit that we equipped the 11-year-old with a phone a couple years ago for my own selfish reasons; I was sick of waiting in the car for kids that were running late, I didn't want to hear him say: "Why did Zach get a phone? When am I getting a phone? I need a phone!" for the next two years, and a carrier pigeon seemed kind of impractical.

As convenient as it has been, I wonder sometimes if maybe it was the dumbest thing I've ever done. It has been two years of me saying: "Hey Charlie, did you bring your phone? Where is your phone? Is your phone charged? Is the ringer on in case I actually call you? Don't tell me you forgot your phone again. You left your phone in the car. Go get your phone out of your tennis bag!" and on and on. Zach was responsible from the very beginning, using it for it's intended purposes, and he now is able to organize group meetings for science projects, get important information about homework, and send/receive more than 5000 texts per month.

Monday evening, after orchestra rehearsal, Charlie was getting a ride home with a friend. I reminded him (yet again) to bring his phone in case of an emergency, like a zombie attack. Shortly after he got home, we had to get back in the car for piano lessons, and the answer is yes, there are some days that I spend more time in my minivan than the house, which makes me grateful for my cell phone.

"Hey, who has a phone with him in case I'm running late?"

"I do." Zach never goes anywhere without the thing.

Charlie started muttering, "I, um, I don't...hmmm, that's weird," while frantically patting various parts of his body over and over again, waiting for the phone to magically appear in one of the pockets.

Not only was there was no phone, but there was no recollection of where the phone might have been left, or which pocket it was actually in before it wandered off. At least a carrier pigeon is too big to fit into a pocket and would have flown home on it's own.

After a couple phone calls and violently-typed emails, there was still no sign of his phone. I made it very clear to Charlie in a not-so-quiet voice that he obviously wasn't responsible enough to have the thing, and it wasn't going to be instantly replaced, unless he defines "instantly" as 365 days. He fought back tears, and knew I was right. Why should we continue to pay for something to nag the kid about when there are so many things that I can be pissed off about for free?

Yesterday I made one last call to the out-of-the-way school (of course the rehearsal wasn't at our own one-mile-away school) to see if a cell phone had miraculously appeared, and almost fell over when the secretary told me that, "Yes, one of the janitors found a green phone on the floor of the gym." I resisted the temptation to say, "just drop it in the garbage" and instead scraped together enough niceness to drive there and pick it up.

Have I told Charlie that his phone was found? Absolutely not. I'm going to let him squirm and continue to think it's missing. I'll probably give it back to him today, on the way to his violin lesson. Sometimes his teacher doesn't let him out on time, and I'm sick of waiting in the car.