That's Really Scary, Boys and Girls

Yes, I'm channelling my favorite vampire, SCTV's Count Floyd. And he would present the recent activities I have witnessed as a horror movie. I managed to survive fourteen birthdays of my offspring without being subjected to Chuck E. Cheese, but alas, that happy trend has not continued.

Also, it is clear that my capitalistic instincts just don't work. The whole Chuck E. Cheese business plan is a mystery to me. So-so pizza, endless soda, noisy games, and herds of young children running around to lots of noise? What parent in her right mind would go for this.

DG, of course, had a great time, and I will never go back to that noisy, seizure inducing (or, to be more accurate, ocular migraine inducing) site. Never.

The upside of this is that surgery later this week will seem stress free and I won't have to look at or listen to that evil rodent.

The moral: do not have a child's party at Chuck E. Cheese unless you are deaf and blind, and if you do have such a party, for the love of gerbils, hamsters, and other small rodents, don't have the party on Halloween. That is all.

Patting Myself on the Back

I've pretty much got everything (other than packing -- that's another story) done for the shortest move ever (possibly 40' max). I've booked: (1) the movers; (2) the piano mover; (3) the oriental rug cleaner; and (4) arranged for change of phone service, upgraded internet, cell phone, and tv (new! and the whole schmear is a package costing about what I was paying before). I still need to change electricity and do change of address cards, but that's minor.

Packing's the bitch, but I'm throwing things away with random abandon, and Innana is helping me on Sunday. All clothes too small for DG are going to the Clock Tower Thrift Store. Any clothing I haven't worn in two years is, you guessed it, going to the Clock Tower Thrift Store. Any books that I won't read again that McKay's won't buy off me will go to the local public library book sale. Pieces of paper I saved with intent but will never pick up again? Trash. In the few weeks since this has been heading toward me, I've sold more than 7 boxes of books (don't worry, my bookcases are still full), given away five largish bags of clothing, and thrown out perhaps 20 bags of previously irreplaceable treasures.

Fortunately, my complex has a recycling bin where community members put out non-broken but unused items, and everything I just don't feel up to carting off to Clock Tower, I just put there. But still. I'm making progress every day. Just this last weekend, I got TG and DG to agree that they each only needed one skateboard each, so we recycled the third we had somehow acquired. DG's trike, which she didn't want to part with? Clock Tower while DG was at PdeFF's (don't worry, DG hurtles around the neighborhood on her BIG GIRL bike, with training wheels). Toys for the under three set? Gone from my home. And all the plastic covers without containers or containers without lids that no longer function for food storage? Thrown out. Now I just have to wash, rinse, and repeat at least 47 times between now and Monday.

The coat closet and the storage closet are clean and organized, and the pots and pans and miscellaneous shelves are organized too. And once I move out, I don't have to clean, since my current apartment is one of the last unupgraded units in my complex (why they gave me more for less, so they could rehab) and the landlord is ripping out the carpet and the kitchen and bathroom fixtures and tiling and redoing everything. Paint, carpet, tiles, electrical fixtures, appliances, etc. The landlord told me: Don't bother. We're redoing it, so don't spend your time. So I"m just organizing things for me, not for the great unpleasant cleaning chore of all time.

Knowing What One Wants & Wanting What One Has

The idea that childhood is idyllic has always struck me as an idea that sprung like Aphrodite from the brain of someone who neither had children nor recalled childhood. Children are, until age 6 or so, only moderately human and socialized. Yet watching my children, I do see that idyll.

While the gaggle of pre-teens and post-toddlers milling around my home is quite Darwinian in many respects, there are also very Zen-like lessons in contentment to be learned by these smaller creatures who will fight to the death over which DS game is better (or whether to use the pink or purple chalk on the sidewalk).

When DG got a mother dolphin with baby dophins floaty-tub-toy for Chrismas last year, I had no idea how she would react. She looked at this present that no rational person could have imagined and said, with glee: "Just what I always wanted!!!!!" (And yes, it was obvious from her diction exactly how many exclamation points went with that sentence.)

Every birthday and Christmas TG has had has been "The best birthday/Christmas ever!" With more explanation points, but I don't want to tire anyone's eyes.

I was feeling sorry for myself the other day: my upcoming surgery, the upcoming move, my sort-of-professional-but-not-all-that-prestigious-or-remunerative-job-after-all-that-education, how friends from high school are in the process of campaigning to run the free world while my big move up is up a flight of stairs into a slightly nicer (hey, granite counter tops and real tile flooring in the kitchen and bathrooms) and bigger (200+ s.f.) apartment. Then I went to the pumpkin patch with Innana, TG, and DG and TG helped DG select the best possible pumpkin, and both girls were very pleased with their glittery magic wands (TG really milks the fact that she has a little sister to wallow in kid stuff even though she's a big ten-year old) and pony rides.

So my career is, if not in the crapper, in the pantry in a cupboard not likely to be aired out any time soon. I have good friends, I'm almost fifty and both my parents are in good health and I still have a living grandparent (Go Nuclear Grammy!) and I'm the mother of a ten-year old and almost-five year old. And no fertility measures were involved and I produced those girls myself. And they are the happiest, healthiest, heartiest kids I have ever had the great good pleasure to see.

So what I have, I want: I have a job I enjoy, even if it's not all that glamorous to explain to others; I have a home that's secure (even if I will be moving in the next month: it's within the same complex with no real change in continuity); and my girls are healthy and happy. And I'm looking out my living room window watching the sky brighten with daylight.

Now I just have to go start packing and sorting for the move.

Geneva Convention Violations

In random order, not by importance:

(1) Surgery in November;
(2) Move apartments in November;
(3) Host birthday party for five-year old at Chuck E Cheese (that's really scary, boys and girls).

I should invest randomly and gamble, because realistically: what else bad could happen?

Floor Plans

Every time I move into a new home, I get, or make, a floor plan. Innana thinks this is silly. She has done since I bought my first condo in 1992 and continually showed her the very simple floorplan of a one bedroom flat that had absolutely no distinguishing characteristics. I managed to make her moan today (or possibly yesterdyay, I forget) by mentioning that I had a floorplan for my soon to be new home.

Now again, this home is merely up one flight of stairs from my current home. We're not moving interstate or cross-country. We're moving up a flight of stairs. Nonetheless, I am mailing a copy of the floorplan to FoilMormor, I'm reviewing the floorplan, and I have given TG a copy of the floorplan, as she cares deeply about where her bed, her books, her nightstand, her bureau, her toys, etc. will be. DG is a little less invested. She knows she'll be on the lower bunk of the bunk bed, but she is thrilled that our new apartment is a two-story townhouse, not just a flat, with the bedrooms on another floor from the kitchen, dining room, and living room. All good.

I still have to draw furniture on the floorplan and rearrange things.

Minor Changes

Compared to 2005-2006, the changes in my life now are pretty minor. But still, November is going to be fraught. I'm moving apartments and having surgery just two weeks before the move. So right now, I'm throwing things out, pulling items that are too small for DG and bagging them to give them to Clock Tower Thrift Store. I'm really not sure how I'm going to pull it off.

However, the move isn't a big deal. We're moving up a flight of stairs into a townhouse-style apartment. TG and DG stay in their school district, we get a bigger kitchen, more of a view, the same pool (with the pretty EuroDudes in the summer), all TG's and DG's friends. The only issue is getting the piano up the stairs. Obviously, movers will be involved. 200 more square feet, too, and the kitchen has a window! And I'll be paying $140 less each month. Obviously, the economy still is in the crapper, or my landlord would be raising rents, not lowering them. They're giving me a break on the rent because they want to renovate the unit we're in. How that translates into a bigger, nicer place for less I don't quite figure, but I'm not complaining.

And I so hate to pack. If anyone wants clothes or shoes to fit a five-year old (DG is four, but she's wearing sixes and sevens at the smallest at this point), just email me at foilwoman at gmail etc.

Raising G&T Kids: The MOTY Guide*

I was feeling a smidge guilty a few weeks ago when I discovered that TG had been tested as G&T back in second grade (the middle of the hell of my divorce) and somehow this fact escaped my notice. Of course, the school she was in has a G&T program. In fifth grade, TG is doing 6th & 7th grade math, and will start 8th grade math before the end of the year. She's in the top reading class and gets tons of enrichment programs: chess, instrumental music, reading and writing programs, etc.

Of course, the most important thing I did for the girls (DG, as well, who's in preschool at the local high school's child development center) was pick the best goddamn school district I could find. TG reads anything she can grab (and is upset, when going on a weekend trip to have only two or three books with her: "I might run out!"), and generally loves learning. She can cook a meal, do a load of laundry, is allowed to zoom around the neighborhood on her own on her scooter or bike. She's independent and capable and smart (well, we knew that).

DG tries to do everything TG does, with encouragement and protection. She plays 1st and 2nd grade math computer games, reads a little bit, but with great enthusiasm, swims like a chubby little fish, and is learning how to cook, clean, write, etc. Playing a card game the other day -- the Russian game fool -- where one needs six cards in the hand, DG knows how many cards she needs to pick up if she has four or three card, because she can add and subtract in her head.

How do I manage this and encourage this? If I were a typical PowerTown parent, I'd be searching out every advanced program I could find to shove down their throats, but I'm too lazy. They're going to find the things they love, I'm going to encourage them, and I'm going to get out of their way. Really. And it's working, so in this instance, laziness and exhaustion work. They get to be kids, they get to learn a lot, and I get to read my book on the patio while they run back to me every five minutes or so explaining some great adventure they're on, or some great discovery they've made, or some great bike or scoooter trick they want to show me.

Yup. Slothfulness works, letting kids be kids. Oh, and this website is my absolute inspiration, and when I have a smidge of ambition, I'll add it to the list of sites I like.
*For those of you who don't live in PowerTown (Washington, DC) and don't love acronyms the way everyone here does, that's "Raising Gifted and Talented Kids: The Mother of the Year Guide".

C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien

I've just reread all the Chronicles of Narna to be able to discuss them with TG, who is reading them. Now I'm starting to read Lord of the Rings. I loved C.S. Lewis's books as a kid, but on re-reading, all the good guys are fair, all the bad guys are dark, xenophobia reigns supreme even in an imaginary country, and the worst villains are women. C.S. Lewis's christianity leaves me cold, even as the books are a fun read. It will be hard to discuss with TG.

I've just started reading LOTR, and I think I'm going to be irked and annoyed by the pale, wan heroines, but who knows. Otherwise, as a middle-aged woman, I've embraced the inner geek from whom I spent my high school and college years trying to keep my distance. TG and I play chess, go to games clubs, and not only play chess but Settlers of Cataan, Carcassone, and many other logic games that may yet result in us being called "gamers." TG loves that shit, and I enjoy it too, if only to hear her high-pitched chortle-giggle that's her only girly feature.

But I don't think I can be a true gamer/geek unless I take up Dungeons and Dragons, go to scifi conventions, and start learning elvish. And I'm resisting Tolkien, even as I'm starting his magnum opusl.

True Fear, or, Alternatively, I Have Nothing to Fear But Fear Itself

Next month I need abdominal surgery. I'll need to be in the hospital for 2-3 days, and I will need a week or two to recovery afterwards. No cancer, nothing like that. Just structural work. So while I'm not looking forward to yet another foray into slice and dice land, that isn't what has me scared.

No. Here's the really scary part (think Count Floyd from SCTV): after the first few days after surgery (where I will be recovering with a doting cat in Innana's comfy flat), Foilmormor arrives to take care of me at home. And boss me around. And inspect my (complete and utter lack of) housekeeping skills. I've been throwing stuff out and organizing all weekend as the Foilkids have been with PdeFF, much needed as my room was approaching Gray Gardens like levels of clutter, and I need at least three months to get my home to the appropriate Scandinavian good housekeeping level. Isn't that really scary, boys and girls?