The Bigger They Get

…isn’t a good idea.

Dear Son Two,

Today is your 20th birthday!  The beginning of your 3rd decade!  I must write your birthday post.  However, see above post title.

I know you got enough of your father’s redneck genes to totally appreciate why your birthday post will be a little late.

So, for now, I love you and I’ll write soon.

Happy Birthday, Sweetheart!

Mom

P.S.  For some reason I was unable to find a photo to steal online that was a good representation of “drunk blogging from a pig roast in a hurricane”.  But I expect to have suitable photos of my own by tonight.

While driving through Licking County, Ohio I found myself wondering, Do Licking County residents eat tongue sandwiches?

Found while traveling through Maryland yesterday:

Yes,Dear and I are leaving tomorrow for a weekend at my sister’s vacation trailer. It’s in a small community on a river in Maryland about an hour from our home. With all Yes,Dear’s health problems this year we haven’t had a break and we’ve really been looking forward to a couple of days of AWAY.

We’ve never been there before, so Sister gave us the keys and a page of written instructions about things like how to turn on the water and how to charge the golf cart, etc. But she keeps telling us…

…cue Jaws music…

Things She Forgot To Write Down

(Now, remember, I’m traveling with a man who, just this week, had a defibrillator implanted in his chest because his heart can’t always be relied upon to beat regularly.)

So far, the conversation has gone something like this:

Sister: Oh, I forgot to write it down. If you have an emergency, there’s a number on the fridge for security…

Me: Okay, good.

Five minutes later…

Sister: Oh, I forgot to write it down, but I never put in a land line, and the only place I can get a cell signal is on the beach or sometimes at the top of the hill by the little store.

Me: So if we have an emergency I’ll have to run down to the beach to call for help?

Sister: Well, one of the neighbors said he can sometimes get a signal by pointing his phone antenna towards the cable TV, but the beach isn’t too far.

Me: What if I’m laying on the floor bleeding out? How do I get help then?

Sister: Oh, that reminds me, be careful getting out of the shower because the bathroom floor is lower than the shower floor.

(Oh. My. God. I’m buying a satellite phone. And inviting the local ambulance corps to stay with us.)

Me: Okay, so all we need to bring are towels and food?

Sister: Yeah, just bring stuff you can microwave or cook in the toaster oven. I haven’t turned the stove or the oven on because they’re gas and that makes me nervous so I don’t use them.

(I wonder if the ambulance corps likes grape or strawberry jelly on their peanut butter sandwiches.)

Sister: Oh, and I forgot to write it down but the outlets don’t work at the end of the porch where I keep the golf cart, so you have to plug it in in the shed. You’ll probably need to charge the cart for 5 or 6 hours, but then it should be good for the weekend.

Me: So I can drive it around looking for a cell phone signal when we have an emergency.

Sister: Yup.

Hey, Sis, I meant to tell you how much I was looking forward to this weekend before we had this little chat…but I Forgot To Write It Down.

Reading Bossy’s excellent post this morning about shopping with her son for his college dorm, I couldn’t help but reminisce about our experiences sending a child off to academia for the first time…more specifically, reading Daughter’s housing contract which made me laugh even as I wondered what our baby was getting into.

The contract expressly forbade the following items in campus housing:

Fish with teeth

and

Carnivorous plants

Since Daughter will be moving to Chicago and into an off campus apartment next week, I’m planning to buy her piranhas and Venus Flytraps.

My little girl is growing up.

I recently found Stickies, which are amazing and versatile virtual Post-Its that sit on my computer desktop and remind me of all the things I need to do. Thanks to Stickies, I’ve gotten rid of most of the little scraps of paper containing jotted notes, lists, reminders, to-dos, etc. that used to litter my desk.

Stickies are there for me every morning when I boot up. They sit there all day, politely waiting for me to notice them and act upon their messages. Sometimes they have a long wait but that doesn’t faze them. They never judge me when I shut down the computer at night having ignored them for yet another day. My Stickies are confident that I will get around to it, whatever “it” might be. They are patient with me. I appreciate both their confidence and their patience.

But today I noticed my Shopping List Sticky says, “Food, for the love of God.”

I think they’ve been conspiring with the kids.

Crap.

Mr. Tax Guy says we can’t claim Daughter as a dependent for this year because of her assistantship which starts in August. She is now officially a big sucking drain on the family finances and I told her so. In a loving way, of course.

Her response? Don’t think of me as a dependent. Think of me as an investment.

Sweetie, you are working towards a PhD in English Lit. Issue us a share of stock and I’ll file it with our one share of Air Florida stock in the WE WILL NEVER RETIRE file. Love, Mom

I don’t want to generalize about men or male bash since I have a terrific husband and two incredible sons.

But.

If the lack of initiative displayed by the men in our home isn’t the result of gender, it is almost certainly genetic since father and sons are all afflicted. I started to realize what I was up against when the children were very small. Yes,Dear came home from work one evening and between the sidewalk and our front porch he stepped over a tricycle, a wagon, a doll, and a wiffle bat that all belonged on the porch. Once inside, he stepped over two kids scuffling in the living room, two baskets of clean clothes waiting to be taken upstairs, and more loose toys.

He poured himself a drink and settled into a kitchen chair to watch me cook dinner and warm up the baby’s bottle. How was your day? I asked. Really good, he said. I held a station meeting today and told the team that I want them to start taking more initiative when they see things that need to be done.

Holy crap. You could have knocked me over with a feather.

So for 22 years now, I have attempted to teach our sons to take the initiative when they see things that need to be done. Sadly, the results haven’t been encouraging. In fact, I’ve found myself coming up with workarounds to keep from becoming overly frustrated and maiming someone in a fit of pique. For instance, we’ve switched toothpaste brands - not because the dentist recommended one brand over another or because the price is better - but because the brand we switched to does not have a separate cap that requires all that laborious screwing back on after brushing. That little hinged snap top has saved lives.

Another example: As they reached age 11 or so, I taught each child how to do his or her own laundry. Since then, I’ve made certain I have a lot more underwear than the boys do (I recommend two extra weeks’ worth) so that when they run out of underwear, they will wash their clothes and not wait until I do my laundry to ask if they can throw a few things in with my load. For a while during their middle school years, this was not a roaring success because they just weren’t very fussy about personal hygiene. Then they discovered girls and the situation improved.

Over the years, I’ve bought them every type of laundry receptacle known to man, but they still prefer to use their bedroom floors. After showering, they ball up their wet towels and leave them on the radiator or the floor. I’ve found drinking glasses in their rooms with creatures growing in them that spoke in complete sentences in three languages. When my daughter and I reluctantly cleaned Son Two’s room last Spring, we found a pie pan from the previous Thanksgiving with a piece of pecan pie still in it. We knew it was pecan pie because of the pan it was in - the pie itself was no longer recognizable. We found other things, too, that I’m trying very hard to forget because I have a weak stomach and even thinking about them makes me gag.

I’ve tried. I don’t know what more I can do. I adore my guys. They’re loving and funny and they have good hearts. They’re just messy and not inclined to clean up after themselves without a lot more nagging than I ever want to do again.

So I’m taking the initiative and issuing a preemptive apology to my future daughters-in-law, whoever they may be. I’m sorry. I’ve done the best I can, girls.

The rest is up to you.

Has anyone else discovered Arby’s chocolate turnovers? I just ate two - one for each butt cheek to keep things even during bathing suit season, you know?

Yum.

There’s a new blog called Improg which twice a week posts a word for bloggers to, well…blog about.

Monday’s word was “Connection”. So I’ve been thinking about the many and various connections we have to each other, to the world, to our neighbors, to our homes, to public water and sewer, etc, and trying to decide which is the connection that is uppermost in my mind lately.

Our house has been on the market for a year - 12 long months - which has been utterly frustrating and even a little insulting. We have plans that have had to be put on hold, we’re spending a fortune on storage units, we’re still paying outrageous utility bills for a house that is now far bigger than we need. But for Yes,Dear and I, this time has also been a sort of grace period in our lives as parents since, when we do move, it will be without our children. This extra time to enjoy each other before we all scatter has been an incredible blessing.

With both of the boys and Yes,Dear working odd schedules, Daughter busy with grad school prep and projects, and me spending my days trying desperately to look busy, our family time is typically limited. Nevertheless, many times over the last year during Realtor showings we’ve all had to vacate the premises together. The hours we’ve spent confined in the van talking and laughing and sucking down lattes while we wait for someone to NOT BUY OUR HOUSE DAMMIT, have been incredibly fun and have given Yes,Dear and me the opportunity to really enjoy and strengthen our connections to our newly minted adult children.

As difficult as it will be to have our nest emptied in one fell swoop - and it will be really, really difficult even though it will be all like, parties and drinking and crazy wild R rated times now that we don’t have to (wink) “set examples” (wink) anymore - this extra time we’ve had together has confirmed for us that our kids - whom we’ve always known were terrific - are going to be amazing adults too.

So, armed with the confidence that this knowledge brings, Yes,Dear and I will soon be skipping off into the sunset of our lives - he will bring the rum, I will bring the Coke and the Jimmy Buffett CD’s, the dogs will bring the limes and the fancy little drink umbrellas. And when you visit please bring the cocktail weenies, the sunscreen, a sleeping bag and your jammies. We’ll provide the public water and sewer connection. <—- see? I used the word!