BC (beloved child the elder) – Page 9

Category: BC (beloved child the elder)

safe and sound

Posted on September 11, 2008September 11, 2015 by wrekehavoc

plenty has been written about what happened on 9/11. people especially focus on what happened in NYC, as the sheer number of lives and the immense destruction of the twin towers is just overwhelming. but on this anniversary of one of the worst days we have ever known, i thought i’d share a glimpse of what life was like for a mom and her small child directly in the flight path toward the pentagon and DC. it’s something i perpetually need to exorcise.

tuesday morning, 9/11/01, started like any other tuesday. most tuesdays, BC, then almost 3, stayed home from her preschool in BS’s office building. i had negotiated that in my last job — tuesdays were my mommy and me days, and i ended up leaving that last job when my then-boss, a seriously unhappy person who had inherited me from my previous angel-of-a-boss, just didn’t like that i didn’t sit at my desk 80 hours/week.

anyway, like all tuesdays, we were off to our co-op at a local community center. BS had a meeting way up in Maryland that day, so he wasn’t going to be able to take BC in to school, anyway, so it was just as well she was home with me. i did what i always did at about 8:50 am — i plopped her on the couch, turned on the Today Show, and started to put on her shoes and socks. only that day, i was instantly transfixed by one of the Twin Towers on fire. my aunt told me once that she occasionally helped a friend in the office downtown. i wondered immediately if she was there. i couldn’t move, though. just couldn’t. then, as i finally started to dial the phone, i saw, live on TV, a second plane. my heart immediately flipped into my throat: where’s my aunt?

i looked down at BC, who was messing about with something on the couch. oh my G-d, she musn’t see this, i thought. quickly, i clicked the TV off and ran back to the phone to call my aunt. no one was answering the phone. okay, okay, okay. don’t panic. don’t panic. i decided normalcy should be the order of the day. i quickly put BC’s shoes on, packed her into the car, and went off to the community center.

once we arrived, i saw moms huddled around a small television set. BC was the oldest in the co-op group (and has always been spookily emotionally astute), so i prayed she would get busy in the dress-up corner. but just as we seemed to be finally calming ourselves down, we heard the worst: a plane had hit the pentagon. as in, the building just down the road apiece.

and to add ridiculous insult to injury, the rumors began to fly that there was another plane in the air; that a plane had hit rosslyn, the state department, the Capitol; that the water was going to be contaminated. and there we were, right in the middle of the national airport and dulles airport flight paths. everyone began to sob. mama, BC asked, why are all the mommies sad?

sucking in all the air i could, i replied: they’re just feeling very sad today, sweetheart. how on earth do you tell a 2.5 year old girl that the world is imploding all around and nothing feels safe? you can’t. you’re a parent: your job is to maintain their world of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, happy cartoons, and teddy bears. you keep a straight face, a stiff upper lip, locked knees, and a stout heart. accepting my answer, she toddled back to the other little kids, who were pretty much oblivious in that way that only toddlers can be.

this left me free to quietly freak out. i tried to call BS’s cell phone. first, he didn’t answer. then, the lines were all beeping dementedly. decision time, and its all down to me.

i decided to take my baby girl home.

once we arrived home, i declared it an ALL BARNEY DAY! little girl could not. believe. her. luck. i stacked the videos of the VJE (Vile Jurassic Entity) in our family room and prepared to play them, one by one. and then, if we ran out, i’d play them all again. she was only under three — at that age, they love to watch things repeatedly.

i then moved out to the sun room. i set the TV up to the news and began to field the calls, first from my mother (my aunt — her sister — was later found at her significant other’s apartment, safe and sound. but at that point, neither of us could find her, and we scared each other), then from my mother in law, then from a local friend who told me that i needed to fill up my bathtub in case they attacked the water company. (i dutifully filled up the bathtub, then locked the door so that little BC didn’t toddle in and drown.) no, i had no idea where my husband was. no, i didn’t know whether the planes were continuing to fall here, but i had heard they might. as we live in the flight path, i listened for any sounds of planes overhead; all i heard was an eerie silence.

i continued to watch the TV. i watched as my town’s firefighters, police, etc, swarmed at the pentagon, the first on the scene as it happened. i hoped that my husband would come home, and soon. (he didn’t come home for hours: he had volunteered to drive three other people home, a drive on panic-riddled roads literally to the other side of maryland, then back again to virginia.) i prayed the carnage would end.

i was grateful that BC was home with me that day. on any other day, she would have been downtown. she would have been stranded, as BS was not at the office, left with the other children, children who had no food delivered to their daycare/preschool because the federal building was shutting things down due to the emergency. (the parents in the building banded together, bought all the pizza they could from the cafeteria, and brought it to the children.) with traffic snarled all around the city, i do not actually know how i would have gotten to her. i made a mental note to call my girlfriend, who worked with BS: should this ever happen again, please, please… take my child wherever you go.

and i sat, all alone, panic-striken, frozen, terrified i would jump out of my skin. but then, i’d see this little girl, her little blondey-boop-a-doop pony tail bopping around to there are seven days in the week. i had to keep her wrapped in cotton wool. there would be time later to talk about the truth (in her case, when she was eight), but for now, i had to be the strongest, most dependable mom on planet earth.

i tried my best; i really, really did. and i don’t think i have ever been so close to a nervous breakdown in my entire life. it took hours for BS to come home, and he told me how he had driven past the pentagon mere moments before the plane hit. later, i would learn that the wife of a colleague of mine was on that plane. later, i would volunteer my yard to house one of the 184 trees in my county planted to memorialize the Pentagon victims. later, i would drive by the burnt-out Pentagon and catch my breath; later still, i would drive by the Pentagon and have to catch my breath again when i saw the incredible rebuilding progress.

it would take me years before i stopped looking up at the sky, wondering whether the plane would stay suspended in the air or whether it would fall on my home, ending everthing in an instant. it would take me years before i would feel comfortable sending my children back to school in a federal building, especially one so close to the Capitol. it would take me years before i would get used to seeing SWAT teams occasionally atop places like the Dept of Justice or FBI (mercifully, no longer) or occasional armed army guys in the Metro. it would take me years to get used to concrete barricades around my children’s playgrounds; it would take longer still for me to grasp the contingency plans we’d have to make in case something threatened the FBI building catty-corner to the playground –things like shrapnel, pieces of building falling into the place where kids on slides might be. it would take me years before i felt okay living so close to the Nation’s Capitol.

it would take me years before i would feel safe and sound.

and then again, only slightly.

every day is a winding road

Posted on September 2, 2008 by wrekehavoc

that tear in my eye isn’t because my car currently smells like the sour milk sea (thanks to jools’ spilling an entire bottle of nestle quik nearly two weeks ago). it’s not because my poor BS is suffering from a horrible sore throat (which does sadden me, of course, to a point.) nope.

kindergarten starts today.

my little boy is starting kindergarten. he was initially skeptical of the event, belligerently fighting against any attempts to introduce him to the place. but one of the silver linings of last week’s vacation misadventure was the fact that we returned home in time for the school’s meet your teacher event. jools complained at first bitterly about having to attend this; but with some coaxing from BC (school is SO FUN! she cooed to her brother. boy, i owe her big time), he went.

at first, mister man was not interested in his lovely teacher or teaching assistant. we walked around the room, admiring the displays, finding the little tiny bathroom, and picking up important mountains of paperwork. BC then became antsy to meet her teacher, so i left jools and BS in kindergarten, hoping for the best.

when i returned, the boys were sitting in the reading corner. jools doesn’t read yet, but he loves books. and when he saw an entire collection of early reader I Spy books in the reading nook, well, love comes to everyone, you know? the boy would. not. leave. in fact, we closed the place.

i LIKE kindergarten, the boy announced. when does school start???

[insert hallelujah chorus here.]

for me, while this means both kids are in school together, it also means that i am now a full-time, stay at home mom. i have to go full-tilt in homework land. i’ll probably be volunteering a bit more. and i have those kids otherwise, 24/7. i’ll need to hone my skills in time management, project management, people management. and the mom mobile, which currently smells foul, will probably smell even worse after all sorts of things, edible or otherwise, have been dropped, forgotten, or left for dead on the floor.

i’m excited. i’m nervous. i’m thinking about ear plugs.

i suspect the TV and the computer will need to be regulated a bit more now. i suspect the two kids who fight over air will fight that. much. more. i wonder when i’ll resort to charts for keeping track of everything. it wasn’t where i saw myself 10 years ago, but it’s my reality now, a reality i know some might actually give their eye-teeth for. (note to self: must look up the word eye-teeth before hellboy decides to attempt to somehow develop a new, realistic concept of the term on his own, with potentially violent — or vile — results.) i’m so used to having only one kid 24/7 at a time. now, it’s time to do the two-kid shuffle. if my mom worked and juggled three kids, surely i can hack two, right?

i just hope i remember to stop, take a breath sometimes, and enjoy it.

punky's dilemma

Posted on August 25, 2008 by wrekehavoc

school is about to start, and i’m wrestling with my kids’ lunchtime situations, both from a nutritional and an environmental perspective. you can experience my angst on this topic over at the green parent, where i’m guest blogging today. go check it out and share your solutions, people.

i sure need them.

and to those of you who’ve gotten here via the awesome green parent blog, welcome. i promise not to curse in this post.

after that, all bets are off. (if you read back at my ongoing, so-called vacation from h-e-double-toothpicks, you may understand why.)

when the going gets tough

Posted on August 24, 2008 by wrekehavoc

(hell yeah, i’m quoting billy ocean. whatcha gonna do about it?)

so part one of salvage the vacation quest was a bit of a bust. we took a drive to york, pa, stopping in towson, md along the way to hit the rainforest cafe for dinner. (i have finally come to terms with rainforest, if only because this is now the closest one, so i am not constantly hearing pullllease mama, can we go to rainforest??? pullllllease???) it was kids eat for $1.99 night — whee! there was a guy making balloon animals, and in general, it was a nice meal until jools felt like he was going to throw up. oh, the joys of hanging out in a restaurant bathroom, waiting for your son to blow chunks. which, i would note, he never did. he was simply tired. i want to go to sleep, he announced. so off we went. in total, that trip took a harrowing six hours, which includes rush hour in both washington AND baltimore plus one hour at dinner.

full day one we drove to hersheypark (losing I-83 temporarily somewhere around harrisburg, but getting back on track eventually.) i love hersheypark. it’s everything six flags is not: clean, friendly, full of helpful employees. there’s even a kosher restaurant there. i’m not kosher, but it was a revelation to me that someone would actually put something like that there. it also probably accounted for the several busloads of orthodox members of my tribe who were there on the sweltering day, girls dressed in long denim skirts and long sleeved shirts.

oh, and there’s chocolate. so it isn’t fancy chocolate — i was raised on hershey’s milk chocolate, and to me, it tastes like my childhood. we hit chocolate world twice, as they were giving out new hershey bliss bars as you exited. of course, when you ride something like that with a smartass like me, well, the bliss is all mine. first, we read about how childless milton hershey started a school for orphan boys, a noble pursuit which still runs today, though i believe it is for girls, too, now. but i looked at BS and said, how nice, he opened a school for boys. but what about the girls? what were they going to do in life? then, of course, you learn about the chocolate. and here i go, spoiling all the fun: i bet it isn’t free trade chocolate, is it? so is hershey doing anything to not exploit people in developing nations?

yeah, i’m fun like that.

anyway, the park was pretty crowded and it was pretty hot. we did get on some rides, most notably jools’ first time on a real roller coaster (both the comet and the sidewinder), so we did have fun. but it was impossible again to hit the waterpark, and, as i said before, the lines were a bit insane. and by the time we got to eat dinner, it was after 8pm, BS’s brand new cell phone’s touch screen was shattered by his time on the comet rollercoaster, and people were pretty exhausted. we drove back to york in the dark on fumes, a tired, cranky crew.

day two. dutch wonderland. DW is a lot of fun for kids under the age of about 7. it, too, is pretty clean and friendly, just like hershey. it also has a kosher restaurant, just like hershey. (in fact, BC asked whether there was a corporate relationship between the two parks. she’s smart like that.) it was also pretty crowded and pretty hot. BS, being exhausted from the previous day and pretty stressed from the fact that we almost got killed on I-83 that morning while merging (no exaggeration this time, i’m afraid), basically became ill. he sat out in the car for a little while, while the kids and i explored the park some more. unfortunately for me, the only place without a long line for lunch was…the kosher mart. but too bad for me: i was wearing my mini purse, which i pack with only the barest of necessities, especially since BS has other stuff in his wallet. only, too bad for me: BS was in the car, trying to revive his stomach. all i had was $20 in my pocket and an Amex. they don’t take Amex, and $20 didn’t cover lunch. little by little, i was telling the very , very sweet person at the kosher mart to remove this item or that item until i hit $17.

then i sat my kids down at the bird-poop-covered table to eat. and i cried. i was tired, i was hungry, i had a sore throat, and i really just wanted to leave.

eventually, BS returned to the park, and the kids and we went on a few gentle rides before leaving. we were going to dinner at the house of my best friend from grad school, Kip, when we hit first a major accident on Route 30 (read: the only road between here and there), then a lane closure. by the time we were near our hotel, BS told me to drop him off and i could take the kids to Kip’s. which i did. he was really looking green around the gills, so i knew better than to press my luck.

we had a great time at Kip’s — this was probably way more my speed for the day — eating dinner and letting the kids run around in their massive yard. she had found a DVD game of Family Feud at a yard sale for $1, which we played twice. (Kip, btw, is a master of finding finds at yard sales, etc.) and we returned at 10 pm, only to find that the electronic lock on our room had been changed. fortunately, BS woke up and let us in.

there’s so much more fun to report, like our miserable ride back yesterday (which included an entire bottle of nestle quik spilled all over the inside of the car), but i’ll spare you. suffice to say that by the time we got home, we had shell-shocked kids, a mom on the brink of tears, and a dad on the brink of reenacting a scene from the Exorcist.

i know today’s going to be better.

all mixed up

Posted on August 20, 2008 by wrekehavoc

i was supposed to be on an amtrak train today, heading south to orlando, destination: disney. instead, i am home. amtrak cancelled my train due to a storm called faye that never turned into a hurricane.

it’s all mixed up.

first, amtrak never actually contacted us to tell us. if i hadn’t been a person who follows everything on the web, i would actually be travelling to lorton right now, getting ready to board a train on a track to nowhere. then, when we called amtrak the first time, they told us that they were canceling both legs of our train trip. if i wanted my return trip, i would need to rebook — at a higher price. at that point in time, we were contemplating driving down and taking the train back, so to say we were pissed about that would be the understatement of the century. i wrote a nastygram to amtrak. to their credit, an agent called me last night at 10:30 p.m. to tell me that they’d hang on to my return trip if i let them know by 4 p.m. wednesday.

in reality, we are not in the right mind to drive two days for our trip. i think there’s a certain level of mental prep that one does for such an experience, and we were simply not there. and, as the next train down with available seating doesn’t leave until monday, this dog wasn’t huntin’.

meanwhile, The Mouse doesn’t care that i have no way of coming to disney; they want $200 cancellation fee, thank-you-very-much. unless there is a hurricane warning declared, disney is open and expects your ass on the monorail.

oh. and there’s the little matter of two children who were completely pumped for their trip to disneyworld. they have been trying to be little troopers, especially since we told them we’re going to reschedule this trip if it’s the last thing we do; but jeez louise, this situation continues to go from dumb to dumber. only one or two highlights, as there were actually so many from which to choose:

a) when we call to officially cancel the amtrak train, an extremely nasty, sharp-tongued ticket agent informed BS that he was getting $400 back. uh, come again? those tix cost WAY more than $400. he asked her why, and she began yelling a barrage of nastiness at him. (she should thank her lucky stars that i was not on the phone. at that point, i was in no mood for anyone messing with me, my family, or anybody.) when BS asked for a supervisor, she clearly put on her colleague. nevermind; the colleague was nice and even honored the old price for the rescheduled trip.

b) when rescheduling disney, the confirmation came back — with DIFFERENT DATES AT THE WRONG HOTEL. he got on the phone, and something apparently had gone kerflooey. someone went into the database and fixed things; we’re waiting for the emailed confirmation to show that things have been put right.

there’s so much more i could write, but suffice to say, i am extremely disappointed with Amtrak and Disney. i am shocked at how we’ve been treated. things better be better the next time or else i guess our days of patronizing either enterprise are limited.

lessons learned:

sometimes travel insurance (which we had) is completely irrelevant
never travel to florida in august
we are actually capable of making lemonade out of lemons

re: the last bit: we will make our own fun. just closer to home. i’ll keep blogging; i’ll just be a little sporadic, as my buddy maren likes to say. see, i have these three other people here, and i think i’m supposed to pay attention to them. so talk amongst yourselves. i’ll still give a guilty pleasure monday next week; how could i not? and maybe i’ll type another thing or two.

but in short: i need a break from all this vacation crap.

that's entertainment

Posted on August 12, 2008 by wrekehavoc

BC has been at a trip camp for the past week. fortunately, she is having a much better time at this camp than at the last one. she has made a friend or two, and what is there not to like when every day, you hit a waterpark or a zoo or some other venue of fun? (next summer, i want a summer camp for grownups.) but i suspect making a friend has made all the difference with miss thang, who is quite the social chick.

that’s why i was struck by something she said yesterday as i picked her up. mama, she said, so-and-so has an mp3 player like mine.

she brought an mp3 player to camp? i asked.

oh mama, everyone on the bus has mp3 players or nintendos, game boys, cell phones. that sort of thing.

time for the maternal head scratch. aren’t people supposed to actually talk to each other on the bus? interact?

we do talk, mama.

yeah. the social ones. or the ones like mine, whose mama doesn’t allow her to bring any electronics to camp. mean, mean mama.

what is up with people these days? why do our children have to be entertained every. single. blessed. second. of. the. day? i mean, i understand if you’re going on a four-hour drive listening to books on tape or watching DVDs. but a hop across town? a bus ride at camp?

not to mention the fact that my kids would probably lose the few expensive electronics they possess if i let them take them anywhere.

but i digress. per usual.

it reminds me of the time when we were on our first (and last) carnival cruise. the award-winning children’s program had two full hours of kids playing on gameboys. even girlfriend, who was about seven at the time, knew that was lame.

don’t get me wrong. we have our serious couch potato tendencies around here. we are all computer addicts. we probably watch too much television. we all could do with more exercise. but i ensure there are times in my kids’ lives when they are bored. bored, bored, bored. because you know what? life can be boring. and that’s okay. take a boring moment and figure out how to handle it. play? read? clean? run? call a friend? so many options.

plenty which don’t require batteries.

letting go

Posted on July 23, 2008 by wrekehavoc

i didn’t realize how easy i had it with one child until i had a second.

and i would never, ever trade either of them in for all the tea in china (though there are days when i might give them away, especially on days when they fight about the most picayune things. like who is taking up more space on the planet.)

but this week, while BC is at sleepaway camp with the Girl Scouts for the first time, i am feeling a little blue. i haven’t gotten any boohooey phone calls begging me to drive out to boofoo the middle of nowhere camp to come and pick her up. i’m pleasantly surprised by that fact, as i intentionally picked the camp closest to home in case i got the call at some ungodly hour and had to schlep my ass out, half-asleep, and collect the child. after all, when girlfriend found out that there was no electricity in the cabins, that they had to pee in latrines, that they would have to CLEAN aforementioned latrines, and that there were bugs in them there woods… well, we were not amused.

but she’s still there.

it is giving me the opportunity to really focus on jools, my little big man, who will be hitting elementary school soon (and probably hard.) we play toss the dog with his webkinz. we watch the magic schoolbus, especially the one where they all turn into bats. i want to be a bat, he tells me, because i want to eat bugs. (charmed, i’m sure.) but it’s leaps and bounds better than his current favorite, ben ten: alien force. (yep. the interest in aliens is completely BS’s contribution to the gene pool. but the fact that he rewinds it multiple times to hear the theme song, which he loves — all mine.)

i love the fact that it’s all about him, as it never really is on most days. that’s part of the fun of not being the first child; although when you’re the youngest, you eventually get your turn… of course, you get it as a teenager, when you really don’t want all that much one-on-one time with your folks. typically speaking, anyway.

still, the house is so quiet. i don’t miss people fighting.

but i miss my girl.

i don’t want to tell her, though. she’s the type who will never leave my side if she thinks i’m sad. and part of being a mom — maybe the toughest part about being a mom — is letting go.

if this is just a week, i can’t imagine what’s in store for me later.

this party sucks

Posted on July 21, 2008 by wrekehavoc

okay, i really wanted to entitle this why six flags america sucks, but as i like to keep my titles thematically consistent (hey, you hadn’t noticed by now that in 2008, they’re all song titles?) AND, well, any excuse to mention the slickee boys…

anyway, for the past few years, we’ve bought annual passes to six flags. going once pretty much pays for it, and going more than once makes it more cost-effective… cost-effective until you buy items at the park, like food, water, and anything else. but that’s life in amusement park land, of course. i don’t mind when it’s a special day; and every summer, i take one day and take BC to the park alone, and i take jools to the park alone on another. we only go either on weekends early or late in the season or weekdays in the summer; this helps to combat massive crowds. this year, i have already taken both kids to the park, and i am more than underwhelmed. in fact, i can safely state that the park has gone to hell in a handcart. here’s why, in no particular order:

1. all those signs that tell people to keep it clean because employees’ families attend the park, too? how about some employees respecting MY family once in awhile? like not saying the word shit in front of my five year old? okay, so i’m a potty mouth, albeit a judicious one; i just don’t expect that sort of thing in regular conversation by a service employee who is in uniform and on the job.

2. gum. on my shoe. every time.

3. wave pool doesn’t open on time. ever. something to do with training lifeguards. hello? the pool is supposed to open at 11. it gives you a couple of hours to train them prior to park opening. oh, you mean it’s too cold to swim before then? you’re a lifeguard; get over yourself.

4. wave pool closes for 15 minutes every hour.

5. way too many unsupervised kids in wave pool, kids who don’t seem to care about whether they ride over someone on a raft. why do they even allow rafts in the wave pool?

6. way too many unsupervised kids in crocodile cal’s beach house. lifeguards circle the area, but i finally had to step in when my five year old was getting continually mowed down by other kids while waiting his turn for slides.

7. ditto for the baby pool area. there is an EXTREMELY thin yet high staircase to the top of the big slide there. it is covered in netting, which my son was able to move to a dangerous degree. and once on top, he was actually pushed around by boys and girls who were about 12. at least.

8. sylvester’s bounce and pounce? not open in the morning.

9. kiddy bumper cars? not open in the morning.

10. flume ride? not open at opening.

11. renegade rapids? not open til noon.

12. there’s one coaster that has never been open in the four or five years i have had season passes. looks like it would be fun, but i’ll never know.

13. why is the train only available to picnicking business groups? do you have any earthly idea how many little kids want to ride the choo choo?

14. 30 minutes to get two slices of cheese pizza. 30. minutes. with. a. hungry. five. year. old. boy. oh, and this wasn’t at peak time: this was at 2 pm on a monday afternoon.

15. witnessed female employee (princess was her name; and if she moved any slower, she would be moving backwards. the other lady, karouselle, lived up to her name, moving in circles) at papa johns (aforementioned pizza experience) actually give away another person’s whole pizza.

16. no manager present to discuss pizza situation.

17. at register, mentioned the issue to cashier. sorry, he said, we’re short-staffed. ultimately, he gave me a 20% discount on my two slices for my trouble. thus apparently, 30 minutes of my-special-day-with-my-boy-sucked-up-into-a-papajohns-vortex-of-doom = $2.60. whee.

18. no more pesky service staff at locker center near the front. sadly, when the computerized locker failed to work, there were no more pesky service staff to help us. nine year old daughter actually had to flag down passing employee, who radioed for help. help came 15 minutes later when daughter recognized the computer logo on a man passing by. daughter snagged said man and brought him over. (note to self: who needs assertiveness training classes for BC? send her to six flags and let her loose to find any employee who might actually help her in a situation.)

19. $1 off skill games coupon in six flags season pass coupon book apparently not applicable for the water-gun game this week. funny, it was applicable two weeks ago when BC played at the same booth, but now, water squirting is apparently no longer a skill, unlike what six flags itself says on its website:

Games

Ready for a little friendly competition? Come out to the park and show us what you’ve got. Step right up for long-range basketball, skee-ball, water gun races��-real games of skill. Team up with your group or go head-to-head. You might just win a prize for someone special.

shooting basketballs and skeeball apparently is. who knew?

20. as BS pointed out, if the water gun race is not a game of skill, then it is a game of chance, which is illegal, if i am not mistaken, in prince georges county.

21. two people must play in order for someone to win a prize in aforementioned non-game-of-skill. thus, you are paying $6 for a stuffed item made in china.

22. aforementioned stuffed item made in china has a GAPING hole in it, much like the gaping hole in identical item BC won a few weeks ago. wondering whether there was a child laborer stowed away in item. hope he or she was able to find freedom here.

23. on summer weekdays, it appears that every elementary through high school aged child in the county is present without any parents, in full bling and pushing past other kids who might actually be in front of them in line for anything.

24. have the balls in the looney toons prop warehouse ever been cleaned? has the looney toons prop warehouse ever been cleaned? i had the pleasure of sitting next to an opened bottle of orange soda today, spillage and all, and we were among the first people in the place.

and, finally,

25. the bathrooms? i’ll refrain from TMI, but in a word, EWWW.

i’m not entirely sure whether this is the case in all six flags. i had thought about taking the kids to six flags great adventure next week, but after our experiences so far this year, i am wondering whether the entire corporation is going kerflooey. there are so many amusement parks that do things well — disney, of course, and hersheypark, for two — so i have to wonder whether six flags simply cannot handle things.

i think this may be our last year for season passes.

stuck in the middle with you

Posted on July 18, 2008June 27, 2019 by wrekehavoc

after our magical day on wednesday, i granted BC a day off from cheerleading camp for good behavior. we ran errands, we chatted, we laughed, we took a grownup friend (of both of ours!) out to lunch, and generally had a lovely day. i know there’s a school of thought that would say that BC needed to get back on the horse that threw her — and i often do make her do just that — but i felt strongly that girlfriend needed to see that i was in her corner. no matter what.

PHOTO REMOVED BECAUSE OF CREEPS ON THE INTERNET. YOU SUCK, PERVS.

how could anyone be mean to this face?

so this morning, we started our drive to camp, both of us feeling pretty sunny. today is the last day of cheerleader camp. i knew i would call the camp office later and explain girlfriend’s situation so that when she starts another camp there in two weeks, girlfriend already has peeps looking out for her. my beloved mentor/former boss/second dad down here in DC taught me a lesson back in the day which i’ve never forgotten — don’t stress about bad stuff — DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT — then move on. (i love that Cool Pops guy.) so i knew i would feel better later after i did what i could do for Dog, Country, and Beloved Child.

but back to the ride in. as usual, i have my mp3 player blaring, which usually prompts BC, AKA my grandmother reincarnated, to tell me to turn it down!!!! (how’s that for role reversal?) my mp3 player, as noted in other places, is somewhat eclectic. but one of my favorite guilty pleasures came on, and suddenly, little miss backseat driver yells, turn it up!

we begin to sing:

clowns to the left of me,

jokers to the right.

here i am, stuck in the middle with you.

i look at my rearview mirror at little girl bopping to the music. this is pretty much our song, isn’t it? i asked.

uh huh, she replied, grinning.

girls talk

Posted on July 16, 2008 by wrekehavoc

there are some things you can’t cover up with lipstick and powder. – elvis costello

the shoe has officially dropped. ladies and gentlemen, welcome to puberty.

tonight, i am dealing with a teary, dreary young lady. she has been enduring cheerleading camp for nearly two weeks, and while at first it looked promising, i think it will knock any remaining desire to be a cheerleader out of her. not only do they make you do all sorts of exercises, but the young teen counselors have actually been rewarding girls who win different training competitions. rewarding them with pop rocks and other assorted candies, apparently.

BC has not won once.

all those years of experiences where everyone gets rewarded just for trying crashes down on your head at this age. i always wondered when that would happen, and here we are, odd girl out. its difficult to watch — girlfriend is just not terribly competitive – she really just wants to have fun. and the counselors are pitting the girls against each other.

sometimes, with disastrous results.

remember earlier in the week when BC said that one girl couldn’t be a flyer? well, BC is pretty much out of the flyer running, too. the girls can’t lift her now. one girl dropped the bomb to end all bombs: you’re really heavy, she proclaimed to my girl. you’re really heavy.

i could go fucking postal.

while i would never condone any sort of idiotic and lethal interactions, i can almost put myself into the shoes of that murderous TX cheerleader mother and see the sort of anger that could build up over time. no, i don’t give a shit whether my kid is EVER a cheerleader (i’m not a cheerleading fan, remember?) but hell yeah, i care whether my daughter starts to develop an obscenely-skewed view of herself because of what some pipsqueak twat said to her.

i know. it happened to me. not in cheerleading, but in gym class. i, too, had a curvy figure at a youngish age. most of the girls were blonde twigs with nearly non-existent boobage. if a stiff wind had blown, they would all have required nose jobs from the impact their faces would have made with the gym floor. somehow, the future stepford wives of america were accepted as the norm, and athletic, muscular me, was regarded as some sort of freak.

now, i look at pictures of myself from back then and think what the hell was this poor girl thinking? she’s gorgeous. sure, she’s not a twig. but she’s just right for who she is. she’s smart. she’s kind. she’s got a good heart. she’s even kinda cute. why did she try weight watchers when she was 9? why is she spending some days eating just fruit? why is she spending some days simply drinking water and nothing else? why is she running around the block all the time?

i spent time in college with someone very close to me who was bulimic. i wanted so very much to tell her parents, but i swore i wouldn’t. i did the very best i could at age 21: i took her to a weight management class that my college offered and tried to be her buddy, her support, her one-person builder-upper. i don’t know whether it helped her much, but eventually, it spurred her on to get professional help. (i’m glad to say that many years later, she is healthy and has conquered those devils.)

but i see the future. and that’s EXACTLY what’s afoot in this here household. mama, i’m FAT! she announced. the girls can’t lift me.

i said it before, and i’ll say it again: those girls need to get out, lift weights, and start doing something more athletic than twisting ribbons for their hair.

when i had a little girl, i vowed i would raise her without exposing her to my weight issues. in this house, i talk about exercise and eating right and striving to be healthy. not nicole richie-thin. not barbie-perfect. just be the best you and the best me that we can be, inside and out. it has been hard work, and i’m sure there are times i have not been perfect about it. but i must say that this has always been one of my parental lines in the sand: i disciplined my mouth and my behavior so as to not utter those immortal words in front of my child: do these jeans make my butt look big?

and all that hard work, all that painstaking process, is being undone by one snot-nosed little girl, a girl who has probably also gotten some weird message about herself and about bodies. where does it all end?

i was in tears, which is admittedly not a great place to be when you’re a mom and you’re trying to comfort your child as she hits a hard, brick wall of reality. honey, i pleaded, you ARE beautiful. you’re also kind, intelligent, and incredibly emotionally astute. you have no earthly idea how wonderful, how special you are. every parent i have ever encountered can’t say enough wonderful things about what a great kid you are. your brother worships you. and your father and i love you and are so very proud of the person you are.

please, please tell me you know how special you are!

blink, blink. a pause.

mommy, all those girls in high school with glasses, who are smart, they end up as dorks.

whoa, girlfriend. you’re getting personal now.

deep breath. sometimes as a parent, you have to pull strength from sources that come from seemingly out of nowhere. i called upon two: my oldest brother the doctor (BTD) and eleanor roosevelt.

honey, i said, when i went to camp, all the boys liked my friend. they didn’t like me like that; they thought i was too smart for them. it made me cry. that summer, uncle BTD had shingles, and he had to stay in bed most of the summer. i would come home from camp, and i would sit and talk with him. BTD, i cried one day after camp, i think i need to start acting dumb. none of the boys like me like they like [name deleted] because i’m too smart. they want dumb girls.

my brother, demonstrating amazing grace under probably annoying sibling pressure, looked my way. don’t you EVER start acting dumb to get liked. there will be boys one day who will appreciate you just as you are.

BC, i continued, you know i hate to admit it when either of your uncles is right, but in this case, i have to tell you: uncle BTD was right. what he said was that you shouldn’t change yourself to make someone like you, advice which has stood me in good stead even to this day. who wants to be liked by someone who doesn’t like the special things you have to offer?

she looked at me. and just cos i was smart doesn’t make me a dork, sister. she smiled, i think.

i continued, on my own personal mission. the quote i like to live by was said by eleanor roosevelt — you know, that lady who was married to a president we talked about that time? eleanor said something so wise, it still is something i think about as a grownup. her words:

no one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

do you know what that means, BC?

she piped up: that no one can make you feel bad?

i augmented her thought: yes, that no one can make you feel bad about yourself unless you let them. don’t you let them, my girl. she calmed down enough to sleep.

i wonder what the morning will bring. eleanor, don’t fail me now.