Archive for the ‘Kiddo’ Category

I’m a wreck. I know, just like you, just like every other zombie I’ve seen out there the last few days.

What happened was pure Holiday Hubris. Apparently, I was due for a karmic slapdown.

I was soooo smug. I was so sure. This was gonna be an easy year. Ali was getting cash. I’d arranged it so I wasn’t exchanging with many people. I’d held firm about not doing the annual cookie orgy where I spend days making 18 different kinds and packing them up for dozens of people. Hell, I’m not even going up to NYC for the holiday.

I had it made.

…oh, wait. What’s this, Alison? An ELEVEN PAGE Christmas list? With photos? Of clothes from online merchants who won’t possibly be able to get them here on time?

What’s that you say? That you really really REALLY need at least some of this stuff? And that for the first time since you were little you’re really looking forward to opening boxes and surprises instead of gift-cards?

And you promised you’d bring cookies, too? And everyone’s gone on and on about how much they look forward to you bringing them in? Even the principal? A tradition. Right.

Of course I’ll edit your exam essays until 1am so you can get some rest for the actual tests! And bake. And help you get ready to leave for your father’s on Friday.

Oh, that’s right, you’re leaving in a few days! And there’s that boy over by your Dad, the one you claim to not really like like, but you still want your hair, eyebrows, and nails done, and uh…you want your eyelashes tinted?? And these things have to happen in how many separate salons?

So. I’ve got 4 days to do a season’s worth of shopping, wrapping, etc.

But there is an upside to tramping through store after store…I made a little secret purchase today. I bought brand new tee-shirt style sheets for the bed- I love those more than any exorbitant thread count- and some books. And Saturday I’m going to have my own little quiet recovery party.

Okay, I guess there are really two upsides. Crazy as this all is, at least the kiddo still needs her mom to do all this stuff. Won’t be many more Christmases where that’s the case. So I’ll just have to swallow hard, make the sleep up later, and get it all done. That’s what moms do, after all.

But once she’s gone, Santa can skip the eggnog, I’m diving right into the wine bottle.

Happy Holidays, y’all, hope you’ve found your own snuggly something to help you recover!

This week had Alison in a tizzy because at the last minute she was invited to participate in the school’s annual Christmas & book sale.

She makes earrings and some other jewelry, and one of the moms she sits for suggested it. The second day she wanted to expand and took some Mardi Gras throws I’d picked up to add to her line, making her own sign and display:

I wasn’t sure anyone would want to pay that much for them, but she sold out immediately and then went on a rampage in my inventory, looking for more items.

Well, yesterday was the last day, and when I picked Ali and her friend up at school for a quick change before they went out on the town, I asked her how she did, and she looked miserable and didn’t want to discuss it.

I figured it was because she didn’t want to get into it in front of her friend. She got in around 11 and when I wanted to try to comfort her about her sale, she floored me. That stuff- you know, the sale she was so stressed over mere hours before- was petty and pointless, she said.

Her problem? Not low sales, but… UGANDA. Where she now passionately wants to go. And, oh, I should go, too.

In Global Issues class they watched a documentary made by American students in Africa called Invisible Children and the whole class bawled (except one girl, who is now branded a heartless beast). The teacher bawled. The next period, when the teacher asked what was wrong with everybody, they bawled again.

They’re all ready to pack up and go kick military ass and reintegrate these child soldiers, feed the victims and generally save the world.

All admirable, but I wish the school had given them a bit more African history. Ali seems to think it’s all about the information- if Americans knew, they’d be up in arms and we could just sort of…you know, fix it. Today. Tomorrow at the latest.

And if an American student got killed there, then the military’d surely rush there to kick ass, no?

What do you say to that? It’s this strange sort of sweet naivete mixed with martyresque conviction, and it’s all so convoluted it makes the Gordian Knot look like a kitten’s plaything.

So what did I say to all this? What brilliant Mother’s Wisdom did I bring to the table?

I did the only reasonable thing. I stalled. “Kiddo, unfortunately you’re not old enough to go. Let’s talk about it again after you turn 18, okay?”

I should be able to come up with something to say in the year and a half before she’s of age, right?

As soon as you think your teen’s wings are really really extended and they just can’t wait to jump out of the nest you get a panicky call that you have to come home from your meeting NOW because she’s having a meltdown about homework.

Then you spend (another) several hours researching the Kyoto treaty and coloring posterboard charts so she can go in and anhilate the other debate team.

But her killer instincts weren’t really the issue, the coloring was. It’s been a long long time since I’ve taken out the crayons with her, and it was a really nice throwback. Okay, so I was working on graphs of pollution levels and not fuzzy teddy bears, but you take ‘em where you can get ‘em.

But as it approached 1am, I noticed that my throat really didn’t feel very good. Ali was down with a throat thing last weekend, and despite repeated doses of Airborne -lucky me- it’s boomeranged back (again). Then she announced that lice is going around the school (again) and she’s totally freaked out about it (again) and she’s spent time with some of the girls who’ve been sent home (again).

So some things just never change. She still drags home every bug- literally and figuratively- home from school. She still waits until the last minute to finish her homework.

And she still wants my help. Not such a bad tradeoff.

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PS- She begged me, after all that, to take her picture down, because, of all things, she hates her arms in it. lol

PPS- She also screamed that I made it sound like she actually GOT the lice. She didn’t. There. Happy, kiddo?

So Alison took me to task this weekend. Frankly, I think she’s a little jealous because the bird’s gotten top billing of late – she complained that there aren’t any recent pictures of her on the blog, and not much information about her life.

Here we have what is, perhaps, a generational issue. I thought I was giving her her privacy, etc etc…if I thought my mother was off telling the world about me when I was her age, I’d have died. My mortified shrieks would be heard from coast to coast.

But here in this age of myspace and such, I guess things have changed. I don’t pretend to understand it, but I’ll roll with it.

Anyway, here’s a photo taken of the baby girl just this evening as she revamps her own portal to the world, and I promise to be more forthcoming about her doings.

“What is WRONG with you??”