Nolan is also very quick witted and decisive, unlike his mama.  A friend of mine called me to tell me about a job opening in the local school district.  I want a school job, so that when I finish grad school I’ll have my foot in the door, at least halfway.  But I’m so afraid of making such a commitment, I worry about going to school and working set hours, being away from the kids after school, all kinds of things. I have not worked out of my house for over four years, so it’s a bit scary for me.

Nolan asked about the phone call so I told him.  He asked if I was going to apply.  My response was something like this:

Me:  I don’t know, I’m not sure, I don’t know, maybe, I don’t know.  (Basically jibberish, because I DONT KNOW.)

Nolan:  (shooting me a disgusted look) That was a few I don’t knows too many, mom.  You want a job in the school, so apply.

Ahhh, words of wisdom from the twelve year old.  He’s available for career advice and life coaching, just NEVER question his wisdom.

So why did I get it, you might ask.  Because there’s this 14 year old kid that I want to communicate with while he’s at band camp, and I figured the best way to do that was through his favorite means of communication.  The kid very rarely actually talks on his cell phone, but he will text me, and I even get the occasionally “Luv  ya” which makes my day:)

I texted him on Sunday several hours after he would have gotten to camp and asked how his concert auditions went.  The audition went great and he was very happy with  his performance.  At the end of that text, he wrote “talk to you on Friday”, which is when we go pick him up.  Um, does that mean he thinks I won’t be calling or texting him all week? Ha.

Well. I have texted him a couple times, his dad has texted him a couple times, and we haven’t gotten a response.  Now I understand that he’s in band lessons six hours out of the day, plus private lessons, eating, sleeping, all that.  So he’s busy.  But come on! Today I missed a phone call and it was from the University of Arkansas, where he’s at camp.  Of course I panicked, but it turned out that one of the campers came down with the flu, they sent him home and were running tests to determind what kind of flu, and they are required to call all the other parents just to let us know. Which is still serious, but at least my kid wasn’t sick or in trouble.

At that point I texted him and said please respond so I know you’re ok.  I got nothing back.  So I called him and it went to voicemail, so I knew it was off.  Finally he texted me back about thirty minutes later. This is what I got:

Son:  I just got out of class.

Me: Are you ok, everything fine?

Son:  Yup.

Me:  We miss you and can’t wait to see you tomorrow.

Son: Me too.

I write full sentences proclaiming how much I miss him, and I get “Yup”!  I got texting on my phone so we could “communicate” and I get “Me too”!

I’m going to take this to mean that he is having a great time, is very busy and learning a lot, and of course misses his mom so much he can’t even mention it.  Surely that’s the case, right? Let’s just go with that.

I’ll call this dilemma, The Uninvited Guest.  Do you ever invite one of your child’s friends over and the friend shows up with their little brother or sister?  Or it’s just taken for granted that the little sibling is welcome at birthday parties or any other activity?  This happens all the time, and I’d love to know how you all handle this. 

I’m pretty easy going, so my tendency is to just let the younger sibling stay and play.  Most of the time, this works out okay.  But when the younger one is several years younger than either of my  kids, it gets awkward, because then it’s more like babysitting.  I don’t want to plan a fun get together for my kid and his friend only to insist that they include a much younger brother in their fun.  But it has happened that way, and it’s no fun for any of us.  On the flip side, I would never send either of my kids to tag along with their brother to a friends house or party when they weren’t invited. 

I have tried using my child as an excuse, saying “Nolan wants to know if Mark can come over”.  I specifically do not mention the  younger brother.  Sometimes that works, sometimes they still show up together and sometimes I get asked, can little brother come too.  Which puts me in an awkward position, because all of my reasons for saying No don’t sound too nice when I say them out loud.

So tell me, am I wrong to not want younger siblings to come over without being invited?  Maybe I am the stick in the mud and need to get over that.  If I’m not wrong, and  it’s perfectly okay to expect the invited guest to show up by himself, then how do you handle this situation?

Because I’m a worrier by nature, you know this kind of thing has kept me up at night and caused me severe stress.  I never want to hurt any feelings.  Advice, please!  And thanks!

You know what will keep your mind off your kid leaving for a week?  Taking that kid shopping, because he’s outgrown all his decent clothes and apparently decent clothes are a requirement for camp.  Shopping is not my thing anyway, and shopping with a teenage boy, um, NO. 

Tanner is very excited for band camp, and he was very excited to go shopping today too.  Of course, you know the day couldn’t go off without a hitch.  We were in the car, getting on the highway to go to the closest mall, when he shows me his hand.  His hand that is covered in poison ivy.  Then he shows me where it is spreading to his arm.  Are you kidding! I can’t send my kid to camp like that.  We’ve been down the  poison ivy road before too, so I know it will cover his entire body within 24 hours.  I had to take a detour to the doctors office to get him a shot and some other medication.  The poor kid was not happy to delay his shopping, and he was even less happy about getting a shot.  He hates shots with a passion, and he swore that he would take the pills the doctor offered.  Right. At camp, with no parents to remind him, I’m pretty sure he would not remember to take medicine. I just hope he remembers to sleep a little.

So it was a long day, and tomorrow will be spend doing his laundry and packing.  I guess it’s a good thing that it takes so much work to get him out the door, because I’ll be so tired by Sunday I might not remember how much I’m going to miss that kid.  Or not.

I’ve been seriously sleep deprived before, and it never fails, very strange things start happening when I get exhausted.  Mainly, my mind enters some kind of different dimension. 

It starts out with dreams, but the dreams seem so real.  I usually dream about whatever it is that is keeping me from sleeping.   A couple years ago I started a new job and it was so busy at first, I wasn’t getting much sleep.  When I did sleep, I found myself half dreaming/half awake, answering the  phone in my dream.  Except I was actually talking to my boss, in my half awake state.  My husband was a little concerned about me.  It stopped happening when I started getting some rest.

The past few days, I’ve been doing the same kind of dreaming, but I’m dreaming that I didn’t finish all my assignments.  While I’m dreaming, I’ll actually get up and start writing myself a note about what I need to finish.  Eventually I’ll figure out what I’m doing and get back in bed, but that’s happened several times.  Because I was so worried about going back to school, I guess I’m still worrying about it.

Last night was the weirdest, so far anyway.  Our dog sleeps in our room, and usually ends up in our bed.  Lately he’s been a real pain and wants to go out at 2am.  For some reason, he never starts whining and nudging my husband, he saves that for me.  So we started leaving him outside until right before we go to bed.  Last night I was in my half awake/half asleep state, and I saw it lightening outside.  I figured I should let the dog in, so I opened the door and waited for him.  He didn’t come, so I called for him, but quietly, because everyone was sleeping.  He still didn’t come so I stepped outside, getting worried.  Finally I gave up and went back inside.  Guess what I saw?  Right there, in my room, lying sprawled out on my bed, was the dog.  He had been there the whole night! And I knew we had brought him inside before bedtime, because I said goodnight to him (don’t ask, he’s a very well loved dog).  But because I was in that weird dreaming state, I could not remember that he was in bed with me. Weird!

I guess it’s kind of like sleep walking except I’m walking, talking and doing all kinds of strange things, and I remember it.  It’s an adventure every night, I have no idea what I’ll do next. 

I really need to get some sleep though, stepping outside is getting a little risky for me.  I don’t want to take a chance that I might decide to drive somewhere.  Although it would be great if I felt like cleaning the house or doing the laundry while I’m asleep.

I have to say, when I made those phone calls it never failed that I ended my work day feeling pretty good.  Most of the time when I get phone calls from people I know its a crazy, rushed conversation. 

“Can you pick up the boys from swimming, then I’ll grab them for lunch and baseball?  Oh I forgot about snacks, have to run by the store.  Ok see you in 30 minutes gotta go bye.”

How many conversations like that do you have in a day?  For me, its a lot.  Like most moms I’m constantly juggling the pick ups and drop offs and rescheduling the schedule.  Cah-ra-zy.

But when you call an older person, you have no choice but to SLOW DOWN. Way down.  You talk slower and louder so they can hear you.  And once I got past the annoyance of having to slow down the mad speed that I usually talk at, I realized something.  These people liked talking to me.  As soon as it was clear that I wasn’t selling anything, which I wasn’t and I said so up front, they relaxed and clearly enjoyed talking to me.  They told me stories about their children and grandchildren, asked me where I was from, and always, without fail, told me Thank you for calling honey/darlin/dear.  And they said Have a good day, and clearly meant it.   Not in a hurry up and get off phone way, but honestly, Have a good day.

Makes me wonder, do the people I talk to on the phone feel like I really wanted to talk to them?  Actually, I realized I don’t really talk to most of the people I call, I talk at them, rattling off whatever important message I need to get across. 

I’m working on slowing down, being more pleasant to everyone, on the phone and in person. Listening instead of just thinking about the next thing I need to say while the other person is talking.  Meaning it when I tell the store cashier to have a good day. It made a difference in my day, hopefully it will in theirs.  Surely it can’t hurt.

I’m pretty picky about what my kids watch.  I read parent movie reviews before we rent a movie.  My kids are older now, and I’m not going to pretend that they haven’t been exposed to all kinds of language at school.  I’m okay with some language in a movie, not okay with too much “sexual content”.  I’m sure my 7th grader has heard all of that at school, too, but my 5th grader hopefully has not.

 At the end of the Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, it says Movie based on Hasbro action figure toys (or something very similar to that).  So why, in a movie based on toys, did they feel the need to cram it full of trash sexual content? My five year old nephew saw the first Transformer movie, and I’m sure he’ll see this one.  Sure, the sexual content will be completely over his head, but why did it need to be in there at all? It’s an action movie about toys.

I lean towards pretty conservative with TV and movies, sometimes too much because I will forget that my kids are older now and  have been exposed to more.  But if my husband thinks there was too much completely unnecessary sexual content in a movie, then I know it was bad.  That was the first thing he commented on when we walked out of the theatre.  The thing was, it really wasn’t necessary for the movie.  It took away from the action scenes and provided some really uncomfortable moments in a theatre packed with the under 8 crowd.  You can have a great action flick that most ages will want to see without the sex stuff.  My family saw the recent Terminator movie, and there was hardly any sexual content.  It would have been completely out of place in that movie.  Like it was in this movie about action figures.

I admit I did not check the parent reviews before we saw Transformers.  I also know that it was rated PG-13 for a reason, but so was the first Transformers movie.  We saw the first one and it had a lot less sexual content, and it was pretty mild compared to this one, so I wasn’t expecting it.  My opinion is, if you’re making a movie based on toys or characters that will be familiar to children, then make the movie appropriate for all ages.  Don’t try to throw in some juvenile, vulgar sex humor to appeal to whoever that appeals to.  I’m okay with language, I understand you’re probably not going to find an action movie without profanity, and it wouldn’t be realistic anyway.  But for the mom in the movie to talk about her son getting “his cherry popped”?  Not necessary at all, and pretty inappropriate for the group that was watching the movie in my theatre.

I was just disappointed, and it did seem to spoil the movie for me.  I loved the first one, but I was so bummed out about how much time was devoted to sex that I didn’t enjoy this one at all. 

So what do you guys think, if you saw the movie did you think it went a little overboard on the sexual content?

But, I am very happy about the reason I have been sooo busy.  I was nervous about announcing beforehand what I was going to be doing, in case I followed my instinct and chickened out before I got started.  And because I had no idea how busy I was going to be.

I’ve been busy making a long time dream of mine come true.  You know those dreams that you have, thoughts or plans or wishes that you just never think will happen?  Those dreams that just hang out in your mind and heart, never completely going away?  I’ve been making a big one come true.

I went back to graduate school.  I still get a big smile on my face when I say that! I  have talked about it for years, only to my husband of course. I have dreamed about it for years, but never really believed I could do it.  Actually, I was pretty sure I could not do, and that I would quit or be kicked out the first day of classes.  Right up until classes started, I kept telling my husband not to tell anyone, because I wanted to leave the back door open for a quick exit.  He helpfully told everyone we know and told me to slam that back door shut, cause I was not looking back.  So, I didn’t.

This is not a typical education or career path.  I have an undergraduate degree in business that I’ve never really used, because for the past fourteen years I’ve only taken jobs that allowed me to work from home. Any job, as long as I could be home with my babies boys. For the past year these jobs or lack thereof have really weighed on me.  I want to work and need to work, but I was getting really tired of not being interested in my work.  No interest in most of it at all. Some of it I do love, but most of it, no love.  My dream job, if anyone ever asked, has always been to work in a bookstore.  Or a library.  Ask anyone who has known me for more than, oh, five minutes, and they’ll say I’d be a perfect librarian.  But it’s always been one of those dreams, the ones that never come true, they just hang out in your head.

Until one day, when you decide, just for the heck of it, to call the university and find out what it takes to get in the Library Media Specialist graduate program.  Fully expecting them to say that I’d have to start over with a different undergrad degree then a masters degree, but I called anyway, on a total whim.

They said it doesn’ t matter what my undergrad degree is in. They listed off a couple easy and simple hoops to jump through to get accepted into the program, one of which was filling out an application and the other was sending my transcripts. That was it, no other hoops.

On another whim, I filled out the paperwork and forwarded the transcripts and waited for my rejection letter.  I expected it to say something along the lines of Do you realize you are 40 years old??  That rejection letter never showed up. I was accepted into the program and had an appointment to meet with my advisor to set up a plan of study within a short two weeks after my first whimsical phone call.  It actually happened so fast that I don’t think it really registered with me that I could do this and that the university wasn’t laughing at me for wanting to do this.

This is so huge for me. I’m not a risk taker, I will stay in my comfort zone long after it has stopped being enjoyable rather than try something  new.  For a solid month I had panic attacks thinking about going back to school. I refused to tell anyone, refused to believe it and always kept my mind on, I can quit if I want.  But I don’t want to quit and I didn’t.

I just completed my first seven hours of graduate school.  They forgot to mention to me that one graduate class is basically equivalent to 2.5 undergrad classes, or that they were cramming sixteen weeks worth of work into sixteen days.  I probably would not have taken two classes and a workshop if I had known.  It has been very tough.  Not only have I neglected this blog, I have not cooked a meal in four weeks.  I haven’t cleaned my house in four weeks. I miss my family and I miss sleeping.  I have not survived on this little sleep in decades, and I don’t like it.

But I made it. Today was my last class for the summer. Is it ok to say that I loved my classes, as hard as they were? I love the library media program. I love being back in school. I can’t wait for the fall semester to start. Ok, I take that back, I do need a break. But the word “quit” is not in my vocabulary now.

So there you have it, one dream coming true. I’m so excited I cannot even put it in words.  I have more work to do than most of the other students in this program.  I don’t have a teaching background, so I need to volunteer or substitute teach, or both.  I will end up getting my teaching certificate at some point. So there’s lots of work ahead.  I’m ready for it.

So please excuse my absence.  I am back, and soon I will be rested and refreshed and able to keep my eyes open. Not today, but soon.

What dreams are hanging out in your heart?

Nolan is twelve years old today. Impossible, but true.

When Nolan was probably 6 months old, my husband told me that there was a scary moment right after he was born. I had a c-section, and for some reason right after he was born, I passed out. At the same time, he was blue and not breathing. My husband was surrounded by bustling nurses snapping orders, some taking care of me and some taking care of Nolan. He didn’t know who to go to, because at that moment he was scared that he was going to lose both of us. It passed quickly, I woke up and Nolan started breathing. I didn’t even know about for months because he was too shaken by it to tell me.

Nolan was born with two thumbs on his left hand. He had the extra one removed when he turned one. They put a big cast on him, which we thought was ridiculous but they said it was because they didn’t want him to get out of it. We laughed at the idea that he could somehow get out of a cast, until the morning after his surgery. My husband went in to check on him, and came back to bed and didn’t say a word. I asked how the baby was, he said he’s lying in his crib and the cast is completely off.  The little stinker. We took him back to the doctor and they made the cast even bigger.  We actually thought it might slow him down, but we were wrong.

He was always a happy little guy.  As long as he was at home, with his family.  For about the first eight months of his life, he hated leaving home and let me know loud and clear that he hated it. 

Look at the pure joy on that kids face. He got his first big boy bike from grandpa.  Those training wheels didn’t stay on very long.  I came home from running errands once and he was covered from head to toe in cuts and scrapes from a bike crash.  Mike’s shirt was bloody from carrying him home from the crash site.  I had a tiny huge panic attack when I saw them, but Nolan was already asking to get back on his bike.  Somehow we’ve managed to get to twelve with no broken bones!

His favorite thing has always been sports. He’s played baseball, basketball, karate, soccer and swimming. He tried ice skating, ice hockey and skateboarding, all when he was five years old.  It was so cute to see him all decked out in about fifty pounds of knee pads, elbow pads and a huge helmet, at the skate park with the teenagers.  So far, baseball is the all time favorite, but he’s been asking to try golf, so we’ll see.

This child is so much like his dad, it’s spooky sometimes. Their mannerisms, their words, their likes and dislikes. People that barely know Nolan will comment that he’s a clone of his father. I have to remind myself sometimes that he’s still a little guy, even as he’s reminding me to wash his baseball uniform or telling me how to fix the ice maker.

He will deny it, but he’s a pretty sweet kid. He’s been a joy and a huge blessing for the past twelve years. Which went by way too fast for me.  Happy Birthday love.

My son is turning 12 next week - I know, I can’t believe it either.  He celebrated today with a paintball party and some good friends.  And left with more than a few hard earned welts and bruises.  Good fun.

First, the sleepy boy with his cookie cake.  My kids aren’t big cake eaters so they get cookie cakes, and this is the best looking one we’ve ever gotten.  

‘

Getting ready to rumble.

I don’t know, can I call him my little toughie even though he’ s almost 12?  We won’t tell him.

Even though he wore two layers of clothes he came home with bruises battle wounds which he is very proud of.  I was safe behind a huge mesh tarp, in charge of protecting the cake and drinks.  I always get the most important jobs.

His actual birthday is next week, and on that day we will discuss how it is impossible that my baby is 12.

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