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I”m just going to start this post with a plea for the obvious….Someone please hand me a glass of wine.   My son turned 13 today and I am totally unprepared for this.  What?  You are reading this at 7 AM on a weekday?  I don’t care, I now am the proud owner of one teenaged boy and I think I need it.   Don’t judge.

I don’t know how this happened and I certainly did not give my permission for this to occur.   When Mr. C was born, he was such a tiny little thing….barely six pounds.   He required a lot of attention….I lost a lot of sleep.    In those midnight hours, I imagined him being a toddler, in grade school….maybe even as old as 9 or 10.   My thoughts never wandered beyond that.

When 9 and 10 came and went, I started living moment by moment thinking every day that this sweet little boy would turn into a surly kid.  But he didn’t.

11 and 12 hit…and still I waited, dreading the moment he would figure out I’m not cool.   Still nothing.

So 13 looms today and guess what?   The kid still loves me, hugs me in public and laughs with me.   Crazy, right?   He is now only starting to roll his eyes at me.   Obviously, my parenting skills are amazing and I’ve done something far superior to garner such admiration and love.

Or maybe I haven’t.

Maybe Mr. C is the kid I always dreamed I’d have.   So full of love and hope, with such a big sense of self and a good dose of humor to boot.   Maybe he is what I prayed for, someone who would love me the way I loved my own Mother.   A person who knows himself so well he is comfortable in his own skin and isn’t afraid of showing what he feels.

A better version of me.

Mr. C, I love you beyond the ability to express it in words, but you know this already.    You are a rock in my life, my go to for a quick smile or a stupid joke.   You are my touchstone.    You mean the world to me….please don’t ever change because you are perfect just the way you are sweet boy.

So much love,

Mom

PS:  If I could suggest one tiny improvement, if you could get along with your sister that would be the bomb.    For real.

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It’s the most magical time of the year….

Bitchmas is back baby!

To be honest, I sort of failed at it this year.    I reflected upon  my behavior of previous years where no one was to touch the freaking decorations until I was finished and decided that maybe, just perhaps, I had somehow lost the true spirit of Christmas…sort of like that lady that pepper sprayed a crowd at WalMart to get her XBox on Black Friday but with less violence…just a lot of death threats, general insults and probably as many tears.  But no pushing or hitting because even I have my limits.

Anyway.

I went into it with the best of intentions.    Here were my personal guidelines:

1. TSM shall not scream, intimidate or generally threaten anyone smaller than herself.   Husbands are fair game.
2. TSM shall not break into a sweat, wring her hands or pace back and forth rapidly should any of the decorations be placed without her explicit permission and even worse, without care or concern for symmetry.
3. TSM recognizes and admits there is no place in the holiday season for swearing, and most especially eff bombs.   Because that is totally not fucking cool, that’s why.

I did  really well too.  Especially with numbers one and three which honestly, I felt was a big accomplishment.    It was number two that got me.   I’m not sure when it happened, or even what I said really.   All I know is Mr. C was helping me put one of the garlands up….it’s a complicated beast, full of nutcrackers and blue and clear glass ornaments.   I’m telling you, if one of the nutcrackers or ornaments is not in it’s proper place it’s like the end of the world for me.

So like I said, I did really well, or at least I thought I did and Mr. C was working right along side me.   The failure came to light when Miss G decided to step in and a very loud Mr. C saw her placing an ornament not quite in the right place and shouted, “No G!!!  It has to be spatially correct!!!”

You may ask yourself given the above set of rules, why on earth a 12 year old boy who has never given a single thought to spatial correctness might come up with such a statement.   Personally, I was wondering the same thing.   My best guess is that I possibly, maybe, could have muttered something under my breath and Mr. C  having lived through Bitchmas for as long as he can remember, knows that this particular day is not the day to mess with Mom.

Fa la la la la….La la la….

That was my big wake up call.   Kids should have fun decorating, not listening to the mad rants of their obsessive compulsive former decorator mothers, right?    Right.    So I resolved at that moment to shut my mouth and let them do what they wanted.

The result was this:

What is it you ask?   Is it giant alien carolers taking over a small town and scaring the tiny people below with their loud rendition of Jingle Bells?   No, it is not.   The carolers were a gift to my daughter from my SMIL (Step Mother In Law)  and Miss G wanted nothing more than for them to have the spotlight somewhere in our home to show off her new treasure.   It’s not that I hate them, they are actually kind of cute.   They just don’t fit exactly where I would have envisioned them.   Instead, they sit  in the middle of our den terrorizing the little people of the village where they will remain, much to my chagrin, for the remainder of the holiday season.

But I didn’t stop there…oh, no….I even let them put the ornaments on the tree.    Even my prized Radko’s from a stock market long ago when I thought spending fifty bucks on a single ornament was a perfectly sane thing to do.     We even made it through without any breakage, save for one ballerina bunny who lost her foot to a Spider Man ornament in a tragic land grab for what was deemed to be the perfect tree limb.

The tree itself looks pretty good except for the gaping holes in coverage and the total lack of concern for placement of small ornaments at the top, big ornaments at the bottom.   Heck, even some of the ugly ornaments that I normally put on the back of the tree for balance and coverage made it to the front.   But you know what?   I don’t care.    I learned that the true spirit of Christmas lies in the hearts of children…watching them excitedly decorate, talking about each ornament along the way.   The holes in the tree and the ugly ornaments just don’t matter.

Oh who am I kidding.  I’m totally going to rearrange everything once they go to sleep.

Merry Bitchmas,

TSM

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This weekend, The Man and I had a rare chance to shuffle off both our kids and go to a movie.  Normally our weekend movies involve something animated and usually by Disney.  So with the chance to go see something that didn’t involve penguins, cats, donkeys or dolphins we really jumped at the chance.

We have a favorite place we go for movies.   They have not only really great entrees instead of the usual fare of Milk Duds and Popcorn, the also have a full bar.   Yes! This allows us to sip wine while enduring said penguins, cats, donkeys and dolphins and still escape thinking we still had something of an evening out…even if we have two children fighting the entire way home.

So given our night of freedom, we decided to go see J. Edgar.   The buzz on this movie was huge and The Man is quite the history buff.    Personally, I am quite the Leonardo DiCaprio buff so this was a match made in heaven.

The first shock to the system came when I realized there would be no hot Leo for me at any point in this movie, but then again I sort of knew this going in.

On the left, HOT.  On the right, NOT.

The movie itself, was amazing.  Or at least I think it was.  Aside from being a little bit put out that I would not be getting my Hot Leo fix, the guy next to me was driving me crazy…and I’m not talking about The Man.

Remember before when I mentioned that full bar deal?   Yeah, the guy next to me was taking full advantage of it.    Aside from the four (FOUR!!!!) separate food orders he placed, he was a big fan of rum and coke.   How do  I know this you ask?   Because he ordered at least six during the course of the movie.  It wouldn’t be a big deal really, but the waiter had to walk in front of us to serve him each and every time…and also, he started jiggling his ice in his glass to indicate, “Please sir, bring me some more of the stupid juice.”

He was okay at first.   Quiet except for the loud manner in which he chewed his four courses of food.   (Chips with Queso, Wings, Hamburger…and then buttered popcorn in case you were wondering.)    The thing is, the drunker he got, and the more jiggled his glass to exemplify his displeasure with it’s current empty status, the more of a historian he became to his date whom I can only assume is a recent immigrant to this country if she didn’t know the basic back story of J. Edgar Hoover’s well documented moments in the spotlight.

Let me share some examples:

The scene: It’s the early 60′s.  The phone rings.   Moments earlier, there was a scene where Robert Kennedy and J. Edgar get into it, so one can easily assume it is the era of Camelot.    “Sir, there’s been a shooting in Dallas.”    Me?  I’m guessing it’s JFK because really?   We can be a hot mess in Dallas but we’ve only managed to assassinate one person in Dallas important enough to make it to the direct line of the head of FBI.   I was sort of thinking this was a given.

Drunk guy: LOUDLY comments, “Hot damn, I bet that was that John Kennedy dude.”

YOU THINK??????

The scene: A man, who appears to be African American, is being surreptitiously recorded having “relations” with a white chick who is definitely not his wife.   I’m guessing again….60′s, MLK recordings.   My friend is stumped though.

Drunk guy: “Shee-it.   Who the hell is that dude???”

CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT?  HEARD OF IT REDNECK???

And on and on it went until The Man offered to change places with me which I politely declined because I knew it was going to take one more jiggle of the empty rum glass or one more stupid comment and my sweet history buff was going to make history of my drunk friend sitting next to me.

I’d like to recommend this movie to you…I think it was really good, but then again being an educated person, I sort of knew how it was all going to shake out.

Jiggle, jiggle…

TSM

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Wow.  Almost a month since I’ve shown up.  Have you enjoyed your break from my drivel?    I sure hope so because this bitch on heels is back after a month previously named October which is now officially recognized in our house as “Sicktember”.

It all started innocuously enough.  Mr. C had a little cough.   Not a bad one mind you.   But a cough none the less.   He wanted to go see “Footloose” and to be honest, I did too because nothing makes me happier than going back to the 80′s.    Also mentally at best I am a 12 year old boy in terms of what entertains me so my son and I do very well together.

Before the movie, I asked him repeatedly, “Are you getting sick or is this just allergies?”.     Just allergies he assured me repeatedly though I did have my suspicions.   And it would have all been fine were it not for the popcorn.

Stupid popcorn.

I just had to have some, the smell wafting my way as I joyously danced in my seat embarrassing not only my son but his nice friend that had no idea what he was getting into when he joined us.  See?

The movie was fun.   All Saturday night I recounted with much joy and improvised dance my love for all things 80′s to The Man who eventually tired of me and left me alone to dance on my back porch.   I can only hope the neighbors were asleep.    The fact that most of them are unwilling to make eye contact with me lately leads me to believe they were not…but whatever….a girls gotta bust a move when the mood strikes.

But then there was the next day.  Sunday.  A day that will live in infamy.

Somewhere around 1:00 PM, I had the specific feeling I had been hit square on the chest by a truck.  A big one.   I went to bed and didn’t get up for a very long time.

On Monday morning, Mr. C and I huddled together coughing with blankets wrapped around us.   The Man and Miss G looked upon us with great disdain while keeping a safe distance.    They escaped germ free and went about their lives.   We hated them.

Off to the doctor we went, where I managed to snap this picture of my son in agony because I am the most awesome mom in the history of ever, that’s why:

We were both diagnosed with severe bronchitis, mine bordering on walking pneumonia.   As an added bonus, I had my boss coming into town the next day for a party at an agency for 60 people.   Yes, 60.   It was an 80′s themed party (I KNOW…enough of the 80′s!!) and I pulled it together, and managed not to collapse.

The next day I had lunch with the entire American Airlines team and while the thought of that might scare the shit out of most, I’ve been friends with these people forever so I wasn’t too worried.  Also, at that point, I’d gone back to the doctor, confirmed walking pneumonia that was no longer contagious and been given some lovely cough syrup with codeine. Life at that moment was good, even if my driving was not.  I may or may not have hugged a few of the clients but I do that when I’m not stoned so if they were shocked, they at least hid it well.   I love them for this.

After I had my boss safely on a plane back home, I collapsed with my son and gave into the illness.   Actually I turned my life over to it and prayed for death.  This picture was titled “Black Lung, Day Two” on my facebook page.

Mr. C bounced back at the end of the week and went back to school.   I, on the other hand, fell farther into it all and just decided to never leave bed again…ever.

The following week, I was still sick but had to catch up.  By the end of the week, I felt almost normal.   Mr. C had been back to school, I was caught up at work, and I was really looking forward to going full speed ahead.    One week of full health under our belts, Halloween tackled, and I was excited to close this chapter.

And then?  This?

He had a relapse.   A relapse so bad his bronchial tubes had closed and he wasn’t getting air so we had to go for a breathing treatment.   No chance of him going to school for several days as we loaded him up on inhalers and steroids, I was once again stuck with a wheezing kid who needed a whole lot of love which I was happy to give.

The good news is, we are both fine now.  The bad news is, I’m back.

And now you have to listen to me again.

My apologies.

TSM

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