Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Do You Live Here?!

by Cathy

I had the luxury of having a girls night out recently. It's funny but although our kids are getting older and need us less, we have somehow become less available to our friends. So this night? This was rare and much needed and we were all enjoying each other's company until....

RING RING (K's cell phone goes off)

Below is her side of the convo as heard by us:
"Hi sweetie, you okay?...OK what is it....a what?...honey you know I'm not home, why are you calling me? Ask your father...he's the one who's there!...Goodbye!"

Exasperated, she hung up the phone. "WHY is she calling me about going to a sleepover when I'm not even home?"

We all nodded in agreement and proceeded to share our stories about when something similar had happened to us. We laughed, we commiserated, we vented. And then, this happened:

RING RING (K's cell phone goes off, again.)
"Hey babe, what's up?...What do you mean, what time?...Why don't you ask her?...Just talk to her and ask her what time...I don't know, you're there...I'm not...figure it out!" She clicked her husband off the line.

"Oh. My. GOD! He's calling me about what the plan is for Katie's playdate tonight. Why doesn't he just talk to his daughter and straighten out the plans for the night instead of calling me to ask me what the plans are?!"

Then it was as if the floodgates were ripped wide open because that convo morphed into these convos:

J: "Men are totally clueless. You want to know what happens at my house? I was in the middle of cooking four things at once and asked my husband to get me the cheese grater from the cabinet.
He: "Where's the cheese grater?"
J: "In the cabinet next to the colander."
He: "What the hell is a colander? And what cabinet is that in?"
J: "What?!"

Now granted, eight out of 10 guys would not know what a colander is. Hell, I didn't know myself up until a few years ago. I just called it a strainer. J picked up momentum and continued her rant.

"Then, one other time, we were getting ready to go out and he was looking for his dress shirt."
We all rolled our eyes because we knew what was coming.
He: "Hun, uh, where's my dress shirt?"
J: "In the closet where it always is."
He: "Is it ironed?"
J: "Why don't you check it?"
He: "What about the collar tabs?"
J: "What? In your sock drawer where they always are. DO YOU LIVE HERE?!"

As we screamed with laughter, K blurted out: "I once had twelve texts and four phone calls from my husband about picking up our son from after school care as he sat in carpool line! Um, hello! Do You Live Here?!"

Steven Wright knew what he was talkin' about

As we held our sides, now stitched with laughter, and wiped tears of hilarity from our eyes, we grappled with catching our breath and realized...that was it, in a nutshell. We all live with our significant others but do they truly live in the same house as us? Some are highly involved in house happenings, storage, organization and cleanliness and others are well, are just passing through each day, it seems. I think my husband's cousin, a 19-year old guy who came to stay with us for six months last year, knows our house better than my husband does.

We wondered....our husbands have run their own businesses, managed teams of people, wheeled and dealed client contracts, run national accounts, are well traveled, well-spoken and quite capable of holding down titles akin to chief operating officers. How can they not manage a school pick-up, a playdate, scheduling kids' appointments and most frustratingly, can't find their own things in their own house, specifically, collar tabs that go only into their shirts?

As it seems, on and on the gender gap wheel will spin, in the same universe that holds both Mars and Venus. We may be from two different planets but we're stuck in the same solar system, and most importantly, in the same house. Let's remember where we live.




Friday, November 14, 2014

Netflix Running Time: 90(0) minutes

by Cathy

Our kids have pretty much grown up.

(I will allow myself this statement only for the purpose of this post.)

One is officially a teenager at 13 and the other just turned eight this past summer. They are pretty self-sufficient, play/hang independently and goof around together for the most part and might even be able to whip up some food for themselves when necessary.

Grasping and leaning on this concept more each year, we've slowly, cautiously ventured to begin to watch television and movies when the rest of the kid-free world watches them (i.e. not in the wee hours while the kiddos sleep while struggling to keep one eye open and not in the matinee senior hours of scorching daylight, but rather in "prime time" on weekends and the occasional weeknight.) At this stage in our kids' lives, we should be in the clear for an uninterrupted two hours of movie watching, right? Riiiight?

Apparently, we had no idea what can go wrong in the two specific hours we nestle in to watch our program or much anticipated new release. Without fail, first and foremost, no matter if all hell is breaking loose in the house with televisions and radios blaring, YouTube videos screaming from the computer, the microwave going off and what else have you, they will know the second the DVR clicks on or the DVD Play button is pressed. They will hear our bare feet prop up on the living room coffee table. They will hear us wrap ourselves up with a blanket and plop onto our bed. They can sense it. They can hear it. They can smell it. I don't know how, but they know. I can time my watch to it; they will burst in no more than three minutes into what we are watching with a slew of happenings or questions such as but not limited to:

- Whatcha watchin'?
- Have you seen my [enter a random possession of theirs here]
- How do you turn on the stove?
- Do we have any more Nutella To Go snacks?
- Oooooh a movie! Can I watch?
- We're out of chocolate milk?!?!
- Can I hang out at Katherine's house tonight?
- Can Katherine come over to hang out here?
- Why isn't this letting me watch this video on YouTube?
- Um, hi. You should be eating some popcorn. Do we have any? Want me to make you some?
- Where are all the phone chargers?
- Do you have the iPad? I can't find it.
- I need new socks and none of my underwear is in my drawer!
- Can you remember to wash Pillow and Cuddles tonight?
- [screaming from the shower] We're out of conditioner!
- [screaming from the bathroom] Can someone bring me a roll of toilet paper?
- [screaming in general] There's a bug!!! [harmonized screaming, now]
- Bella called me a brat!
- Can we rent a movie On Demand?
- We're out of waffles!!!
- Can I sit in here and draw with you? Bella won't play with me.
- I need to you reach a blanket on the top shelf of my closet.
- How long IS this movie??

Yes, that last one is a very good question. Just how long IS this movie, exactly? Turns out that what the rest of the world can watch in 90 minutes, takes us 900 minutes. More than once, we've resorted to giving up either due to relentless, unnecessary, unimportant kid chaos or just sheer frustration.


On Demand? Netflix? Fuggedaboutit

I guess that our kids aren't as grown up or independent as we'd hoped they'd be by now. And aside from the purpose of this post, in some sick, twisted parental way, we don't want it any other way just yet. After all, we'll have all the time in the world to watch movies once they truly grow up.




Tuesday, October 7, 2014

You're No Fun Anymore

by Cathy

Maybe you don't remember the breakdown that talk show host Wendy Williams had on national television early this year.  But I do.

She looked into the camera as if she was talking to her longtime girlfriend on her living room couch, and poured her heart out about the struggle she is having regarding her 13-year old son. All of this coming about while discussing how Rocco, Madonna's son, fully supports his mother. In case you missed it, here are some highlights of what she confessed:

"First of all, I want you to know, Rocco is 13 years old and Rocco is a real fan of his mother. What I discovered this weekend is that my son doesn't like me anymore."

"I discovered this a while ago, but the ball just got smacked home this weekend."

"He's all into his father — you know how 13-year-olds are. I was the same way when I was 13, but it is breaking my heart. He says things to me like, ''Why are you so pissed?!' Like I'm pissed all the time. Like I'm the one with the problem."


"He's the one that's 13, and I get it, and I know that this phase only lasts four years or something like that, but it is breaking my heart. He doesn't care about Wendy on TV — he doesn't care about any of that. She's lucky that he likes her," she said, referencing Madonna's relationship with Rocco again.



"I can't understand men who disappear from their kids' lives. Thank God he has his buddy and father, you know? He's a father, he's a buddy, they talk sneakers, they go for haircuts, they speed off in the cars," she said of husband Kevin Hunter. I'm just left there feeling like, 'Why are you so pissed?' I'm not pissed! I'm a mom!" the emotional host concluded.


And here's what it looked like:
Wendy Williams' breakdown: a mother's ugly cry never more justified

I mention this because I've had several Wendy Williams moments of my own. My 13-year old teenager, my emotional hormonally chaotic daughter, actually turned to me once and said:
"You're no fun anymore.
You're always yelling about something."

Smack! 

I barely heard that second sentence as "you're no fun anymore" ricocheted off the walls of my brain, having difficulty settling down and sinking in. Oh, she's said worse before, like "I hate you!" which also really hurt, but for some reason, this hurt more. I hate you seems like a generic response, but You're no fun anymore seems more felt and thought out.

I remember telling my own mother flat out, "I hate you!," and believe me, that was the first and last time I said that out loud. I mumbled it under my breath, I sobbed it out in my room or wrote it in my diary. Luckily, "my mom is a bitch" never made it onto those pages, but it could very well probably could have.

What I don't remember as well is probably how awful I was to my mother with my moody, rebellious, privacy-bent ways. Being "smacked" or pissed or angry is always a two-way street. There has to be a cause for the effect. What teens don't get is that their actions determine our reactions, and both sides end up the bad people in each others' eyes.

So the other day, after a heated discussion with my teen,  I unintentionally and wholeheartedly blurted out: "You're not fun to be around anymore."  I couldn't believe I actually said it to her.  Equally shocked, she gave no quick-witted response; just silence. (Which kinda scared me, truthfully.) And I just left the room. (Or slinked out, truthfully.) When it was brought up later by me, she commented on how awful that made her feel, which opened the door to another equally needed conversation.

Growing up isn't easy on any parent or child. We each do our jobs to raise the best person possible to send out into this unfair, cruel, difficult, joyous, wide world and love them throughout everything with no conditions. I can only take assurance that one day, my words will resonate with them the way my mother's words do with me now.

Until then, I must implore you to tread carefully. Shiny, happy people, we are not.





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