My Real Life

For 2013, I believe I will try to be joining Jodi in her 52 project. A year of portraits, of my children, posted every Wednesday. A series of photographs capturing moments from a year in their lives. A way to watch the passage of time and to pause and capture those little moments that are the essence of them.

Jodi has a link-up on her blog for those participating. It is so much fun to check out what other people are photographing.  Enjoy!

We are fortunate to live close to every member of our extended family.

My father-in-law has 16 grandchildren, and this means plenty of cousins to go around, even in our house, where I am an only child and have no cousins to offer the monkeys.

The cousins range from Tiny, at 23 months, to my oldest nephew who is 21.

The bulk of the kids fall in the range from 6-13.

And these kids really enjoy each other.

Yes, they can bicker like sisters and brothers at times, but when they are together, they just come up with a thousand things to do and create and play.

Even when they are not together.

Quite of few of them have iPods, and there are group chats and FaceTime and all kinds of other things going on.

They are making movies and trailers and playing word games and apps and are just always plugged in to what the others are doing.

For those without iPods, there is still computer FaceTiming and general checking in with each other.

It’s a strange thing for me, as I had no cousins growing up, and my second cousins were all older and lived far away.

I had a sense of family, but it had a different meaning, I think, than how they view family.

I hope they never lose it, and I hope they always realize just how very fortunate they all are to have each other.

Today, I’m directing you away from the blog and asking you to help out a friend of mine.

Matt Daly is a colleague, a friend, and an amazing writer whose short story “Strikethrough” has been nominated for The Preditors and Editors Readers Poll Short Story (all other genres) award.

Voting actually ends today, so I’m asking you to take a moment, head over to the site, here, and to vote for Matt.

By all means, click the “link” button next to his entry and read the story, and I’m sure you’ll agree, it’s haunting.

So, please, head over, read and vote for Matt.

1.  I text Real Man frequently.

Most of my texts involve the word “love.”

I text a lot of other people, as well, and I don’t usually use the word “love” in those texts.

However, I also don’t seem to text the word “live” very often, yet every single time I text Real Man and I type the word “love,” my iPhone tries to auto-correct it to “live.”

Drives me nuts.

2.  Things are cracking all around me.

Literally.

I have a travel coffee mug that I drink two cups of decaf green tea out of every morning at work.

I’ve had the mug for two years and it is one of my favorite “things.”

On Friday morning, I got to school, put in my tea bag, my two Splenda and headed down to the cafeteria, where the cafeteria ladies always have a pot of hot water ready to go.

I poured the hot water  into my mug, secured the lid and as I stepped out of the kitchen, into the cafeteria, my cup split down both sides, in half, leaving me with my mug in two pieces and hot tea covering my left arm and leg.

One of our amazing custodians, Victoria, happened to be there when it happened and we both just stared at each other for a second in complete disbelief.

We cleaned up, shaking our heads, and I was on my way.

At least it was a Friday morning and not a Monday morning, because that could have been an omen for a very bad week.

3.  On Thursday morning, Monkey in the Middle woke up early.

Like, 4 am early.

And, of course, he came to me to let me know he was up.

Me?

Not happy.

Hugged him, kissed him, and told him to go play until a reasonable hour.

I never really fell back to sleep, so when I finally gave it up and decided to head downstairs, I was ready to give a lecture on sleeping and people who have to get to work, etc.

Until I saw this:

And then it was kinda okay.

4.  I have a iTunes gift card burning a hole in my pocket and am feeling pretty good with music.

Anyone have any iPad apps that they LOVE?

Games?  Productivity?  Lifestyle?

I also bought a stylus for the iPad and am dying to use it for something fun.

I’d appreciate any and all suggestions!

I had a follow-up doctor appointment on Wednesday night at 7:15 pm.

We had dinner and then Real Man took the boys to go transport their sister from one activity to another and I drove a few towns away to my doctor’s office.

Alone.

This is rare.

This is very rare.

I don’t even get to drive to and from work alone, as Monkey Girl goes to the school where I teach, so I was making the most of my time alone in the car.

I decided to hook up my phone to my speakers, hit shuffle, and just let my iTunes library play.

Normally, when listening to my iTunes library, I have to skip around the songs that may have inappropriate words, or I can’t play the music too loud because of the young, developing ears, but I was alone, my ears are developed, and I was saying “bring on the inappropriate lyrics.”

Of course, the one time I was alone in the car, none of my songs that the kids can’t hear came on, however, forcing myself not to fast forward to current favorites did give me the opportunity to enjoy some songs that I’ve skipped over for awhile, simply because we’ve been listening to the newer stuff.

So, my ride to and from the doctor consisted of the following songs:

(and I completely realize that many of you may have absolutely no interest in this…if so, feel free to pass)

Hallelujah by Jodi, Alana and Morgan – I realize this song has been done to death by a thousand different people, and I actually have three different versions in my iTunes library, but I really, really love this song, and I love singing it.

What Goes Around Comes Around by Justin Timberlake – JT, baby.  What else can I say?

Always be my Baby by Mariah Carey – This has long been one of my favorite Mariah tunes.  Kim can tell you all about it.

If You’re Not the One by Daniel Bedingfield – I’m a sucker for an unrequited love story, and this is a great song for that.

Born to be My Baby by Bon Jovi  – I’m from Jersey.  Bon Jovi takes up a great deal of space in my iTunes library.

Hip Hop Hooray by Naughty by Nature – I’ve always been a huge Naughty by Nature fan, and was actually hoping that Everything’s Gonna Be Alright would come on, because I never listen to that when the kids are around, but I got Hip Hop Hooray instead.  I adapted.

Jar of Hearts by Christina Perri – Love her scratchy voice.  Like a Demi Moore who can sing.

Save Tonight by Eagle Eye Cherry – This song gets my toes tapping and my body bee-bopping around every single time it is on. I LOVE this song.

If You Want to be Happy (for the rest of your life, never make a pretty woman your wife) by Jimmy Soul – Real Man and I have always loved this one and made sure it was played at our wedding.

Don’t Stand So Close to Me by the Police – One of my favorites by the Police.  I miss my Synchronicity album.  This song reminds me of Kim, also.

Bed of Roses by Bon Jovi – More Bon Jovi, no surprise.  I like the picture this song paints and think it is very, very pretty.  I love to rock out the harmony with JBJ on this one.

Only Hope by Mandy Moore (Karaoke version) – It’s from the movie, A Walk to Remember, and I fell in love with it there.  Mandy Moore sings it much better than I do, but Monkey Girl and I like to belt this one out on a regular basis.

I’m Yours by Jason Mraz – It’s a little bit of a different version that the one they play on the radio, and it’s just different enough that it holds my attention.  Because, really, this song was more than a little overplayed when it was new.

So, there you have it.  My jamming Wednesday night line-up.  There were a few others that I was hoping to hear, but maybe next time when I’m alone in the car.

You know.

When I’m 50.

So, I’ve been sick.

Sinus infection and something weird rumbling in my lungs, so I’m on a strong antibiotic and steroids and need to lay low.

So, on Saturday, I spent the majority of my day just chilling and catching up on shows that I had saved on the DVR and watching some things on Netflix.

One by one, the monkeys began to join me, and, eventually, I had everyone on the couch with me, under a blanket, watching episode after episode of “Clean House” on Netflix.

It’s a version of the show “Clean Sweep” that used to be on TLC.

The show comes to the house, which is always completely trashed, and they go through, help the homeowners purge and get over their issues, and then they have a yard sale, the proceeds of which are used by the designers and professional organizers to redesign the space.  There is a big reveal and it’s over.

I love those shows.

So, we’re watching, and Baby Monkey keeps saying things like “I can’t believe how must junk they have.  Don’t they know how to clean up?  They must not appreciate how hard their Mom works to keep the house clean.”

It cracked me up for a variety of reasons.

First of all, the whole “They must not appreciate how hard their Mom works to keep the house clean.”  Adorable.

Secondly, Baby has the least chores out of all the monkeys, and sometimes, getting him to do those chores is like pulling teeth.

“Baby, can you please put away the remotes, which is your job?” is often met with “I DON’T KNOW WHY I HAVE TO DO ALL THE WORK AROUND THIS HOUSE!”

So, his remarks made me laugh out loud on several occasions.

I’m feeling a little better now, and life goes on, but I gotta tell ya, if being sick gets me all the monkeys on the couch with me and Baby making me laugh with his innocent comments, I’m never washing my hands again.

A funny thing happened last night.

Real Man wound up getting stuck late at work, and so the kids and I wound up eating dinner (roast beef, mashed potatoes, green beans) and having dessert alone.

We chatted and had a nice meal, and then, since they had all finished their homework, they asked if they could go to the basement and finish watching “Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days.”

Monkey in the Middle is a bit obsessed with Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

He’s read all the books and owns all the movies, and over the weekend, finally sucked his siblings into watching with him.

So, the three big kids started heading downstairs and suddenly, Tiny turns to me and starts yelling “Movie!  Movie!”

So, I said, “Okay, you can watch for a little bit,” and he turned, opened the basement door and backed his way down the stairs, into the basement, climbed up on the couch between his siblings, and happily sat and watched a movie where he probably had no idea what he was seeing.

He was happy as a pig in a mud puddle.

And suddenly, I was alone in the kitchen.

It was quiet, and I had an hour before I needed to put Tiny to bed and start reading books with Baby and got MITM and Monkey Girl to start reading theirs.

I cleaned up the dishes, and then decided to go ahead and brown some ground beef so I could make chili in the crockpot for dinner today.

While I cooked the ground beef, I read The Racketeer by John Grisham, and just felt myself relax.

And I started to realize that as much as I get teary and sad when I think about my babies growing up on me, perhaps there are some perks to their independence and maturing.

Because, I’ll be honest, it was nice to have that time to do a little prep work for tomorrow and, most importantly, to have a few minutes to read and relax.

I’m still weepy and horrified at the thought of my babies growing up and leaving me, and when I heard Tiny announce, “All done movie,” and heard his little thumpy body making it’s way back up the stairs, I got a huge smile on my face because I had missed him while he was down there.

But tonight, I think I took a little step forward and I’m realizing that it might be okay to let go…just a little.