We started Ethan in soccer this spring. When we first told him, a month or so before it started, he was adamantly opposed. He gave no reason why, but then one day he said, “No, mommy. I’m going to be A WORKER MAN.” ‘Worker man’ is always his preferred career path when discussing what he wants to be when he grows up. Somehow, I think he believed that we were picking his career path in life by enrolling him in soccer.

We were pretty sure that when he experienced soccer, he’d get straightened out and love it. Stubborn as he is, he adamantly insisted that he WAS NOT going to like soccer, and at his first practice, even though he ran around playing the soccer games his coach devised with glee, climbed into the car at practice’ end declaring that he had NO FUN WHATSOEVER. Until his daddy said, “oh, I guess you don’t want any cake then..” and which point he made an about face. He hasn’t looked back since.

James and I wondered aloud whether they actually knew which way to kick the ball. Ethan proved to me during last Tuesday’s practice that he at least knew this much of the game. His coach divided up the team and pitted them against each other. While not too interested in getting into the swarm of kids around the ball, he showed that he at least did not want the other side to score a goal. He ran over to his own goal which was marked by 2 cones, picked one cone up, and moved it much to close to the first cone, so that scoring a goal through that narrow space would be nigh impossible (for 4 and 5 year olds at least). I had to laugh, even as I called out a reprimand and an order to replace the cones.

Saturday’s game day dawned cold, but not nearly as cold, windy or rainy as the rest of the weekend would become. James climbed out of bed to check on the game time, 10:30am, and then returned and barked that we had to get up and get ready or we’d be late. I got up and got ready while James got the kids ready, shin guards, soccer uniform, water bottles, soccer balls, and then out the door, “we’d better take Daddy’s car! It’s FASTER!” without much breakfast for me or James, as we were running late late late.

I had printed out the map of the park where all the games take place, with each of the fields designated. I knew we were on field 7. We were supposed to arrive about 15 minutes early, but instead arrived right at game time. Ethan and I scrambed out of the car to run over to his field. Already feeling like a disorganized, bad mom, I felt even worse as I arrived at the fields to see all the games under way. There were 3 little fields all in a row, and #7 was supposedly the one in the middle.

I looked and looked and did not recognize a single person. I asked Ethan if that was his coach? How about that guy over there? I felt worse and worse as I stopped and started asking parents on the side of the fields what team was playing here? How about the other side? Do you know the team number? before walking to ANOTHER one of the fields, with little son in tow to ask someone over there. Maybe it wasn’t field 7 at all. Maybe it was field 10? Where was field 10? Why did I leave teh map with James in the car? Why had I not brought my phone so I could call him to tell him to bring the map? Why did I decide to dye my hair pink, so then not only was I a bad mom who didn’t know where her son’s game was, I was a bad PINK HAIRED mom who didn’t know where her son’s game was. I was so very fed up and didn’t know what to do and was feeling lower and lower by the second. When James and Jocelyn showed up, I was done asking people questions, and kept nudging James, “Go ask, go ask, go ask.”

I felt awful as I had to try to cushion Ethan for the worst, “Your game might be over, honey.”

“Why?”

Why? Because your mother is an idiot, that’s why. I had no good answer.

James was positive that it WAS field #7. I sadly noticed that the game seemed to be ending. “What time IS it?” I asked James. “10:40,” he replied. 10 minutes past Ethan’s game time, and it was over already?

I walked up to yet another parent, and went through the usual questions, “What team was playing? Do you know what the opposing team was?” The dad shifted uncomfortably, but not from the irresponsible pink haired mother interrogating him, but because he had no idea. He turned and called his wife, who evidently kept all the information, but was too far away/busy talking to someone else to hear. He turned back and said a little apologetically, “The game ran a little late, I don’t think the ref was really paying any attention to the time. We started late too.”

“When was your game time?” I asked, yet another question from the pink haired irresponsible mom.

“It was supposed to be 9am.”

NINE AM?

NINE AM?

These games were supposed to last a half hour. Nine am?

“9am? What time is it now?” I asked. He looked at his watch. Finally, a question he could answer and didn’t need to find out from his wife!”

“9:40.”

I turned to James who had ambled up to us sometime during the discourse, and he frowned and looked at his watch. My first thought was, ‘James has an atomic watch, it can’t be wrong.’

But it was wrong.

He had hit some button in the night and set it to the wrong time zone.

It was NINE FORTY-FIVE (by this time) and we were FORTY FIVE MINUTES EARLY FOR ETHAN’S GAME.

Then came the laughter with the guy, “Oh, we are here a whole HOUR early! Thanks for your time,” etc. etc.

After the flood of initial relief, came the ANGER. I knew it wasn’t James’ fault. Hell, I was partly to blame. I have so many clocks that one can see the time from pretty much any position in the entire house, and yet I never noticed the hour. I wasn’t angry about the slowly freezing to death over the next half hour, I was angry about feeling like such a bad, irresponsible mom. Every time I walked up to someone to ask questions, I felt so horrible about myself for not having it all together. I reflected on the repeated feeling of inadequacy as I sat on the cold grass which slowly froze my ass off, and damn if I wasn’t pissed off, baby!

So my own self-loathing aside, Ethan’s first game was fantastic. The game itself did a lot for making me forget about being pissy. It was so cute and amusing and wonderful to see all those little kids running around, like a swarm of bees following around a little mobile flower, with a few bees not really caring about the flower and just running around for the hell of it. My son? One of the bees running around for the hell of it.

Right before the game started, Ethan actually spread his legs out wide to make what I instantly recognized as a tunnel. My son wanted the ball to go through his little self-made tunnel. I had to call out, “Ethan! No tunnel!” and then he hopped his legs together amiably. He was not overly concerned about the ball, or trying to get it through the goal, and I would have to think very hard on whether or not he actually made contact with the ball at all. …. No, I take it back. I am pretty sure he did. But for the most part, he had a blast just being out there and running around.

He played in the first half, and sat out the second half. He spent the first few minutes trying to convince me that we didn’t have to stay until the end, but could leave and go play on the playground. I finally had to put a stop to that by saying if he asked again, we wouldn’t go to the playground after the game at ALL, and then he shaped up.

We had fun hollering, “GO LIGHTNING!” (our team’s name, which Ethan suggested on their first practice) and nobody noticed when we lost, I think the score was 5-3.

We played on the playground, and then went out to lunch (James and I had had no breakfast, if you remember), but it wasn’t until I sank into a steaming hot bathtub after we got home and got the kids settled in for naptim, that I finally warmed up my cold frozen bones.

Before I finish this post, I have to say that Jocelyn cannot wait until she is old enough for soccer. At Ethan’s first practice, the coach called out, “Everyone line up!” and Jocelyn ran and lined up, ready to play. She can’t understand why SHE doesn’t get to play TOO! She’ll be old enough to play in the fall, and then we’ll get our superstar playing. Between the two of them, she is the one that is much more into it. For her age and motor skills, what she can do with a ball is pretty amazing. She’s the one who always wants to play soccer when we go outside to play. Ethan would much rather get out his trucks and dig in the flower beds. When James and I watch her, we both agree that she seems to be a natural athlete (biased much? probably). I can’t wait until I don’t have to stop her from running out onto the field to play too.

-amy doesn’t know about this soccer-mom gig

My honey turned 34 on Saturday, and while we had a kick ass costco chocolate cake (not those birthday/party half sheet cakes, but the round, layer, ‘you’ll die from chocolate overdose’ cakes) it really wasn’t the greatest. Why? Well, because he got strep. Sucks, huh? He claimed to want a ‘do-over’ for his birthday, and I could relate, as my birthday was stuck in working overtime hell.

I hope the upcoming year is better than the actual day was, sweetheart. Happy birthday!

Jenny Craig visit this morning.

I have officially hit my -10 lbs mark.

WHOOT! WHOOT!

Counseler-lady said I should do something to celebrate.

I must admit that chocolate cake popped into my head. Mmmm chocolate cake, how I would love to take you home and lick you all over…. mmmm… mmmmm..

Then she said it should be non-food related.

DAMN! She’s ON TO ME! The food-porn thoughts fled. Damnit.

What do you do to reward yourself? And if it’s with food, just keep it to yourself, would ya? She suggested a trashy gossip magazine. And I must admit that when I was recently standing in a checkout line, I was curious about those Brad and Angelina headlines, as well as the Tom and Katie headlines. Has Katie finally come to her senses? I have no idea. This trashy mag idea may have some merit. I usually could care less, but I must admit, the thought that Katie and Tom are separated is a pleasant one.

In other news, the cafe in the main level of my office building, the cafe I stop in sometimes 3 times a day to fill up on diet coke, the cafe in which I am on first name basis with the owners… THEIR SODA MACHINE IS DOWN! As I walked in (to fill up the Wendy’s super-big cup that I got after my JC visit), one of the owners spotted me and came over to break the sad news, quick to give me the updates on when exactly Coke is supposed to come out and fix it. So we’ll see.

A little tip from me to you. Diet coke with just a bit of root beer on top – deliciouso!

How will I live?

-amy is fueled by caffeine.

you know, we all have our little vices to get us through the day. i’m sure others out there share one of mine – reading blogs.

here is another. it started out simple enough. just a quick purchase at the register at the checkout. I love me some altoids, and these looked pretty tasty. so i bought some.

Altoids Tangerine Sours. They are goooooood. I pop one in my mouth 2 or 3 times a day, and they last a week or two. Yum.

So, the next time I stood in line at the register and saw these, I grabbed a tin. I mean, who can resist altoids? They’re curiously strong!

Mmmmmm, Mango! Yummy yummy mango! How did they know? Mango is my very favorite fruit!

Of course, when those were gone, more were purchased.

I was hooked. And so of course, came these:

Now, I must say, that these aren’t actually my favorite. (Mango holds that title.) But they do seem to be more readily available at the checkout line. So my raspberry tin collection grew.

Now, I must confess, that these have been bought and consumed over several months, some probably were eaten back in 2006 and I just never threw away the tin. (Surely something crafty and cool can be done with these empty tins, right? RIGHT!)

But a few days ago.. I found something new.

Something truly irresistable.

Something chocolatey and altoidy all at the same time.

Oh, beautiful tasty dark chocolate dipped mints. You are the first brown altoid tin to take up residence on my desk, and I know you won’t be the last. OMGWTFBBQ this is the best altoid idea EVER! And they make them in 3 different flavors. Peppermint (shown blurrily above), ginger and cinnamon!

I know I will have to resist buying more of these right away.. I bought this tin just a few days ago.. and already..

… ALL GONE. Oh altoids, I CAN’T QUIT YOU! Since I obviously cannot practice restraint with these about, I’ll have to practice restraint in their purchase.

Oh, but they’re so very good.

So, this leaves me to confess another way I pass the time during the day.

Occasionally, I take camera phone pictures of the random shit on my desk during lunch and post them on the internet.

-amy is the originally celebrated curiously strong AMY.

Oh boy, where to begin? What a fantastic weekend it was.

EVERYONE’S FINE

The weekend actually started for the kids, on Thursday. Jocelyn was up all night coughing and fiddling around Wednesday night, so much that I thought she must be really sick. So James took the kids in to school and let both teachers know that I would be picking them up around noon to take Jocelyn to the doctor. Well, it turned out our pediatrician was only open until 11am, which meant I needed to get Jocelyn there by 10.30, which meant I needed to pick them up by 10. The only reason we sent them in anyway was because Jocelyn had her Easter party and we didn’t want her to miss it. So I took them to the doctor, Jocelyn got examined and she’s fine, just a cold. Their school was closed on Good Friday (James stayed home with them then), so they had a very long weekend!

SINGING

Friday night performance was fantastic. Oh, can I tell you how much I love the music we sang? So beautiful! It’s sooooo good. I’m so sad that it’s over and now we won’t be working on it in rehearsal anymore. We had a pretty good turnout, and it went really well.

SATURDAY CRAFTINESS

Saturday Jocelyn and I went and did some errands in the morning, and James took Ethan to the Udvar-Hazy Air and Space Museum (it’s near Dulles airport in VA instead of downtown DC). All accounts given pointed to them having a fabulous time, with a stop at an ice cream shop before getting back home to top it off. Jocelyn and I did some boring things. Bank. Pick up pictures. Stop at grocery store. I made the mistake of commenting to her earlier that morning, that her dress-up dress was getting too small, and we’d have to get a bigger one. One should never say this until one is ready to go out THAT MOMENT to get a new dress, because everywhere half hour, she said, “Will they have a bigger dress here?” “Are we going to get me a bigger dress now?” etc. I decided that if I waited until after Easter, then all those fancy easter dresses would be on sale, I could get her one that is too big (perfect for dressup) and I should wait until then. Plus, I bought a little girl dress pattern with a gift certificate that Anna gave me for my birthday (ain’t she sweet??) and I thought I should get busy on that as well.

So we got back home (sans new bigger dress) and put up some Jocelyn photographs in her room. I had some up long ago, took them down when we painted it, and then the pictures got carried off, taken out of the frames, and otherwise mangled, so it was time to get those back up. Jocelyn loves to look up at the photos and say, “That’s me, JOCELYN!”

Then I started on another project I’ve had in the back of my mind for a long time. I’ve wanted to try freezer stenciling, and even had bought blank tshirts for the kids in preparation for it. So today was the day. I traced the stencil onto freezer paper, cut it out with a kitchen knife (oh exacto! where art thou?) ironed it on to her shirt, and then we both sat down and painted it in. I reread all the directions later, and found that I actually did the painting wrong – you’re supposed to DAB, not STROKE, and Jocelyn and I stroked. You’re also supposed to use very thin layers, and well, we just globbed it on. It turned out fantasticly though, and I set it in the dryer the next morning, and then Jocelyn wore it all morning until she spilled water all down the front. It is just the cutest little shirt ever, in my opinion. I may make one for me. I don’t have a picture of her wearing it yet, but here is the stencil:

When Ethan was home, I asked him what he wanted on a shirt for him, and he kind of gave me a blank look.

“boys rock?” I asked.
more blank looks.
Jocelyn has a shirt that says, ‘My daddy loves me,’ so then I suggested, “How about ‘I love my Daddy?”
Finally, an opinion, “NO, I love TRUCKS!”

So an “I love trucks” shirt is in the works next. I have the stencil all cut out ready to be ironed on, but I need to get a blank shirt for him. The one I had was deemed unacceptable, because it is yellow. “BLANK MEANS WHITE MOMMY!”

Sunday was more crazy project fun. On a much bigger scale. Earlier that week, Ethan verbalized some thought processes to me, while we were in Jocelyn’s room.

ROOM SWAPPEROO

Ethan: “I slept in this room with Jocelyn before.”
Mommy: “You mean when Grandma and Grandpa and Uncle Larry visited?”
E: “Yeah. In a SLEEPING BAG!” (they didn’t visit in a sleeping bag. he slept in a sleeping bag. because uncle larry was in his bed)
M: “Ahhh, yup.”
E: “And this room used to be mine.”
M: “Yes, it was, when you were a little little boy.”
E: “I could sleep in here with Jocelyn again. We could share it.”
M: “You mean move your bed in here?”
E: “YEAH! Like CHARLIE AND LOLA!”
m: “Then what would we do in your room?”
e thought about this a minute.
e: “We could make it a toy room!”
m: “You know, I could really go for this idea.”

I mentioned it a few more times to both Jocelyn and Ethan, told them maybe we could try it out for a while and see how it goes, brought up other “problems” as I thought of them, just to see what solution Ethan would think of (“What about naptime?” “I can be very quiet mommy, I can sleep during naptime”). Sunday morning, I thought, “Why not?” and so me and the kids got to work re-arrancing Jocelyn’s room to accomodate Ethan’s bed. We left his dresser in his room, cleared out 2 drawers in Jocelyn’s dresser, moved in his bed and his clothes. They were SO excited and pleased to have both their beds in the same room, and they had a blast in the new “toy room.” Jocelyn brought her dress up clothes, and we put them in the closet, and said, “Now it’s your dress up closet!” Ethan hauled his geotrax train stuff up the stairs all by himself (and let me tell you, it’s a lot, and it’s heavy) and got straight to work making a train layout. James and I got a bunch of laundry folded in relative peace while they played to their hearts content.

It reminded me of when I was younger and my sister and I rearranged our rooms on a weekly basis, sometimes even switching rooms with each other for a few weeks and then switching back. Of course, I was 14 and my sister Susan was 10, not the toddlers my kids are, but it was fun, and why not? 🙂

CLEAN CLEAN CLEAN

Sunday night we had some frantic house cleaning on the main level and I’m happy to say my sanity is saved for yet another week becuase it’s all relatively clean. If we get it clean Sunday night, then it usually stays pretty clean all week. On the other hand, if we DON’T get it clean, it’s a disaster, and it stays a disaster all week, and it really makes me pretty depressed.

Today Jocelyn starts in a new classroom. She moves up from the 2 year old class to the 3 year old class, which means not only a new teacher, new friends, etc. but she gets to go play on the BIG playground! She is very excited about this, and Ethan is too. He has already told her how he will show her all around the playground and play with her. It’s very sweet. Sunday evening, she came over to me and said, “I want to go to school,” and was somewhat distraught that she would have to wait all the way until MORNING to go to her new class.

Ahhhh.. it was a lovely weekend. The lovliest I’ve had in a long time.

-amy: established 1873, natural spring amy.

The choir I joined at the beginning of the year is performing for Good Friday. I am very excited. The music is so stunning. So moving. It is by Dale Wood, called “Service of Darkness.” We will be performing at the Manassas Presbyterian Church, Friday at 7:30pm. You can look at the chorale’s website (which was built by yours truly) for more information, and if you’re in the area, I hope you’ll consider coming. We had a rehearsal in the church this evening, and it is a beautiful space. I was raised in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS, or mormon, as it’s more likely to be called) and while they do have some more modern beautiful buildings, they’re usually kind of boring. This church isn’t super old, but it was still just beautiful. There’s something about singing in a church that is just satisfying. Good acoustics.

Now, I’m not a church-goer, but I’m SO excited about this performance. The music is incredible, and it is so wonderful to perform. James will be there with the kids, and it will be their first experience in a church, so THAT will be interesting. But it’s important to me that they’ll be there. I may have to get Ethan some nice clothes. Jocelyn has plenty of pretty dresses, but Ethan has got nothing nice. If it doesn’t have a monster truck or a race car or a construction machine on it, he turns up his nose, thus, nothing suitable for a church.

Again, if you’re in the area, and feel like hearing a beautiful piece of music, I hope you’ll come.

I’ll be the one with the pink hair.

-amy

So I thought I’d do it all over, and first lighten the roots so that it would “take.”

So, I bought some lightener.. started on the roots.. and well, I quickly mixed the bleach in all over, not just on the roots. What can I say.. it all kind of snowballed. I got enthusiastic! I didn’t go SO crazy as to leave it in for very long.. 20 minutes was PLENTY, and after I rinsed the bleach out and blew it dry, it was scary, I tell you, SCARY!

However, the pink went on much better in round 2. Very pink. Very vibrant.

So here we are, Pink 2 (otherwise known as “final” pink or PINK!):

I’m still kind of processing my own thoughts on it. I was a little aghast after seeing the results of Pink 2. I mean, pink 1 was nice and all, but pink 2 is hardcore. Pink 2 is not kidding around. Pink 2 isn’t all mimsy pimsy about being pink, it is all pink, all the time, and it is not ANYTHING else! I wasn’t sure how I felt about being that hardcore pink. However, after a day of being PINK! and getting all kinds of reactions (all surprisingly very very positive!) the PINK! is growing on me 🙂

the #1 question is, why? the easiest answer is why not? or I thought it would be fun. Which is true 🙂 But a more honest answer is probably that I felt like I needed a change, something to jolt me in people’s perceptions of surburban working mom.. I think I needed to jolt myself as well. Sometimes, you need a little jolt, don’t you think?

I’m keeping it for at least a week, to see how it goes, if it fades or sticks around, and then I’ll reevaluate. I don’t think I’ll be a pink haired mom forever, and last night, I was pretty sure a week sounded like a bit too long.. but tonight I feel like I could be PINK! for a whole month 🙂 I guess we’ll see.

-pink amy doesn’t really even like pink that much.

ps: the “category” is “amy’s head.” get it? it’s literally amy’s head!!!

Pink 1 went like this:

(Please disregard that stilted, crazed, frozen look on my face. that is the look one gets when one is staring at the camera in someone elses’ hands wondering how it will turn out and when are they going to click the button already? Yeah. not the best expression, but the best hair picture. ohwell.)

I thought it would be cool to just do the top pink. I liked the idea of having the brown show through. And I did quite like it in the back.. however, from the front it just looked kind of dopey. Plus, it didn’t take on the roots at all.

All in all…. I wanted a do-over.

… but I grabbed the wrong cord on my way out the door this morning, which means while I can plug my IPOD into my computer just fine, I have no way to get the pictures off my camera. Doh. I’m not going to subject anyone to crappy cameraphone pictures, so you’ll just have to wait.

I will say that we went through Pink 1: top only, and we are now at Pink 2: All Pink, All the time.

Tomorrow. I promise more tomorrow.

-amy