I Cup

Last night, someone on Twitter commented that the book "Daddy Drinks Because You Cry" has the dumbest title ever. I replied, "Dumb title? You clearly don't have kids."

Then I went upstairs to put my kids to bed. While Connor was getting tucked in, Chloe was doing everything possible to put off bedtime. "Do you want to see me do a crazy dance?" she procrastinated. "No, I want to see you pee!" I retorted. I had a cup in my hand at the time. "I cup, Chloe!" I laughed, making Chip laugh as well.

"Connor, spell 'I cup'!" I giddily called out. He was wary, but he did it. "I-C-U-P," he offered, looking at us quizzically. Chip and I laughed, because this is a great juvenile joke that we were excited to share with our juveniles. "What?" he asked. Then it sunk in. "Ooooh. . ." he slowly realized. I chuckled and said, "Chloe! I cup! Now come on to bed!" as Chip giggled some more.

As he got Chloe out of the bathroom, I went in to kiss Connor, who was now sobbing. I couldn't understand the problem. "You made fun of me!" he exclaimed, and continued crying. I did a big sigh (TM Junie B Jones) and explained how jokes work, how he actually helped tell the joke, how no one thought anything bad of him, etc. But he wouldn't let up. That hurt his feelings, and he refused to be consoled. As this was the second night in a row he went to bed in tears, I was at the end of my patience with this little song and dance. I told him I was sorry that his feelings were hurt, but the best I could offer him was my promise that he wasn't made to look foolish and I meant him no harm. Goodnight.

Besides, I was in a hurry to get into Chloe's room, where she too was sobbing into her pillow. "You made fun of my name!" she wailed, and I couldn't help it- I started laughing the helpless laughter of someone who has clearly passed over the border into Crazytown. Chloe was PISSED. So I quickly apologized and assured her that all I did was comment on how I could see her pee. She was not consoled. I started from the beginning, explaining the whole joke to her, and insisting that we were only laughing because the joke is silly, not because she (or Connor) had been played for a fool. But she didn't care. I was still the biggest asshole of all time, mocking my children and making them feel bad about themselves like so many Mommy Dearests before me.

As is our custom, I went to give Connor an extra hug before giving Chloe an extra hug. (A story for another time.) Turns out, Connor was still crying! As I helped him blow his nose, he whined, "I just don't like how that made me feel." I did another big sigh and assured him once more that I sincerely meant no ill will, and that I hoped he could get some sleep. Then I went back to Chloe to blow her sobbing nose and recite the same platitudes.

Then I came downstairs and poured myself a drink.

Welcome to Your Mid-Thirties

Happy birthday to my baby brother. Whether it's been with you or at you, you've kept me laughing your entire thirty-four years.

Have a wonderful day! We love you!

Air

This past weekend's Rock-n-Romp was probably our best show ever-- close to 800 folks came out. Weather was gorgeous, bands were great. I've already recapped it once over on the RnR blog here-- but I wanted to share some of the love here on the ChockleyBlog too.

There was a really cool "jumping pillow" at the Corn Maze where this show was held. I had a ball shooting people jumping on it-- especially the adults who could get some serious air. Here are two of my fellow RnR board members, Caleb Sweazy and Marv Stockwell, believing they can fly.

The whole slideshow from the show (including other things besides people touching the sky) is here.

What We Missed

Due to Connor's aversion to most foods, we chose not to attend the Spaghetti Dinner tonight at Snowden. Apparently it also served as your standard Open House. I went up to his room today to see some things, but sadly, I missed this.

I think another visit to his classroom is in order for tomorrow.

Second Grade

It's safe to say that we are just now settling into the routine of the school year, more than a month after it started. As usual, it hasn't been an easy transition. There is much less hand-holding by the teachers now that we're in second grade, and it's just a total shock to Connor that he should take any responsibility for the day-to-day events that shape his life. Also, his teacher's husband had surgery the second week of school, so she had to miss about a week. That kept the classroom routine in flux a bit longer than normal, which kept Connor from feeling settled. That boy loves a routine even more than I do.

At the end of last year, Connor was tested for CLUE. It was a big deal to him- he really wanted in. So this year I was thrilled the day he brought home a packet of CLUE forms for me to fill out, along with information about what they would be working on in the coming weeks. I enthusiastically brought it to his attention and congratulated him, and he replied, "Oh yeah, we had CLUE yesterday, but we just got those forms today." Seriously? The day before when I asked, "How was your day?" it didn't seem appropriate to mention it? When I asked about specifics, made him tell me which encore classes he had, who the teachers were, etc. etc., he never thought to mention CLUE? He wears me out.

CLUE takes him out of his regular classroom for a few hours twice a week, which means he has to do a little extra homework those evenings. The idea is that a CLUE kid can handle the extra work. But not Connor. No, it's not that he isn't smart enough- it's that he's just so lazy! (Oh, he's so clearly my kid!) He acts like doing homework will kill him- we have had some really impressive hissy fits so far this year. One night he screamed and cried for TWO HOURS over a little four-question worksheet. Fortunately, he's moved past that stage- although do we still have nights (cough**lastnight**cough) when the idea of writing two more sentences to finish his homework brings him to tears. (I'll count "tears" rather than "complete nervous breakdown" as progress.)

Meanwhile, Chloe has chosen to spend Connor's designated homework time doing her own "homework." Thanks to the magical dollar aisle at Target, I've collected tons of workbooks that are on her skill level. And she is tearing through them- that girl LOVES homework time. In fact, we were playing outside the other night when I realized Chloe had disappeared inside. I went to check on her, and she was sitting at the kitchen table dutifully tracing her letters in a workbook. "I was getting eaten by bugs out there, so I decided to come do some more homework."

Have I mentioned lately that my children have wildly different personalities?

Charlotte

The inaugural version of our backyard garden had a non-productive jungle of tomato plants, a few Japanese eggplants, and more red jalapenos than we could ever eat. It's not a bad start, but I would like to figure out why our tomato plants got so huge, and yet produced very little fruit.

Not much stuff that we actually could eat this year.  But we did find this visitor yesterday:

 Eek!

Back to the Future

Chloe has her best friend over for a playdate this afternoon. From downstairs, I heard a loud crash, after which Chloe yelled, "Oh DAMMIT!!"

I hollered up the stairs, "What was that, Chloe?"

She replied, "Uh, NEVERMIND!"

Please don't tell CR's parents.

Driveway Artists

Sushi Class

Friday night, Chip and I went to a sushi class led by the talented Marisa Baggett. Because really- if you want to know how to make sushi, you've got to ask an African-American woman from Mississippi.

Marisa is enthusiastic, funny, and knowledgable, and she didn't make fun of any of my ugly rolls. Plus she's adorable. And that's really all you can ask for in a teacher!

For $40 a person, we were provided a couple of fabulous appetizers while she got us ready, and then we were taught to make four different types of sushi rolls. She came with all the food already prepped and all the materials we would need- including sharp knives and an industrial-sized blow torch.

It was a fun night that got me over the hump on making sushi at home- I can't wait to start doing it on a regular basis! A big thank you to Aimee Lewis for hosting us, and to Marisa for being so awesome. I strongly encourage you to contact Marisa about hosting your own sushi night. You won't be disappointed.

Rock-n-Romp-n-Sweat

We had another hot summer Rock-n-Romp on Saturday, but it was almost worth braving the heat to see the awesome bands who came out to the Shell to play. I've already braved a trip to MySpace to look up Speakerboxx's upcoming gigs. They ruled!

I'm sure someone official will put up a nice recap on the RnR site, but I just wanted to post cute pics of my own kids. Pictures of everyone else are on Flickr, as usual- enjoy!

Hanging in There

Many of you have asked, so let me answer: This week is in fact going much better for us. Connor has quit being nuts at home, even though he is still getting in a bit of trouble at school. But since I'm not at school to see it, what do I care?

At home, the night terrors have scaled back from screaming, thrashing fits to short bouts of sleepwalking. Last night he got up, and Chip went to check on him. "I can't sleep," Connor mumbled. Chip replied with, "Uh, buddy? I think you ARE asleep." This seemed logical to everyone, so Connor hopped back in bed and fell immediately into undisturbed slumber.

At school, Connor talks too much. You're laughing and saying, "Of course he does! He's YOUR child!" But what you might not know about me is that I'm a rule follower, and when I was in elementary school I was the classic teacher's pet. I think I received one conduct check in all of elementary school, and never got anything but an E in conduct on my report card. If we weren't supposed to talk, I did NOT talk. Breaking the rules wasn't an option! Sadly, Connor is not afflicted with this same unquestioning respect for a teacher's authority.

So there we have it! Week two of grade two is turning out better than week one, and that's really all I could ask for.

Forty

Whole slideshow here.

Jailhouse Rock

I have a relative who is in jail. I used to have a close relationship with this relative, but we drifted apart long before she landed in the big house. Her birthday was this week, and the kids overheard me mentioning it to Shannon on the phone.

"WHAT!? Your (familial relationship) (first name) is in JAIL!?!?!"

I told Shannon that I would have to call him back, then I turned to face the barrage of questions.

Is she in CHAINS?
Will they give her dinner tonight?
How can it be her birthday if she's in jail?
When she was a little girl, was she bad then too?
How long is she in for?
What did she even do?
How is she your (familial relationship) if she's not your friend?

I loved that last question, although I didn't know how to answer it. The line between friends and family is so thin in our lives, it's hard for my kids to understand the concept of a distant relative, or in particular, a relative who was not also a friend. All I could tell the kids was that I was sad things had turned out the way they did, and that she probably isn't in chains. Yet.

Week One

This week sucked.

Those of you who have known Connor for the last seven years are NOT surprised by this fact. I'm not surprised either, but for some reason my foreknowledge of how this week would go didn't make it any easier on me.

As expected, Connor DID NOT want to go to school. He hates school, just like I did when I was in elementary school. Also, he particularly hates transitions and changes and all the other things that are specific to the first day of school, just like my father did when he was young. (I've been told he had to be medicated. That's starting to sound like a viable plan for Connor.)

As expected, Connor felt threatened by the loss of control that accompanies starting a new class with new rules and a new warden, er, teacher to impose them. Also expected was how, in response, he aggressively tried to exert control over his home life. Quite frankly- can I say this about my kid?- he's been a real ass this week. I love him dearly, but there's no other way to describe it. And he's been in trouble a LOT, both at home and at school. I mean really, a frowny face on day four? This is the impression he wants to give his new teacher?

But the new wrinkle this year is that Connor's night terrors have really ramped up. Usually they only affect him once every month or two, but in the past ten days or so he's had night terrors all but three nights. He sits up in bed and starts thrashing his head around, screaming and making strange gutteral noises and generally giving me an ulcer. They've been horrible, and much harder to pull him out of than ever before. And we've NEVER had them all in a row like this. Fortunately, he doesn't really remember it the next morning. So he might not be emotionally scarred by the process, but Chip and I sure are!

My amateur diagnosis is that he's had them worse this year because he's trying to mature a bit, trying to hold in some of his anxiety during waking hours. When I dropped him off on the first day of school, he didn't cling to me, or cry, or any of that business. He had to be cool around his friends. But I think he still had to work those feelings out in some way, and maybe he's doing it in his dreams. Or I could be totally wrong. I just hope he grows out of these nightmares before too much longer.

Last night as I tucked him in, I pointed out that Fridays are awesome and this week is almost over. "It doesn't matter," he whined. "Next week will be just like this one!"

God I hope not.

Caprese

We've gotten some awesome heirloom tomatoes lately, both from the farmer's market, and from our own garden. There is just so much flavor in these-- sweet and acidic, fresh and complex. That mealy thing you get at the grocery store is just not the same vegetable at all. The basil, which is some of the biggest I've ever seen, is from Whitton Farms.

Two Little Fishies

Remember back when I lamented that my kids were skittish at the Rhodes pool, and refused to do anything but hang on me? Times have changed.

Yes, that's Chloe swimming to the wall in water that's at least half a foot over her head. A couple of months ago, she would jump in the shallow end of the pool only if you were right next to the wall to "catch" her. Now she doesn't care where you are. We saw a friend of hers from school who said, "Chloe, why don't you have to wear floaties?" She felt pretty cool after that.

And here's Connor, who just two weeks ago told me he'd never jump off the board at the Rhodes pool. He also, just yesterday morning, told me he couldn't swim the length of the pool. Then yesterday afternoon, he swam the length of the pool. He still insists he's not going to be on a swim team next spring. We'll see about that.

My lady

Today is the day we celebrate the birthday of the queen of our house (and large portions of the world, in fact)-- Stephanie!  Happy Birthday, and I hope you have a wonderful day!  I mean, I know it will be wonderful, because I'll be involved in it.  Except for that hour this afternoon when the kids and I let you go on shopping spree alone.

In honor of your birthday, I shall post beautiful pictures that I have taken of you!

Adventures in Wedding Photography

In the past year or so, I've been shooting weddings, which is a lot of fun.  The other day, I shot one with my friend Jay Adkins, who has been a professional photographer for longer than I've been a lawyer.  Say hi to Jay:

(That's what we both looked like in the middle of a 90-plus-degree outdoor reception.)

This wedding was at a small chapel in Olive Branch.  After the lovely ceremony, everyone headed to the reception, which was a couple of miles away.  Jay and I had about an hour to kill with the wedding couple, as they weren't "allowed" at the reception yet.

We sat quietly in the chapel, talking with the couple about how beautiful the ceremony had been, brainstorming for some post-wedding photos in the chapel and the cemetery behind it.  Suddenly we heard an ear-splitting screech, followed by several deep thuds and crashes.  We exchanged dumbfounded glances for a few seconds, and tore out of the chapel toward the road, about 75 yards away.  The bride was afraid that a member of her family was involved, since they had all just recently left.  She was an impressive sight, still fully dressed in her gown and train from the wedding, tearing across the lawn at full speed toward what we by then saw was a flipped vehicle.

A 17-year old kid was crawling out the back window of his car.  Miraculously, he only had some cuts on his hands.  He had lost control of his car going over the hill in front of the chapel, and flipped the car several times.  The bride and groom immediately sat down with him, comforting him, trying to calm him down.  Jay and I still had our cameras around our necks.  We exchanged a knowing silent glance, which said, "Hey-- how can we NOT shoot this?"

Chloe's Big Day

Yesterday, Chloe had her first real play date. Her best friend's dad picked the two girls up from school and took them home to play- I wasn't involved at all. Chloe was a little apprehensive the night before, but had a wonderful time (of course).

Then we went to Target to buy a birthday present for another of Chloe's friends, and to buy new helmets for the kids. Chloe has been riding Connor's bike lately (the one he won't take the training wheels off of) and Connor has been riding his scooter, and they've both been doing it with EXPOSED HEADS. That's right- we're those parents. Connor's helmet had been left outside and got moldy and yucky, and Chloe's helmet was too tight, so somewhere along the way they quit wearing them. A perfect excuse for a trip to Target.

We got there and start trying on helmets. Connor tried on one that said "Ages 5+"- it was too tight. So we went to the next size in a different brand that was for "Ages 8+"- perfect.

But Chloe. I started with the "Ages 8+" helmet, since we all know her head is bigger than that of your average five-year-old. It was cuuuute, too, brown with these little pink flowers on the bottom. I would totally wear a skirt in that pattern. We tried it on, and it rested on the crown of her head. Did not come close to fitting. So, in shock, I picked up the "Ages 14+" helmet and shoved it forcefully over her noggin. "NO!! TOO TIGHT!!!" she screamed while clawing it off. And that is how my sweet, delicate, four-year-old daughter ended up going home with an adult-sized bicycle helment. ADULT.

I don't even know what to say about that.

Diver Down

Chloe has an unorthodox move off the diving board. As you can see from this series of pictures, it's no accident- it's just her style.