Unmature

So as I was putting Teddy to bed tonight he told me that a friend of his has reported that his older brother gets detention in middle school almost every day. This led to a very analytical and pragmatic discussion, as only Teddy can have, as to exactly how many detentions he might get throughout his middle school career. Of course this took several minutes and lots of back and forth to get to the final answer of three or four; five at the absolute most. I told him I could probably live with three or four, but would not be happy with any of them.

But this detention discussion led to him wanting to let me in on some very important information.

"Mom, I'm getting older."

"Yes you are"

"As I get older and get to be a teenager, I might just become unmature for a while."

"Really. Why is that?"

"Sometimes teenagers do stupid things, so I guess they become a little unmature, like Steven who gets all those detentions."

Aaaahh. I've decided this is good information to have.

Camela

Thank God for Ninjas and plastic swords

"Mom, can you make my Halloween costume?" "Uh...sure I can sweetheart, what do you want to be?" How lovely of him to ask me to make it for him. I'm thinking I'll be able to buy some sort of costume and embellish it in some way and viola costume made.

But no.... Teddy wants to be Iron Fist for Halloween. Iron Fist, I mean - really?!! What the heck is Iron Fist and how many 10 year olds who aren't Brad's son actually know what or who it is? It turns out he's some sort of super hero; complete with big, huge, and absolutely imperative chest tatoo. Let me repeat that.... chest tatoo - it takes up nearly the whole chest and Teddy is SO excited about it - see an image here.

Did you look? Did you see that big, huge, collar thingy that is sitting there defying gravity? Okay, let's think about this. I can do this. I can do anything. I need... what... tights? Okay, tights might take care of the legs, but what about the upper body part? And Halloween, in case you've forgotten, is on October 31st and it can be pretty cold on that day, so how do I keep him warm when the Iron Fist's 'shirt' is basically opened to the waist and let's not forget we have to be able to see the tattoo. My first thought is, I can paint the tattoo on his chest. I'll use acrylic paint or even Halloween make up and it'll wash right off the next day. But what about keeping him warm? I know, I'll get a beige colored t-shirt and paint the design there. Now, how do I do that collar? Am I going to actually have to buy lycra fabric and a pattern, OMG, when is that possibly going to happen.

Wait, wait, wait. I know, I know, I know. I just need to put something else in front of him and hopefully he'll fall in love with something else.... right? So under the guise of going to get Jackson a costume we took both boys to a costume store, and sure enough, Teddy's eyes bugged out at the red ninja. And then when you added the plastic swords that go with the outfit.... well game over. So I bow down to the ninja gods and am ever so grateful to the plastic sword goddesses as the balance of my October just got a heck of a lot easier.

Camela

Me and the garage

As has recently been pointed out to me, the garage is not my friend. Or maybe it's that I am not the garage's friend. Or maybe it's that when the garage is involved, I am not a car's friend - yeah, that's the one.

Me: Honey, I scratched the bumper of your van. I didn't pull it in far enough so the van was perfectly placed so that the little thingy that sticks out of the garage door below the lock managed to scrape itself along the bumper. I was really surprised that it didn't just bounce back up once it encountered the bumper.

Brad: No (shaking his head) it wouldn't do that.

Me: Of course it would, that's an important safety feature and besides it went back up the last time it hit the bumper.

Brad: (eyes bugging out of his head) The last time?

Me: Uh yeah, the last time. It hit the bumper and popped right back up. (big grin)

Brad: I'm so glad you have developed a pool of knowledge from which to draw your information about this (totally glaring at me). We should go inside and stop talking about this now.

I decided that we didn't need to discuss the time I opened my then pretty new convertible inside the garage and put a bit of a gash in the top - oops.

Camela

Only when Brad's away....

All the crazy, annoying, time consuming things that are going to happen at the most inopportune moment happen when Brad is out of town. Some past examples inlcude;

-the fire alarms that go off at 4am because someone, ehem, forgot to change the batteries

-the bird that the boys and I found sitting on a curtain rod in the sun room one day after work - the boys tried to sell tickets to see our new 'pet' and the dogs were intent on trying a new and tasty snack. Meanwhile I was trying to get the boys to keep the other kids out of the house and corral the dogs to the basement (no easy task given our guest). I then spent at least half an hour getting the bird to leave while the kids cheered wildly. I opened all the doors and many windows and tried to shoo it out with a broom. (yes this was even more ridiculous than you can imagine) I think because of our high ceilings, the bird just wasn't that impressed with my efforts and just happily flew from one curtain rod to the other until finally he grew bored with our game and flew out the front door. It's a wonder I didn't just follow the damn bird that day.

-The 6 foot snake sunning himself on our 2nd story back deck. Come on now, it's 12 feet off the ground; how the heck did he slither his way up there? Bandit was losing his mind barking so hard in circles around the thing. I guess I should be happy because it was bandit that alerted me something going on. Ultimately I was able to push it off the deck and my neighbor tried to impress me by managing to pick it up and throw it into the woods behind our houses. (how I dislike being impressed by my neighbor) And I figured the snake must have climbed out on one of the tree limbs that extend over our deck and then jumped (or was pushed) onto the deck.

-The dead turtle found upside down in the living room - no doubt a present from Bandit. "Mom, can we keep him, can we huh huh, he's so cute??"

But this time during Brad's absence we had a three-fer (is that a word?) First there is the mouse we have living in our kitchen. We often have a few mice that try to take up residence with us as the weather turns colder and this year was no exception. But we really, really thought we'd taken care of our little guests last week, but apparently a search party was sent to look for the original missing friends because... uh here we go again. And these little guests of ours this year have proven to be very clever in avoiding the surprises we have waiting for them in all the usual places and they are very, very brazen. In the middle of the afternoon twice now I have seen him scamper, no that's not right, saunter is a much better word, across the counter top in search of something to eat. I am doing my best to not freak out about this. I'm fine when he's right there, I have no problem in the moment. But later when I'm thinking about it... Okay I've got to think about something else or I'm out the front door in search of my bird friend.

Then second, on Saturday Jackson comes running into the house. Mom, we have a baby snake in the garage, it's so cute, you've got to come see it. There is much excitement and glee in his voice and I can only imagine Teddy and his friend Matthew are just as excited outside; probably torturing the poor thing. I take a few deep breaths, curse my husband for his absence and head out to take care of it. In light of our last snake visitor I was prepared for a big ol' thing and the possibility that I would need help, which I hate, but luck was on my side in this instance as it was truly a baby (I am absolutely confident he was an only child!).

This little guy was maybe a foot long and a quarter the width of a pencil, if that, and he'd managed to get himself stuck on a piece of packing tape so he wasn't going anywhere - oh joy. So after checking with the boyscout in residence, Matthew, to get his opinion on poisonousness, I explained to my 2 boys that no, we coudn't keep him as a pet no matter how cute he is and that in fact we have to help him out and put him of his misery. He was so stuck to the tape and so small that I didn't think I could get him off the tape without it being grosser than I cared to fully contemplate - that his only option at this point was to starve to death and since we all live on this planet together we shouldn't make a creature suffer uneccessarily. So I had to kill it, before I disposed of it. 'Teddy go get me a pair of scissors...' Once the deed was done, three boys went off to tell the world that they'd seen snake blood - woo hoo.

And now we get to the trifecta; Lice. You've got to be kidding me, right??? Jackson has been saying his head itched for 2 days. I've been telling him it was because he was filthy, yet still I didn't clean him (example 457 of my being a bad mother). He said, I must have lice, that's why my head itches. I'm thinking... how do you even know what that is or would feel like, you are just filthy little boy... But as I'm about to dump him in the shower this morning, I decide, the least I can do is check his head right? I'm thinking I'd see little bugs crawling around if he had it - wouldn't I? How the heck should I know. But I look and I look and... dun, dun, dun, I find a single little bug of some sort. We have 2 dogs, could it be a flea? It's about that size, maybe a bit smaller. I have no idea, but well... ick ick ick ick ick ick ick ick ick ick. Being a prepared human I have a lice kit in the closet and clean his head with lice shampoo and run the tiny little comb through it and am in the process of washing and or spraying anything and everything his head might have come into contact with -- Did I say the laundry was done??? Silly woman. Oh and I'm cursing my husband's absence again.

And that boy loves to sleep in my bed and when he wasn't feeling well on Thursday night I let him fall asleep there. And of course ever since I found the little bug in question, my whole body itches, I'm sure they're crawling all over me. So I'm also cleaning everything in my room too and I'll use the same yummy shampoo on my hair just in case and the same teeny tiny little comb on my ultra long curly locks; now that should be fun. But this is just a normal day in the life without Brad.

The Golf Trip

They've gone to Tampa. They left on Thursday and will be back late on Sunday. I hate it when he's gone over a weekend. Brad and 3 of his buddies have headed south for their mostly annual golf trip. They've gone somewhere warm to golf 4 out of the last 5 years. Brad tells me that not only did I approve this golf trip maybe 8 months ago, but he even made sure I was comfortable with how many weeks it would be after the convention was over. Do I remember this? No. Do I believe it's true? Yes. Did my hand in the planning of this trip help me be supportive and gracious in the weeks leading up to it? uh, no, not so much.

So my poor husband, who so often feels guilty for his travel schedule has had to put up with my - shall we say - attitude - about his trip for at least a couple of weeks. Can you say passive aggressive? I swear I thought I was way beyond this whole snide little comments part of my life, but apparently that's not the case. Oh well. He finally told me to stop it. I'm not sure I was even aware of how rude and annoying I was being, but when he pointed out; in very clear terms, how he'd done everything he could have and should have in advance of this trip and that I needed to back off a bit - he'd had enough, what could I say? He was totally right.

So once that little conversation was over, I was back to my (I hope) normal self - hoping he would have a great time. He called a little while ago and one of the guys he's with (a big Red Sox fan) got them tickets to the Devil Rays vs Red Sox playoff game - how cool is that? All I can say is that it's very loud there. I can't wait to hear all about it.

Camela

Some final random pictures from the Comic-Con

Sorry for the quality of all these; some were taken with my phone, but here is Batman and the boys. Apparently Robin had to stay back in Gotham City (at least that's what he told Jackson when he asked).

Spiderman and his arch enemy oddly decided to get together in a photo with the boys. Teddy thought it was the least he could do to give the bad guy bunny ears.

The boys both got caricatures and tatoos at the 'Kids Love Comics' booth. I can't seem to get the pictures of the finished caricatures uploaded so we'll have to do without at the moment.

Celebrating his first birthday; Will Gallagher (with his mom Beth) unhappily posed for the camera. Neither Will nor Daddy John was too happy about the outfit.

The hall an hour or so after it closed in the middle of the 'load out' phase.

COMIC-CON Part 2 - The Harvey Awards

The Harvey Awards are the comic book world's version of the Golden Globes. The awards are held in a hotel ballroom and people tend to dress up, at least a little. Brad and I were seated at a table with several artists and writers, who's names may be impressive to some but were completely meaningless to me. The dinner was very nice - steak and crab cake - and the ceremony followed. It went off without a hitch. What the attendees didn't see was the bit of chaos that happened behind the scenes.

First the programs. There were, of course, last minute changes to it and we ended up getting the final draft on Friday in electronic form. Unfortunately for the programs Friday was filled with Brad and everyone else shuttling all the guests to and from the airport and making sure the Convention Center was set up correctly for Saturday morning. So no actual paper programs could be produced. Finally at about 11:30 Friday night after a room service dinner of really yummy, but way too heavy for so late at night, hamburgers and maybe one too many drinks to smooth the day away. Brad contacted the only Kinkos that is opened 24 hours a day and sent the program over to them to create. Problem 1 solved, but who, oh who could we get to possibly leave the show and drive down to Columbia to pick up said programs. Well, me of course. When I offered to go first running across Brad's face was horror, then reluctant gratitude, and finally the little light bulb went off for him. "Oh, you actually don't care if you have to leave the show (read convention) for a few hours and miss part of it?" ... uh no.. not so much.

Then after our long day on Saturday at the show, complete with my trip down to Columbia to get the programs and then back to the show, Brad finally tells me that the seating chart for the awards dinner has yet to be finalized and that I need to go back to the hotel and pull up the relevant files on his computer; get on the phone with him so he can walk me through the changes that need to be made, and then find the catering staff and tell them to rework some of the tables from their original plan. Oh and then you need to pull all the place cards and put their correct table number on them so they are all ready to go when the cocktail hour starts. "uh, honey, you want me to make it back to the hotel, get the seating chart updated, piss the caterers off, mark all the place cards, shower, and make myself beautiful (clearly the longest part of this project) all in the next hour and a half?" To which he said "yeah, Johanna and KC will help you." Did I mention I love my husband.

I run back to the hotel with the box full of name tags and other paraphanalia, make it up to our room only to discover I can't find his computer... anywhere. Oh F$%@. He took it to the Convention Center at 6:45 that morning 'just in case' and there it sat in the corner of the VIP room all day long. Okay, slight hiccup in the plan. Run down, get my car, drive back to the Hall, have someone run the computer out to me, back to the hotel, up to the room, get the seating chart done, hand draw a quick sketch of the seating changes, call the caterer to tell them they are coming.... "Uh. Really? Changes? Um. We just finished the final set...." "Yeah, sorry about that, I'll be right down." I put on my best groveling and sorrowful look and begged and pleaded his forgiveness that the tables needed to be adjusted and the final count for dinner went up by more then a few at the last possible second (later, the chef came out to talk to Brad to make sure there were no more additions). It all got done and I couldn't possibly have done it without Johanna and KC; they took care of the name cards completely. I think there is a good picture of the 2 of us from that night and if I get a copy, I'll add it here, but the only picture I have from that night is AWFUL and no way am I posting it.

The actual event was fun and everyone had a good time. I took a break in the middle because after my running around time I had had one too many gin and tonics and needed a little breathing room. I went up to our room and IM'd with a friend. I'm confident I didn't have a single coherent thing to say, but it gave me the down time I needed and hopefully I entertained her, until Brad texted me that I needed to come back. Eventually it was all over, congratulations all around, now lets head to the bar...