A Smurfing good time

So we finally had Peanut's birthday party this weekend. She started asking at 7 a.m. Sunday when all of the people were going to show up. Telling her she had 6 hours to go didn't really satisfy her. But alas, the people showed up and a good time was had by all.

The birthday party girl. She told my mom (unbeknownst to me) that she needed a special party dress. So instead of her Smurfette shirt, this is what she wore.

In the jumpy house. With Brainy, as you do.

This is the best I could get of Gizmo who said "Whoa, cool!" after every present was opened and "cheeeeeeeese!" when we tried to take her picture.

The cake. The bakery was going to charge us $50 to make Smurf figurines. The husband went to Target and found these on clearance for less than $2. Winning.

Opening presents, which included a tent, a snow cone maker, a scooter and a karaoke machine*.

She has been begging us for a piñata for years so the husband finally obliged and got her one. The only casualty was when the husband, who was holding the string to the piñata pulled it up quickly causing my nephew to miss and hit his sister in the face instead. Luckily it was a padded bat and she's pretty tough.

Cake and candles. Peanut kept asking, "Is it time to sing the happy birthday song yet?"

My interpretation of Smurfette. I even put eye shadow on, which my 5-year-old nephew noticed and said, "I really like the color on your eyes." That kid. He's a keeper.

*So the karaoke machine. The husband suggested that we get Peanut a karaoke machine for her birthday, which I thought was a great idea. She loves to sing and regularly asks me to "becord" her while she sings or take "bideo" of her. She loved it and even treated us to a rousing edition of "Call me, maybe." Anyway, after the girls went to bed, the husband decided he would try it out. I was trying to watch gymnastics while he was "rapping" Biggie's "Hypnotize." There are no words for the hilarity that ensued. He then went on to dedicate a Matt Nathanson's "Modern Love." One of the lines is "Oh this modern love is a taco truck," which caused a lengthy discussion of what the hell that even means or if the husband was looking at the right lyrics.

And then he started calling for couple's skate time.

I think the karaoke machine is going to be more entertaining for us than it will be for Peanut.

In it to win it

After the deadline had passed and at the last minute, we decided to sign up Peanut for soccer.

On the way home from the babysitter's house each day we pass a bunch of soccer fields, usually filled with kids and their parents in the baking sun. For a year, Peanut has begged us to play soccer. She's been to a couple of her cousin's games as well as our babysitter's daughter. She really wanted to play but our work schedules made it difficult.

Finally, we decided, what the hell? We'll figure out a way to make it work (I'm beginning to think this is the theme of parenthood.)

Peanut and I went shopping and got her athletic clothes at Target. Even the XS shorts are way too big on her and I need to sew them. The first time she wore them, she ran around the backyard until her shorts just fell off her skinny butt (there is a reason we call her Peanut.)

So Wednesday I got a call from her coach's daughter who said our first practice would be in six hours.

*blink blink*

Um, ok. Short notice but we can make it work. I asked the girl who we should look for and she said, "My dad is Juan. He's a dark Mexican."

*blink blink*

So I called the husband, told him I would meet him at home to get Peanut ready and that he needed to meet Juan, the dark Mexican.

I stayed home with Madzilla, who we figured would be a distraction at practice. The husband said practice went down like this:

Coach Juan is in it to win it. He had his team of 4-year-olds doing suicides, push ups, jumping jacks, running the field backwards and doing high knees. Not only were they conditioning but he had the kids go head to head, trying to get the ball from a partner. They were even running drills. All on the first day of practice.

Coach Juan is no joke. While all of this sounded a little intense for preschoolers, the husband said it was great and that the coach was really teaching the kids (even calmly telling one kid that it was inappropriate to say shut up.)

Stretching before practice. We had a back-up pair of shorts because the ones I bought were too big. I will be sewing this weekend.

GOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLL!

Jumping jacks. Look at that form. That technique. That little booty.

Coach Juan, the team and her Go Bucks ball. Peanut is apparently the smallest kid on the team but doesn't let that stop her.

Game on, bitches.

I don't want to be one of those parents but let's just say I'm looking forward to the 2028 Olympics.

Where I'm from

To understand where I'm from, you have to know where my parents are from.

My mom is the youngest of six and grew up on a farm. My dad is the one of four boys who likes to tell us he had one shirt for each day of the week. They grew up in small town Ohio. Met, dated for 6 months and were engaged. They were married when they were 18 and 20. Neither went to college. Almost 42 years later, they are still happily married.

In those 42 years, that young couple who didn't come from much made an amazing life for their family.

My dad went into law enforcement and retired second from the top in the state patrol. To accomplish this, we moved a lot as kids. I lived in eight different houses in four towns by the time I started third grade. Every time my dad got promoted, we moved. Sometimes he moved ahead of us, leaving my mom to deal with two young girls while trying to sell a house and work.

She stayed home with us when we were little, worked (part-time, I think) as we were a bit older and then worked full-time as a secretary/administrative assistant in the school district where my sister and I spent the most time. (This was both good and bad. If I forgot to get money or have something signed, she was right there. She was also very accessible to my teachers and while I was not a bad kid, I still remember my high school English teacher ratting me out that I feel asleep in class. Once.)

My parents worked their asses off. My dad worked his way up through the ranks and was so very successful. My mom worked her ass off so that my dad could succeed and my sister and I could have a good life.

I scored a 37 on this quiz about class and if you live in a bubble. (Hillary wrote about her background here.) My score puts me in the upper-middle class but also acknowledges that I tried to "get out" meaning I broadened my horizons beyond my bubble.

My score isn't surprising. I know I grew up in a bubble. I grew up in the 'burbs and had a lot of opportunities. But my parents tried to make sure we knew we were lucky to have what we did. When I turned 15, my mom made me get a job. She said I only had to keep it for the summer but I worked throughout the school year so that I had extra money to get the things my parents wouldn't pay for. (I worked at sub shop until I graduated from high school.) I volunteered to help feed the homeless with church and went on mission trips during the summer to help people in Appalachia repair their homes (I even installed an outhouse.) (And yes, I know this sounds somewhat, I don't know, condescending. My point is that while I lived a sheltered life, I knew it. I wasn't completely blind to what others had or didn't have.)

I realize that I was very lucky to grow up the way I did. We didn't worry about money (at least that I was aware of) and while I didn't have the latest designer clothes, I was well dressed and well provided for.

The things I remember my parents spoiling us with was their time and love. My mom always wanted to be the hostess. She would let us invite all of our friends over just to hang out - I think mainly because my parents knew we wouldn't get in trouble at our house. She made dinner for a dozen or more people most Fridays in the fall, having my friends over before home football games. She volunteered at my after prom and even drove me home from my prom instead of letting my date do the honor.

My childhood was sheltered. But as a journalist, I've been exposed to quite a bit. As a former cops reporter, I've been exposed to more than I could have ever dreamed. When I got hired for my first job at a daily paper, the editor told me he didn't know how someone who grew up in the suburbs would handle the job. It was shocking at times. I saw dead bodies. I was at the scene of murders at 3 a.m. as family members learned they just lost a son or father. I was back the next day as blood  still pooled in the gutter and flowers and teddy bears marked a memorial. I knocked on the door of a family's home at 8 a.m., about 12 hours after they learned their 19-year-old son had been killed in Iraq. I've seen a mother who was arrested for letting her child starve to death.

It wasn't easy. I cried a lot on the drive home. It's given me a jaded view of the world and made me question the human race at times.

All of it made me appreciate my upbringing even more. It made me realize how lucky I am to have parents who worked hard to give me more than they had growing up.

But what I'm most thankful for is the work ethic my parents instilled in me. Without it, I wouldn't be able to provide for my kids. I want them to have a good life but I want to realize how lucky they are too. I don't want them to be spoiled but I want them to have all the same opportunities that I had growing up.

This is part of the reason we are working to move. We started this process about a year ago when the husband got a new job. In that time we've looked at houses in the suburbs and even some in the same neighborhood where I lived as a kid. It hasn't been an easy process but I hope in the end it will be worth it.

My childhood was great. I'll do what I can to give the same to my kids.

Things heard in a strip club or things a 2-year-old says

The husband loves couscous. I don't particularly, but it is spectacular in that it cooks in practically no time at all and makes weeknight dinners super easy. (Clean up used to be ugly, but Brucie the Dog hoovers up most of what the boys spill now.) We use it as a side or on top of salads (the boys get all couscous, no lettuce -- god forbid they eat a leafy green) or as the base of stirfry-ish dinners.

Even better: The Lad calls it HOOScoos.

Tonight, he said, "The HOOScoos has sprinkles!"

The kind we buy is different colored. But it sounds to me like something you might hear shouted at strip joint.

Other things that fall into this category:

WHERE ARE MY PANTS!?

Will you help me take my pants off?

I licked you. I'm a pretty dog.

Lick me please.

I had a licking incident. It was AriNana and me. We was both doing it.

I'm going to take your underwear off.

Is that your butt?

BUTTER BUTT! I call you Butter Butt.

Be warned: rant ahead

My mom sent the boys a rather large sum of money so they could be spoiled a little bit. Mom is an exceedingly honest and fair person. She still makes sure she spends the same amount of money on each of us girls each Christmas, same for each of the grandsons and sons-in-law. When she finds money left in a cart or discovers a store made an error in her favor, she returns the cash. Because my sister still lives in our hometown, her boys are around to be spoiled by Grammy and Pawpaw with random treats from the grocery or dollar stores. It's all little, but, as Mom says, it adds up. No one cares but her -- but she cares deeply.

Plus, I made the mistake of mentioning that my boys, who suffer from birthdays close to Christmas, were pining for Legos and other odds and ends. I'm not the kind of parent to buy just-because gifties.

So Grammy sent some mad money.

I took the boys to Target and set them loose in the toy aisles. It was madness. They had to share the money but there was plenty of it, enough to necessitate several decisions. First, would they buy one or two big things, or each buy two or three small things (with the understanding that we share our toys)? They chose the second option, which meant I spent at least 30 minutes chasing them around the aisles saying things like, "Yes, you can get that, but then you'll only have $XX," or "No, you don't have enough money for that because you already picked this," or "You have $XX. This is what you can buy. No. Not that."

It was fun. For them. (OK, and maybe a little for me, when I saw how excited they were by their picks.)

We finally got up to the check out -- where we got stuck behind a woman arguing the price of clearance items. Look, I understand hunting for deals and not wanting to get cheated, but sometimes you either need to just eat the price or leave it at the store. We already had unloaded on the belt so we had no choice but to wait. For 20 minutes.

Finally, it was the boys' turn. I let them go ahead of me and, as I always do when they have their own money to spend, I let them handle the bills. It's a small way for me to teach them about money and also about manners. It's the same reason I make them order at restaurants. I usually have repeat their orders -- especially for Beastie -- but they need to learn these things. Sometimes the cashiers and servers are nice about it, but too often, they're dismissive or downright rude in return to me and my boys. Too many of them ignore the boys or act annoyed that a child is talking to them. Our Target cashier was one of the worst. She wouldn't take the money from the kids at first and never said a word to them, even after I explained that they were paying with their own money. She gave the change to me and never made eye contact with any of us.

I was a cashier. I know it's irritating to have a customer, be it a little old lady writing a check or a kid counting pennies, disrupt your rhythm, but seriously, I'd like to make a plea for simple courtesy. I'm trying to teach it to my kids. You, Rude Target Cashier, are not helping and could stand to take a refresher course.

On the cusp of the bubble

In my second year of college, I went to a sorority sister's home in suburban Columbus. I was shocked. The house looked like something out of a John Hughes movie, and I really, truly believed no one's house looked like that in real life. We were in the basement rec room when I asked to use a bathroom. 

"Oh, there's one down here," my friend said. "It's not completely finished, but you can use it." 

Finally, I thought to myself, something I understand: a crappy, unfinished basement bathroom. I was expecting a tiny toilet in a cramped corner closet, all hastily thrown together on a weekend. What I walked into was a nicely tiled, well-appointed room that was bigger than my childhood bedroom. I'm still not sure what was unfinished about it. Maybe some trim was missing? 

I went home that night and called my mom. 

"Why did you not tell me we were poor?!" 

"How did you not KNOW?" 


---

I started thinking about all of this because of this quiz about class in America and everyone's response to it. (I got a 50.) Where I'm from is not the same as where I'm at, and I'm simultaneously proud and frustrated by that. What I know for sure is the farther removed I am from my childhood, the more I appreciate it. 

---

I'm from a very small town in rural Ohio, a township actually, a crossroads with a church and a grange hall and a cemetery. I graduated with 87 kids, most of whom I had known since kindergarten. My parents, when they married, lived in rented houses in the county seat, which has a population of about 20,000. When I was 5, we moved to a trailer that they bought and put on my grandparents' property, about 12 miles north of town. My aunt and uncle also had a trailer on the property. My great grandma lived across the street and another uncle and aunt lived just a few miles away. 

My dad and grandpa were truck drivers and their big semis sat in the dust and gravel of the U-shaped driveway. The garage attached to my grandparents house was as big as a barn, bigger than the story-and-a-half house where Grandma and Grandpa had raised five kids. My mom worked at a factory, inspecting circuit boards, and that's where my parents met. My mom had been married before and had us girls, but Dad was Dad from the time I was 4 and my sister still was in diapers. (My biological father is something best left undiscussed.) My grandma worked at a factory sewing life vests. One of the first "jobs" I ever had was stamping the tags she had to sew into the things she made. She paid my sister and me a few pennies per slip. 


Our babysitter was a family friend. Her husband was a mechanic who owned his own garage. We used to play in the store room and to this day, between him and my truck-driving dad and grandpa, I find the smell of oil and gas oddly soothing. She raised show dogs. Another one of my early jobs was being a runner at dog shows. 

We didn't farm, but we always had big gardens and canned green beans and froze corn, which usually came from farming neighbors in exchange for the work my dad and grandpa did on their tractors. My great grandma, Little Grandma (she was under 5 feet tall), got government cheese and peanut butter and Grandma always said that stuff, the peanut butter that came in the big, white-labeled can, made the best peanut butter cookies and buckeyes at Christmas. 


For the most part, everyone I went to school with was the same. I remember being a little envious of kids whose families didn't live in trailers or kids whose moms came on every field trip. There were one or two kids whose families were noticeably better off -- they had Nikes or real Trapper Keepers, and their parents owned their own business or worked for one of the bigger factories in the region -- but most of us were the same. Our parents were mechanics, truck drivers, factory workers, teachers, farmers or secretaries. We were almost all white. One girl, a friend of mine, was Korean and adopted -- and was teased a lot about it. In my sister's grade, there was a black boy who went to a different school in the county and he was known as the Black Kid from X School District.


If anything, I figured my family was better off than others. Mom and Dad always had at least one new car. We didn't get presents randomly, but I don't ever remember being disappointed on Christmas morning. I always had clean clothes. We always had plenty to eat. My parents spoke disdainfully of people who went on welfare. We camped in the summer and rode four-wheelers. My grandpa O -- Mom's dad -- bought us new winter coats every year or two. My dad and uncles built a deck on the trailer, and Dad also built a special desk for me -- it was a little cupboard that a desk folded out of -- because I loved to write. I was in 4-H. When we got old enough to stay home alone, I spent the summer reading and doing laundry, hanging it out on the clothes line to dry, and eating tomato sandwiches. We didn't get allowances; the work we did was just part of being in the family.


My dad and uncle drank Bud Light and just about everyone smoked. Mom finally quit when I was in high school; Dad didn't give up his Camels until I was in college. We watched Roseanne and Cheers and, if Dad had the remote, Dukes of Hazzard and MASH reruns. 


When I was 14, my grandparents sold the house at the Copsey Compound to my parents and moved into our trailer. We basically swapped houses, and that's how things are still, though Grandma and Grandpa did get a new trailer a couple years ago. My sister and I shared the upstairs, which was two connected rooms. We turned one into a kind of sitting room for us and I had a real desk, a refinished vanity table from my mom's childhood bedroom set. She grew up in town -- definitely middle class, when you could do that with a father who worked at General Motors and a stay-at-home mom. That's how I defined class then: coming from in town or country. 


I got a job at a grocery store at 16, where I made friends with and started dating a boy from my class who I had ignored as being too country and not smart enough. To be fair, he had made fun of me for being a bookworm. He was exactly what I needed then. He left the store to work on a farm, milking cows and pulling dead chickens out of the "free range" barn. (Chickens will peck each other to death, fyi.) He was sweet and would pick me up for a date covered in cow shit (he'd shower before we'd go out for real) and kept me from being an even bigger twit than I was. I wanted to go to college. I had big plans about leaving my little hick town. 


I decided at 14 to become a journalist because I wanted to write and realized a novelist wasn't going to pay the bills. Also because I had a teacher who told me I could. My school district was small, but had many, many teachers who were willing to spend extra time on a kid who wanted the attention. I was very lucky. I went to Ohio University because it was in-state and I got a scholarship -- and luckily it had a good journalism program. For all my big talk, I begged my mom to let me come home after my first week I was so homesick. The best thing she ever did was refuse to let me. I stayed at OU and flourished -- and then graduated early because a) all my friends had graduated, b) I was sick of college, of being an adult, but not and c) I was running out of money. 


I got a job within a month of graduating, but oh my god. I've never been so full of self-loathing as that month at home without a job. 


A couple of my cousins had started college and my uncle had gone back to school to get his nursing degrees. Mom was working on an associate's degree when I went to school. But I think I was the first person in my family to earn a traditional four-year degree going to a college away from home. I'm still paying off student loans, as are my parents.


---


Sorry if your eyes are glazed over, but this -- all of this -- is why I once nearly threw a very good friend out of my house when she declared ignorant voters with high school educations were the problem with America. (To be fair to us both: Lots of alcohol was involved.) 


My dad works road construction now. Mom still works in a factory. My sister is a hair stylist and my brother-in-law owns his own construction business. Whenever I bitch about my job, I feel guilty thinking about my dad working 12+-hour days in 100-degree heat, grinding asphalt.


I worry about how to keep my boys from growing up in a privileged bubble. I want them to know where their food comes from and how to hammer in a nail properly, how to do laundry and cook their own meals. I want them to have jobs that make their muscles hurt as much as I want them to have jobs that stretch their brains. I worry I'm depriving them of a childhood around their cousins, exploring the back field and getting dirty, as much as I'm proud they have a broader view of the world now, in preschool, than I did in college.


Where are you from? Where are your kids going to be from?

The best of Peanut

Today is Peanut's 4th birthday. There are so many things I could say about her - most of them probably cliche. You know they feeling when you realize your baby is no longer a baby, not even a toddler but a child. A honest-to-goodness child. So instead of writing a sapfest post, I'm going to let the pictures do it for me.

July 18, 2008, three days before original due date.

Moments after we brought her home and still my favorite picture of all time.

The most ridiculous outfit to put on a newborn. And she rocked it.

Hanging with dad, who is her favorite person in the whole world.

First pumpkin patch experience. We've put her (and then Gizmo) in a bin of pumpkins every year since. 

The one and only time she rocked a fauxhawk. Unlike her sister who had one for the first four months of her life.

First jean experience. She doesn't look so comfortable looking back.

HEEEEY!

First Halloween. Tinkerbell.

Food. Yum.

When showing her this picture, "Peanut said, I look so cute in that headband."

First birthday. And cake.

First birthday party with Momma.

And Daddy.

Do I have something on my face?

Even then she was pursuing The Boy hardcore. Even then he wasn't having it.

Go Bucks.

Rockin'. It.

This is reminds me of her sister, who we've started calling Madzilla.

Bumble bee.

Playing in the snow.

First time in pigtails. I die every time I see this picture. Die.

This one too. Die.

Manatees.

Gorillas.

COME HERE FISHY!

Feeding herself.

Second birthday.

Back at the pumpkins.

Peacock. She had to learn to add the pea to peacock.

The first time she saw her baby sister, who she immediately said was beautiful.

Snuggle time.

Crazy time.

Hide and seek in the backyard.

Turning into my big girl.

Sigh.

This right here? Captures her essence perfectly.

OK. Maybe this is my favorite picture of all time.

Pirate-themed third birthday.

Swimming in Gramma's pool.

And we're back to the pumpkins.

Making sure her Halloween Jessie boots fit.

First day of preschool (and realizing we really liked this outfit.)

Going to see the holiday parade.

Circus day at school

She got Daddy's eyes.

My little ballerina at her first dance recital.

Excited that we signed up for soccer.

Did the cuteness kill you?

Backyard fun.

Freckles.

Happy birthday, kid. You are everything I hoped for and everything I didn't know I wanted.