Road Trip Stories and the Next Generation

If you were to join my husband and me for dinner sometime you would see that he has a lot of stories to tell, and many about his life growing up. He has so many that he enjoys to tell that I sometimes kick him under the table to let him know to wind it up.

But I have to say I never get tired of hearing about his childhood family vacations in the station wagon with 6 kids, 2 adults, with all the luggage squished in except for that one coveted spot in the back where one kid would get to stretch out and lay till the next stop. I have had a couple of station wagon cross-country trips myself. My brother and I would hold up the peace sign while in the back facing the vehicle behind us. Or play Bingo with these cards on which you’d cover up your square if you’d see a silo, or a train. And I learned that if you were a boy you could pee in a cup if you had to go really bad.





My husband’s parents took their 6 kids up and down the East Coast many a time beginning when my husband (the youngest) was out of diapers. My husband may not remember last week’s conversations but he does remember details from these trips such as:

· For lunch they’d pull over to a rest stop and unload a cooler and two boxes for a complete lunch. Then later that night at the motel she’d cook dinner for 8 people using one pot and some type of burner and the entire motel would smell of their food.

· For breakfast who else remembers the Kellogg’s cereal in little boxes you’d open at the perforations, pull back the cardboard and wax paper and pour in your milk.

· When he was about 4 years old the family left him behind at a rest stop at the picnic table. They were five minutes down the highway before noticing. One brother knew but didn’t say anything. My hubs was still there, waiting, when they returned.

· Their highlight in New York City was throwing the tiny bars of soap from the hotel bathroom window and onto passersby below.

· Their highlight of smaller towns was ending the day at a motel pool. Their dad would pull into a motel at end of day to inquire if they had two adjoining rooms. He’d walk out of the office with a thumbs-up and they knew they’d be swimming.

· This memory is from his mom but he says it now explains why they looked like a bunch of ragamuffins in the trip photos. His mom would pack each of the kids’ oldest, worn out clothes for the trip. Each day she’d leave yesterday’s clothes behind in the motel. No dirty clothes to deal with.

· As the youngest my husband often had to ride in between his mom and dad in the front seat. He remembers his dad would sometimes sip from “a cold one” in a small, brown paper bag. There are no abuse problems here. For him it was like sipping on one Coke. We both find this amazing.

We have recently decided to create some Road Trip Memories for our boys, and for us. The most we’ve driven one way with our boys is 10 hours to our destination. They do really well and I swear we were the last family around to even buy just one portable dvd player. I heard my youngest son telling his brothers that they will REALLY be able to play the alphabet game on this trip. After the last couple years of wanting to, we are going to the Black Hills of South Dakota. And the Badlands. And Colorado. Which is a 21 hour drive. Which will be broken up by stays at a motel with pools.
I mentioned the other day that it may be near the same price if we flew and rented a car but my husband replied that it would not be a real road trip that way. And fortunately I agree.

I love hearing family road trip stories. What are yours?

My Feet Exposed

While visiting other people’s blogs over the past few months I have noticed that quite a few of you post pictures of your feet. And they look really nice, all pedicured and polished. I love me some polish too and I have a ton of nail polish colors in my bathroom drawer, but you will not see me posting a photo of my feet. Because I have a gargantuan sized big toe. I swear it's one third or one half an inch longer then the toe next to it. If it wasn’t for that I would so be in a size 7 rather than an 8.

A lot of people mention that their 2nd toe is longer than their big toe. I would honestly prefer that scenario over my big toe situation. Because it’s not just my long, large big toes that are the only issues. Just add some crooked toes to the visual. Yes, the three toes next to each of said mammoth toe look like they are all hitch-hiking in the opposite direction to get away from that big toe. The pinky toe? It is perfection. I could cover up the rest of my toes and photograph the hell out of my pinky toe.

The good thing is that for six months of the year I don’t think about my toes much because I wear closed toe shoes. But now the season has arrived when I can stop wearing the same pants and shoes and switch it up to skirts, capri's and sandals.

When I shoe shop, I of course look for a style to de-accentuate my faults. By covering up half of the toe length I feel there is some toe illusion happening. I keep hearing Tyra Banks' voice as she tells her model contestants, “You have to disguise your faults”. For example she herself poses flexing her leg muscles to give her legs more muscle tone. And she once had a model tuck a folded piece of paper inside her upper lip to make the lip look fuller. And then there are those posing tricks for short necks, strong jaw lines, and long torsos.

Last weekend I took my middle son to get a haircut and a do an errand for him and since we were Right There, I slipped into TJ Maxx because you know how it is never the same store twice. He was a good sport and stayed in the shoe aisle with me as I tried on about 17 pairs. I found these shoes that passed the Big Toe and Crooked Toes test:

And another example of scoring big

toe camou-

flage?

A shoe with extra material on the big toe. A few years ago I found these shoes below with the ties that go up the ankle (to maybe draw the eye upwards from the toe?). See that loop that goes around the big toe? I feel like it chops off some big toe length. I need to find more like these.

You can probably guess how I feel about pedicures? I don’t have them. I used to but I stress so why bother. I do them myself. I don’t want you to think I have gnarly toes in addition to my crooked toes.

On the other hand I do love having manicures. I did inherit some nice nail beds and long fingers. Every time I get a manicure I get complimented on my nail beds. And what’s interesting is they never make a comment to me…......about my crooked pinky fingers!

A Spontaneous Trip To See the Parthenon and How We Ended Up As Parents Who Rock

No, not the Parthenon in Greece, this one is just four hours away. In Nashville. A couple of weekends ago we decided on the spur of the moment to take the boys for a night to Tennesse to watch a college baseball game and just do a little getaway. The idea wasn't received very enthusiastically. The kids' Spring Break was just starting and they wanted to play with friends. "We wanted to go to the skatepark here", they grumbled. My youngest said, "How many stars does the hotel have?" I cracked up at that and asked where he heard that. On a Priceline TV commercial I was told.

Anyway, I ignored their protests or made some comment about my needs and they got on board. I made reservations at the Hampton Inn by Vanderbilt University and we made it just in the nick of time to check in and then walk through Vanderbilt University to their baseball stadium. Last year and the year before my husband and I did this very same thing alone (we find someone to watch the boys for us about once every two years and no I am not exaggerating).

We arrive and see the stadium is only half full and the game is just starting. We get to the ticket booth and they are SOLD OUT. What? This has never happened before. We were shocked. The boys stared at us like we were Clark and Ellen Griswald. I only felt a little better after I saw many others arriving and complaining about this situation too. No, they would not let us in even at half-time. We noticed a lot of Boy Scouts in attendance and then The Husband sees a older Scout man with a wad of tickets in his hand. Yep, he had a ton--I think the scouts bought the entire outfield. So we were able to buy 5 tickets and redeem ourselves to our children. It was a beautiful day and we enjoyed ourselves. Actually an hour later there were complaints of being bored but they were ignored.

I used to travel to Nasville occasionally for business. This was 13 years ago before kids. I would stay at a hotel right across from the Parthenon. It is spectacular all lit up at night. Sort of more spectacular than during the day. But I did finally get to visit it the next day. It was built almost 100 years ago. Before this structure it was a temporary structure built for Tennessee's 1897 Centennial Exposition. I love learning these historical details and seeing photos of how cities once looked. You know the ones that show old buildings and homes and businesses on a certain street and then seeing the same street with the newer (uglier) buildings.

Our two oldest sons brought along their skateboards on our one-night spontaneous getaway in case we found a good opportunity to use them. They didn’t use them much while in Nashville other than the hotel parking lot. On Sunday after visiting the Parthenon we headed back home. As we were approaching Chattanooga I suggested that we stop somewhere for lunch. There was an exit near downtown that seemed right so we pulled off. What was right next to the highway? A skate park. There was cheering from the back of the vehicle.

We registered the boys (signed away our rights in case they crashed their bodies like those characters on the skateboard video games) and then headed down the street to the Subway to bring back lunch goodies. We ended up hanging out for about three hours. The weather was really nice. I took a bunch of photos and our youngest son who doesn’t skate took even more pictures. Well, he once skateboarded into a "bowl" after his brother told him to and he fell down and got turned off from falling. He told us he wants to be his brothers’ skate action photographer. For real as his career.

So he then took a bunch of photos. I assumed that later that we’d have to delete all of his. Wrong. It was my photos that we had to delete. So here are two that the family Skateboard Photographer took. It was nice to end the weekend as being really cool parents.

Going, Going, Gone. I think I boiled too many eggs.

My oldest son will be turning 13 soon and didn't want to color eggs today. I asked him if he still wanted an Easter basket. That would be yes, but he went out the door to play with friends. The middle one colored one egg and then found a show on TV called Teen Cribs that shows families in ginormous houses with amenities galore. (Update: he returned later to color about 5 more eggs).

My youngest son is still a fan of the whole coloring process. He waited with me for the water to boil and he added the vinegar and the food color. I did about 12 eggs and he has done about 14. So after being creative with these, we've left a few more resting in colored water to get the color as dark as possible. Growing up my husband received an Easter basket every year until college age (and he is the youngest of 6). I don't think I received very many Easter baskets at all. Although I do recall the first year after college I received one from my mom with placemats in it and things for my apt.

My brother and I would search for hidden hardboiled colored eggs and this is a tradition I've brought to our family. Each Easter morning my husband takes the colored hardboiled eggs (I'm the one who knows how many are out there) and hides them in the front and backyard. It then becomes a serious competition to find them. Another tradition that my husband shares is having to find yout hidden Easter basket on Easter morning. The Easter basket hiding spots are getting more challenging for them each year. One year a coveted basket was located in the dryer.

This year the boys' Grandma has sent a video game for them to share as a gift. We are going to up the ante on the search skills. Tonight we'll make up clues to lead them from one spot to another till they find the booty.

I hope everyone is enjoying their holiday traditions!

It's a Pink Moon

This month's full moon on April 9th is the Pink Moon.

We Each Do What We Do Best

Husband's Morning Routine:
--gets up and showers
--sed
--kisses me goodbye as I hand him his lunch
--he gathers his wallet, keys, phone which are hopefully in sight

My Morning Routine:
--get up and make sure middle son is getting ready (he’s up first in house)
--get cereal or Eggos ready for youngest son
--make lunches usually for 5 people
--make sure middle son has everything needed, toss afternoon snack at him as they leave
--wipe youngest son’s glasses
--get his shoes from garage and help him get them on while watching clock
--drive youngest son in car to bus stop and wait because am still in pajamas and/or don’t feel like walking (he could go with husband but we like the extra 20 mins together)
--back in kitchen I now make coffee
--turn dryer on again because clothes from last night are not dry
--make oldest son’s lunch
--check email and look at blogs and comment
--wake up oldest son
--sometimes make oldest son’s breakfast but usually does it
--fold dry clothes and put back in appropriate basket
--clean up kitchen that looks like a warzone
--prep some food for dinner—may involve crockpot
--grab bills to pay at work
--talk with oldest son and sometimes quiz him on school work
--I now have 12 minutes to shower and dress
--sometimes iron shirt for son and maybe my own clothes
--I now have 8 minutes to shower and dress
--say goodbye to son who walks up the street for the school bus
--drive to work and do mascara at red lights.
(am very thankful for my job and this routine at home as it has not always been like this) )

Tales of a First Grade Something

My boys love hearing my story about the time a mean first grade teacher played a really lousy trick on me. But for the first seven months of first grade I had a really kind teacher and they've heard these stories too:

• We practiced spelling words in small groups with the teacher showing us words on flashcards. If you didn't know a word she wrote it with a marker on a strip of paper. We'd stand in line at the end of the day and show each other how many words we had missed. I never had any. One day in our group she held up the word "something". I shook my head repeatedly to say I didn't know the word. That day I stood in line showing the others my strip of paper with my word.
• The cutest boy was James. I wanted his attention. But he liked a girl who wore a color coordinated Little Kiddle (the doll that was worn on a necklace).
• A goofy but sweet boy named Joey liked me. One day when I entered the classroom 3 girls ran over to me to tell me that I was the only girl invited to Joey's birthday party. Sure enough there was an envelope on my desk. I had fun at the party at his house.

I'm so glad I have the class picture taken in November. Because in April we moved away to a small town in Florida.My mom (who was then age 26) drove there, pulling a U-Haul behind our car. And because there wasn't room for everything my older brother and I had, she tiold us we had to give away many of our toys. I left them in front of the other apartment doors the day before we left. But I did keep a box of books.

So I started a new school about 8 weeks prior to the end of the school year. The classroom was set up with 3 large round tables. One was for the teacher's favorite boy students, another was for her favorite girl students, and the 3rd was for the misfits or bad kids and that was my table. I made friends with one girl who was "bad." The teacher made her stand in the corner a lot with her arms raised in the air for a long time. Looking back I think the teacher didn't like me because I could read really well. I remember asking her if I could read a book to the class and I did. I still have the book. I don't have any class work or report cards or other momentos of first grade, but I have kept that one book.There was a bathroom attached to the class and each afternoon I would go in there and just sit. Probably for about 15 to 20 minutes. In there I could get away from everyone. One day as I made my way back to my seat after sitting in the bathroom I saw weird looks on all the kids' faces and saw them pretend to shove invisible things into their desk areas under the tabletop. I ignored them. They faked they were chewing and swallowing. I continued to ignore them. The teacher watched me as she stood there with a lesson book in hand and I kept my poker face. Then she couldn't stand it anymore and said to one of her favorite students, "Sally, why don't you tell Michele what she missed while she was in the bathroom?"

This girl turned to me and said, "Teacher gave us CANDY!" Well, I knew this was a complete lie because these kids would've had the evidence on their faces and hands, and wrappers would be on the floor if that were true. I didn't say a word and showed no emotion.

I can't remember if I told my mom. Years later I did and she said that she didn't remember me telling her back then as she would have raised heck at the school. At the end of the summer we moved back to California and I started 2nd grade and it was again a new school (we continued to move a lot until 7th grade).

That wasn't the worst thing to happen to me when I was a kid, but it is a clearer memory than many. I smile when I tell my kids my stories and I am so glad that many things are different now than in "the Good Ole Days".