So, today is Valentine’s Day. Tom and I’s first date was in December of 1991 and we got married in 1993. It’s 2010. No, really. It is. I checked. Cuz… yeah.

I won’t tell the whole sorted story (no, I wasn’t pregnant, that came 7 years later) but we got married the day after I turned 18 and a few days later got on a plane and moved from South Carolina to Hawaii. How my mother didn’t smack me and tell me I was the stupidest child on the face of the planet… well… I don’t know. Obviously, it wasn’t a mistake, but I think back to how badly it could have turned out. I mean, I was a kid, he is just a few years older than me. WHAT were we thinking? Oh yeah, we were in looovvvveeee… *laugh* And yes, we were. Yes, we are. But still… I wonder…

I am the luckiest woman I know though. All these years later, and we’re still together, still in love – moreso I think, still write silly little notes (although instead of paging 143, I text it to him now and then), we still argue (never about big stuff like, always little stuff – like brands of mustard – you’d think we would have figured this out by now, right?), we still laugh, we still cry…

But I also look back over the past 17 years in awe. How much our lives have changed, how things morphed several times over the years. We went from being nearly dirt poor living in Hawaii, to being pretty well DINKs living in Hawaii, to being happily living DINKs living in Austin, to having two of the most beautiful and wonderful children in the entire world, to… well, where we are today. And everything in between. I remember his face when I told him I was pregnant (no screaming “but you were on the pill!”) the first time. I remember supporting him through the closure of his business and him supporting me through the treacherous growth of mine.

I remember my mom telling me when I was kid that I am so darn independent. She’s right, but I’m also very dependent on my husband, who really has been through everything with me. In some weird way, we kind of grew up together. I mean, I was 18, he was 21 when we got hitched. We made some really stupid mistakes, but we managed to get out of them together. We made some really wise decisions (and let me take credit for them) *laughing*

My point? I do look back all those years ago and wonder… what would be different if I hadn’t decided to get married? Would we still be together? Would we have grown apart? Can you even have a relationship that spans 6000 miles? I honestly don’t know. We were probably too immature to have made it work, if I’m being honest. I don’t regret even a second of it though. Tom is the love of my life and I don’t know what I’d do without him.

To you, Tom, thank you. Thank you for being persistent (3 months just to get a date!). Thank you for making me feel special, for making me feel like I am the most important thing in your world, and for making me laugh (gosh, I hate this part!). Thank you for sharing in our own little weird private jokes, for always being there when I need a shoulder, for always chipping in when I think I may be on my last ounce of sanity, and for always supporting my weird “yeah, let’s do this!” ideas. Thank you for picking up the slack when I drop it, for fixing things when I break them, and for laughing with me when we both screw up. Thank you for being you, for who you were, for who you are and for who you will become. I promise I’ll be right there with you for the rest of our lives.

(okay and to make a sappy post even more sappy, I thought about tacking on Have I Told You Lately That I Love You by Rod Stewart since that was closer to 1993, but Stand By Me… well, always makes me think of my hubby)

(Oh, and this is a good version of Stand By Me too. Love John Lennon’s version and this video is so well put together, check it out)

Jamie is in chess club this year and yesterday we were at the family Thanksgiving and I told him he could teach me to play (I’ve never learned)…. so he taught me – and he did a REALLY good job. I had a hard time grasping how everything moves (still do) and he was so patient and helped me when I was about to make a bad move, etc. Today, he wasn’t so nice and kicked my butt a few times. Ha! But we had a great time. He got to play with his 2nd cousin (errr, Tom’s cousin – whatever, however that works) later. And then again with his grandpa later that night, so life was good in Jamie’s world. Honestly, there’s too many variables for me, I don’t think chess will ever be my game, but I like having something to do with Jamie that keeps him still for a few minutes and doesn’t involve a video game that I cannot figure out the controls for. Board games are more my speed, I guess.

In other news, Tom and I, once again, have earned the Parents of the Year award. *takes a bow* Jamie has these weird manic episodes and we’ve loosely tied it back to red dye 40 sensitivity. I will say that I was never really on board until a few months ago and he ate like a pixi stick and a few candies or something and then went apeshit all over the place. Today, I think we have firmly tied it to it. Apparently, while I was gone to my trainer’s gym today, Jamie ate TWO strawberry fruit roll ups. We never have this stuff in the house so I didn’t think about it and buy the organic one or check the ingredients. We needed it for a cupcake project. No big deal, right? Oy. That was apparently before lunch. But I wanted to be a cool mom today and let him have Dr. Pepper with lunch. Yeah, so he kept himself in check but after dinner I think it all just built up in his system and he went completely nuts on us after dinner. Tom had to take him out to the car and stand out in the cold while he was in there yelling and acting like an insane person (because we wouldn’t buy him a webkinz or something, I don’t even remember).

Anyway, so I talked him down and told him I’d take him to spend his allowance at Target because I needed to go anyway. I also started asking him about what he had eaten because I knew it wasn’t just the Dr. Pepper. There was something else going on there.. Bingo. He told me he ate the fruit roll-ups. Honestly? It was a relief because he was making random noises and pretending to swim and shoot stuff down the aisles. He was doing good and only doing it when no one else was in the aisle, but you could tell he was completely manic, laughing and acting completely insane. When we got outside, I let him around a little in the parking lot (off to the side, mom, where he wouldn’t get run over!) and that helped a little.

I was talking to my mom about food additives lately and hormones in our meats and milk and stuff and how unnecessary it is. I mean, is it THAT important for STRAWBERRY to have added red dyes to it? Does it really need to be THAT red as compared to another shade of red. I’m assuming here there is some strawberry in there and besides, do I really care if it’s white or grey or whatever? Or hell, let’s actually start using strawberries? Shocking idea, I know. Anyway, so I’m back to checking labels again. We just totally spaced, we are so used to just not buying certain things that it didn’t even cross our minds. Oh well, I can’t be too hard on myself. At least we figured it out and now I know that he’s not being a bad kid today, he’s just on a red40 manic episode – and it really is like they are manic, it’s the only way I can describe it.

Ah well… ’til next time we screw up (hey, it’s still early tonight, let me go see what Cassie’s doing)

I had minor surgery Monday this week. It was supposed to be fast and easy, but ended up not being. I’m still in a lot of pain, but I’ve whined on FaceBook and to my friends and I’m pretty tired of hearing myself whine. But yeah, I’m not happy.

I also was going to ask the public opinion about my kid’s art, but ya know what? The kids agree with me. Each year, the school has the kids make something artistic and they put it onto magnets, mugs, and other things. I’ve always bought them and gave them away for gifts. Until this year. Last year they did this I assumed it was a fluke, but I’m NOT doing it this year. They make the kids imitate another artist and use that. For instance, Jamie took construction paper and made lines and colored in a few blocks. It’s impressionistic or whatever. I get it, but it’s not MY KID’s art. Cassie did a weird almost Andy Warholesque thing. Again. NOT my kid’s art. I’d rather get their scribbles or drawings or whatever. The first year the kids had more leeway and Jamie made the COOLEST house. He called it the “rock n roll” house. It was something they did over the course of several sessions and it was supposed to be this special thing. And HE made it.

I even put a note on the order forms as to why I’m not ordering it. I’m sorry, but I can get it cheaper somewhere else and it will be something that MY KID made, not something they were copying from some other famous artist.

The kids agreed. They think it’s ugly and didn’t want to do it. At least that’s what they are saying. So maybe this weekend, we will have our own art class and I’ll have someone on the internet make my magnets. I’m not wasting my money on crappy “kid” art this year.

They’ve been home from school all week – I will post later about that, but Cassie had to do her homework and school work and was in her room screaming at the top of her lungs. I got her on video and that really ticked her off…

Watch out, Linda Blair! You have competition!

(Hey, I already lost the Mom Of The Year award, may as well have some fun with it.)

Today started off pretty well…

Well, let’s back up… last week on Monday night Jamie ran a 99.8 fever. Low, but high enough that I kept him home on Tuesday to make sure we were complying with the districts 24-hour rule (oh, how I wish other parents would follow this rule but that’s a rant for another day). He didn’t run a fever all of Tuesday and was fine and hasn’t since, so I sent him to school the rest of the week with no problems. He’s had a cough for 3 weeks, but we all do, since the rain came and brought the mold or whatever with it, our allergies are crazy.

In the meantime, we talked the weekend before about his behavior in class, about how he’s not focusing and how he’s not paying attention and how to handle it when the class gets too loud for him to handle, etc. I also told him he should be striving to stay on green more often in class (they use a color system, green, purple, blue, red) and he needed to focus more, make sure he’s always paying attention to the teacher, not wandering off mentally, and we talked about ways that we could make that happen.

I was VERY proud when he got ALL GREEN last week. Honestly, I was hoping for one green day. To get 4 (he was home on Tuesday remember) was simply outstanding.

So, going to the conference (just me and him – Tom was home with Cassie and a friend), I knew it was going to be about him and how he’s progressed over the past 2 weeks. I went in there and looked at his desk and nearly cried. It was ORGANIZED. Jamie’s desk usually has papers shoved in there and you can’t find anything. But it was organized. I high-fived him and noticed he was acting off kilter. I thought maybe he was nervous or maybe being at school on Monday with no other kids was too weird or his schedule getting off (which wigs him out)… so we went on.

As we suspected, our son is super smart. He’s doing amazing in Math and can do word problems very easily, he’s above level in reading (duh), etc etc. Academically, he’s doing fine. Whew. His behavior in class has been outstanding recently, he was able to tell her when he needed to go to a different corner of the room to get away from the noisy classmates. His only problem is that he’s not very good at descriptive writing. He writes “I went to the park. We had fun. The end.” instead of “I went to the park with my sister and best friend. We dug in the sandbox with my yellow pail and went down the slide. My sister had fun jumping off of the swings.” etc. Okay, hey, we’ll take it.

Afterwards, he still looked out of it and said he wanted to talk to me, so I took him out for breakfast tacos. He seemed fine and was happy to get such a good report from his teacher (who I absolutely adore, I had reservations at first, but the woman has done amazing things with Jamie this year!). He was still kind of “out of it” but I am screwing with his schedule here and that makes him kinda nuts.

Let me pause here… those of you who are good mommies are already cringing thinking of all the people he’s come into contact with… the neighbor girl that spent the night, his sister, the friend that slept over (thankfully Jamie slept with me and had limited contact with the girls), everyone at the school, his teacher, the people at the restaurant.

Yeah, so at lunch, he didn’t eat but a few bites. Tom and I, being the rock star parents we are, were talking about how he just seemed to be off his “norm” today, must be the schedule thing, having a sleepover on Sunday and no school on Monday, right? All of a sudden, I look at Jamie and say, “oh, shit”. Yes, the lightbulb finally went off. He has 102.2 fever, has been dosed with Motrin and Robitussin and is quarantined in his room.

So, I think my mommy-of-the-year award won’t be coming any time soon. Darn it, after the great conference I was patting myself on the back. It would help if I don’t expose my sick kid to half of Austin though, eh? I wish he had said he felt bad, but he still says he just feels “tired”. ARGH!

This morning was not a good morning. I got up 10 minutes late. I’m annoyed. It’s raining. Tom tries to feed the kids pepper ham for lunch and I point out they don’t like pepper stuff and won’t eat it, so I’m annoyed I have to mix up the tuna fish and notice the stove and table were never wiped down after dinner, all that little stuff. So I’m double annoyed.

He leaves for school (substitute teacher) and the kids are IMPOSSIBLE. Not getting dressed, not brushing their hair. At one point I told them they could just walk to school in the rain and the next I told them “fine, we’re not going to school” (Jamie, of course, was down with that). Just a bad morning.

So, I come back and a friend is on Skype and I’m venting to her that while Tom is this great husband, he’s also a pain in the butt and I’m tired of being the one that always thinks of things ahead of time…

And then I get a text from Tom. “Look under ur keyboard”.

Where I find this letter – and $20. (click to see it cuz I’m not retyping it)

Bastard. He makes it so hard to stay mad at him! Dagnabit! *laugh*

Sigh. I think I’ll save the $20 and get us all Blizzards after the kids get their flu shots today. We all deserve them.

I guess at the end of the day, really the table and stove and all that stuff that annoys me when we forget is so minor…

I do want that maid though!

Our friends and housemates last week offered to watch the kids so we could have a date night. I told Cassie that I was going to go on a date with “her Daddy” and she got a little offended. To make matters worse, I informed here that yes, I would kiss her Daddy. She didn’t believe that I would commit such a heinous act, so I took a picture to show her. She got all flustered and a little angry with me. Apparently I’m not allowed to kiss “her Daddy”. Possessive little thing, isn’t she?

We went to this amazing little Italian place called Bellino’s (and I will be writing a review for my review blog soon). But the food was fantastic. If you are ever in Rockport TX, you must check this place out. I had the Pollo Piccata and it was one of the best chicken dishes I’ve ever had. And the pasta was done to perfection. So so so good. Plus we had a great time. It was nice that the restaurant was so fabulous, but even if it was horrible, we almost always manage to have a good time. After we went looking for a Starbucks and I looked it up on my phone. It said there was one, but once we got lost trying to find it and ran into it, it was closed down. I think we laughed so hard we got a tummy ache Anyway, check this place out… and don’t kiss “Cassie’s Daddy”… she might get all huffy!

I have no idea how I ran across this information, but I figure I should post about it and get it out of my system and then send you back to your regularly scheduled (sometimes) cute family blog…

Tom and I both feel pretty strongly about this… it is YOUR responsibility, as the parent, to monitor what your kids watch/read/do. If there is some book you don’t want them to read because it has witches in it, then you get to step up and be the parent. Amazing how that works, right? I am constantly amazed that some parents think they have the right to pull a book of a school’s public library because they are too lazy to talk to their kids and monitor what their kids are doing.

As a parent myself, I think my children should have the freedom and opportunity to read any book that we choose. There may be some books I don’t want them to read and if there is, I will tell them and they won’t check it out. Yes, this actually works. It’s called communicating and trusting your kids. Where did that disappear to? When did we decide we have to micromanage every single thing our children do? Can they not read a book and then ask you questions about it?

Anyway… I was happy to read this about Round Rock ISD (which is our school district), “Round Rock ISD took second in this dubious competition with nine challenges, none of which resulted in a single ban or restriction.” (From page six of the Free People Read Freely 2008-2009 report.

I realize not everyone will agree with me. That’s the beauty of having freedoms. Some could say that if I want my kid to read Harry Potter, I could buy the books. And I do just that. But there are kids out there that can’t afford to buy any book they want. That’s what libraries are for. Some could say that you can’t control everything your children do, and that is partially my point. If your biggest problem is that your kid wants to read Harry Potter and sneaks off to do it… I’d say you are pretty lucky

For more information on banned books and other ACLU projects, visit their website.

I love Saturdays. I get to sleep in a little. The kids find a nutritious breakfast on their own and practice their reading together and learning from each other…

What?

Okay, they grab pop-tarts and their DSes. They are trained well. I get my extra hour