There are a lot of reasons why I remain an UnPinterested Mom. Mainly because the whole idea of trying to keep up with the over-achieving, overly-competitive nature that I imagine is intrinsic in being a devoutly Pinterested Mom just makes me more tired than I already am. (Disclaimer: my exposure to devoutly Pinterested Moms has mainly been limited to school room parties, so please forgive me my jaded attitude.) Having said that, I do like to create special memories for my kids whenever I can. BUT, this does not include spending hours planning/researching/constructing/staging anything or robbing their 529s to make it happen.
So I came up with this fun idea to ease the pain for all of us of summer break coming to an end by doing something special as a family every evening the entire week leading up to the first day of school. I tried giving it a clever title, like, "Summer Break-ing Up is Hard to Do" or "Final Fling of Fun", but they all kind of sounded like direct-to-DVD movies, so I skipped the name and just told the fam the general idea. The only rules were that each night it would be a surprise (to them), we all had to do it, electronics were verboten and whatever we did had to be free or cost less than ten bucks. Everyone was on board. Mr. Rockwell, pick up your brush and get ready to paint a portrait.
Night 1: "Ghost in the Graveyard"
Let me splain why playing this simple game would be a real excitement generator for the Boy Child and Girl Child and even my Handsome Husband. I am the most boring person in the world after 7:00pm. Now I'm no Charo prior to that hour either, but my animation level blows a serious leak about the time I finish cooking dinner and depletes at an alarming rate in the hours following. And if you didn't get the Charo reference, Google her. I am too old and too disinterested to keep up with who the Charo of the current generation is, if anyone is actually capable of filling her fringed stiletto boots. Suffice it to say, she is high energy 24/7. I am high energy 10/5. Ish.
So the idea that Mommy was going to be outside after dark in her clothes (as opposed to the PJs I would normally be in at that time, people) while shrieking and running about the yard with no concern for what the neighbors might be thinking (okay, I texted a few of them to give them a heads up, lest they think I have finally and officially cracked) was enough to send the kids maniacally sprinting from window to window at dusk to see if it was as dark as Daddy said it needed to be to start the game.
Once they got the go ahead and we went outside, things rapidly went downhill. From the time I had returned from my run an hour before, the dew point had gone up by ten degrees and was at a very balmy 74. Even my contacts were fogging up. Then when it was the Boy Child's turn to be the Ghost, he got pissed when he didn't catch anyone, quit the game and spent the remainder of the time telling the rest of us (loudly) how stupid being the Ghost, playing the game, family time, bugs, humidity and his life all are. Brush down, Mr. Rockwell.
Night 2: "Family Movie Night"
Again, you may be wondering why this would be of intense interest to my kids since most families do this all the time. We are not most families. Trying to find a movie that appeals to all of us is the main challenge. Case in point; my HH came into the bedroom the other night with the hope that we could watch something together. I told him I was already watching a movie and that he was welcome to join me. He asked what it was, and I told him it was a documentary on the life and times of Mark Twain. He blinked a couple of times and turned heel without another word. Given the fact that he can quote the full dialogue from any Will Farrell or Adam Sandler movie, while I have never even seen a film starring either one, you can sense the issue there.
However, I managed to find a family film I thought we would all enjoy ("Heaven is for Real", in case you're interested), and we all settled in. Everyone was instructed to place their electronics on the coffee table and that no one was to touch them until the movie was over. We snuggled on the couch in a tangle of arms and legs, and I hit play. Brush in hand, Mr. Rockwell.
Now if you actually want to hear any of a movie's dialogue, do not combine a film that is an examination of spiritual beliefs vs. disbelief with two children who, God bless them, like to ask a LOT of questions about everything all the time anyway. Ten minutes in, I had patiently paused the movie so many times for a Q&A session that I had forgotten what we were watching, and my HH was on the verge of totally losing it and retreating to the bedroom to watch baseball. Not to mention the fact that every time someone's device beeped that they had a text or a game notification, they tensed up like I had said we were following up Movie Night with Closet Clean Outs, and I had to apply leg and/or arm pressure to keep them from picking up said device. Brush down.
Night 3: "Trouble" at Krispy Kreme
Now there's a good title. Kind of gives you the impression that the fun activity of the evening is to bust up into Krispy Kreme, hop behind the counter and start throwing Hot N Ready doughnuts at each other from off the conveyor as we are chowing down on them. (I *might* have been involved in a similar incident once back in college.) That wasn't the kind of "trouble" I was planning though.
The actual idea was to go to Krispy Kreme (a novelty both for us to go in to the place and to eat doughnuts in the evening) and play the game Trouble while the fam was enjoying inner tube-shaped morsels of fried crap. In the spirit of keepin' it real, no, there was no way my clean eating self was having any. Not that I don't have a sugary treat from time to time, but as a reformed Krispy Kreme addict, eating one just isn't going to happen. It's either a box of Hot N Readys with a tall glass of milk or nada. These days, nada. But I digress. Ready for a Norman Rockwell picture of doughnuts being gleefully consumed while the family plays a few friendly rounds of Trouble together!
We never even got to Krispy Kreme. Fluffy (one of my kids' bunnies) had some reproductive surgery that day (thanks again so much to the breeder for the Epic Fail of not giving us the two female bunnies we asked for), and I had to hurry and get his (the bunny's not the breeder's) Rx filled before the pharmacy closed. (By the way, try asking a pharmacist in a major metropolitan suburb if they dispense pain meds for rabbits and see what kind of look you get.) Then my HH started wonking about a trip to KK interfering with the Chiefs game (dude, it's pre-season), which caused round #148 of the ongoing spousal argument over "Why Hubby Cannot DVR a Live Sporting Event". A truce was negotiated by my bringing the doughnuts home, starting Trouble at halftime and limiting play to thirty minutes so that only approximately fifteen minutes of the Chiefs game had to be DVRed. Marriage is all about compromise, right? *sigh*
So in the tradition of typical Rushing Family Game Play, over the course of the thirty minutes, my HH continuously trash talked to the kids (which is the equivalent at our house of poking a poorly tempered dog with a stick), the Boy Child quit three times and the Girl Child gave us an ongoing monologue full of tween angst on why she would not win, she never wins, no one wants her to win, everyone else always gets the number she needs to win....and then she won. Which caused the Boy Child to declare that Trouble is stupid, family time is stupid, going to bed is stupid and not being able to have your own apartment when you're nine is stupid. At this point, if he were still alive, Mr. Rockwell would have packed up his paints and told me to text him when and if we could ever get this familial bliss staging right so he could complete our portrait.
Night 4: "Fun with Aunt Laurie!"
My sister happened to be in town this week and planned to spend the evening with us. Our town was having an art street fair, and the weather was beautiful. Why not combine family time with sister time and throw in a little culture at the same time? Surely Mr. Rockwell would approve? Except HH and the Boy Child opted out as soon as the word "art" left my mouth, and the Girl Child agreed to come along only if she could bring a friend. Sooooo, we take a night off from the week o' family fun then? We'll call tonight the halftime show and get our game back on tomorrow night. Break!
Night 5: "After Hours Private Pool Party"
I can't take credit for this one. A friend of mine won this party at our municipal pool at a charity auction last spring and was kind enough to include us on the guest list. When I floated the idea of attending past the HH, I was shocked when he agreed to go. First of all, it involved a public pool. (See my blog entry about adolescent power trips for more insight into that one.) Second, it involved being social with friends of mine that he doesn't know all that well. (Hey, no judgments from me. If you read my blog entry on pit sweating, you know interactions with people I don't know that well are a social phobia of mine too. My phobia also extends to interacting with some of the people I do know well, but again, I digress...)
So the four of us packed up and headed to the par-tay. Now the one thing that sold the Girl Child on attending a gathering that involved elementary kids, most of whom would be five years or so younger than she, was the fact that one of her friends who is only a year younger was supposed to be in attendance. This friend is acceptable to hang out with because, although she is not in middle school like the Girl Child, they have been friends for years, and she would likely engage in what tweens do at the pool. I don't understand all of the protocol, but it seems to consist mainly of sitting on a chaise with a towel over your heads so you both can see your iPod better. However, Tween Friend did not show for the party. Ugh. Strike One.
I was happily chatting and catching up with friends but kept noticing that the HH was sitting off to himself, talking to no one, and playing on his phone the entire time. This started to amp up my anxiety because I knew it meant he was checking baseball scores and wishing he were at home kicked back on the couch with the remote in hand. Even though he did agree to come, in his defense, he didn't actually agree to have a good time. I was no longer paying much attention to what anyone was saying because I knew he wanted to leave. Strike two.
If you are personally acquainted with my kids, you know that they have about 5% body fat, and that's if you put both of theirs together. So given the fact that the evening had turned cool for early August, after an hour of being at the pool, they both looked like they needed to wrap up in space blankets instead of beach towels. Strike three, and we are out of there. On the bright side, we still had two more nights to get this picture painted.
Night Six: "To the Thea-tah"
We had long-standing evening plans for a Parents' Night Out with the Boy Child's baseball team, so we moved Family Fun Night to the afternoon. It was a rainy day, so the plan was to head to the movies. Again, the recurring issue of cinematic common ground reared its ugly head. The Girl Child wanted to see "Step Up: All In", a tween/teen dance movie that looked to have a pointless script and bad acting. The Boy Child wanted to see "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" with Megan Fox, which assured there would be an even worse script and terrible acting. I prefer dance moves over karate moves, and I knew the HH would appreciate a lil eye candy in the form of Ms. Fox, so divide and conquer it was.
So hey, we didn't exactly do something all together, but at the end of the afternoon, both kiddos were happy, the HH had a slightly glazed look in his eyes, and I had only a teensy headache from the massive eye rolling I did over the movie's dialogue. Example: "I dance because one move can set a generation free!" (Tell me you didn't just roll your eyes.) Maybe tomorrow, Mr. Rockwell.
Night Seven: "The Final Chapter"
This was it. The last chance to get the portrait of perfect familial bliss right. I should have pulled out all the stops. But given the fact that it also happened to be my first day back to work at school, the only thing I wanted to pull out was the plug on the day and go to bed. (If you work in education, you get this phenomenon knows as "First Day Fatigue". If you don't, just know that you should save the apples for your kid's teacher on the first day and hook her up with some Red Bull and Twizzlers instead. She will be most grateful.)
I did manage to come up with a plan. We would hit the Russell Stover's store for dinner, and the kids could pick out any crap they wanted (budget of $2.50/ea) to eat. This went over like the Beatles on "Ed Sullivan". Or if you're under thirty, like The Jonas Brothers on "Ellen". (Who am I kidding? No one under thirty is reading this blog.) So they happily chowed down, and I managed to keep from laying my head down on the table and napping while they noshed. Maybe not the look I was going for, but I am calling this a win.
So what all of this showed me is that, while we fail dismally at creating traditional Rockwell Family Moments, the Rushing Family Moments form our own traditions, and they work for us. Our kids are happy and secure, and they are living out a childhood many of their less fortunate peers would love to have. Anything that we do together as a family, my kiddos adore. Even if they are simple things, we are creating memories that they will reminisce about when they are grown and wish they could relive.
In short, we are imperfect and all over the place at times, and sometimes we totally miss the mark, but every step and misstep we take together is a blessing. And I think all of those things blended together to create our own beautiful picture. In the end, I guess I realized that we didn't even need Mr. Rockwell in the first place. Each one of us added our own essential element to our custom canvas. So here's to the Handsome Husband, the Girl Child, the Boy Child, myself, and our family for always keepin' it "Rushing Real".
Sparkly Kisses,
D
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