Monday, November 05, 2007

The Way We Were

Anna asked me to take her shoe-shopping this evening, and she was shocked, shocked, to hear me say, "No." The floor of her room is still littered with the refuse from her tantrum last night, including broken shards of plastic and approximately a zillion teeny tiny beads that fell victim to her indignation at being made to catch up on her geometry assignments. It would also be nice if she put the sheets on her bed. I am quite the exacting housekeeper.

I hope that these Anna stories make someone feel better, just knowing that at least his/her teen doesn't act this way. Somebody has to benefit from this craziness. So go ahead, pat yourself on the back at my expense. I don't mind.

We're still coming down from the candy high which was engendered by the holiday-that-must-not-be-named-again-in-this-blog-until-next-October. Rachel wept all through dinner because Brian still had 4 Skittles left and she had nothing. It is beyond my organization skills to make sure that my kids all eat their candy at the same rate. I may be a control freak, but I still have to draw the line somewhere.

I just finished uploading all my photos (a conservative estimate puts the number at 2000) from the entire year onto Snapfish. Now I have to edit them. I really don't know how I fell this far behind. I didn't even have a baby this year. Maybe if I give up sleep....

Wait, I've already done that. Oh, dear. Maybe I should give up the digital camera instead. With film, I didn't have this many pictures to deal with. Remember film? How every event pretty much amounted to 24 snapshots, and at least 8 of those weren't any good? And you didn't know that until you paid for them? Now film photography seems as quaint as driving around with a horse and buggy. Or listening to lp's. Remember those?

I'm feeling nostalgic for simpler times tonight. For lousy photographs and scratched records, ugly Tupperware and boring evenings when there was nothing good on all 3 channels. We had some tough times back in the 70's, even without Watergate hearings pre-empting all the Saturday morning cartoons. Maybe I'll wake up the kids and tell them that. But I know they won't believe me. They don't even believe I was ever a kid. Heck, I don't believe it myself. It used to be that having children made me feel young. But now it does the opposite. Can someone explain that, please?

It occurs to me that I could get more photos edited if I didn't persist in wasting time maundering on about my own mortality. Let me test that theory. Good night, all!

16 comments:

  1. Does it help I love your blog and really look forward to reading it?!? Not so much that your stories make me feel better, because believe me my own 14yo (boy, tho) makes me think about turning in my 2 week notice to my own family (if only that was possible...), but it is just so refreshing to know that someone else goes through these same things!

    Good luck on the photos and knitting your socks. I want to teach myself how to knit, haven't gotten brave enough yet though. If I ever do, everyone in my family will be receiving homemade items that year.

    http://momoftheyear-not.blogspot.com/

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  2. I feel your pain. I recently received my order of 728 photos from Winkflash. Now I've just got to figure out what the heck to do with them!

    We should start a movement to bring back the 35mm!

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  3. Wow, I'm so glad my kids don't act like that. Of course, they're only 8 and 6, but still. Wow. It makes for good blogging though. My kids are so adorable and sweet all the time that they don't make for very good stories.

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  4. onthegomom - your blog still will not let me comment! So, I'll tell you here, get Knitting Rules, by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee - it's fantastic.

    I do 3 loads of laundry a day, and that sort of keeps me caught up. The kids help. More details, e-mail me and give me a way to contact you!

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  5. Would you like a photo of the floor of the room that my two daughters share? Would that make you feel better? Also it is base house so the bedroom is the size of a Wheat Thin, so even if there are relatively few things on the floor it looks like a colossal mess. Also the dog found the stash of Halloween candy hidden in that room in a flannel pillow case. He ate through the pillow case and ate all the candy. Came skulking out of the room trying not to look me in the eyes, but I saw the evidence of a half finished dum dum sucker stuck in the fur on his chest. You can't lie to the Mama...even if you are a dog.

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  6. It's not so that we feel better abuot not having a kid like Anna, it's because ALL moms of teenagers do have a kid like Anna.

    You're soooooo not alone. I just wish I could stay awake to actually have some alone time.

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  7. Definitely do not wake them up and tell them about how it was in the 70's. My Dad used to try to make us feel better about our situation by telling us that he had to walk to school, barefoot, in the snow, and all he had to eat were lard sandwiches for lunch. We hated that! it never helped AND we didn't believe him.

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  8. I told my husband the other day that since diesel is 3.19 a gallon I told my husband that we needed to buy a buggy and make our horses start pulling it. horses are cheaper than the truck. I have started my kids young with cleaning their rooms. My 2 year old will walk into his room and say,"A mess!!" and he will clean it. They love to clean when they are little. Please tell me this continues into teenage years!!!???

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  9. Diesel - MadMad and I have talked it over and we can't decide if you are being facetious or clueless. I assume facetious, but dads can be clueless about their own kids (as MadMad was quick to point out).

    Mary Alice - no photos, please, or I'll retaliate with some of my own.

    Just Seeking - of course they'd hate it! That's the point.

    Andrea - I'll just let you live in that nice little fantasy world of yours for as long as you can.

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  10. Wait, you mean you put sheets on beds?

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  11. My seven-year-old asked me if there was such a thing as television when I was a kid.

    I had to stop and think about it but there was!

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  12. Um, the Anna stories make me feel better, but not because my kids don't act this way, more because I know I am not the only person on this earth who is dealing with this craziness called teen/preteen hormones. Again, I wonder why I wanted so many girls and not so many boys (although I am loving my baby boy, and already wanting another - but another BOY, not another stinkin girl, LOL - just smack me know, I know its got to be post pregnancy hormones.) I told my mother today that I was going to put my oldest son (almost 12) and my oldest daughter (almost 10) in the same room, nail the doors and windows shut, and lock them all tight, and just let them go at it until they either knock eachother out, or until they decide its much easier to get along, because otherwise, I do not know if they will survive until their birthdays in December.

    I used to love film - you could get it with a CD, and life was good. Once we went digital (and especially since I have a 1GB and a 2GB memory card) the number of pictures that I have to go through is amazingly crazy. I dont even try to organize them. I just upload them and call it a day, LOL.
    ~Jennifer

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  13. "Rachel wept all through dinner because Brian still had 4 Skittles left and she had nothing. It is beyond my organization skills to make sure that my kids all eat their candy at the same rate."

    Ha! Emma cried for 15 minutes yesterday because she was out of candy. She seemed not to understand how that had happened. Where had it gone? How could she get it back?

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  14. I can get them to put sheets on the beds. It's getting them to take them off to wash them that is the trouble. And my teen-aged son's room beats the girls messes because it not only is a complete disaster, but it smells like a locker room.

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  15. Wow, you went from a teen's dirty room to mortality all in one post. I'm unworthy!

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  16. I so remember Watergate! I am scarred for life that I missed all my shows for what was it? An eternity! Maybe that's why I always run around flipping off the TV on the kids, I'm displacing my aggression. OK, I just saw diesel's comment out of the corner of my eye and I want to puke! The poor guy, what in the heck does he blog about? Anyhow, I'm glad I know other people who have the same great memories!

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