Tightrope Tuesday: Groceries Strike Again

     Today it was all I could do to produce dinner.
     These kids have a thing about eating. They like to do it.
     I find the whole thing overwhelming. Not the act of eating, but all the steps leading up to it.
     Shopping SUCKS.

The store is soooo big.

You have to inspect all the fruits and vegetables. You have to decide if you'll spring for the organic stuff or risk some slow, glowing insides death by pesticides. You have to search the aisles for all the things they've moved since the last time you were there (they love to do that - villains!) You have to go back to the other side of the store for the things you didn't notice on the list that were over there. If you suffer from OCD you have to inspect packages to make sure they haven't been tampered with, and then try to placate yourself by thinking, I haven't heard any reports of tampered products killing people for years. You have to wait on a line for a clerk, or self check-out the mound of stuff yourself. (That's always fun. Once I hit the "Spanish" button by accident, which wasn't so bad until I got to the produce.) You have to go to different stores to get certain things.
     OMG. All this trouble just to eat. Is it really worth it?
     My son's list was compiled with the seriousness of The Ten Commandments.

     And really, I want him to be happy. He deserves it. He works hard in school, and is doing so well. He just got his second on-sight college acceptance yesterday, with another merit scholarship. He needs to have brain fuel. But why do I have to drag my butt around buying everything?
     I could send him shopping. But it seems mean. He really is a great son, and he doesn't ask for all that much. It seems to be important to have these food items - and for me to cook them - and he's satisfied. Considering the problems some people have with their kids, I can't complain. But still I am overwhelmed.
     I bought so much, and still I have have to get dinner for Thursday and beyond.
     I don't know how people do it. And then there's the holidays - made even more evident by the depressing music playing in the store, making me oh, so sad. Not music to shop by.
     I am grieving for my aunt, and I'm sure that is making everything more harder for me. Normally I joke about all this more.
     Yes, some laughter is in order.

   
     Which is the payoff of course - laughing with the kids as we're plopped down at the dinner table.
      I just wish someone else did all the prep work.

Here we are outside Pancho's restaurant on Michael's birthday - it's nice to be served sometimes!

Tightrope Tuesday: It's High Noon!

             I’m in a rush today, so I’ll have to keep this brief. I was waylaid by the arrival of my mother on my doorstep last night (if you want to know about that relationship, read my novel Saved by the Music.) Suffice to say, I had a rough time until the Valium kicked in.

            Today I’m feeling kind of sunrise-sunsety. Except the sun’s not setting. It's at "high noon."  But the metaphor works when thinking about my kids – especially Michael.

            I can’t get over him being 17, a high-school senior, and a licensed driver. I mean I can, but then suddenly the thought hits me: “How did this happen?”

            He’s soooo tall!

            I’m used to him towering over me, but I glanced at his leg the other night and was struck by how adult it was. You know, hairy. Like the leg hanging over the bridge on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disney – but without the grime.

            When did puberty occur? He was so quiet about it. Unlike my younger son Casey, who is reveling in puberty like it’s Mardi Gras and asking me questions which make me blush.

            Michael has always been one to work things out quietly. When he was little and we went somewhere, the first thing he would do is scope out a “mad place.” Usually, it was under a table. This was a place he could go when he got upset, and he would stay there until he worked it out.

            He made himself his own time-out place!

(This is not Michael - it's a Google Image)

            He only threw one fit in his childhood, when he wanted a pacifier in a drugstore, He had a collection in his pockets. “Me-me! Me-me!” he cried, pointing.

            “No more me-me’s!”

            “Me-me! Me-me!”

            I took his hand and tried to lead him away, but just like in the picture book Knufflebunny, he “went boneless.”

            “Me-me! Me-me!”

            I was dumbfounded. He’d never acted like that before. But I knew enough not to buy him that me-me. I dragged him out of the store. It must have been very disturbing for bystanders.

            When we got to the sidewalk I asked him, “Done now?”

            He nodded and stood.

            That was it. He must’ve realized that the fit tactic was futile with me. That’s the kind of kid he was – and is (even though he’s a man now.) He learns from experience. Can you imagine?

            We have such a great relationship. At a college visit on Saturday¸ one of Michael’s friends' mothers asked me, “Do you two just laugh together all the time?”

            We do.

            Somehow, my son turned out to be the perfect man I could never find for myself. He is empathetic, honest and reliable. He’s a man of his word. He’s self-motivated. And he’s darn good-looking to boot.

            How about that?

Michael & me: And he was only about 13 here!