Working…with kids

Happy, but dirty, campers

Posted on June 30, 2008 by jlord
Filed Under friends | Leave a Comment

In a couple of hours, I expect to pick up a pair of exhausted, filthy kids. Their backpacks will contain a damp mixture of bathing suits, beach towels and sand and, if I don’t make them take their shoes off in the garage, I’m going to have small trails of dirt all over the house.

It’s the start of day camp season in our house. We lucked into this particular camp because our former daycare center at the Boroughs YMCA is affiliated with it — the kids started attending “Kiddie Camp” in preschool, then moved up to full camp when they each hit first grade. The camp director knows them on sight, they swim (poorly, but that’s another story), canoe, climb ropes and learn archery.

For David, camp is all about Eben. They’ve known each other since they were about four months old. They went from staring at each other in the infant room to parallel play to fully bonded buddies in identical baseball caps. Eben’s family lives in another town, so they had to separate in kindergarten. But every summer, we hit the camp bus stop and there’s Eben — instant re-bond, instant connection. And, of course, I get the added bonus of catching up with Hadar, Eben’s mom, who is known to both of my kids as “Miss Hadar,” since she taught at their daycare.

Megan’s not entirely left out of all this. Eben’s younger brother, Aidan, is just a year older than her, and they were good friends while they were in daycare. They apparently were a couple for a while. I love kids.

A short(s) truth

Posted on June 28, 2008 by jlord
Filed Under travel | Leave a Comment

I had to go all the way to Washington, D.C., for this truth, but I will give it to you right here. Ready?

Those madras plaid shorts, with the multiple multicolored patches? They don’t look good on anyone.

Believe me. I’ve seen a cross-section of America wearing these shorts, and it’s not pretty. Years from now, they will look at the photos from their trips and say “Oh wow, this has to be summer 2008, what was I thinking with those shorts?”

They do not look good on wide butts. They do not look good on thin butts. The long ones, on teen boys, look ridiculous. The short ones, on teen girls, look completely wrong. Multicolored, multidirectional patches are just all wrong for the human buttocks.

I know they’re on sale. I know they’re everywhere. You have to trust me.

Make America beautiful. Do not wear these shorts.

Are we there yet?

Posted on June 21, 2008 by jlord
Filed Under Saturday, travel | 1 Comment

We’re loading up the minivan (It’s a grey Honda Odyssey, of course. Isn’t everyone’s?) and heading down to Washington, D.C. Monday morning. We won’t be back until probably late Friday night AND we’re those crazy, retro parents who travel without a laptop in tow (or a DVD player in the car), so unless I get so desperate to post I hijack Congressman Neal’s computer, you’re just going to have to talk amongst yourselves.

Play nice!

Big teeth, no bite

Posted on June 21, 2008 by jlord
Filed Under Saturday, music | 2 Comments

I sat through “Camp Rock” last night.

These are the things you do with an 8-year-old music-loving girl in the house. You take her to see “Girl Authority” and Ayla Brown. You hear all about her friends’ obsession with Hannah Montanta — peer pressure, so far, hasn’t brought her to the Miley Cyrus side — and you track “American Idol” as if it were Red Sox playoff season.

And when the Disney Channel comes up with a movie that’s supposedly this summer’s “High School Musical,” you watch it. Even if it does have the Jonas Brothers in it. Because, really, how bad could it be?

“Camp Rock” is dreck. I found myself mesmerized by the lead actress’ teeth. At one point I was afraid she was going to eat a Jonas Brother because, this being a Disney movie, it wasn’t like their characters were going to kiss. They save that for the last few minutes of the sequel.

You know what “Camp Rock” needed? Sharpay and Ryan, the villains from “High School Musical” (although Ryan, Sharpay’s hat-loving happy-dancing brother, did get a redemptive makeover in the sequel). “Camp Rock” definitely needed an infusion of, well, the camp that made “High School Musical” bearable on even the 17th viewing (let’s just say I don’t need the karaoke version to sing along, okay?). Maybe a catchy song or two.

There wasn’t a single likable character — the lead lies that her mother is a TV mogul (and not the camp cook who gave up her catering business for the summer so her ungrateful daughter could attend the darned camp), dumps the friendly girl at camp for the resident evil diva and becomes the diva’s doormat just to be “popular” — and only seems to regret being caught in the lie.

“Camp Rock,” of course, wasn’t made for a 41-year-old. Its target demo is an 8-year-old girl, who is expected, of course, to beg for the soundtrack, the posters, the “Camp Rock” clothing that was the entire focal point of the girls’ department in Target today.

Bad news for Disney: she didn’t want the soundtrack. On the ride home, at her request, we listened to the Ramones.

Vegging out

Posted on June 20, 2008 by jlord
Filed Under environment, food | Leave a Comment

I’ve never really appreciated how cute bok choy could be.

Seriously. We’re in Week Two of our CSA at Nourse Farm in Westborough, and this week’s share offering gave us the option of these wee bok choy heads. They’re tightly packed, probably about eight inches tall. They’re darling. I can’t wait to chop them up with a sharp knife and turn them into stir-fry.

A CSA is Community-Supported Agriculture. We gave the farm money up front earlier this spring, back when they were planning this year’s crops, and starting last week, we now go in once a week for our share. This has multiple benefits — we know our veggies are fresh, they’re “greener” because they were grown close to home rather than trucked in, and, ultimately, we’ll be eating more, and a greater variety, of veggies and fruits simply because they’re available.

Last week’s share wasn’t very varied. We arrived too late for pea tendrils and basil, but we had spinach, lettuce and TONS of strawberries. I made a spinach-strawberry salad for Father’s Day that was to die for.

This week’s share included spinach, strawberries, multiple types of lettuces, bok choy, swiss chard, rhubarb and basil. We missed out on the basil again but were promised they’d be more plentiful as the season progresses. In the coming weeks, we’ll have beans and peas, summer squash, tomatoes, beets, corn, cucumber and multiple types of berries.

We’re on vacation next week, but our share won’t go to waste — the farm will donate it to the food pantry.

Hangin’ at the corner, with the moms

Posted on June 19, 2008 by jlord
Filed Under Mommy-world, friends | 2 Comments

I’m hanging on the corner with Andrea and NhaQuyen. Our girls are all safely on their way to school on Mrs. C’s big yellow bus, but the bus stop really isn’t about transportation.

One day we might be comparing notes about teachers. Another, there’s a bit of gossip about neighbors. We’re noting a rare sighting of our developer — is a new family really going to build on the hill? — or confessing to a reality TV guilty pleasure. Some days other moms in the neighborhood, free of the children old enough for school, pull their minivans over to join in.

This is all something we’ll be missing as school lets out for summer.

Mom time.

My mother would point out that she had me waiting at the bus stop alone from first grade on. No moms went to the bus stop back then and, yes, our kids are fully able to wait on the corner alone, within sight of our houses. It’s an unspoken rule that moms stay in when the kids move on to the 3-5 grade school, as Megan will next year.

I’m out of the neighborhood for long swaths of the day. If it wasn’t for the bus stop, the neighbors would simply be familiar people with whom I’d exchange waves. Adults, after all, don’t have the luxury of being kids. We don’t knock on the door and say “hey, can you come out and play?”

We have one more morning of Mom time. We’ll give Mrs. C. a gift, wish her well for the summer, wave goodbye to the girls who are usually too busy chatting themselves to wave back. Then we’ll talk about vacation plans and summer camp, our kids and our husbands, the likelihood that we’ll actually have time to get together over the summer.

Mom time. Now it’s going to have to be by appointment.

Wii bruise

Posted on June 18, 2008 by jlord
Filed Under exercise | 3 Comments

I’m jogging around an exotic island, past waterfalls and through stone arches. I’m being passed by replicas of my children and their friends. I go to take a turn and crash into the couch.

“Ouch!”

“Mom! The Wii makes the turns for you,” admonishes my son.

Yeah. I knew that.

My big reward for turning 41 this year was Wii Fit, something that thrilled the kids to no end — until they realized the ownership rule applied to video games belonging to Mom as well. The ownership rule is simple: the first person who gets to play the game is the person to whom it was given. It gets us through birthdays and Christmas day.

Problem is, Mom doesn’t have time to goof off on the Wii. The game sat there, mocking them, through Thursday (Fifth Grade Band concert night), Friday (Mom worked late), Saturday (Mom ran errands then went to work) and most of Sunday (Father’s Day, visited the in-laws) when I finally broke open the box.

It’s actually pretty cool. It asks for your age and height, then very politely calculates your weight (without announcing it to the world and it’s kept locked under a password), asks for your fitness goals (and gently admonishes you when you set ridiculous ones) and sets you up with yoga and strength training exercises, as well as fun games that improve balance and work off calories.

Ahh, the balance thing. I’ve never been very good at that. I’m the kind of person who always has walls jumping out at her, so it wasn’t surprising that during my first go-round heading soccer balls, I fell off the balance board and hit the coffee table. I tripped over the board as I enthusiastically tried to keep up with the step dancers. And we had to call a halt during a hula-hoop session when I accidentally whacked my daughter who, admittedly, should have known better than to get that close.

Apparently, I’m not the only klutz. Do a search for Wii on YouTube and you’ll find a slew of videos showing how not to use the Wii. There’s even a blog (of course there’s a blog) dedicated to the phenomenon.

Isn’t technology fabulous? Just when I thought I’d figured out all the ways to injure myself, it comes up with something new!

Realtor or stalker?

Posted on June 17, 2008 by jlord
Filed Under home | 3 Comments

The voice on the phone is familiar, and it really can’t sing. I interrupt, “hey, Smith.”

Smith, not his real name, sold us our house way back in 1993. He calls both of us, on our birthdays, every year to sing, usually into the answering machine. He sends birthday cards with scratch tickets in them and monthly newsletters with recycled jokes and allegedly helpful hints. All of these come with a picture of his face and the slogan “Your Realtor FOR LIFE!”

He didn’t call us in 2004. That’s the year we built our new house and sold our home in Northborough. We didn’t use Smith as a Realtor. We didn’t give him a forwarding address or phone number.

It was nothing personal; it was purely business. When we first used Smith, we wanted to buy a home in the Marlborough area, which was his specialty. When we decided to move elsewhere, we first looked at Shrewsbury and Westborough and worked with a Realtor who specialized in those areas. Naturally, we used the new Realtor — nice guy, ask me for a referral — to sell our house when the time came and, given the market at that point, it sold in two days.

In 2005, the calls resumed. “Happy birthday to youuuuu…” the answering machine screeched.

“How the heck did he get our number?” I asked Steve.
“He probably looked it up,” he said.
“But why? Why is he still calling us? We didn’t use him to sell our house, we’re not living anywhere near where he sells, why is he calling?”
Steve shrugged his shoulders.

We’d both avoided actually speaking with Smith when he called. And he’d left a message on my actual birthday, so when I answered the phone the next morning, I wasn’t expecting another serenade.

“So, I see you sold your house,” he said casually.

I cannot believe he’s actually trying to have this conversation.

“Yeah, in 2004,” I clarify. “We decided we wanted to build.”

“So why’d you never call me? I sent all those cards, and coupons for pizza, I had parties — why didn’t you use me again?”

Is this is what the real estate market has come to? Is he actually calling customers from over a decade ago and asking them why they didn’t use him again? I gave him referrals. I even used him as a source in real estate stories. Didn’t the relationship end when we passed papers on the old house?

“We decided to build and the market was so great at the time it just sold in a couple days,” I said carefully.

“So you sold it yourselves,” he said.

“Yes,” I hedged. It wasn’t a total lie. The Realtor we actually used offered us points off his commission if we ran our own open house. I sat in that house all day and answered questions and the couple with whom I spent the most time ended up making an offer almost immediately. “Hey, I gotta go. I’m running late for work.”

“Sure, sure. Enjoy the pizza coupons.” I don’t point out that, with gas at $4 a gallon, it would actually cost us more to drive to Marlborough to get our pizza than it would to pay full price in town.

Realtor. For Life.

Why didn’t I see that as more of a threat than a friendly slogan?

Let’s hear it for the dads

Posted on June 14, 2008 by jlord
Filed Under Dads, Saturday | Leave a Comment

In honor of Father’s Day, it’s the long-threatened post of all links!

Let’s hear it for some Daddy bloggers!

You can start with The Blogfathers. It’s an offer you can’t refuse.

He isn’t posting too often these days, but I still think Baby Daddy’s description of a diaper change is one the funniest (and most accurate) I’ve read.

And this may be shocking to you, since working moms get all the attention. Some dads work. There’s even such a thing as a Commuter Daddy.

Freaky kid characters

Posted on June 11, 2008 by jlord
Filed Under weird | 7 Comments

I have a confession.

Thomas the Tank Engine gives me the creeps.

It’s a train with a… face. That talks. And moves in this wicked creepy way. David watched maybe half an episode when he was a toddler before I became too freaked out and turned it off. Luckily, he was more of a truck man than a train guy (boys from roughly 18 months-5 years old generally fall under the truck or train category. There are a few exceptions, but that’s my experience) and he really didn’t ask for Thomas again.

We actually ran into a “Thomas” across from the train museum in Pennsylvania and, thankfully, both kids were disinterested. I don’t know what I would have done if they made me get close to the thing.

Just as freaky as Thomas, if not more so: Jay-Jay the Jet Plane. Same freaky kind of face on something which shouldn’t have one. Except, while Thomas must stick to the train tracks, Jay-Jay could sneak up behind you. I was going off on this theory last Saturday when Bob Tremblay asked my opinion of Thomas, and all the non-parents were looking at me strangely. The parents, however, were nodding their heads.

Which characters can you absolutely not stand?

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