Mid-CenturyModernMoms

A happy Thanksgiving

Almost always we go to  my brother's house for Thanksgiving.  He's my only sibling.  His wife is one of 4 kids, and all of her brothers and their families come up from the New York area.  And my dad, and her parents, and her parent's dog, and occasionally one of the brother's dogs too.

This has been going on for years.  And we've all gotten very comfortable with each other. 

The ages of the various kids are 20 (Abe) and 16 (Rosie).  Then my niece and nephew at 14 and 10.  Their first cousins at 12 and 10 and little Samantha at almost 4.

Now Sami is a friendly little girl, but we are people that she only sees once a year.  But when we arrived, I was saying hello to everyone and I put out my arms and asked her for a hug.  To everyone's amazement, she came right over!!

Later, at dinner time, she was out of sorts and didn't want to eat.  I had finished a plate-ful already, so I asked her if she wanted to snuggle with me.  So we did!!

Two complete families.  Grandparents with all of their children and grandchildren around.  Food, warmth and snuggling with a cute little red-head... this is what Thanksgiving is all about.

Regression

I'm starting to tear my hair out about Abe hibernating in his cave.

The deal when he moved home was that he was going to a) keep his room almost as clean as he had to at school, b) use the exercise room, c) go out to events and not just sit around his room playing on the computer and d) keep himself clean.

He was doing great with all of these when he first came home from school and all throughout the summer.  But now that the school year has started, all of these have just fallen off.

I vocally remind him to take his shower and brush his teeth.  Sometimes I remind him when I get a sensory cue, or I see the oil on his hair.

But Abe is close to 6 feet tall, and weighs over 220 pounds, so it's not like when he was a baby and I could pick him up.

One of the things that I'm doing (he doesn't know this yet) is removing him from the advanced (pay for) player category on his multi-player computer game.  He'll be back down to standard (free) level and it won't be as much fun.  Right now, he literally spends 6-10 (or more) hours each day on that game.  Too much!!!  And therefore, he doesn't go to sleep until 2-4 am, and sometimes misses classes.

I had found a social group, a pizza and games night, that he enjoyed.  But this last month, it was just too much work for him to RSVP for it.  He'd rather spend in on the massive player computer game.

If Rosie didn't need the computer/internet access, I'd totally disable the internet each night when I go to sleep.

HELP!!

 

A Glorious Vacation

Have you ever been on a vacation and the best part of it was the planning before you went?  Of course you've had that happen to you.

But not this time!!!

Abe and I and my Dad (zeyde) and my SIL and BIL and her 3 kids all went to Colonial Williamsburg for a week.  Of course, we (accidently) picked a week that was mostly 20F hotter than normal, so it was baking, but we all had a great time!!  (At least after we got there- flight delays and an issue at the rental car, but those were just at  the beginning, so it all got wiped away.)

Abe took the part of a juror in a trial...

We watched the British take occupation of Williamsburg, and visited the Colonial Governor's Palace..

   

Hung out at the condo and generally had a good time together.

And even came home not too exhausted.  What a lovely time!!

4 Weddings and a Bat Mitzvah

Hmm, wasn't there a show with a similar name?  Well, it's not relevant.

But our family, every single one of us, Mom/Ora, Rosie and Abe, were all invited to go to 4 weddings this year!  I haven't attended 4 weddings in the last decade!!! (Maybe only one.)

So we had to make some decisions about who was going to which wedding.  I let the kids decide, with a little prompting for Abe.

The upshot was that all of us went to the wedding this weekend.  It was the mother of a friend of Rosie's, whom I'm close to, and it was at our shule, so it was close by.  It was a lovely wedding and I had a great time, but watching the kids interact was a different story.

Rosie hung out with her friends and Abe was seated at the "boys" table.  The 2 younger boys (Rosie's age) mostly hung out with the girls, but Abe and another boy a year older than him mostly just sat there like lumps on a log.  I did drag Abe out onto the dance floor once, but at one point I had to say to him and the other older boy, to move seats closer together and talk to each other!!

The dance floor was mostly populated by parents with the littlest kids and my table of friends- but at least Rosie wasn't complaining that I was embarrassing her!

So the 2nd wedding is next weekend.  Rosie said no early on, but Abe liked the idea of going.  I discouraged that.  I'll admit it was selfish and figuring out how to get him back to school.  But it also was because I asked him if he would dance and talk to people while we were there, and he said no.  So I get to go by myself.

I'll tell you more about the other weddings when the dates get closer, but Rosie and I are going to one together and then all three of us again.

And the Bat Mitzvah... I'm the only one invited to the party.  I'll pull out the dress that I wore to my nephew's party and go have some fun on the dance floor!

 

Let the Packing Begin

The Olympics are over and now let the packing begin!!!!

We are moving in just a few days.  I had spent the previous time throwing away and giving away and selling all sorts of things, but there is still too much to move into the smaller space. 

I had decided that the movers were going to do the majority of the packing (less stress to me), but there is still stuff that I want to pack- and more importantly, there is stuff that Rosie wants to pack herself.

So this past weekend, she had a giggle of girls over (and there was MUCH giggling) and they filled up a trash bag of stuff to throw out and another box of paper to recycle and a few boxes of fragile things.  After all of her protestations that she didn't want the movers to be touching her stuff, she ended up saying that they could pack up most things.

As for Abe, he isn't even coming home this weekend for the move.  Mom and the movers get to deal with all of his stuff.

Winter Vacation

"What I did on my Winter Vacation. By Ora"  Remember those days of writing a report on what you did on you most recent vacation?  Here's mine.

Around the beginning of November, Rosie starts whining to me that she hadn't seen her cousins in Minnesota since last winter, while I had gotten to see them twice (on business trips).  Since I hadn't bought (or even though about) her and Abe Chanukah presents, I said that I'd look at airline prices and if they weren't too bad, we could go visit them as their presents.

So off we went to Minnesota in the middle of the winter.  Are we nuts?

 

It was freezing there!!!  Actually, if it had been freezing, it would have been a LOT warmer.  But we had a wonderful time visiting with family.

For Chanukah presents for the kids out there (and mine too), we went to the amusement park at the Mall of America one day. 

 

For those of you that don't know, this is a HUUUUGGGEE mall and at the middle of it, there is an amusement park- on the inside.  It has roller coasters (3), ferris wheel, log flume ride, swings and more. 

Now imagine, 2 moms, 2 upper teens (Abe and Rosie at 19 and almost 16), and three young kids (almost 11 and 2 at 9 yo).  And now imagine trying to keep everyone happy....

Well, we actually did a pretty good job at it, even though the lines were long (it was vacation week after all).  The big kids rode on the roller coasters (although there actually was one that 4 out of 5 went one plus Ora) and everyone went on the log ride.  We split up a few times and didn't manage to go on everything due to the time, but the little kids pooped out and we finally went home.  (Abe and Rosie would've stayed even longer- but we probably got my money's worth out of the day).

Transcripts

Would you have thought that a hard part of getting Abe through the college application process would be getting him a high school transcript?  Well never would I, but getting the transcript has taken well over a month!!

I started the process of getting his transcript before his IEP meeting,  I think that was back in the beginning of November!!  The special education people didn't seem to have the slightest idea of what to do and suggested I talk to the registrar at Rosie's high school (where Abe would have been going).

But the registrar didn't have access to any of Abe's grades, so it was back to SPED to get them to sen over copies of all of the grades for his high school years.  But wait, they don't have all of them.  So I need to call the schools that he went to in 9th grade and for 11th grades tog et them to send them over.  One school was great about it and emailed it right over.  The other one..... let's just say that global warming had NOT set in.

So the registrar had all of Abe's grades, but there is a further complication.  Since he's a 2 nd year senior, she doesn't know how to add those classes onto the transcript and she needs to go deal with someone from the computer support area!!  Argh!!!

But finally, she faxes me what she plans on sending out officially.  For 11 th grade, grades are listed as "see attached" since he medically withdrew from one school and finished out the credits at a his current school.  But the registrar couldn't figure out what to do about that- and certainly couldn't figure out how to assign him a grade point average.

So the colleges that are getting this transcript are going to scratch their collective heads and say WTF?!  And hopefully, look at the fact that this kid is persevering and doing his internship and trying and let me into their college.

But that's still in the future.  But this hurdle has been crossed.

Drivers' Ed

Rosie started Drivers' Education classes this past weekend.  Given other events, I'm rather calm about this.

She has to take 15 sessions of 2 hours each.  Now we have the first 2 out of the way, but the rest of them are going to come in single sessions due to the timing of everything.  Rosie has to be at her Hebrew high school program on Sunday mornings also, so this means that Mom gets out and shleps her to drivers' ed for 2 hours; then back there and moves her over to hebrew school.  She's certainly not going to get picked up there also (as long as we are in the house near the train station).

Anyway, she has the 3 months before she can even think about getting her learner's permit to get these classes done.

But the trauma of the day was that I was rushing and Rosie started talking to me about something from the class and BANG, I backed into a car.  With my brand new car.  And to top it off, guess where?  In the parking lot of the driving school.

I guess it's a good thing that they are requiring the parents to take 2 hours of drivers' ed also.

Margalit Update

Our dear Margalit is a sick little kitty.  She was in the hospital for a month, originally to have a colonoscopy done!!! But she finally got sprung from jail  the hospital (although one set of docs wanted to keep her there!)  (And unfortunately, she ended up BACK in the hospital with a major infection.  I couldn't wonder where she might have gotten that! (No duh, hospitals aren't a good place to be in!)

So I'm sending a bouquet of best wishes to M and hope that you will do the same.

So she came home to a disgustingly filthy house.  Well, let M tell you in her own words.

Let me ask you a question. Does your kid reek of dirty feet? Have you found a cure that doesn't include bathing? Yeah, me neither. My kid is the stinkiest kid in the world and he can't smell himself so he insists that he doesn't stink. He does. Badly. Like decomposing flesh.

Well howdy! I got home yesterday and I will admit it up front right away, things are tough. The Boy's therapist, who happens to have a few issues of her own, thought it was a good idea to call DCFS on us the day before I got home. Nobody, in a full month of me being gone, even considered it, but the second she found out that the kids were not, according to her, well supervised, she had to butt in. I was pretty pissed off, and they haven't closed the case yet even though I am home. Next week the case worker will come out to talk to me. She's already come to check on the kids, and of course her big complaint was how filthy the house was.

Well duh! Of course it's going to be filthy. My home health care cleanedr isn't allowed to clean when I'm not there and so nobody had cleaned the house in a month. A month when two teens who aren't the swiftest boats in the river when it comes to cleaning to begin with, are living there alone. Plus, we have no working vacuum and the kids left the broom on the front porch, that seems to walked off by themselves. My floors are so dirty I'm afraid to walk barefoot at all. 

But things are on the upswing, the Boy decided on his own that he wants to start college in January, and he's actually taking actions to make it happens! I know that most people thought I was nuts to wait it out, but I know him  like a book and he's not going to do anything until he's good and ready, no matter how much I beg or plead.

In addition he went down the street to a store he has been dying to work for and filled out an application. But he thought the application wouldn't be enough so he wrote a bit of an essay In His Own Handwriting on why he would be a good person to hire and why he has wanted to work there since he was a little kid. He analyzed the inventory, he worked hard on this, and now he's ready to hand back the invitation bright and early tomorrow morning! 

The Girl got strep and a small but potent flu that was questionable for H1N1. A friend of mine took her to the pediatrician, picked up prescriptions for her, and bought her a big vat of chicken soup and a large carton of ice cream. Most of my friends came over to check on her, and she was on the mend by last weekend. She only missed 4 days of school. But they were end of term days, and she has some work to make up, including finishing up a wire sculpture and taking a science quiz. The teachers were very accomodating since hundreds of kids were out with either strep or the flu.

She's been writing a term paper on Hamlet. Let me just say that this is not fun. Or cheery. Everybody Dies should be the subtitle.

Me, I"m OK. It's a long involved tale of woe about my health, and I don't want to burden anyone with it. Accept that everything that could go wrong did go wrong.

And how are things with you?

Emotional Rollercoaster: Part 1- House Hunting

Rosie is 15 1/2 years old.  Am I going to survive these turbulent teenage years?  I'll tell you about a few examples- but don't worry.  I'll break up these stories.

This one is more based on a basic fear of change.  I've told you that we are planning on selling hte family homestead and buying something more manageable.  But this move was scheduled to be months away from now.

But it's SO much fun to browsw the web for houses and condos and it's SO much fun to actually go looking at some of these possibilities.

Last Saturday, Rosie and I went to look at one of these possibilities.  And everyone had fun talking about if this place would work and how.  But it was easy- because the showing realto had just gotten an offer- so this place wasn't seriously being considered.

The next day, Ora goes to few open houses (without Rosie) and it was a TOTALLY different story.  One place was- absolutely, no way a possibility.

But then there was this other place.... (call it 2HPP)

 This condo has some definite possibilties, but Rosie (and Abe) hadn't seen this place.

I showed Rosie the floor plan and she was all excited.  But then she realized the location and threw a fit because none of her friends lived close by.

But then she was excited since heat is included in the condo fee and she'd be able to keep her room warmer.

But then she was upset that she'd have to ride a certain bus to school.  She hates that bus route- for no good reason, IMHO.

But then she was excited about being close to the malls.  And that there is a pool!!!

But then she was upset because it's a longer walk to the subway.

In reality, this emotional rollercoaster was totally appropriate. 

OMG, mom is serious that we are going to be moving!!!!

Ora will take Rosie's and Abe's opinions into account, but mom has the final decision making authority!

OTPH, 2HPP is not a slam dunk, gotta have it place.  (A big drawback is that you have to use coin operated washers and driers in the basement- and aren't allowed to put a W/D into the unit)  So the search continues but also more information is being garnered about 2HPP.  And when Zeyde comes up in 2 weeks, he gets to add his opinions into the pot.

To be continued....