Mid-CenturyModernMoms

Am I sad? Am I angry? Am I both?

I'm not even sure. I'm really sad and I'm really pissed off and I'm just feeling the brunt of the stupidity of teenagers that do not think of the consequences of their actions. Not my kids, other people's kids.

My daughter was given an Itouch by her boyfriend for Hanukkah. Yes, it was an extravagant gift, but there's a whole back story behind it, and I felt OK about it. Nuff said?

And I had a camera that I had saved up for. It took months and months of me putting away a few bucks every months until I got that camera, on sale, from Overstock.com. It wasn't a great camera, it wasn't even a good camera. But it took decent photos and it was in my very limited price range.

Last night she went over to a friend's house. A friend whose house she's over all the time. They're nice people. Since a friend of hers was visiting from Maine, she borrowed my camera to take some photos.

The camera and the Iphone were both stolen sometime during the evening. My daughter knows pretty much all the kids that were hanging out, but three long-time friends of their host came over and she didn't know him. When she discovered that the stuff was missing, she cried and got really upset because I use that camera for work. And there is no way on God's green earth that I can replace it. We're so behind on everything right now I can barely deal with food, rent, and the phone bill.

Her Itouch is just plain gone, and that sucks because it's the way I communicate with her throughout the day. I can text her at school silently and that won't disrupt classes like SOME kids who don't even bother to turn off the ringers on their phones.

I'm furious that some kid would take something from my kid. It's no secret how poor we are. Her boyfriend was there with her and he got hopping mad and started screaming about how there is no way we can replace these items so please return them. But nobody did. Her boyfriend gave me an ancient Kodak Easyshare camera that's 3.2 megapixels and has no zoom to use in the meantime, but I need a better camera to photograph stuff for my paid blogs.

My daughter was in tears, she felt terribly disrespected and I don't blame her one bit. We live in SUCH a wealthy community but stealing goes on all the time. But I can't understand how kids can steal from the poor. Have they never read Robin Hood?  I just don't get it.

I'm really sad for my daughter, I'm mad about my camera, and I am just furious with the world right now for sending us even more shit when we honestly didn't need anything else.

Google Searches reveal all

Tonight, just for the heck of it, I looked at the Google search results for MCMM. Besides learning that people can be really strange, I see that I'm not alone in thinking that teenage boys are disgusting. Take a look at the top seraches for today.

	4	12.50%	mid century moms
	2	6.25%	teen boys gross
	2	6.25%	the road test cannot be taken with a car that has a center console
	2	6.25%	fred braun shoes
	2	6.25%	wildsexteens
	2	6.25%	midcentury modern moms
	1	3.13%	mid century modern moms
	1	3.13%	Should I let my sexually active daughter and boyfriend be alone together?
	1	3.13%	how do i know if my son has hit puberty
	1	3.13%	teenage boy sleeping with his mom
	1	3.13%	kids with Skin hunger?
	1	3.13%	sex ed video amazon.com
	1	3.13%	mature condom sexe
	1	3.13%	fred braun shoes for men
	1	3.13%	"getting a bra"
	1	3.13%	thank you note currency
	1	3.13%	fred braun shoes for men photo
	1	3.13%	my daughter won't talk to me about her period
	1	3.13%	pros and cons of raising the legal driving age for teenagers
	1	3.13%	blog mid century modern moms
	1	3.13%	mature step family sex
	1	3.13%	why are boys really disgusting when they get to teenage years
	1	3.13%	best way to bring up birth control talk with mom
	1	3.13%	the road test cannot be taken with a car that has a center console without a

Hmmmm.  Who is Fred Braun anyhow? And why do we want his shoes?  And why ARE teenage boys really disgusting when they get to their teenage year? Does anyone have any insight into that little conundrum? Because I'm thinking that a firehose aimed directly at MY teenage boy might, just might get him clean enough to go on college tours next week.

A mom can hope, right?

Passover with teenagers

The last two night we've had Seders with teenagers as the main attraction. The first night of Pesach we had our family Seder and it was, beyond a doubt, the most hilarious Seder I've ever attended. Both of my kids had a touch of gippy tummy and there were so many bathroom breaks that it took forever to get through the haggaddah. Additionally, there were so many jokes, readings in hilarious voices, lusty singing, and just an all around fun time that we all ended up a bit drunk and very very happy. Especially since we didn't even eat dinner until 10 pm.

Next night was at Ora's house, where we celebrated her (mumbletymumble) birthday as well as Pesach. As per usual, I cooked the entire meal which we brought to her house. The division of labor might not be fair, but she pays for the food, and we like to cook, which she does not, so it works out fine. It was a very big dinner, which started out with me almost dying of laughter when I realized that the brisket she bought was bigger than my biggest roasting pan. By a lot. That thing was huge. I firmly believe that we were eating elephant brisket. I've never seen a cow that big. I sent Ora off on a mission to find the biggest foil pan she could find, and she was successful. After spending an hour or so trimming fat and gristle off the damn slab 'o' beef, I cooked it and cooked it and cooked it. And then had to wake up my son at 1 am to get the brisket out of the oven because it was too heavy for my very sore back. I had to babysit that thing until 3 am when I could get it into the fridge. I'm telling you, that brisket was out to get me.

When we arrived last night at Ora's house for the festive meal, we sat down with two different haggadot. We used one set that I have at home called the Concise Seder for a reason. It doesn't skip anything necessary for a Kosher Seder, but if you read fast and keep right on it, you can do the first half of the Seder in about a half hour. We also used the Family Participation haggaddah, which is long and cumbersome but has great readings in it. If we saw something we liked, we could just read it as part of the Seder (order) to amplify the readings and make them relevant. With 4 teens, this worked really well. Abe wanted to read a lot of stuff and if he had his way we'd still be sitting there reading, but he got that we were trying to make it interesting but not hours long.

Without their father in attendance, this was the most fun Seder we've ever had as families that share this holiday. I've never seen Ora look more relaxed, more at peace, and happier. The kids ALL had a great time, telling stories and sharing anecdotes from school that Ora's father was appalled by. When you're not around teens all the time, the stories sound shocking, but they're just typical school stories of kids doing stupid things. You know!

I made Ora a birthday cake, which can be a big feat considering it had to be kosher for pesach. But the cake was fabulous. I mean it, it was moist and tasty and could easily be made all year long.

After years of tense and sometimes disastrous Seders, this one was fun from start to finish. I'm so glad that Ora's kids got to experience a fun Seder for the first time in years. It was a real pleasure cooking for them, and I'm already thinking about next year!

And speaking of Seders, did you all catch the photo of the Obamas celebrating Pesach with their staff and friends at the very first ever White House Seder?

Isn't that just the most amazing thing? I'm so thrilled that the Obama's sought to bring a real Jewish custom to the White House. And for the Jewish readers, the best thing, the thing that made me laugh my ass off is......

They used the Maxwell House Haggadot. For reals! You can look on the whitehouse.gov blog and get the high-res. image.

(For those not in the know, the Maxwell House Haggadot is the free haggadah that you get in the supermarket when they put out the matzoh this time of year. It's really archaic language and, although the price is right, about the last choice of anyone with small kids because it's so hard to read.)

Everytime I look at that photo, I get tears in my eyes. A Seder! In the White House. Just WOW.

Burned into our brains

Tonight my daughter and I stopped at Trader Joe's after a very long wait at the pediatrician's office for an emergency triage appointment. She wasn't feeling very well and wasn't in the mood to shop. We tend to hit TJ's when we want to get in and out fast, because it's small, there's nothing moved around, we know what we like, and we don't need to think much about what to get. So we're tossing things left and right into the cart and we round a corner and I hear a voice say "I know you!" I looked up and sure enough, it was Miriam, mom of Lewis, a kid my children went to Gan with. Gan is Jewish preschool. I don't think I've seen her since preschool, which would be oh... 12 years ago. We spoke for a few seconds, and then she went her way and we went out way.

Except the second we got around the corner, my daughter said to me, "Isn't Lewis the kid that came to school every day in his underwear?"  And yes, he was. Lewis was quite the nutcase at 3-4, when we knew him. He was THAT kid. The one that threw a trantrum every single morning about getting dressed, so no matter what the weather Miriam would toss him into his car seat in his underpants and drive over to the school, and then haul him kicking and screaming into school and dress him in the lobby. Every freaking morning.

Now, I haven't thought of that kid or his mom in years, but I swear, the sight of him pitching a royal fit will be with us all the rest of our lives.

Which made me think about my own kids, and what they would be remembered by when they were preschoolers. My son, that's easy. He was the kid who knocked out a teacher and sent her to the hospital. She never came back. He hit her with a big long wooden block right on her forehead. I was SO proud.

My daughter? Well it could be the glasses she wore, or the palatte expander she had at 3. Or it could be her very vivid imagination that hasn't changed much in the past 12 years. It might be what a good friend she was and how much all the kids liked her. She was so popular. Maybe it was that she read Hebrew before she read English. Or that she was so small and petite compared to her twin brother. I don't know. It could be any of those things or something totally different.

All I know is, they were dressed in clothing when they arrived, and for that I am thankful, because who wants to be 16 years old and still thought of as the kid that came to school in underpants every day?

Have you noticed it's a bit nippy outside?

My twins are as different as night and day. As the freezing cold weather drops down from our Canadian "friends", my kid's reactions to the cold are just so.... weird.

My daughter is always cold. She wears sweats in the middle of summer and is always under at least one thick blanket or comforter. My son, OTOH, is mostly hot and walks around in the winter in t-shirts and a hoodie. Apparently if you put them together they turn into a normal metabolism. But apart, so different!

This morning it was so cold I actually agreed to drive them to school. I know! I'm a total sucker. At 7:15 or so, my daughter came downstairs and showed me what she was wearing. On the bottom she had leggings, long underwear and corderoy pants. On top she had a camisole, long sleeved t-shirt and a warm hoodie. On her feet she had two pairs of socks and her UGG mocs. And over all that, her down jacket with both hoods up over her ear flap hat, and her North Face fleece gloves that she paid for because there is NO WAY in hell I would sink that much money into a pair of gloves. .

To get a ride to school. And a ride home. OK then.

Her brother, OTOH, was wearing my Harvard t-shirt, a pair of jeans, shortie socks under his new boots, and a hoodie. Um, no. I made him put on a jacket, but he refused to zip it up. He refused to put on a hat. He refused to put on gloves. He refused to put his hood atop his head. He claimed, and I quote exactly, "It's not that cold outside."

The wind chill made it -3 degrees. That is cold, isn't it? I think it is.

When I don't get is how one kid can be so over-prepared and the other one so under-prepared. They are twins. I remember. I was there when they were born.

I do not get it!

The Boy learns to drive: Icy edition

cross posted at Margalit's blog

In an effort to never ever leave the house again until spring, I have decided it's high time I teach the kids how to drive a standard so they can move the car before any upcoming snowstorm. I know, height of laziness. I'm right there with you!

Tonight, knowing that another 10" of the devil's dandruff is expected, I took the Boy out the the driveway after a short but intense lesson on how to shift. "The clutch always has to be moved slowly, like you're in a ballet." I tell him. "The gears are in an H pattern, and to find reverse you go to the middle of the H and go all the way to the right and down." I say. I have him practice in the air and repeat what I've said over and over. I think he's ready to try.

I have him start the car, which he gets right away. Starting a manual drive car can be tricky so my hopes are up up up. I explain that he needs to ensure that the emergency brake is ON when he starts the car, but he forgot this and we lurch forward because the car is in first, as I parked it. Lesson 1: always make sure you know what direction you're going in. Check the stick to see what gear you're in.

He practices clutching and he seems to have it down, although he'll be riding the clutch like any new manual shift driver. He's seems to know where the gears are, he's figured out how to release the emergency brake, he understands that the clutch has to be depressed all the way to change the gears, so I determine he's all set to try and back the car from our space and across the driveway to where we all pack together like sardines to eliminate as much shoveling as possible. We're not morons up here in the frozen north.

I have him put the car in reverse and s l o w l y release the clutch. He's a bit jerky, but he gets the car backed up about 10 feet and then I tell him to look backwards to see where he's going. He totally panics. "How do I look backward?" he yells. I tell him to turn his head and all feet flip off the pedals, the car stalls and he has no clue of what to do next.

He turns the car back on, but he can't move it another inch. He's on glare ice, and I tell him to go forward for a bit, but he's now too nervous to move the car anywhere at all. We change seats, I move the car into a teeny weeny parking space for minimum snow removal.

He sits back in his seat and says "This manual stuff is a lot harder than I thought. You're the beast at it!"

I'll take my accolades any way I can get them!

I have a feeling that this is going to be a long long winter. Somebody has got to learn how to move the car besides me, that's all I can say.

I've been remiss

Like every other blog in the universe I should have done a recap of the past year, but I honestly don't have it in me. I'm sick. My son is sick. My daughter is sick. Even my dishwasher is sick. I sincerely apologize for the abject pathetic-ness of this post, but it's taken a whole day just to get up and stumble to the computer. You know, it's one of THOSE days.

Meanwhile, MCMM is once again putting out a request for new writers. We have two open spots. A once-a-week poster for Sundays, and a second emergency fill in poster. We have absolutely no requirements other than you be a parent of teenagers and/or young adults. If you live outside the US and Canada, that would be a real plus. I think an international look at raising teens would be great.

If you're interested, or even mildly curious, please contact me and I'll explain the vigorous job requirements. As in, you have to be breathing. At least better than I am right now!

Cell phones equal hilarity these days

A bunch of the Boy's friends are over. It's mostly the usual crowd, the boys are loud and crazy and run in and out of the house. There's usually one or two girls, and they often range from friends to girlfriends. But everyone seems to have the same sense of humor. I'd describe it as immature, inane, and totally dumb myself, but then again I'm an old lady and we have different tastes in humor.

Whenever the kid's get together, someone gets the bright idea to phony phone call someone or a bunch of someones. Tonight it was a kid in the western part of the state who was also with a bunch of friends, and so the pranking went on and on as both sides tried to outdo the other. Both parties had their friends on speakerphone, and were yelling all sorts of crap at each other. It was like a dis contest only by phone. Every time they would get off a good riff, the room would fill with hysterical laughter. Funniest thing ever.

They used different voices and accents. They talked sad suburban trash talk. And they laughed their asses off. In the middle of this hilarity it occurred to me that prank calling has entered a new phase. With cell phones and their accessories like speaker phones, a group of kids can really go wild with the prank calls.

It was, to me, so lame. But they laughed to the point of hysteria. I guess this is just one more bit of proof that I am old and out of it. What a shock!

Guess. Just guess.

It's been snowing steadily for more than 48 hours. We have a lot of snow. Like 2 feet of the white stuff. More snow than I've seen in a while.

So yesterday afternoon my son, the one without the coat and the boots, decides he's going sledding at the golf course. Without boots and a coat. I beg him to put on a jacket. But nooooo. He's going to wear his freaking trench coat because he apparently lost his jacket, having never even worn it. It's in the house someplace, but lord only knows where. I've looked, he's looked. It's lost.

So off he goes, and a couple of hours later he comes home, soaked through to the skin. He changes every bit of clothing, down to his boxers, and comes downstairs dressed like a gigantic elf. Totally adorable.

He lays down on the sofa and he's watching TV and then he turns to me and says, "I need a pair of boots." 

NO SHIT SHERLOCK.

This is the kid I begged and pleaded with just a few days ago to buy a pair of boots. Tims. Nice Tims. On sale at Marshalls. But NOOOOOO. He doesn't LIKE boots. They aren't comfortable. Moron.

So, in two feet of snow, he determines that maybe boots might be a decent idea. OMG, I wanted to punch him.

We'll look for boots when we can get out of the driveway. Which should, according to my determination, be sometime in mid-April.

Grown up or still a kid?

We've had a day of snow. And more snow. And still more snow. It is cold and dark and nobody has come to plow us out. My daughter seems unfazed by the snow. She's been walking to school for years in the snow and it really doesn't bother her as long as she's prepared for it.

Her brother, on the other hand, is less able to handle the snow. Why? Because he's like a 2-year old when it comes to putting on the proper clothing. He's not like some of the kids around here who wear shorts all year round, but he really refuses to wear the right kind of coat and boots? BOOTS? No freaking way! I sat in the shoe store last week with him and begged him to at least try on a pair of boots. He would not budge. All winter he wears sneakers. At least I convinced him that his Converse All Stars were not a good choice for winter and that perhaps he could find a sneaker made of a leather product that would at least keep his feed dry-ish. He did agree to that.

Coats are another sticky wicket. Have you noticed that Suri Cruise is carried around with a blanket around her because she will not wear a coat? Well, you cannot do that with a kid over 6 feet tall and 200 lbs. It just doesn't work. The only coat he will wear is a trench coat with a zip in lining. It is not warm. Believe me, it is a ridiculous choice when the weather is 10 degrees outside, but there is no way of convincing him otherwise.

Oh, he has a parka he can wear. A nice warm Lands End jacket. But he says that he doesn't want to look like a dork, so he won't wear it. Because it's blue. Blue not being black. Not that he would wear a black parka wither. Nope, he's not going to wear a coat and that's that.

I thought we had finished with this fight because last year and they year before I got him a coat he would actually wear. A real bomber jacket. He liked it a lot. But he also says it's too small now, but he refuses to try it on to prove it to me. So I don't believe him even though I know he's grown like crazy since last winter.

I just do not get this whole fad of no coats for boys. They wear hoodies and are always freezing but you cannot get them to put on a freaking coat. When did coats become the enemy?