Cheer Mom

This post just cracks me up. I wrote it several years ago now, and I never really came up with a good ending, but it is still so darn funny that I think I'll just go ahead and post it now..now that I've lived through it and no one can really put a hit out on me:


I'm missing the cheer mom gene. In Texas, they take their football very seriously. Even high school teams enjoy a huge community following and the starting players enjoy celebrity just like what you see in the movie Friday Night Lights. And it almost goes without saying, Texas mom's take their cheerleading seriously.

D was a gymnast. I was happy in my little gymnast mom role, carted her to practice three days a week, meets on Saturdays, fundraisers every so often. I was content and life was grand. In 8th grade, D tried out for Cheerleading. D was a G-Y-M-N-A-S-T, she made the squad with ease. It wasn't really a big deal, practice after school, no more astronomical gym tuition and fees, no sweat. D decided cheer wasn't that big a deal and didn't try out for the 9th grade squad, but when high school rolled around, the lure of fame and fun was too strong.

I got my first taste of Texas-mom-cheer syndrome when D made that first squad in 7th grade. My hair stylist told me that one of the women who worked for her in the salon had a daughter who was an eighth grader had tried out for that same squad and didn't.make.it. and there was "a seventh grader" who DID. *Insert accusatory tone here* I've got pretty thick skin for stuff like that, too bad, my kid can do every tumbling trick in the book and she's just as cute as yours. I'm pretty sure my "it's a middle school cheerleading squad, not a big deal" attitude didn't help much.

Fast forward to tryouts in ninth grade. Girls are waiting to go in the gym, every single mom is there, in alllllllll her glory. I was lucky if I only had a small amount of puke or whatever on my shirt, and I'd barely made any effort to show up at all, I mean, really, you can't WATCH them try out, noooooo, you sit in the hall for "moral support". Excuse me, but my tender motherliness is directly proportional to my comfort level. Chasing two small children through the high school halls is not comfortable or fun to me. The mom who's daughter was jilted in 8th grade squad had been enrolled in a cheer gym and made the squad the year D decided not to try out. As I was pulling B off the top of a stairwell, I'm pretty sure I heard them saying something about having "seen it all" as far as girls who "deserved" to be on the squad not being chosen. *Insert more accusatory looks here* Both girls made the squad so bloodshed was averted for the time being.

But the first CPO meeting I managed to remember and make it to was my baptism by fire. My indoctrination and my wake up call that this.is.the.big.leagues.now.honey. I walked into the church meeting room, the smell of Chanel and hairspray nearly knocked me off my feet. As I scanned the room, I thought I might have accidentally stumbled into a Mary Kay meeting, but when I recognized the objects on the tables were not mirrors, but heavily "bling-ed out" designer handbags, and the bubbly blonde at the front asked me who my daughter was, I knew it was too late to run. It was like walking into the Twilight Zone, people. I'm telling you, it was like the high school popularity club on steroids, with money and bigger cars.

Nope. I don't fit in well with the Cheer Mom club. But I'm not worried, they've got more than enough "pep" to make up for my cheer mom slacker-ness.

Kidisms

Somehow, B has inherited Grandpa D's love of WWE. The other boys liked the Monday night brawls, heck, they were real wrestlers and while they knew it wasn't real, they liked the action. But B's love is sheer adoration. He waits all week long for it to come on and watching him bounce on the couch and cheer for his man is waaaaay more entertaining than what my dad and I watched on Saturday mornings. ;O)

I love how J says "Hoo-ta" when she is asked where Grandpa L lives.

I also love to hear K watching Taylor Swift on YouTube and hearing her eclectic taste in music evolve. It's particularly entertaining when she tries to sing along with the girl who yodels.

More Than Just Out of Order

Yes, this post will be out of order, but after you read it, you may suspect I'm not just out of order, I might possibly be just a little bit out of my mind.

I promise I'll write an update post on the bees and set it to auto post too...with pictures....but first...

I picked up another hobby.

Please don't die from the shock. I need all three of my readers to justify my once a month writing fits.

Also, please don't die from the cuteness.

It started with an e-mail. Hubster was perusing Cr@ig$1i$t looking for a wood lathe and a drill press. He got...shall we say...distracted? Yes, distracted, that's what we'll call it. So he started last week e-mailing this person. The person said his listing was still available, that several people had called and said they were going to come get it, but no one had followed through. Then there was another e-mail when Hubster had the day off. The listing was still available. Hubster sent it to me...several times...and finally, I told him if he was looking for me to talk him out of it, he was barking up the wrong tree. He made me call Taximom and ask for her blessing...since it may potentially end up living at her house. Taximom, being the good sport and wonderful friend that she is, agreed...even after Taxidad gave her a look that I can only imagine was nothing short of "You have got to be kidding me." But he's a Kansas farm boy so we'll forgive him...he knows that of which he speaks. I've already talked her into the bees...and now this.

Finally, Friday afternoon I got a text while I was at the store picking up my free cake mix. (Thank you Duncan Hines. My hiney told me to tell you that.) Hubster said the listing was still there. I told him to call the guy back that we'd be there in an hour and a half.

When I got there, I was smitten, and I think you can imagine why:



She is a Jersey. And if you know anything about cows, Jersey's are sort of hard to come by. We've wanted one for years, but the current dairy market is severely depressed and this little girl was sent up the river instead of being fed to grow up and take her momma's place in the milking stanchion.

Now, for those who know me in real life, you might ask yourself how in the world we got her home, since we have to borrow Taxidad's truck all the time since we no longer own one of our own. I'll have you know that I rode home from the sale barn in grandpa's truck with a calf between my legs on more than one occasion. So I figured I'd pass the torch on to my own offspring. Yep, we loaded her in the back of my minivan:



Yes, that is poop on her hiney. If you don't know how bad calf poopies smell, let me assure you that they stink to high heaven. So we loaded her in the van, opened all the windows and drove an hour and a half to get her home. Brought back memories of my senior year, when I loaded my 4-H weiner pigs into the back of my 1972 Ford Pinto and took them home to the ranch. Good times.

She was a doll the whole way home and entertained the children with burping and farting games...B only beat her one round. She is also very smart...she pooped out the window at one point. Anyhow, we got her home and much to my surprise and delight, there was very little aftermath in my sweet little minivan and the good news is, we will not be having a cremation later this week.

Pretty sure my crappy neighbors will complain pretty soon, given that we are keeping her in the backyard with the chickens and all...but it's totally worth it:







If you haven't ever experienced the sheer joy and contentment of a bottle-fed calf chowing down her breakfast...well, you just haven't lived.

Ruining Our Bad Reputation

In the car as we pull into Church:

Mom of All Trades: "Wow! We are TEN minutes early!"
B: "Ohhhh cr@p."
D: "Yeah, we've got a reputation to uphold, don't we B?"

Singing Our Own Song

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It totally cracks me up that it sounds like she says "Evewy where we tease him!" I tried to capture some "Aaahhhhhssss cweam" goodness for everyone, but she enunciated today. That is one word that doesn't sound at all good in Texan...

The best one is "Jack and Jiwl wen' up-a-hiwl, fetch-a-pay-o-wader, Jack faw' down, bwoke him cw-own and Jiwl came barrowing af'er. Now him up a-fas'-as-him can go-o, wen' to bed and busted him head wif bin-awound-a-papah." But I could only get "Pock-a-Posey-Posey" uploaded before I ran out of bandwidth, so you'll have to wait on Jack and Jill until next month. Here's her version of Ring Around the Rosey, (with K in the background some):


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The Little Red Hen

I spend all day very busy, feeding the children, cleaning the house and washing the clothes. (Well, OK, maybe not so much with the cleaning and laundry but I feed the children at least ONE square meal every day.) When I ask for help cooking, "Not I" say the little pigs kids. When I ask for help with the cleaning, "Not I" say the little pigs kids. When I ask for help with the laundry, "Not I" say the little pigs kids. So when I said, "Who wants to help me go pick up my latest Freecycle find?", all the little pigs except one said "Not I", and frankly, the one who "WOULD WIKE TO GO HEWP" hasn't been the greatest traveling partner lately. The worst part is, the kid will not ease up off my back. She tells me that my precious Freecycle finds are "UGwy 'cause 'dem don't hab HEATHERS on dem necks!" I dunno. I guess she kinda has a point.

It Has to Be Said...

Taxi Dad, I think your tractor's $exy. Especially when it's parked at my house. It told me it likes living here and saving me from copious amounts of physical labor. I give it the attention it needs and the challenge it craves. I'm sorry, I know it hurts being Dear John'ed by your John Deere.




And really, who would want to dig this:


with this:


when you can dig it with the help of a big, strong, tractor?

Little Known Nursery Songs

We've been known to sing a rousing rendition of "All Around the Merry Go Bush" in this house, but when the "AB Song" goes haywire, you might want to pay attention. I had to drop D off at the airport today, so I ditched two children and J came with me and D for a little traffic filled adventure. On the way back, J's Cheeto's made a repeat appearance. It wasn't pretty. Good news though, she was just car sick, not sick-sick. And apparently, she was also inspired by the great orange globs of goo, for I heard the following being cheerfully sung from the back seat: "Now I know my ABC's, I can't hold my puke on me!"

Making Home a Heaven on Earth

If Heaven has laundry piles and dirty dishes, I'm in great shape. I finally cleaned my bedroom last night, and thanks to Chris' Year Off Blog I've been being a bit more motivated to do some purging. So I tackled my closet. THREE black trash bags FULL later, I have space to hang my clothes! You can walk in there! Best of all, I would actually wear the things that are in there! There was some seriously tragic 90's fashion going on in there. Best part of all is that Hubster was working last night, so ONE of those bags...let's just say it's not like the others! LOL There is some seriously tragic 80's fashion in that one. But don't tell him, m'kay? He's formed some pretty intense attachments to his old, torn up, ratty clothes. And I didn't even scratch the surface on his side of the closet. I'm gonna have to make it go away g-r-a-d-u-a-l-l-y. One day he will wake up and go to the closet to find his shorts that are torn up the side from the hem to the belt and I will feign ignorance. It's better if we don't speak of this again.

By Request...

Here you go JD:



I had to put in bigger stakes yesterday! LOL

The Funniest Thing I Said Today....

Every once in a while I find words coming out of my mouth that I never thought I'd say. Today, it was, "Look, I just really need you to go pick up your stuff and STOP ASKING ME QUESTIONS ABOUT ELVIS ALREADY!"

The boy. He worries me.

Things That Need Re-thought

OK, so I know you couldn't even see it if you wanted to, and I tried to blow it up in Photoshop, but it didn't work. But it makes me laugh every time I see it, so I share it with you here. This is a church building. The name of the church?



"Overcoming Faith"


If I'm lyin' I'm dyin'.

The Ol' Gray Mare..

She is beyond ain't what she used to be.

When I was a kid, I walked everywhere. All over the ranch where I grew up, all over my hometown, to my dad's work, to the bus (which didn't stop anywhere close to my school...but that's another story), to the store, to my friends house, I walked everywhere. Probably had a lot to do with the amazing physique I sported during my high-school years.

So today, in anticipation of needing to take K to gymnastics, I went out to start "the turd".

And just so you don't think I'm being a pansy, I'll give you some long awaited photos, yes, I know you must be quivering with anticipation:


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And just so you understand that her ugliness is more than skin deep...


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And yes, these are actual miles. But we have no idea how many times that thing has gone around to these actual miles...


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There's not even anything to drown out my misery.


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Remember these images when you consider purchasing vehicles for your teenage sons, my friends. Remember. *end of PSA*

SO.

In all my wisdom and maturity, I decided to see if the turd was actually going to start, and lucky for me, I thought of it before we needed to leave for gym class. Now, don't die of shock on me here, but it wouldn't.start.

*GASP*

I know. I share your disbelief.

SO. I called my neighbors, and my friends, and I briefly considered posting a wanted ad on Freecycle. And then, I had an epiphany: "We could walk."

Albertson's is a mile from my house, I know, because I clocked it once to see how far I'd have to walk if there were ever a disaster and I couldn't drive to the store. Because I'm irrational like that.

Anyhow.

I reasoned that the gym couldn't be more than a mile farther than that, and no, I've never clocked that because I have the attention span of a flea and also because I wouldn't walk to the gym if there were a disaster and I couldn't drive there. Why I would decide to walk there with three children when there is no disaster, I can't really tell you, but I decided to do it.

I thought somewhere I remembered that it should take about 15 minutes to walk a mile, so if we were going to walk two miles, thirty minutes should be the minimum it would take to arrive. So I figured I'd leave an hour ahead of when we needed to be there and we could take our time if we needed.

Now the news that we were WALKING to the gym was met with uneasy anticipation from the other members of my walking party. When I discovered that my totally cool umbrella stroller on steroids was in the back of D's car, at the high school, which is NOT on the way, I almost called the whole thing off, but then the kids found the old umbrella stroller my totally cool umbrella stroller on steroids replaced. After nearly an hour and a half of "when are we going to leave" fun, I finally pulled out all the rest of my hair and just decided to leave. It was 20 minutes earlier than I'd planned on leaving, but I figured if we had time to kill, we could always walk to the college and pick up my text books, because if we were walking 2 miles, what was another 1/2 mile or so...right?

So we set off on our adventure. Let me first say, I hate Texas. More specifically, I hate that Texas has no sidewalks. None. Anywhere. Even along crazy busy highway type streets that people might want to walk next to since they are the shortest distance from most of the point A's in town to most of the Point B's in town. So we used the back streets and walked mostly in the gutters. Occasionally pausing to stare down drivers who drive to darn fast down subdivision streets.

At first, the kids were ahead of me and behind of me, and to the sides of me, and back and forth of me. But it didn't take long for them to figure out that the shortest path between two points is a straight line. They're smart ones, I'm tellin' ya. So we got to the end of our street and B started telling me that his legs were tired. Thinking to myself that we needed to be a little more physically fit, I may have actually muttered something about walking to the gym every week.

We walked and walked and walked and walked and walked. If you were to drive across Texas, you would pretty much think that Texas is flat, I should know, I used to think Texas was flat. But no. There are three big hills between here and the gym. And I'm pretty sure the gym is in a higher elevation than my house because there was not as much down as there was up. When we had gone nearly a mile, I found myself praying that there was a sidewalk over the bridge, surely there MUST be a sidewalk over the overpass, right? There sure is, and I'm here to tell you that it is all of 2 feet wide. I made the kids walk in front of me and hold onto the rail as cars went whizzing by. I did not notice that there are also very large cracks in that 2 foot wide sidewalk, that is, until I dumped J out of the stroller after the pitifully small front wheels of the crappy umbrella stroller disappeared in one of them. Another not so great thing about a 2 foot wide sidewalk with cracks in it and lots of cars whizzing by is that walking behind a 7 and 8 year old is by definition, frustrating. Did you know that a 7 and 8 year old are unable to regulate their walking speed? No? Well, let me tell you that they are completely incapable of walking one speed. One minute they are walking along, so fast that you want to reach out and nab them back because, you know, if a kidnapper has some kind of apparatus for nabbing children from a speeding car, I have to be there to protect them, and the next minute, they are stopped. Spitting off the overpass. And when you are walking with your head down panting and thinking positive thoughts that you will make it to the other side, you run into them, and they are not happy, and neither is the baby in the stroller who nearly falls out some more because of a crappy little thing called physics.

After we made it to the other side, I figured we were about half-way and so far so good, right? And I also reasoned that walking back streets instead of the main road would be better because we've always tried to teach the children not to play in traffic. Let me tell you that the back streets in Texas are not straight, oh no they are not. And they all run uphill. So after winding our way up, up, up through the back streets of Small Town, we finally reached a peaceful little neighborhood with a gentle downhill slope to get back to the busy road that runs in front of the gym. Hallelujah, there was ONE block of side walk right near the gym and we walked in JUST in time for K to start her class, thank goodness they were late starting. Total walking time: 1 hour and 25 minutes. Hubsters estimate of the actual distance between our house and the gym: 3 miles. Number of gloves lost between here and the gym: 1. Number of times I heard "My legs are tired": 437. Number of times I cursed the Small Town Texas zoning and planning committee: 623. Number of times I cursed The Turd: 623. Number of times I wistfully thought about my treasured "new camera fund" being added to my "pay the rent fund" and my "buy groceries fund" and my "keep the electricity on fund" and spending them all on some form of reliable transportation: 627.

If I can drag myself out of bed at all tomorrow, I'll do a special post to let you know what it probably feels like if you were to run your legs through a meat grinder and toss them into traffic before you piece them back together with scotch tape and put them back on. Or if you decide to walk your kids to gymnastics. Whatever.

And in case you are wondering how we got home, no, we did not walk. D gets out of school in time and gave us a ride, and honestly, she could have gotten out of school at seven pm and I'd have still waited for her to give us a ride. Thank goodness class starts next week and I won't get out early enough to walk to the gym ever, ever again.

Amen.

My Brothers Are In Space

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The AB Song

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Too Soon?

B, like most 8-something kids, is doing his best to convince me that "ain't" is, in fact, a word and its use is seriously too cool. I am very well aware of the fact that Webster's does now include "ain't" as a word, and "Ain't ain't a word so don't use it" doesn't really have a whole lotta credibility anymore. But, as his teacher, not to mention the person most likely to depend on his ability to someday sound intelligent enough to obtain gainful employment, I am doing my best to convince him that "ain't" belongs on the list of words that we just don't use in this family. The debate has raged for several weeks. So tonight he says, "Hey mom! Listen!" *singing* (cause he sings a.lot., like enough to worry his father) "Somebody once told me the world is gonna roll me, I AIN'T the sharpest tool in the she-ed....See, it IS a WORD!"

Wonder if it's too soon to teach him about satire and derision. LOL

Save the Pork Roast!

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If you haven't watched The Wonder Pets, well, you just haven't lived. And you will also be unable to understand approximately 3/4 of what J is talking about these days.

So I was cutting the net off my pork roast this afternoon, and J was up on the counter watching. Pretty soon she says, "Mommy! What dat?"
"It's dinner.", I replied.
"No, what dat on it? What you cutt-inguh"
"It's some stretchy net they use to hold it together."
*GASP* *imagine the voice raising by an interval of approximately 4 octaves*
"Ohhhh, it stuck? Mommy, you hewlp it? You hewlp dat baby.....what dat ting?
"The roast?"
"Duh woast? You hewlp dat baby woast and sabe duh day?"

"Ummmmm, yeah, something like that......."

Where I Once Again Profess My Love of the Internet

I love e-bay. My dad sent me this link and I nearly died laughing. Mostly cause I totally feel like that, in fact, if I had not been so worn out and were more creative, I would have totally blogged something like that while I was visiting my folks a couple weeks back. I guess C-town Wyoming isn't ready for the likes of us. I got more looks from people in that one Albertson's trip than I get in a whole week down here. (Well, unless we go on campus, which we did today and that is another post in its self)

And the "you've got your hands full" comment. Is that not the single dumbest comment EVAR? Is that code for "Holy crap woman, control your off spring"? Or is it more like "You poor thing, don't you know what causes that?"? The last time it was all sweet and fuzzy feeling was when K was just a babe and some nice old man said it as we both observed B as he busily waved and said "Hi!" to everyone we passed.

And I just got another Freecycle find! Some nice lady is giving away a whole bunch of sewing thread and notions. Since my grandmother gave me my inheritance in fabric during my visit, this will come in quite handy. Here is my response to her:
"Oh yeahy! I have a class tomorrow at the college from 9:30 to 10:45, I park in the south lot (across from JC Penny strip mall) and I could meet you there either before or after class? I'll be driving the biggest old hoopty ford bronco you've ever seen in your whole life. LOL It's brown and white and has no back window...you CAN'T miss it (unfortunately). If that doesn't work for you, let me know!"

How's that for a description? I really need to post a picture of this charming turd sometime. It is my turn to drive the turd. Now that D is back, Hubster and I are back down to one car and the turd between us. Why not hi-jack D's car you ask? Well, quite frankly, I'm somewhat lazy and I'm pretty much traumatized by all the dropping off and picking up I did over the years and seeing as how after school activities are notorious for saying they will be ending at one time and then not ACTUALLY ending until another time, (usually far, far later than the original time) and waiting with J in a car is enough to make Mother Teresa slit her wrists....well, I'll drive the turd.

Speak Texan Yank

Just TRY to purchase a MACROeconomics book from a Texan. Go ahead. I dare you.

(Ya'll will be directed to take yer buggy back to Ramon but hurry cause he's fixin' to go to lunch over yonder and even after all that they will hand you a MICROeconomics book..several times...until you spell it.)

Last week they pulled all the Government books off the shelf. When I called to inquire as to why they would change books the week before class starts, I was told that the instructor had pulled the books because they weren't the Texas edition. I'm thinking my interaction today explains a lot. It would make sense to have the books in a language the students can understand. I won't be giving mine back. The Yankee version suits me fine.

Surfs Up, Dude?

After a summer of slacking and a quick trip to see the folks...oh who am I kidding? I am a sucky housekeeper. If you are silly enough to eat off my floors, you deserve whatever disease you get. Oh, I'm real good at at baseboards, those are always clean. Ceiling fans too. And my own personal bathroom is usually in pretty good shape. But all bets are off when it comes to everything else. Flylady rocks. But I've been off the Flylady wagon lately. So I decided that the kids could help me clean the kitchen floor. And we weren't Swiffering this time, no, we were going to give it a good old fashion scrub down. K informed me that she loves scrubbing floors because she pretends she is Cinderella. Having already earned my wicked step-mother stripes, I knew exactly what to do. I got them started with a bucket of soapy water and some rags then ran in to buy a textbook I need for class. The last time I checked they were down to their skivvies sliding around on about an inch of water that is completely covering my kitchen tile. It's like an indoor Slip-an-Slide in there. And you know what? I really don't care. The floor will probably be very clean after that much water and soap. Wanna come eat off my floor tonight?

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