Annie Honey

Puppy Breath and Pecan Pie Burps

Today, instead of travelling to the malls and celebrating Black Friday by getting incredibly irritated by annoying consumers, we travelled to Virginia to pick up our new 7 week-old yellow lab puppy, Annie. What a complete cutie. While I know every puppy is cute, this little sweetie is completely brimming over with adorableness. She's a tawny yellow so we've decided her full name should be Annie Honey (which is also a nod to her North Carolina roots).

Thanks to our wonderful friend Patricia who rescued the puppies from a crazy irresponsible hillbilly and drove halfway to meet us AND THEN REFUSED GAS MONEY, we're able to add to our animal family. HH wondered if this was strictly necessary, but I argued that, really, Muttel was DEVASTATED when Molly died. This puppy is JUST FOR HIM.

I am nothing if not selfless.

So this weekend we'll be eating the rest of a TERRIBLE chocolate pumpkin pie (a recipe I won't share) and the EVILLY DELICIOUS pecan pie bars I made and running in and out of the house trying to avoid using an industrial size Nature's Miracle bottle (with battery-operated spray gun!).

Baby pictures coming soon........

nataliedee.com

Is this what a midlife crisis looks like?

I'm a year and change from my 40th birthday and have been really questioning the direction my life is going lately. Not my personal life, but my work life. When I was planning my life (and I've always been a planner) I don't think I thought past the "get married, have kids" plan and I'm lucky enough to have a supportive, loving husband and two great (so far--please God, please god) kids. I don't think I thought past the time when my kids wouldn't need me so constantly. I don't think I thought I'd have a life of my own again. I know I didn't think it would go by so fucking fast.

So here I am with the "perfect" full-timish job that allows me to be creative and cook practically anything I want (fun!), that allows me to be home with the kids in the summer (FUN!) and to have occasional breaks when college is not in session (essential). That has hours that are flexible enough that I can even be there when the kids get home from school, with the only caveat that I have to go back to work to finish dinner. It doesn't pay a whole lot and doesn't have any monetary benefits but I've always thought of those breaks and the flexibility as the perks of the job. I've always described it as the perfect "mom job" and it is.

But lately I've been thinking that I don't want a Mom Job. I want a Jen Job. Something that will of course be benefitial to my family, yes, but also something that will enhance my own life, will challenge me in ways I'm not feeling challenged now. Something that might have grownup things like a 401K or a dental plan.

And something that does not involve a hot kitchen or wearing pants that occasionally smell like meat.

What is this job? I wish I knew. I haven't done anything (with the exception of some major volunteering) other than cooking in my entire career so I'm really going outside the ole comfort zone. Thankfully, my parents were wise enough to tell me to keep going to college even though I wanted to change gears and go to culinary school. They were generous enough to allow me (and to pay for me) to do both. So for 16 years I've been a chef with a Sociology degree. I never thought I'd "use" my degree, but now I'm so glad I have it. Maybe it'll actually come in to play and my dad can stop wondering exactly why he paid for it if I was going to bake cakes for a living.

Here are my ideas, so far, of what I think I might be interested in and perhaps good at:

• Guidance counselor; I would shoot myself if I worked in an elementary or middle school, but I think I would enjoy being part of a teenager's life (all the planning, all the angst..)

Greek Affairs/Residence Life coordinator; I feel like I've been taking a sort of Greek 101/How to be a Coed course for 3 years. I like working with the girls so much and would love to take on a more advisory position.

Some kind of counselor in a women's clinic or center on a college campus; Have I mentioned that my Sociology concentration was in Women's Studies? It seemed a good idea at the time...

Something involving writing; I'm not so confident to announce My Intentions to Be a Writer because...well, because I'm chicken. But I would love to do something that could incorporate writing even if it wasn't the main ingredient.

So what am I doing about finding a JJ? I must finally be sick of hearing myself whine about this because I've made an appointment for a Career Counseling session at the local community college. I have no idea what they'll do for me. I'm hoping it's not going to be a What Color is Your Parachute session. I want someone to take a look at my list up there and tell me practical steps to get there-- or at least to find if I want go get there. The thought of going back to school is TERRIFYING to me (mostly because I'm in my pajamas by 7 every night and quite happy to NEVER LEAVE THE HOUSE), but I've come to the conclusion that it might be the thing I have to do.

Why does it seem like it would be so much easier to buy a sports car and have an affair?

Still Alive...

...just boring.

But I didn't used to be...

Jen, circa 1991

And so it begins...

Conversation earlier today between me and The Boy:

Me: Did you walk home with C today?

S: No.

Me: Did you walk home with C today?

S: Uh. Yeah.

Me: Did you kiss her yet?

S: No.

Me: Did you kiss her yet?

S: No.

Me: Do you hold hands when you're walking?

S: No.

Me: Do you hold hands?

S: Uh. Yeah.

Me: Is she going to be at the game tonight?

S: No.

Me: Is she going to be at the game tonight?

S: Uh. I don't know.

Me: Is she going to be at the game tonight?

S: I DON'T KNOW.

Then, later (just now, in fact) I found some emails about meeting behind the school so we can "try again." WHAT?? AND I found an email from S in which he told C not to reply to his emails but to make a new message. The little sneak is trying to, well, sneak around me! Ugh.

I hate this parenting thing. I've often said that this feels like the longest fucking babysitting job of my life. WHEN ARE THEIR PARENTS COMING HOME?

So HH and I called The Boy downstairs to put the kibosh on this whole thing. From now on I will be picking him up every day after school (this is just as annoying to me as to him as it will lessen my Howard Stern time). They are allowed to talk on the phone but that's it. I told him that we didn't like this new sneaking and lying and that if we couldn't trust him then we didn't have anything.

Then we tried to explain to him that we would probably not be having this conversation if C wasn't in 9th grade. How do you explain that a 9th grade girl is different in every way from a 7th grade boy TO A 7TH GRADE BOY?

S got blinky (with him that means he's about to cry because he's sad/angry/tired/frustrated) and then said he was going to bed (it's 8:00 right now). I know it's weenie of me to worry, but no kid understands (and won't until that kid has a kid) that no parent wants their kid to be angry at them. It breaks my heart to be the one he's angry at.

Sometimes being the grownup sucks.

There's absolutely no reason why this picture was added other than it gives me something to focus on while I breathe into a bag.

Roots and Wings

Aren't they so friggin cute?

Some days it hits me more than others. My children are getting old. They've become individuals with their own thoughts, their own interests, their own lives. For the most part, this thrills me. I'm so happy to be able to say that I really like my kids. They both have a great sense of humor (very important) and they still like me (a real plus).

Last year was pretty hard with M. She was going through a lot of what turned out to be hormonal changes which made her a real bear to deal with. She's still only 9 1/2 years old but she's so mature physically that I think it was really hard for her to wrap her head around all the changes her body was going through and the weird feeling she was having. She was crying "for no reason," she was mean to me at times, and it often made me incedibly angry and broke my heart on behalf of both of us. I know there are tough times ahead again (I'm not looking forward to the middle school years for Maya or anyone in our family) but right now our relationship is in a kind of dream state--we really like to be together and she's much happier in her skin.

I'm trying to take advantage of this honeymoon period in that I talk to her about a lot of tough things--drinking, sex, and even god. I keep everything PG (ish), but I know in my heart that this is the time when I have influence with her, when I can help her understand what's right and wrong before she meets up face-to-face with these issues. When that happens, all I'll be able to do is to try to keep talking to her and to cross my fingers and trust that she makes the right decisions.

With S, everything after his infancy was easy. He's a nice boy who is conscious of what it means to be a good person. He is well-liked by all sorts of groups. He does well in school. He's almost 13, 5'7" (right this moment) and looks, but doesn't necessarily act, older than he is. He's also someone who keeps his feelings and thoughts close to his chest. I've always talked with (to) him about all the stuff M and I talk together about, but with him it's always been me talking and him being mortified/embarrassed/wanting to end the conversation.

Anyway, we came to find out (I asked and he actually answered) that he has his first girlfriend. And she's in 9th grade. Did I mention he's in 7th grade? My husband's first reaction was "That's my boy!" (he's a dumb boy too). Then we both thought "WHY would a girl that age want him?"

I alternated between a total panic that HH has to have the blow/hand job talk right now and thinking that this girl just must be extreeeeemely immature and maybe finds a younger boy less threatening. I decided to go to my Girls for advice. An informal poll revealed that they all thought it was WEIRD with one weighing in with "the girl's a skank." But I decided to let it play out a bit. She called a lot and he grunted to her. Emailing was done. And that's about it for the time being. I told him he was too young to date and he said he understood. "Just concentrate on being friends for now," I said. "Okay" was his only reply.

Am I overreacting? HH and I worry about saying too much about it lest we give off Annoying Parental Vibes so that S won't ever come to us and reveal anything ever again. I'm quite sure a lot of my worry is simply because my baby is turning a corner. I know that. But I can't let go of the idea that this cougar wants to try stuff out on my sweet/witless/nonthreatening son. I know this is the first of many tests for me as a parent. And I want to let my children make their own decisions, knowing that Mom and Dad are back here to help if they need it. My parents made a lot of mistakes (of course they did, being Human), but they let me make my own decisions (I honestly can't remember one single time in which they told me my decision was wrong. Wow.). I want to be that kind of parent, but holy shit is it hard to do.

What would you do?

Paging Dr. Freud

At least once a month at least I have a horribly upsetting dream about my mom. She died 4 1/2 years ago and I miss her terribly. I'm the luckiest daughter in the world because I have absolutely no regrets about my relationship with her. So why do I have these dreams?

http://www.freud.org.uk/

Most of them have a common theme: she's alive and healthy but she's done with me. She's got some kind of interesting thing going on in her life and she's simply decided she isn't into the mothering thing anymore. I wake up heartbroken--realizing that not only is she dead but questioning why I would dream something I (almost) know to not be true.

She wasn't a smothering mother. She didn't question me constantly about how I was living my life. She didn't offer advice unless it was asked for. We talked on the phone a lot, but she also had her own life and while she was definitely interested in what was going on with me, she was confident that I was doing the right thing, that I was making good choices. And that's how she was when I was a kid too. And it gave me tremendous comfidence in my choices, knowing she had confidence in me. That, my friends, is good mothering.

Last night's dream was just as bad but a different theme. This time she wasn't healthy or rejecting. She was terribly sick. I kept trying to call her to see if she was still there. She slept all the time and couldn't talk. And she wouldn't die. It felt like it went on and on, mixed in with a dream in which I was at the vet (who was actually Craig Ferguson) and I was naked.

I told you I love those Scottish guys.

I never said I was normal.

And while I have a WHOLE RANGE of things I could talk to a psychiatrist about, my relationship with my mom really isn't one of them (except for a few tiny things. Hey, she wasn't perfect!). So why am I plagued with these horrible dreams? They're so personal and so painful. I'd do anything to make them stop, even if it meant I never had a nice dream about her.

Calling all you armchair psychiatrists. Any ideas?