Can you dress your teen?

I'm updating this website to include my most recent articles. Thankfully, I'm doing well in all the cities that are carrying my drivel. Here's my latest, which I originally titled, "Can you Dress your Teen?" It ran, however, as, "Has your teen revoked your cool card?" You decide!

This is the photo that ran with the story in 7 cities. It's of Boy.

 

If you are the proud owner of a teen type, then I’m not telling you anything new. Your “cool card” has been irrefutably revoked. In fact, your teens don’t think that there was ever a time in your life when you were cool. I tried telling them that their mom used to sing in a rock band; they all laughed really hard.

Boy asked if it was back when the Rolling Stones were just Drifting Pebbles.

Nowhere is your nonexistent grasp on the pulse of all things cool more glaring than when it comes to clothes. Suddenly, I’ve turned into Grandma Moses and my outfits belong to someone from Little House on the Prairie.

Apparently, I shouldn’t even be allowed to dress a mannequin for long storage in the attic.

I remember, fondly, when they were little and I would buy their little wardrobes. For the girls, if it was pink or yellow, had sequins and/or tulle, or was adorned by a smiling Disney Princess, it was worthy to be worn. Heck, sometimes they’d squeal with delight.

For Boy, if it was cowboy boots, had a cape, some type of belt that was capable of holding a light saber, a sword, a Power Rangers blaster or any combination thereof, he’d wear it. And, if it had Spiderman’s signature web slinging design emblazoned anywhere on it, he was thrilled. I actually have a picture of him wearing his cowboy hat and boots; and nothing else. I often taunt him with empty threats (and he knows it) that I plan to show the photo to his future girlfriends. That might explain why he won’t even watch a western anymore.

Moms are easily amused.

Fast forward to their adolescence, and I was able to purchase a limited amount of clothing with some hope that they might wear it. I refer to that period as the Land Before Teen Time.

Now that they’re almost fully cooked humans, or as they prefer to be called, teens, buying them anything without them standing next to you is an exercise in futility. It doesn’t matter that they picked out an almost identical thing; according to them, there were glaring differences between the one I’d picked and the one they had. You know, something huge, like a stripe being 1/36^th of an inch wider on the one I was holding.

Knowing all of this, I’m calling what happened last week, “Miracle at Kohl’s in the Land After Teen Time”.

I had an appointment and afterwards, I toddled over to Kohl’s; one of my favorite places to experience Nirvana. When they have a big sale, I don’t even have to pick up the paper to alert me. My Kohl’s spidey senses begin to tingle and won’t stop until I’m basking in the glow of clearance merchandise.

I walked in the store, and the first thing that caught my eye was the men’s clearance rack; a hoodie that I knew my son had been looking for was before my eyes. I shook my head as I went over to the rack to touch it, fearing it was some type of “mom”tical illusion. Nothing has ever been that easy in my life. Rack after glorious rack held clothes that I was almost sure Boy would love.

And at 80% off the original price; then an extra 20% off that price. I was absolutely giddy.

After several hours, I took my treasure and headed for the register. As the sales lady was checking me out, she remarked that I had good taste. When I confided that Boy was very picky and modeled his look after GQ magazine, she shared that her son would wear anything she brought home.

I was torn between being extremely jealous or telling her that she was like a Goddess to me. The jealous side was winning that argument, so not wanting to hiss and meow, I kept my mouth shut

On the way home, and out of the glorious spell that is Kohl’s, I began to get nervous. Visions of my GQ son examining what I’d spent so much time to pick out began to go through my head. He’s a good kid, and he would never say anything to me other than thank you. But after he’d modeled the clothes, they would disappear to the back of his closet, never to be seen again.

I got home, called for the boy and held my breath. As he picked up each piece, he seemed genuinely happy. In fact, he immediately put the hoodie that had started the quest on his very own person. I was wary as he continued, but to my surprise, the words, “good job, mom” continued to flow from his mouth. I was in mommy heaven.

I know that this was a fluke, and that the odds are I’ll never pick out another piece of clothing that Boy will consider wearable. But for that one day, I was the Queen of the Garment Quest; or, Queen of GQ. That will stay with me forever. Another part of me is hopeful that I’ve entered into a new era with my kids; one where my cool card has been stamped and returned to me.

Did I mention that Moms are also eternally optimistic?

Privacy Lost!

Here's my latest; it's about trying to take a shower for any length of time after you have kids. And in my case, a cat. You can see it in the Philadelphia paper here:

First the kids, now the Cat 

But, here it is in its entirety!

Any parent will tell you; once you have kids, the word “privacy” exits your vocabulary with alarming speed. In fact, children are the antidote for privacy, whether they’re toddlers or teens. Once they become teens, you hope that they value privacy, which they do.

Theirs. Yours, not so much.

And nowhere is your lack of privacy more obvious than when you want to take a nice warm shower.

When the kids are little, a mom can take a shower in under a minute. Most parents wait until the kids are taking naps, and then bring the baby monitor into the bathroom with them. Even then, they leave the door hanging open, no matter how cold it is. We want to be sure that if the baby monitor suddenly gives up the ghost, we can still hear the kids.

My kids, unfortunately, weren’t prone to taking naps; nor did they sleep much during the night. It was as if they had a weird aversion to sleep in all its forms. If I didn’t have my beloved mother in law, Gretchen, around to keep an eye on them, I’d set up the playpen in the bathroom.

It’s only been recently that I’ve begun to purchase hair conditioner. Me, and probably most moms, considered that product a luxury that our limited time couldn’t afford. We usually walk around looking like we just stuck our fingers into an electrical socket.

Whoever invented leave in conditioner had to have been a mom.

One would hope that as our kids get older, leisurely showers would return. Trust me; the operative word in that last sentence is “hope”.

Prisoners have more privacy.

No matter how many bathrooms you have in your house, it never fails. As soon as you step in and get wet, there’s a knock on the door; it’s as if they have a sixth sense. No matter how many bathrooms you have in your house, somehow all hair styling products, Band-Aids, Tylenol, and extra soap have migrated to your bathroom shelf. And they must get their hands on it NOW.

Once, I’d just gotten in the shower, when the obligatory knock on my door came. It was one of my daughters looking for face cream. This is the same cream that had been purchased well over a year ago, used once, forgotten about and then, unbeknownst to me, managed to migrate to my bathroom shelf. It had suddenly become the Holy Grail of face creams, sought after with the fervor of Indiana Jones and had to be applied immediately or her face was going to melt clean off.

I admit, however, that just this week, I took a full ten minute shower without the door opening or closing once. I got out into a toasty room and saw steam on the mirror. I became disoriented, threw my robe on and ran out of the room to be sure I was still in my house.

In the last year, it’s not just been my kids that have invaded my privacy in the shower.

Elyse got a cat named Bandit. He’s as cute as a button, but he’s one of the oddest cats I’ve ever known. He’s fascinated with the bathroom. He runs into the room after a toilet is flushed to watch the water swirl.

His fascination with water is baffling, as when we first got him, he was prone to climbing on our kitchen counters. Considering that he may have just gotten out of the litter box, we weren’t happy about that. So, I bought a water bottle, and sprayed him every time he jumped up on them. It didn’t take too long for him to equate being doused with water as punishment and the counters as forbidden territory.

Imagine my surprise when while taking a shower, the curtain began to move. Startled, I looked around and saw nothing. Until I looked down. And there was Bandit, staring at me in disbelief as the water was pouring over me.

I could almost hear him say, “You must have REALLY done something wrong!”

If I’m being honest, though, this is just a blip of time in the hourglass of our lives. The kids grow so fast, it seems they change a little every day. Watching that process is one of the joys of being a mom or a dad.  Besides, there will be years to take long, hot showers without a kid knocking at the door.

And, oh, how I’ll miss that knock.

Here's a picture of that adorable cat, Bandit. He has me wrapped around his little paw - and boy does he know it.

183 Tweets!

What do I think about all those tweets? Let's see . . .  oh, wait, I know - WOO HOO!!

 

The following is a true story. Sigh.

The Bird

We live in the country in a 200 year old brick house; a brick house with a drafty attic. Birds are constantly getting into it. Occasionally, though, they manage to find their way into our duct system.

Under normal circumstances, it’s a daunting process to get them out. However, when you throw in three kids, two labs, one cat and a ferret (there have also been rabbits, chinchillas, pet mice, and frogs in the mix at different times), it becomes a three ring circus.

We’ve always managed to shoo the bird out an open window without more than a light bulb being broken in the process. The birds seem to be as anxious to escape as we are to free it.

Until last week.

We were alerted to the birds presence in our ceiling by the dogs and the cat. They were running around, jumping up and down and making all kinds of noises. Matt unscrewed the vent cover, and a bird peeked down, surveying the animal kingdom that was our living room.

To say that this bird was fearless is an understatement. In fact, if Sylvester Stallone ever wanted to make an animal sequel to his famous movie series, we had just the bird for him in our living room – Rambird.

He casually swooped down into the room, flying in circles just above the dogs’ heads, and then landed on their newly filled food dishes; and began to dine. At first, we were all stunned. The kids, Matt, me and the animals stood there watching this bird casually eat dog food.

He wasn’t just eating the dogs’ food; he was making eye contact, as if daring them to do something about it.

And that’s when the dogs remembered that they were bigger, and the cat realized that he should be hunting it. Mass chaos began to ensue.

Bubba, our big black lab is afraid of his own shadow. After his shock wore off, he couldn’t get out of the room fast enough. He rounded the corner and flew out the door with cartoon like speed.

Mae B (pronounced “maybe”) is the yellow lab and she wasn’t amused at the bird eating her food. Bandit, the cat, turned into his version of a wild jungle cat and began to stalk his prey. Rambird continued to eat, watching them with what seemed like amusement. Or maybe it was mocking them; either way, that was one confident bird.

Mae B went after it right as Bandit pounced. Rambird flew up just in time for the two of them to collide into one another. Bandit was dazed for a second, but he resumed the chase. As Mae was barking like a maniac, jumping on and off the couch, Bandit was leaping to shelves, the fireplace, and just about anything that the bird was near. While this was going on, we were trying to use newspaper to corral the bird and send him out the window.

So there we were; three kids and two adults running through the room wildly waving newspapers above our heads, the dog barking, the cat leaping, fur flying, furniture crashing, lamp tipping over and a picture dangling precariously on the wall; the only creature who seemed to be amused in the middle of the melee was Rambird.

He must have decided it was getting too weird, and he flew out the window. Bandit launched himself after it, and thankfully, he didn’t throw himself out of the second floor window. He did, however, smack into the wall; spread eagle style. Thankfully, he wasn’t hurt, but he disappeared for the rest of the day. We think he was embarrassed; probably due to our pointing and laughing.

We can be so evil.

Things finally died down, and I began the process of picking up the remains of the battle. We lost a lamp in the fight, but due to our condition (having three kids and a veritable menagerie of animals); I don’t buy anything that can’t be easily replaced at Sears. Or the thrift store.

It’s been over a week, and the animals are no worse for the wear. Bandit has returned to normal, but he’s taken to sitting on the window sill, glaring at the birds outside. We figure he’s plotting his revenge.

On the bright side, I may open my own business chasing birds out of people’s houses. I’ll call it exactly what it would be if I actually did it: “Birdbrained”.

You can write to Tamara Kells, The Brunette Lucy, on Facebook.

The Price of Meat

Here's my latest! It made the top 5 most popular article in 3 of the cities that have run it so far! 

I’m famous for my grocery store follies; I can’t seem to go shopping without bringing home way more than I’d gone for. More than that, however, is that I keep bringing home the wrong things.

I should point out, however, that my eyesight plays a huge part in this ongoing problem. I need reading glasses – badly. I think I have at least twenty pair or more (I get them at the dollar store). The problem is that I can never find them while shopping. I could be searching for them for half an hour and still not find them. Then, when getting in the car, they fall out of my purse and into my lap; it never fails.

I’d gone to the store to stock up; we needed pretty much everything. Like everyone else these days, we have to be careful with our budget, so I’m always on the lookout for a deal. I was especially trying to find meats of any kind on sale.

I noticed a big sign announcing shank portions of ham for only $1.29 a pound. Since ham is normally expensive, I gravitated to the cooler and began to pick up and compare. I’d say I was like a pig rooting for truffles, but since I was rooting for a pig, that wouldn’t be in the best “taste”.

Another lady was perusing the hams as well, and I pointed out the deal. She, too, began to go through the ham. I’d picked mine, but thought that I’d look at the other hams. Then I spotted it; a HUGE spiral cut ham for only $10.59. I grabbed that bad boy, and threw it in my cart. To be nice, I alerted the other lady about the deal, and she, too, tossed another ham into her cart. We high fived each other, and off I went.

I came home, crowing about the steal I got on the ham. Matt picked it up and asked me how much I paid for it. Gloating, I told him. And that’s when he said, “That’s not the price of the ham; it’s the weight”.

I would have liked to be a fly on the wall when the woman who took my advice found out the same thing. But this wasn’t my only grocery store adventure this week.

Yesterday, my best friend, Michele, and I went out. I had to go to the Wal-Mart for a prescription, but when we got there, it wasn’t ready.

To kill time, Michele and I went over to the meat department. Before us was a sea of gold labels announcing reduced for quick sale cuts of meat. Unfortunately, since we were only going to get my medicine, we didn’t have a cart. We balanced our treasure in our arms, and went to see if my prescription was ready. It wasn’t; we had to wait.

So there I sat, sitting on the gray bench in front of the pharmacy with over fifteen pounds of roast in my lap. To say we got strange looks is putting it mildly.

I wonder what those folks would think if they knew that as I sat there with a stack of red meat, I was waiting for my high blood pressure medicine.

When I got home, I was putting my roasts in the freezer. And that’s when I noticed that on one or two of the packages, I’d only saved a dollar or less. Not quite the deal that I thought I was getting.

Later that night, Michele made a discovery of her own; she wanted me to know so I wouldn’t feel so bad. On one roast, we had made an exceptional deal. It originally cost $11.34, but the final price was $7.21. But how much did Wal-Mart math tell us we saved? $1.81.

Now I don’t feel so bad.

The Age of (too much) Information!

Here's my latest for AOL's Patch! Still thinking about finishing the book; but it's more work and I'm lazy.

I love the show, “House Hunters” on HGTV.  I get a kick out of seeing the insides of homes, getting decorating ideas, etc.  But I just watched one that blew me away.  There was, & I’m REALLY not kidding here, folks, a telephone in the bathroom – by the toilet.

Now, I don’t know about you, but how disturbing would it be if during a conversation, you heard a flushing sound? I guess it would make an undeniable point; eww.

It got me thinking, though, about how we live in a (too much) information age. We have to be able to reach out & touch each other, no matter where we are. And, as evidenced by the toilet phone, no matter what we’re doing.

Everywhere you go, folks are carrying cell phones. I was in a deli once and saw a woman telling the clerk (who had other customers, including me, standing in line) to wait a second so she could take a call.

If she had been in the process of brokering peace in the Middle East, I could understand. Instead, she answered with, “I’m not doing anything; what are you doing?” Maybe it’s me, but that hardly seems like a reason to ignore a person who’s handling your food.

I’m willing to bet that the deli clerk agreed with me and probably had visions of launching some cold cuts at her.

I’m not saying that cell phones are bad; I have a Blackberry with a cute Barbie pink silicone housing. I spent more time coming up with a nickname for it than I did naming one of my kids. The fact of the matter is that they come in handy.

And as if I’m not already calling the kettle black, I have a land line, my cell, call waiting and an answering machine. Oh, and my car has Onstar, so it has its own phone and number. I can’t be incommunicado if I wanted to.

Having them and knowing how to manage my communication devices is another matter entirely.

I was on our land line talking to my best friend, Michele, when my cell phone rang; while trying to decide what to do, call waiting began to buzz in.

I’ve never been this popular in my life.

Of course, I was confused, and I’ve never gotten the knack of call waiting. I tried to put Michele on hold to answer the call; pushing random buttons in an attempt to figure out which one would put her on hold and let me talk to whoever was beeping in.

While I was frantically trying to figure out how to see who was beeping in on our conversation, the cell kept ringing. I told who I thought was the person on the call waiting that I’d be right there, as I reached for it. Unfortunately, I had only recently bought the Blackberry, and I didn’t have my reading glasses on so I couldn’t see which button I should push to answer the call.

I was pressing numbers faster than a frenzied accountant on a calculator at tax time.

All the while, the Blackberry was playing Def Leppard’s “Hysteria”; the ring tone that I thought was so cute when I downloaded it. At the time, however, it was an accurate description of me.

Finally, whoever was trying to call the cell gave up, or they went to voice mail. Since I have no idea how to retrieve my voice mail, that’s going to remain a mystery. I was just happy that Def Leppard had finally shut up.

I got back on the landline, thinking that I was going to be talking to whoever had beeped in on Michele and me, only to find Michele laughing. Seriously, what were the odds that I hadn’t managed to put her on hold? Turns out, I’d pushed almost every button on the phone, but managed to dance all around the one that I needed.

When Matt got home that night, I figured out who was beeping in. He wanted to know why I didn’t answer the land line; he’d let it ring twenty times. He thought I might have been in the bathroom.

I asked what he was calling for, and he said he just wanted to know what I was doing. Visions of the lady at the deli counter went running through my head.

Then he said, “Hey, I saw a program the other day.  Did you know they have phones you can put in the bathroom?”

Shoot me now.

When Waterbeds Attack

I’ve always loved waterbeds and had one every since I moved out of my parents’ house; the old fashioned “full baffle”, hard sided waterbed. Fast forward to marrying Matt, and we found a new, soft side waterbed. To make it even cooler, the water was in tubes. This eliminated the full jiggle that the old style was famous for and you can use normal sheets.

Like all beds, however, soft side waterbeds need to be replaced every 5-10 years; it was time for a new bed. I had an idea -why not give the open baffle, full jiggle style a try, and Matt went along with it.

You know, you’d think he’d learn.

We bought our new bed, and I marked the occasion by purchasing satin sheets. The bed was set up, and I opened my new, silky sheets, and began to spread them across the bed; then attempted to tuck them in.

I hadn’t thought far enough ahead to realize that 750 pounds of quasi open water was going to be heavy. Lifting the corner was going to be a challenge.

I struggled to raise it, then jammed my right knee under the mattress. I was able to tuck the sheet under on my left side, but I was at an odd angle, and couldn’t quite tuck it in on my right. I figured that what I needed was more leverage and I didn’t want to lose what I had by removing my knee.

In a move that would make contortionists everywhere proud, I managed to bend down and use my left shoulder to hold up the mattress. In that precarious position (while mentally giving myself a pat on the back for managing such an acrobatic feat), I reached for the sheet with my right hand.

And here’s where the science of wave motion comes into play.

If you push a body of water one way, it’s bound to come back in the direction it came from; often with almost the same force. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw what might as well have been a tidal wave barreling towards me.

Just as it hit, my foot began to slide, sending my body careening backwards. My knee recoiled from under the mattress, slammed into my chest, and I began to slide under the bed (although I think it would more accurately be described as lurching).

My left hand was waving wildly, trying to grab the bed post in a desperate attempt to slow my descent, while I was still clutching the sheet in my right hand. There was no help to be had; I was going down.

I landed with the grace of an elephant on my back.

I was lying there, looking up at my ceiling, legs and arms akimbo, with half of my body underneath the bed, as the rest of the sheet slithered off the mattress and landed on my face.

The theme from “Deliverance” was playing in my head.

I’ve matched wits with children, adults and even animals, and lost. Losing to an inanimate object was a new low, even for me. If only that was the one time my waterbed mocked me, it would be enough. Sadly, it had just started.

I finally managed to get myself up off the floor and an hour later, my new waterbed was made. I beamed with pride.

Note to self: don’t ever beam with pride – it usually doesn’t end well.

When Matt got home, I was excited to show it off. I stood next to the bed and like a “Price is Right” model, I swept one arm over it as I patted it with the other.

He was only minimally impressed, as he didn’t know what I’d been through to get those sheets on that bed. But he was happy, and said that it was a good thing I liked the amount of water in it.

Wait; what?

He explained that after set up, you’re supposed to lie on the bed to see if you prefer more or less water; didn’t I know that?

Why, yes I did (I lied).

Knowing that I probably didn’t, he instructed me to lie down, which I did. Turns out, he was right about adjusting the level of water; my rear end hit the bottom of the bed, while water surrounded me on all sides. If you’ve ever seen someone in drifting down the river an inner tube with their rear ends almost completely immersed, you’ve got the visual.

Unfortunately, in order to add water, we’d have to unzip the pillow top; those sheets that I’d spent the better part of an afternoon putting on had to come off. Thankfully, however, when it was time to put them back on, Matt helped. I wouldn’t be adding another bruise to my posterior.

That night, as usual, Matt went to bed first (I’m a bit of a night owl). When I went in later, Matt’s 6’2” frame had displaced a good sized amount of water; it looked like a small hill on my side of the bed. But I figured that once I lay down, my weight would balance us out. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case and I promptly rolled down the bubble of water, landing face first on Matt.

Taking it in stride, he squinted up at me and said, “Not now, dear, I have a headache.” We adjusted the water levels yet again.

A week later, I got up in the middle of the night to find that a cold front had come through. By the time I came back, I was so cold my teeth were chattering. I went running into the bedroom, trying to get to bed and under the covers as soon as humanly possible.

Now, when I say I “got into bed”, what I meant was I vaulted myself with the grace of a charging rhino. I thudded onto the mattress with such force that Matt was launched off the bed and onto the floor.

I stared at the empty space that he’d previously occupied, mouth agape and held my breath. The wheels in my brain were spinning to come up with an explanation as to why I’d suddenly turned into an Olympic worthy gymnast; and tried to formulate an Olympic sized apology.

After what seemed like an eternity, he got up, looked at me and said, “You know, you’d think I’d be surprised.” Then he got back into bed, pulled the covers up and went back to sleep. I sat there for a good 30 seconds, then breathed a sigh of relief.

It’s been a few months, and we’re both pretty used to the mattress. Although I admit, I’ll feel a lot better when Matt finally stops erecting a mountain of pillows on his side of the bed every night. Thankfully, I haven’t done any more vaulting, and going to bed has gone without incident.

But, in my world, there’s no such thing as “without incident”.  There’ll be plenty more opportunities for Matt to bellow, “Lucy, you’ve got some ‘splainin’ to do!”