Left Out in The Storm

It all started when Hollywood got his hair cut.

For a long time, he'd been thinking about chopping off his curls. Middle school is a tough time and we (and he) thought a shorter, less conspicuous style might make his school days a little more tolerable.

The good news is that it seems to have worked. His confidence is up and he loves his new look. I like it, too: It highlights his sparkly blue eyes, his crazy long lashes, and his firm jawline. And he looks older now, more like the teen he is.

But, it is with this new look, this more grown-up Hollywood, that The Storm's troubles all began.

Let me back up:

It all started when Hollywood got his haircut.

"Oh my gosh!" said the stylist. "I never realized how much you look like Sunshine." 

"Doesn't he?" I said, because although they've always looked alike, suddenly, for his new height, and his new hair, they could be twins.

"Sometimes, I feel left out," said The Storm, later, when she and I left the salon to do some shopping. "I don't look like anyone."

"It's just that they look like Dad and you look like me," I said--but that wasn't what she wanted to hear.

For the next few days, there was much gasping over Hollywood's haircut and the strong resemblance he bore to his big sister. And the two teenagers in our home were suddenly bonding as they hadn't in years, laughing over things that weren't funny to the baby of the family, jokes too sophisticated for a nine-year-old. 

When she wanted to play Monopoly, they didn't. When she wanted to watch Disney movies, they wanted to watch a scary movies. When she wanted cookies, they wanted ice cream.

At the dinner table, the two grew animated sharing stories about thier days at school.

"She's awful," agreed Sunshine, of a teacher Hollywood was complaining about, one she knew from her own middle school years, one whose name The Storm couldn't properly pronounce. More laughing.

"We're doing a science fair," said The Storm, about her own school day, but the teenagers weren't very interested.

Sunshine told us instead about a girl from her science class who was probably on drugs.

"We start our drug awareness course, next week," said Hollywood.

"Oh, that's an intense week," said Sunshine, and she went on to preview all that Hollywood could expect.

The Storm asked to be excused.

We've thought a lot about this, Balthazar and I, about the very different upbringing our two daughters have had. When Sunshine was nine, our dinner table conversations included all the topics you might expect of a family with a preschooler, a second grader, and a fourth grader: dinosaurs, puppies, princesses, and the benefits of eating carrots.

But The Storm, at nine, has been exposed to entirely different family dinner experience.

It's the way of things, Balthazar and I said, by way of forgiving ourselves for the movies we've allowed her to see, the words she's heard, the subjects explored at our table.

Then one evening, shortly after Hollywood had his curls lopped off, when again the subject of how much he resembled his sister came up, The Storm snuck away without even asking to be excused.

She'd been crying for twenty minutes when we found her. 

"We can't help it if we look alike," said Sunshine.

It's more than that I explained after I'd spent another several days thinking about it: "Just because she can keep up with our fast growing family doesn't mean she should have to. She's nine. We need to make room for our nine-year-old."

We started with a game of Monopoly.

Then a family trip to the Santa Monica Pier...

to turn us all into nine-year-olds...

...for just one more day.

Eight Easy Steps to Torture Your Teenager

1. Write a blog about her--include personal information and pictures.

2. Include a link to your blog in your email auto-signature.

3. Send an email to her English teacher...

4. ...in the middle of the school day while your teenager is sitting in English class.

5. Choose a day when the students are ahead of schedule in their Jane Eyre studies and have 20 minutes to kill before the bell rings.

6. Be sure the teacher has a SmartScreen or a some similar technology, so that she can project a magnified version of your blog to the front of the room for all to read.

7. Be sure the English teacher has a nice reading voice so that she will do a brilliant job of reading aloud the posts you've written--about your teenager, her boyfriend, her goofy behavior and her teenage temperment--for the entire 10th grade English class.

8. Also be sure the teacher has a whiteboard, a fresh dry erase marker and concise handwriting, in order that she may share your blog's URL with the students for them to also enjoy it at home.

That's it. That's all it takes. Have fun with it! (I sure did!)

Note: The ever cool cat, Sunshine, took it all in stride--although she admits to blushing furiously--and The Coop had a good laugh about it that night at home.  

Stop. Drop. And Roll.

From the time they are very young we start teaching our children to be safe. We warn them to stay away from the hot oven or the fireplace; to watch their fingers near doors; not to talk to strangers.  We teach them to stop, look, and listen before crossing the road.  "Never stick a knife in the toaster," we say. "Never play with matches." Then we prep them for emergencies, in case they do: "Stop, drop, and roll."

We warn them, again, as they grow older of the dangers of strangers; then the dangers of the internet; the dangers of drinking and driving; and eventually even about the dangers of premarital sex. So, so many dangers that I can't even come close to listing them here.

Then, finally, we will need to free them to the big, bad world--when all we can do is hope, hope that they remember what we taught them; that they think smart and act quickly; that they use their common sense; that they be lucky.

For the most part, I feel confident about my children's safety.  They're smart. They've got savvy. They follow rules. So, I sleep pretty easy at night.

Then I wake in the morning to this:

"What are you doing? Haven't I taught you anything?"

 

"It's okay, Mom. It works. I saw it on the internet." 

 Heaven help us! It's definitely time for some refresher courses.

Greener Grasses

 

Before we moved into our home, she had sat vacant for five years, so the neighbors have told us.  She wasn't in terrible condition, just sadly neglected.  But we liked the neighborhood and the price, and she was in better shape than a lot of abandoned houses in Vegas. So, last January, we bought her. Immediately, we tackled the most important work. We fixed what was broken and scrubbed what needed scrubbing. We ripped up the filthy carpets to lay shiny new floors; and then we unpacked. 

 

Right about that time, of course, began our five months of lousy hell, wherein all household renovations were put aside while we battled the bugs.

 

Then it was summer in Vegas and too damn hot to do anything.

 

But in the lovely temperatures of fall, and bug-free, The Coop finally got at our home-in-progress projects again, painting and decorating, and tending to our abode with all the TLC she hadn't had for so long. 

 

"It's starting to feel like a home," said Sunshine, and I agreed. Warm hues on the wall and some attention to cozy and comforting details had made the difference--on the inside anyway, but there was still the matter of the yard.  In the front it was fine. The demands of the HOA ensured that the bank had kept the grass watered and the weeds plucked, but the backyard was a whole other story.

 

For five years, the backyard, which was obviously once rich with greens and florals and palms, was left to grow dry and die, so that by the time we arrived to clean her up, we were forced to yank more than two thirds of the original trees and bushes, more than thirty, in total.  And the driest of dirt had long ago replaced the back lawn. 

 

First we tried seeding.  The result: Many, many birds. Then long weeds grew, in sporadic clumps, of the few seeds our feathered friends had missed.       

 

We would need to sod, we determined, but it would be expensive--and double that for the labor. 

 

"We'll do it ourselves," said Balthazar.

 

And, this weekend, we did!  Or rather, they did.

 

 

Hollywood hauled the sod from the driveway, where it had been delivered, to the backyard. 

 

 

Balthazar layed it out.

 

 

 

The Storm stamped it down and watered it.

 

And Sunshine tilled the dirt in prepartion for it all.

 

 

For my part, I made and delivered pancakes--they started very early on Saturday morning.

 

Kids today aren't required to do much manual labor, particularly anything so strenuous as laying sod. In one sense that's good; In another, it's a shame.  The physical exertion of heavy lifting is so thoroughly satisfying; the pride of a job well done is utterly fulfilling; and the pillow on your bed, at the end of it all--aah!--there's not much better.

 

 

 

 

All three of the kids had a blast! And Balthazar was mighty proud of them.  

 

Sure, they were a bit sore the next day, but it was that good kind of sore.

 

As for me, now I can say, without a doubt: The grass really is greener on my side of the six foot wall!

 

 



The Pumpkin Patch

 

Sunshine was two when we made our first annual trip to the pumpkin patch.  We were dressed in winter coats, of course, when we visited a farm north of Toronto, Ontario, where the cornfield maze was so large there were lookouts stationed in high set chairs, like lifeguards, to direct the too-long lost through bullhorns.

 

When Hollywood was two we moved to Iowa, where the corn stood equally high, and as far as the eye could see.  The pumpkin farms (and fun) went on for days--hayrides, petting zoos, mini tractor racetracks, and whole pools of corn kernels to dig in--and could be stumbled upon every few ever-so-flat miles. 

 

 

Now, we are in Vegas. The pumpkin patches come in from California to set down in parking lots on busy street corners.  When they finally haul out, Christmas trees replace them, on the blacktop. 

 

But they aren't without their thrills! 

Her smile says it all!

The Devil and Mrs. Potato Head

In one of my earliest Halloween memories, I'm five years old and already the kids are knocking at the door, even though my mother's only come home from work, and my father, too.  I remember that they took turns shelling out candy, while they scrounged up a costume for me.  I recall being disappointed when my father suggested they put his old coat on me so that I could be a hobo, then my delight as he lit a match and burned the butt of a wine cork to rub on my face--dirtying me up enough to satisfy my five-year-old sense of authenticity.  In my memory, crumpled newspapers are wrapped in a blue bandanna that hangs from the end of a stick I carried--although I suspect this is just my grown-up self filling in the details.  In actuality, I would have carried a plastic shopping bag.

By the time I was seven, I'd taken Halloween matters into my own hands, designing a devil's costume--my best friend was an angel.  I wore red shorts over red tights, and the same red turtle neck of my school picture that year.  I carried a big pitchfork made of tinfoil and wore horns of the same, attached to a hair band, as well as a tail safety-pinned to my bottom.

This is the last Halloween costume I can remember wearing as a child, although, of course, it isn't the last one I wore. I trick-or-treated well into high school and then there were parties and dances every year after that, right on through college and into my early years with Balthazar, when we dressed up as Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head.  I remember that year well: the trip to Goodwill, and the fabric store, and the hours we spent together on the floor sewing felt to foam.

I'm not sure why I can't remember my costumes of the fifteen years in between the devil and Mrs. Potato Head, but I suspect (because each year my parents had a little more money than the last) that these costumes that have escaped my memory were of the purchased sort, and not homemade.

Last week, two weeks in advance of Halloween 2012, The Storm and I went costume shopping for her.  She had a particular outfit in mind, one she'd seen online, and sure enough when we arrived to the party store, there it was on the wall with the hundred others that I'll see over and over again on my doorstep on October 31st; the hundred others that will make their way door-to-door across America.

But, since it was only two weeks until Halloween, the store was already sold out of The Storm's size. She tried on a slightly larger one--but it was too large.  She opted for a second choice, to the same results. And a third.  

"Why don't we go home and make you a costume?" I said.  The entire costume-shopping experience was becoming a bit of a Halloween nightmare: the aisles were overcrowded; children were throwing tantrums; the staff was miserable; and the bright fluorescent lights seemed to magnify everything, including the cheap quality of the overpriced satins and plastics.

"Maybe I'll try that one," The Storm said, pointing to a fourth choice, instead.

"Sorry," said another dead-eyed staff person.

"Well, I'll take that one then," she said of a little red devil's costume.

 
"I was a devil one Halloween," I told her.  "I remember it perfectly."  And I told her all about my big pitchfork of tinfoil. 

 

She wasn't really interested. 

 

I wonder if she'll remember those sparkly wings thirty-five years from now?  I don't think so.  

Fall's Colors

Fall in Las Vegas is a wonderful time!  Even without all the golden hues.

 

When the summer heat finally lets up and the temperatures drop into the pleasant 80's, and even into the 70's, folks start to venture outside again.  In that way, it's sort of like spring everywhere else.  Anyway, after a long hot desert summer, we're making the most of it.

 

 

Here are some pics of our Sunday morning walk.

 



Of course, we stopped to check out butterflies....

 

And the ponds and waterfalls (courtesy of the Hoover Dam and some hefty HOA fees)....

 



 

We climbed a few trees....

 

And every few blocks we stopped to water and rest Shadow... 

 

Meet Shadow! She's our five-and-a-half-year-old miniature schnauzer.  (Here's the funny story about how she came to be a part of our family; page 27, "The Ultimatum": http://www.vegasseven.com/digital/2012/08/09/flip)  

Until, eventually, there was no more water, and our slow-going walk had moved well beyond the cool of early morning, so the black and furry Shadow--who works ten times as hard as necessary, for all the leash-pulling she does--could no longer go on.

While The Coop had a sit down, Mom jogged the remaining mile home to fetch the truck, to save the dog (who swallowed the fly?) I don't know why.

"You love that dog," says Balthazar.

"I don't," I reply. (See "The Ultimatum.")

Anyway, once home, we put on our painting clothes and the kids went at the family room walls, graffiti-style. The cooler weather has inspired us to finally decorate the home we purchased last winter. (That and I'm not nearly in the car so much, since Sunshine left ballet, so I have time now.)

It was a bit bold of us to settle on gray and red--we're generally more taupe-like folks.  But, I gotta say, I'm loving the contrast!


 

 

We hope to have the whole house finished by Christmas. Pics of the dining room, next week.