Category Archives: kids

Kindergarten Memories

Posted on by Stacy Swiger

Kid D's first day of kindergarten. Before he learned how to fake sickness or comb his hair.

I’ve been trying to plan Kid D’s kindergarten classroom end of the year celebration for the past couple of days.  My head is about to explode.  Party planning is definitely not one of my strong suits, so I do not know what I was thinking when I wrote my name on the classroom coordinator volunteer list back in August.  I think I was fooled by the fancy title.  If it had said “Room Mom” I definitely would have steered clear of that nonsense.  But I saw coordinator and thought, “Sure… I’ll create a couple of Google documents, send some e-mails, you know – coordinate.  I can handle that.”

So, as I sit here trying to come up with inexpensive, fun, creative, indoor/ outdoor party games, crafts and foods for five and six year olds that do not break any of the expressly written school party guidelines (“Spitting of any type should be avoided” – I kid you not) or offend / exclude any specific race, religion, creed or sexual orientation, I very naturally went into procrastination mode and started thinking about the fact that Kid D is going on to first grade next year, and before I know it he will be graduating from high school.  Then I started recalling all of the fun times we had over his first year of “real” school.

Like the second day of school when he started crying less than five minutes before the bus pulled up – over something completely inane – and got himself into such a tizzy that he wouldn’t even get on the bus when it was time.  I then had to try to stem the meltdown and figure out what he was upset about.  No luck there, but he seemed a little better after a few minutes so I drove him to school and had to walk him inside (still in my pajamas with coffee breath, no doubt) because we were now late and he had to be signed in.  When we got to the lobby he started a whole new level of screaming and crying that became so disruptive that the actual principal came out of his office to see who was apparently being violently murdered in his hallway.  So that’s how my son and I met the school principal.

And also there was the time when I was at a sporting event for another kid and a parent came over to introduce herself to me as the mom of one of Kid D’s female classmates.  She told me how much of a charmer my son is (I am aware) and that all of the girls in the class think he is dreamy (I was not necessarily aware of this) and then she asked me if I heard that Kid D told her daughter that he was going to kiss her so hard that he would knock her teeth out (um, zero awareness of this and actually at a loss for words).  I’m going to have to keep an eye on him.

Or the time that I realized that playing video games was clearly having a negative impact on Kid D’s behavior.  He apparently thought that staying home sick meant he could spend all day playing Wii in the basement.  One particular Monday morning back to school was really bad.  As per usual, Kid D claimed he was “sick.”  I was on to his scheme by then and wasn’t having any of it.  When threatened with losing everything electronic forever and TV for several weeks if he didn’t stop crying and get on the bus he replied, “You’re meaner than the meanest person I thought you were!”  Then he stormed off to his room.  I was furious, but I followed him and calmly replied, “I said ZERO electronics, so NO LIGHTS!” and the room went dark.

He’s had some great times this year as well.  He is reading chapter books fluently on his own.  He lowered his Hate of Writing from DEFCON 3 to just simple dislike.  He has gained a ton of independence and is learning all of the ropes of the elementary school jungle.  He is an outgoing, confident, smart kid who makes friends easily and plays sports well.  We are incredibly blessed to have him as a son.

I just hope I never get a call from the school principal telling me that he just knocked some girl’s teeth out.  How am I ever going to explain that one?

Wish me luck for tomorrow…

I am Rich

Posted on by Stacy Swiger

I promise that I will not bore you with all of the sappy details of my Mother’s Day haul, but suffice it to say that I am a very rich woman.  Rich with love, and all of the stuff that really and truly matters (except on the day that the mortgage or the car payment is due, huh?).  I was not with my family on the actual holiday, so I had all of the loot from my kids waiting for me when I got home.  I cheated and went through everything when they were at school so I could be ready to feign excitement over the crappy gifts and rein it in on the ones that really make me bawl my eyes out when they eventually got opened in front of them.

I truly treasure the gifts that measure them when they are little (tiny handprints with poems, school pictures of the kids with little notes reminding me that time goes by so quickly – all the stuff that I later save in their Boxes of Love in the basement) because I can look back and actually see how tiny they once were, but honestly those gifts are kind of boring.  I am a big fan of the practical gifts, like paper flowers that have chores written on the back which I can trade in when I need help, but they get used quickly and destroyed immediately by the giver so I won’t cheat and use any more than once.  I’d have to say without question that my favorite Mother’s Day presents are the things that show each kid’s personality and really remind me just how different each of my kids are.  I was not disappointed even one iota this year.

One of my kids found a song that makes her think of me (WRONG! if you are humming the Elton John classic “The Bitch is Back”), learned to play it on the guitar, then performed it for me.  Another kid just went with the classic “I Love You” and a big hug, testing my constant assertion that I do not ever require a gift from them on any of the mother-honoring holidays (I swear I don’t).  Another gave me a full bouquet of the aforementioned chore vouchers.  The other two gave me a bunch of presents that they obviously made with love in school.

One of my all time favorites is the fill-in-the-blank questionnaire.  I look forward to these every year.  Some gems from this year’s batch include:  Her favorite food is real food (as opposed to fake food, or did he mean carbs, which I haven’t had in three weeks and I miss so much), Mommy and I like to ride the thing with the brown seat (a horse?  the car? sorry, no clue), and My mommy is the greatest because Daddy is the greatest too! (focus, kid, he has his own holiday in a month).  I particularly loved the drawings that went along with Kid D’s present.  On the one of what I supposedly looked like when I was six (his age), had me clearly wearing red stripper platform shoes.  Apparently, he is a little more like his Daddy than I even imagined.  He also scored big points with the topical and complimentary one that said “My mother is good at bloging.”

Sucking up on Mother's Day. Mom says, "Do This." Kid replies, "OK." Oh, so this is fictional.

You can't spell for crap, but you get my age correct? Osum.

My heart is full every day, even if my patience bucket is not.  Each one of these presents shows me that my kids are learning that you should let the people who are important to you know that they are important to you in your own way.  Do it with words, pictures, music, a love note, a hug or a smile.  Do it on Mother’s Day, on their birthday, but also do it today and next Monday and again on the fourth Thursday in November (oops, that’s Thanksgiving – but you get my point).  Do it in your special way and on your own terms, because unconditional love has no rules.

Wish me luck for tomorrow…

No, He Didn’t

Posted on by Stacy Swiger

Mornings, "Mother's Day, Run Away" style. I'll never tell what is in my mug.

I also considered calling this post “Payback is a Female Dog,” but enough about animals already.  If you read Friday’s post, you would be aware that I have gone out of town every Mother’s Day weekend for four years now.  My weekend is filled with a whole lot of nothing but reading, sleeping, and pondering the wonderment of life.  I am actually still pondering right now.

Yesterday was Mother’s Day.  I awoke on my own, had a great cup of coffee while watching boats go in and out of the marina, leisurely read the paper (Shout Out!  The Press of Atlantic City), and went to a fantastic Mother’s Day service at the church in which Sheepdog and I were married (Shout Out!  Rev. Ron Watts).  Then I came back and fell asleep on the deck for over an hour.  It was a fantastic day.

After a simple veggie burger and tomato lunch I decided to check in with the real world and read some emails.  Sheepdog always says that he is never quite sure that I will return from one of these trips (and rightfully so), so he is careful not to call me too often, leave too many messages, or generally bug the crap out of me.  See – I told you that Sheepdog is a very smart guy.  Yet on Mother’s Day, in a very uncharacteristic twist, this is the email that Sheepdog sent me.

To: Me
From: Sheepdog
Subject: Mohawk
Attachment:

Happy Mother's Day!

A friend saw the picture and after she stopped laughing hysterically she said that’s either the kind of thing that you find incredibly endearing, or the kind of thing that you will kill your husband over. (Shout out! Payback is a female dog).

Wish me luck for tomorrow (and maybe wish Sheepdog a little luck too)…

4th Annual Mother’s Day – Run Away

Posted on by Stacy Swiger

"I'm leaving on a jet plane. Don't know when I'll be back again." - John Denver, "Leaving on a Jet Plane," 1966. Also, - Me, today.

Sometimes I need a break.  If you are a mom and you don’t need a break once in a while then my hat is off to you, you big, fat liar.  If I can get away – just for a few days now and again – from the crazy and the schedule and the whining and the chaos, then I can better handle it all with patience and understanding and without child protective services ever needing to get involved.  Plus, it helps me to shield Sheepdog from the insanity (I try to have most of it under control by the time he comes home from work).  Fortunately for me, Sheepdog recognizes and appreciates all of this and he sends me away often.

Last year I went to the Dominican Republic for eight whole days, while he stayed here to care for the kids and work from home at the same time.  Then (with only 36 hours notice!) he sent me to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico for another eight days in February.  Last weekend I attended my cousin’s wedding in Atlantic City, and I was out of town for three days.  So when my annual solo escape for Mother’s Day fell on the very next weekend I didn’t even consider going.  But Sheepdog is awesome, so he is making me go anyway.

Mother’s Day, Run Away is my weekend to do nothing.  I will not wipe one butt, nose, nor dirt-smeared face (unless we’re talking about my own).  I will not intervene in one sibling argument, nor will I help drive anyone to or from an activity.  I will not give anyone a bath, nor will I put anyone to bed (thirty-seven times in one night).  I am going to sleep for twelve uninterrupted hours, listen to good music, read books and trashy magazines, then take a nap on the deck.  I will probably be bored after one day, but I will force myself to enjoy it.

If you see Sheepdog at soccer or tee ball or meandering the aisles at Kroger, please stop and tell him how awesome he is.  Maybe even flirt and tell him how sexy it is that he sends me off for some alone time.  He will totally dig that and thus be encouraged to send me away again.  And next year you can feel free to join me.

Unless you need someone to wipe your butt.  Then you are on your own.

Inappropriate “Fortune” Cookies

Posted on by Stacy Swiger

Kid B came home yesterday with a paper for me to sign about an upcoming Market Day for the 6th graders at her middle school.  Each child has to come up with a prototype – of anything really – which they will then mass produce (twenty or more are required) for under twenty dollars.  They will then “sell” these items in a market-like format in the cafeteria or gym for “dollars” (most likely something counterfeit with the principal’s picture on it).  The goal is to have the most fake money at the end.  It is also supposed to teach stuff about supply and demand, manufacturing, sales, price points, and getting rich quick schemes.  I’m in.

From what I recall of Kid A doing this same project, a lot of kids bring in some sort of craft project.  Pipe cleaners, beads, pom-poms, popsicle sticks, felt swatches and glue guns.  Ugh!  This is not my area of like or expertise.  My mom was/ is a kind of Martha Stewart on meth (extraordinarily creative and never sleeps), so I grew up in a house full of crap projects everywhere.  Sorry, craft projects.  I kind of hate them actually.  If this is the plan, I’m now out.  Kid B knows this and wants me to help her (read: do the project for her), so she opts for something she knows I’d be on board with… baking cookies.  Smart kid.  I’m waaaaaaay back in.

Who wouldn’t want to buy a chocolate chunk cookie?  Sales will not be a problem, but we should try to stand out even more with some kind of hook.  One of the requirements is that the items have to be individually packaged, so each cookie has to be in its own plastic bag.  We thought about it some more and Kid B came up with the idea of putting a little fortune inside each bag and calling them “fortune” cookies.  Fun, right?  Then I had the additional brilliant idea of gearing the fortunes specifically to her audience.  This is apparently where I got out of hand.

My proposal was this…  She should divide the cookies by secret color coding into three groups – teachers, girls and boys.  There will be a set of fortunes geared toward each customer.  For example, teacher cookies would say things like,”YOU ARE EVERYONE’S FAVORITE TEACHER” and “YOU WON’T HAVE TO DEAL WITH ANY CRAPPY, KNOW-IT-ALL PARENTS NEXT SEMESTER.”  Girl cookies would have fortunes along the lines of “THAT’S TOO MUCH EYELINER –  YOU LOOK LIKE A PROSTITUTE” or “YOUR BOOBS WILL GROW OVER THE SUMMER.”  And the boys’ cookies would say things like, “YOU WILL SOON BE AS STRONG AS YOUR DAD,”  “JUSTIN BEIBER CALLED AND HE WANTS HIS HAIRSTYLE BACK” and “A GIRL WITH LOW SELF-ESTEEM WILL LET YOU GET TO SECOND BASE VERY SOON.”  I had some real zingers.  I was laughing at myself so hard that I almost didn’t hear when Kid B told me I was fired from the project.

I am so under-appreciated.  Whatever.

Wish me luck for tomorrow…

You’re Not Ugly

Posted on by Stacy Swiger

Some of my kids I worry about, but not so much Kid E.  What is one of the most critical things to master in the grown-up world?  People Skills.  You won’t get anywhere if you don’t know how to deal with people.  And the best of the best always seem to leave us wanting more.  That’s why I think Kid E is on his way to having it all figured out.  Seriously.  But did I mention that he is three?

He goes to pre-school a few mornings a week.  Pre-school in a strip mall.  I learned years ago that the best pre-schools are not the pretty new buildings with the high-tech computer rooms for babies and the young, sexy teachers (Sheepdog was sad, sad, sad when I figured that out), but the best places to send your kids are the ones that sometimes smell just faintly of pee and have women running the show in sweatpants and ball caps.  Some of the best pre-school teachers and day care providers I have met have been the ones who work in older facilities that have been around for ages and put more money into macaroni and glitter than any of that other unnecessary stuff.  These are the women who usually have kids of their own and they have been through all of it and yet they still choose to work in a place filled with other people’s snotty, whiny children all day long.  They actually like what they do and they care about my kids.  These are the women I want running my pre-school show.

Anyway, Kid E goes to school and he loves it.  He learns letters and shapes and colors and songs.  He ends his days with a sticker and a stamp.  It doesn’t get much better than that for him.  He really loves his teacher.  She came in mid-year and replaced another teacher who he couldn’t get enough of, yet apparently he loves the new one more.  Do you want to know how I know?  He paid her his highest compliment.  He totally grabbed both of her cheeks with both of his sweaty little hands and looked her straight in the eyes and said with all the seriousness he could muster, “You’re.  Not.  Ugly.”  And, just like that (snap!), she was putty in his hands.

It is true because shortly after he buttered her up they had a conflict regarding the overuse of hand soap in the bathroom.  She was (rightfully) telling him not to do something and he got mad at her.  She stuck to her guns and he shut her out the rest of the day.  He wasn’t disrespectful (not allowed), but he withheld hugs and would not even say goodbye when we left.  I could see the pain in her eyes as he left her.  I think that she probably cried herself to sleep that night.  I told her that she should be ashamed for allowing a little kid to outsmart her.  He was becoming a master puppeteer already.  We are in for some serious manipulation, folks.

Think about the genius of it for a moment.  We all love to have compliments paid to us.  Don’t you get a little extra bounce in your walk if somebody notices a new haircut or mentions how cute your outfit is on any regular day?  Of course you do.  And it is hard to deny the drawing power of someone who plays hard to get.  That unreachable, untouchable, unattainable something or someone can be like crack if you get it in your head deep enough.  Somehow, with three simple words this kid managed to combine the two.  It’s not really a compliment, yet it makes you feel like you are special.  It is actually just a negated insult presented as kudos.  Unbelievable.

So my little Pre-School Playa continued to woo the masses.  He sensed the power and started to dole out variations like, “You’re not scary” and “You don’t smell bad.”  People would eat it up.  They think he is charming.  He was starting to get comfortable and I was momentarily a little worried that he might grow up to be one of those jerks who only gave out backhand compliments as some sort of control move.  This was the kind of boy that I didn’t ever want coming near my daughters.  What if I became the Mother of one?  I had to stop this behavior immediately, no matter how cute it was coming from a toddler.  Then one day out of the blue he grabbed both of my cheeks with both of his sweaty little hands, looked me straight in the eyes and said with all the sincerity in the world, “You.  Are.  Cute.”  My heart swelled with joy as I replied, “and You’re.  Not.  Stupid.”

Nope, I really don’t worry so much about that kid.

I Have to Start Somewhere

Posted on by Stacy Swiger

…mid-sentence, so I can introduce you to my lack of formality right from the beginning.

Right now my life revolves mostly around my husband and our five kids.  My husband (“Sheepdog”) is an attorney and a cyclist (road and mountain).  The kids (“Kid A,” “Kid B,” “Kid C,” “Kid D” and “Kid E”) – three girls followed by two boys – go from high school all the way down to pre-school, so we are dealing with a huge array of life experiences.  I want to write about them because (1) I like to write; (2) they provide endless funny, scary, sad, exasperating stories that are sure to entertain; and (3) having something to do is probably better for me than watching DVR’d reality shows all day.

Many people tell me that I am good at managing a large family.  Organization comes very naturally to me.  Honestly, I love what I do most of the time.  There are always periods of adjustment (the start of a new sports season or new school year) and times of desperation (when everyone is sick or when I try to do too much of anything), but I have an incredibly supportive husband and generally really great kids so we usually make it all work.  The balance comes from having a good system with a fair distribution of responsibilities, but also a wicked sense of humor because you know what they say about the best-laid plans.

I really like the idea of reminding people that nobody is perfect and nobody has the ideal life, no matter how awesome it may seem from their Facebook page.  I hope that I am able to write as openly and candidly about the times that I screw up as I am about the things that make me proud.  I am actually convinced that it will make for better reading when I focus on the former.  Fortunately I like to make fun of myself and I have ample opportunities to make a mess of things.

I am a little obsessive-compulsive, although that has surprisingly subsided slightly with age (Sheepdog may argue with this point).  I make my bed every day.  I love a good schedule.  I like potty humor.  I love zoos.  I do not love animals.  I love sleep and the beach.  I may get a little orgasmic if I can sleep on the beach.  I can be judgmental.  I do not like working out, but I do it because I dislike being out of shape more.  I like being a stay-at-home mom because I can wear sweatpants to work, but I feel bad that I do not take more time to do my hair or put on makeup every day.  I can be ornery.  I am not very politically correct.  I like to be good at things.

I have been blessed with good health and good luck and a good family.  I realize that the world can be a very scary place if you don’t have those things.  I believe that positive thinking and consistent hard work can make a big difference.  I believe in the power of shared experiences and how hearing about somebody else going through something similar can make you feel less alone.  I hope that you will read along as I go through and tell you about my life experiences and that you might laugh and cry and scream.  Both with and at me.

Welcome to my world!

Oh, and wish me luck for tomorrow…