A pile of pictures (and Succinctly Yours!)

For some reason I didn't remember to take pictures until after the party was over.  Here is my hard working husband tearing things down in the yard.

Well, I would call my son's end of the year party a success, although there were a few bumps along the way.  Out of 24 invites (he had announced the party to the whole class, so we then invited everybody!)we had only 11 respond back-4 "no's" and 7 "yes's." Now I was more than a little overjoyed at having a smaller number, but I was also amazed that 13 didn't respond one way or the other. I can't help but think what if it was them?  Would they be upset at the lack of manners? Hmm, I wonder... My son was also disappointed, and maybe that's why I'm upset about it too.

We also had one of the kids (a very good friend of my son's this year)RSVP that he was coming and I called the dad to make sure he knew how to get to our house, but on the day of the party he was a no-show. My son wanted me to call him, but I didn't want to pry. I'm just hoping that everything is all right.

This is the spider man bounce house we rented.  It was a hit despite the soaring temperatures.

My daughter decided to get in some solitary bouncing while all the boys were elsewhere!

Here are my three monkeys jumping around before we let the air out of the house.

Here are the last of the party goers winding things down with a game of beach bingo-we needed to cool off in the air condition after being outside all day.

We did a little more water balloon games than we had originally planned to keep the kids cool (and the water balloon toss turned into an all out war of boys against the only two girls), but all in all I thought things went well. I asked my son to rate the party on a scale of 1-10 and he gave it a 9 (where I lost that one point I don't know-LOL!)

Now it's time for Succinctly Yours, another writing meme that piggy backs on the idea of Susan of the Stony River Blog. Grandma Goulash posts a picture and you are to write a 140 character or word story about it. You can also use the word of the day in your post if you wish. Once again it's late, but I wanted to quickly get this one in...

This week's word is lavender. Here is the picture and my poem (yes, poem-I couldn't think of a story this week.)

Two geese by a pond

Pensive and still

One jumps in

The other never will

Alone on the bank

Time slips by

One still sits

But now asks why 

(138 characters with a lot of chopping and no punctuation, but what the heck, right?  Poetic license...)

This picture made me think of taking chances in life-I don't want to be that goose left on the bank (and I hope you don't either!) Can't wait to see what everyone else wrote-I'll come by tomorrow.

Rumble at the choral concert

I finally feel calm enough to write about the "incident" I have been referring to in my past couple posts, plus, most of my friends and co-workers have helped ease my conscience considerably (they're telling me that I am not an evil person.) I am going to try to keep this short, but we shall see…

Last Wednesday was my daughter’s 6th grade choral concert (I found out Monday that her black shoes were too tight and her black Capri pants were a little too short but that’s another story entirely.)

Anyway, we were all dressed and ready to go about 45 minutes ahead of schedule, which is rare, so we thought we should take advantage of this and get to the school early. (The choral concert also includes the band and jazz band performances, and because there are so many kids in the 5th and 6th grades, they do each grades' concert on separate days.)

As we were walking through the parking lot, we passed a sweet mother daughter moment where the mom was giving her daughter a quick hug before the girl ran into the school. But you know the proverb, "Never judge a book by its cover?" Well, this saying played out about five minutes later inside the auditorium.

My husband and I walked into the auditorium and I noticed that we weren’t as early as I thought-there was quite a crowd already seated and as my husband ushered my daughter out towards the music room, he gestured over at some empty seats about three rows from the front on the right side of the room (my daughter assured us that she would be standing on the risers facing this section of the room.)

I walked up to two people on the end of the row and asked if any of the seats next to them were taken. Since they answered "No" I quickly glanced down the row-there were three women sitting at the other end but quite a few empty seats in the middle, so I took my son’s hand and started walking in.

I was just putting my things down when a woman walked up to me and said in a terse tone,

"How many seats do you need?"

Without looking up (I was taking off my son’s coat at the time) I told her I only needed three seats. Her reply was that she needed four but I really wasn’t paying attention to her to realize that she was not happy. Irritated she said,


"Well this isn’t going to work,"

and her tone of voice finally caught my attention and I turned to look at her. Guess who I saw glaring at me? Yep, you guessed it-that same loving woman I saw only five minutes earlier in the parking lot.

I was more than a little startled because I didn’t understand why this woman was still talking to me and why she was angry-the only thing I can say is that it had been a hectic day at work and I had quite a few things on my mind, so the obvious wasn’t obvious. I shrugged my shoulders and started to sit down and that’s when the full fury of this woman was unleashed. She started screaming at me at the top of her lungs saying a lot of things like

"How dare you!" and "Don’t you know that I got here first?" 

and insinuating that I had no moral character whatsoever. (I also want to add that this woman was huge both in height and girth and she was towering over me as she screamed. She also tried to get everyone else to notice my apparent insensibility by addressing the people in the rows around us and wildly waving her arms.)

At this point I looked to my left and noticed that there were only three available seats and the whole scope of this situation hit me at last-this woman was accusing me of stealing seats. A lot started going on in my head at that moment-a part of me wished madly for my husband to get back, a part thought I should get up and get the heck away from this woman, and the other part (the one I am totally baffled by) decided to just stay seated. You see, I am not one to draw attention to myself, and my friends and co-workers all know me as the "peace maker"-I try to get along with everybody. (Okay, I might still argue with my husband but that doesn’t count.)

I anxiously looked over at my son who was staring at this woman open-mouthed, and once again I told myself to get out of there, that any decent mother would leave, but I couldn’t move. I guess I was silently protesting, just sitting staring straight ahead until this woman either hit me (and I really thought she would), we would be asked to leave, or she gave up.

Thankfully she decided to move on, and would you believe that she found four seats together in the front row-right in front of me? She turned around shouting (just like she was on stage),

"Now here are four seats together and these people have no problem with my family sitting here."

She stopped rather abruptly and sat down and I looked to see why-my husband was making his way down the row towards me. He started asking what was going on and I whispered back that apparently I am a seat thief and for him to just sit down. He did so but not without shouting, "Is it that big mouth there?" Let’s just say that if I could have sunk into the floor I would have, and after giving him my death stare he sat down.

I had to watch this woman be-bopping her head during the entire concert, and when my daughter took the stage, I couldn’t see her because this woman’s daughter decided to stand fully turned to face the audience! She smiled at her mother while her mother sang along (I am not exaggerating), and I just hoped for an end to this evening.

My daughter saw my face after the concert and asked what was bothering me, and let’s just say I never walked as fast as I did that night-I just wanted out of there! As we headed for home, I gave a slimmed down version of the "incident"while my husband laughed-he still thinks it’s funny and is now referring to me as "the bruiser." I also covertly asked whether my daughter was friends with the girl who stood in front of her-her response (thankfully) was no, so I am hoping that I will never meet this woman again (at least not until next year’s concert-wish me luck…)

Survival of the Tactful

After traveling back and forth between family and relatives I am happy to report that I have survived (barely) and am back for my first blog post of the year. I had a few particularly unnerving events happen during some of those visits so I decided to do some evaluating. I ‘m not talking about New Year’s resolutions (I never make any because I never keep any) I’m talking about reviewing, analyzing, scrutinizing-heck, any scientific term would apply here-how I relate to those around me, and should I change.

I have two problems that probably stem from a pretty unhappy childhood. Yes, I know that everyone who has problems turns around and blames their upbringing, so I will say that mine started then, but to this day I still can’t get a handle on them. My problems are an endless need to be right (more so with family-it's a sister thing), and a lack of tact-you know, that part of the brain that stops your mouth from saying everything that pops into your head? Well, I was born without that part, and let’s just say that this has caused more than a few problems over the years, especially with my family.

I used to think I was just being direct, telling it like it is without all the sugary coating, and I often say that I prefer this approach in others. When everyone else tiptoed around a subject, I often stated what I thought everyone else was dying to say, using “the truth will set you free” as my mantra. I would often use the excuse of being the outsider looking in and how those directly involved in a situation just don’t see how it affects everyone else around them, and to some extent that is true. But there is a fine line between being direct and being unkind and I actually learned this lesson from witnessing the behavior in one of my relatives.

Now in my defense, I had been battling a stomach virus during most of our stay with relatives, so peace at all cost because it’s the holidays wasn’t something I could muster in my current state-I was tired of watching people eat food I couldn’t eat, and I just wanted to go home to sleep in my own bed, but that was still a four hour drive away. So, I sat and listened, giving my opinion freely even though it was never sought, while my husband coughed every time he thought I was about to cross the line.

I had almost made it through the evening when a younger member of my family arrived at my parents’ house. The change in this person’s behavior was obvious, and I was immediately taken aback by how freely this person gave an opinion, an opinion that was never sought. Now other family members had warned me about this person’s attitude change, but I hadn’t believed it until now. This person hurt not only my daughter’s feelings, but she also talked about my sister when she was out of earshot, and disrespected me all in the course of an hour. I waited for an admonition that never came, so the defender of truth and right, little old me, opened my mouth and let her rip.

I said this person had become mean and that I had listened to the nasty comments coming out of their mouth since they walked through the door, but I would do so no more. I wanted some assurances that this type of talk would end, and I waited for a confirmation before I stopped. Now granted, I do not feel bad for putting a stop to rude behavior in a very young adult, but what I do regret is the lack of tact I used after my speech, and I spoke in front of this person’s mother, another sister of mine. I think I said something to the affect that if this person acted appropriately then maybe this person would be allowed to talk this evening-not good, and to say that my sister took it badly is a grave understatement. She had more than a few choice things to say about me, and I had at least some sense just to let her rattle on. Let’s just say that the end result was her hasty departure and thank goodness it was late because I now had an excuse to leave as well.

I am not sure how this will play out in the end, but I can’t help but notice the similarities between this person and myself. How can I preach about respect and discretion when I have failed to show it myself? Now granted I have never in my lifetime talked to aunts, uncles, or other relatives as this young person did, and in all my years of teaching I have never had anyone talk to me in this manner, and it is inexcusable. There is also a distinct difference between mean commenting and giving an opinion. However, this person has adopted a decidedly superior air that I must confess I have used when hammering home my point of view with my sisters. Maybe I need to heed my own advice.

Oh no...It's dinner time.

My husband and I -or maybe just me with my husband going along to keep the peace- have decided our kids need to learn better table manners, but the process is killing us. Our once semi-pleasant dinner hour is now mommy’s critics corner where violators of the agreed upon protocol are reprimanded continuously from the time we start the meal, until the time the meal is over.

And at the end of the meal, we usually just stare dumbstruck at each other as our rule breakers happily go off to play.

So what brought about our worry concerning our beloved children’s table etiquette? Several things really, like observations during meals out, and then paying more attention to how my kids were eating instead of how much they weren’t eating. My son is a rather picky eater right now, so my main concern has always been in the amount of food he is getting and not in the fact that he chooses to use his fingers instead of his fork. But after painfully witnessing and enduring several dinner blunders, I quickly decided that I had to set a standard of decorum when it comes to sitting down to a meal, and I decided on the following:

• Forks not fingers will be used to bring food to our mouths, and the only exception will be designated finger foods such as pizza. This rule also includes using the serving utensils instead of our appendages to put more food on your plates
This has started to be a real problem in our house, and most of it, I think, is due to just laziness. I can’t tell you how many times I repeat this during one meal, but when I pay attention to what I’m eating and look back again, their fingers are once again on their plates! I remember saying that no one would want to sit next to them at lunch if their hands were constantly in their food, and I got the, “Everyone else does it too” response.

• While singing at the top of your lungs may be enjoyable to you, the rest of us could use a break, so please refrain from doing this at the table and anywhere in our general vicinity.
I would love to sing Christmas caroles with you, but I don't want to be doing dishes at 9:00 PM, so let's eat.

• Coughing without covering your mouth with your elbow is strictly prohibited. I don’t care if you don’t have the H1N1 virus-no one wants you to spew your germs all over their food.
This is driving me crazy because I have repeated this over and over! I know the kids have had the “cough in your elbow” thing drilled into them since pre-school, and I know they follow this rule faithfully in school, so why do they think I want to share in every illness that they have?

• Everyone should wait his or her turn instead of trying to out-talk or drown out another person’s conversation. Everyone has the right to have his or her say in the dinnertime chitchat, but patience is preferred over sulking or tantrums when someone else is talking.
This has been a real problem because big sister wants to monopolize the conversations and then finish her brother’s conversations as well. He was a late talker so my daughter took on the role of his interpreter, only now he would like to talk for himself.

• And speaking of talking, we all would appreciate it if you refrained from talking with your mouth full of food. We prefer to eat the meal without seeing it in an altered state from within your teeth and gums.
This one is better left unexplained.

• Don’t just reach for the dressing, ketchup, or other item on the table. Ask and someone will pass it to you and do so nicely.
I refuse to respond to “give me this,” or “give me that,” and my kids are pretty good with this one, especially after a glare from me.

I introduced a number of these rules to my kids over the years, but none of them have really sunk in and harping on them during dinner is giving me a constant case of indegestion, so that brings us to plan b: consequences for actions. My kids and I are off one more day so we are going to undertake a craft project-a chart of expectations and consequences for mealtime behavior. If this doesn’t work, my husband and I are either going to change our evening meal beverage to wine or we will look only at our plates, but personally I'm in favor of the wine...