Tackle It Tuesday: Parenting - Kids - Life

This has been a busy summer, starting with the flood and ending with the hurricane – everything else in between. Life has been throwing me some curve balls lately and I’m doing my best to hit everyone of them and trying not to doubt myself along the way.

So, this week, for Tackle It Tuesday, I’m writing about tackling my life and children – not physically – (although lately I have felt like it). Is that bad? I swear, sometimes I don’t know what these kids are thinking or what those voices in their head are telling them – but I know it can’t be good.

Let’s start with my oldest daughter. She is 14 – ahhh, the teenage years when you knew everything and everyone was wrong except for you. I sure do miss those days. A few weeks ago, we were sitting on the front porch talking and I noticed something different or strange about her. It took me a minute before I realized – half her eyebrow was gone! So, I ask her – shocked – ‘Did you shave your eyebrow?’ Of course, she said, 'I don't know.' So I moved closer to get a better look and sure enough – it was half gone. I asked her again and I could tell she was embarrassed but finally admitted to me that yes, she did indeed shave her eyebrow. The reason? She saw someone that had a unibrow the other day and she wanted to make sure she didn’t have one. Well, honey, don’t think you have to worry about that.

That wasn’t the end. Last week she asked me if she could get a haircut – she specifically wanted bangs. One of the deals I have with my kids is, that because I am paying them to get good grades, they will be responsible for paying extra things that I might have otherwise bought. Is this fair? I have no idea, but my feelings on it is, I shouldn’t have to pay them for their grades and they are not going to have it both ways. Besides, I am hoping it will teach them some responsibility. Anyways, last weekend my husband was outside doing yard work and I left to go do my grocery shopping. The babies were taking a nap, my oldest daughter stayed home and the other two children went with me. After I got back, she came out to help unload groceries and I had deja vu. Something was different about her. Yup, you guessed it – she cut her hair! Well, I guess butchered would be a better word for it. O, my goodness you can’t even imagine – or maybe some of you can. In an attempt to cut her own bangs – she eliminated any chance for potential bangs. All the way – across her forehead – she cut her hair – clear to the scalp. I was speechless – all I could ask is – do you like it? And she said, yes. Uhhhh did you look in the mirror after you gave yourself a haircut?

Moving on, will this laundry ever end? A few weeks ago we lost power for 4 days because of the hurricane. What that really means is – I went 4 days without doing any laundry. And I will be the first to tell you, having a family of 7 and not doing laundry for 4 days is – just – craziness. I am still tackling the laundry pile everyday. The weirdest thing is, sometimes when I look at it, even after doing laundry all day – I could swear it is growing larger, multiplying and laughing at me all the while. Strange huh? I thought so too. Sometimes I am even tempted to drop to my knees and beg that laughing pile of laundry to please – just give me a chance – one day – soon – cooperate with me and let me finish you up. Please let me have one day where I don’t have to look at any dirty piles of laughing laundry.

Then I snap back to reality – or wherever I was before.

My 3 year old decided to flush – oooo – about a half roll of toilet paper down the toilet in the downstairs bathroom. Of course, when this happened on Friday night, all the hardware stores were closed. My husband, spend a few good hours plunging the heck out of it and again, like the laundry, the toilet was not cooperating. To make things more complicated, my husband was scheduled to work all weekend so I got the wonderful privilege of running up and down the stairs with the babies all day because the have bladders the size of a pea and thought they needed to use the bathroom every 5 minutes. And forget going upstairs to the bathroom at the same time. I mean we don’t want to make things too easy here. So Saturday, I went to Ace Hardware to get a plumbing snake so my husband could try to unclog it after he got home from work – that was a loss cause. Not because of my husband – it was the uncooperative toilet’s fault. What the heck did my son flush down there? I asked him but he wouldn’t tell me. Only he knows that confidential information and he wasn’t tellin’. Sunday night is when we bit the bullet and called a plumber. Monday morning, 20 minutes and $99.22 later – the toilet was fixed! I hope that plumber is sleeping well at night.

This is just some of the things that have happened recently, but this gives you an example of what my summer has been like. Everyday. Always an adventure. I am constantly keeping a mental countdown in my head – 4 more years until the first one turns 18.

One positive thing I can say quickly before my novel ends is, my son came home with his mid semester grades which were all A’s except 1 B. When stuff like that happens – sometimes you think your doing something right. I was very proud of him. (and no, I don’t want to talk about the other two’s grades).

PS…if you read this whole post all the way through – thanks for listening. If you have crazy kids, feel free to share any stories of things your kids have done. That way I don't feel so alone.