10 things my six-year-old did to impress a friend.

It’s officially starting.  The whole I-know-I’m-gonna-get-in-trouble-but-I’m-gonna-look-like-a-rock-star-for-two-minutes-thing. 

I can see it now: Teague, 17 years old, wearing a football jersey and spray-painting something on the school wall.  He’s laughing.  Looking back to make sure his fellow football buddies are watching…

OK.  Let’s be honest.  That’s not how I see it at all.  I think Teague is more of a let’s-take-the-Laser-out-on-the-harbor kinda boy.  Sailing and golf will probably be his sports.  Not football. 

And he hates to color.  So the odds of him spray-painting a wall are pretty slim.  But you get my drift.  Things are changing.  He really wants to impress his friends.  And if that means a six minute time-out for an offense, apparently he will take it.

On Saturday, Teague had a friend over for a sleepover.  As soon as we got in the car, he only addressed his friend as “Dude,” and started each sentence with the term.  When I suggested we go out to lunch and his friend declined, Teague told me my suggestion was “lame.”  I know.  He totally gets that from me…

But once we got home, it became the “Teague Show.”  He wanted to rule the school.  Or at least the playroom. 

Here are 10 things he did which landed him in hot water.

1)      Unrolled a Fruit-by-the-foot and stuck it to the window.

2)      Put a chair on his top bunk bed and knocked half of the ceiling into his sheets.

3)      Demolished a Styrofoam cup (which had the remnants of his friend’s Sprite in it) and rubbed it into the activity table to hide the stickiness.  He also tried to hide the cup but I caught him.

4)      Took 12 paint cans from the garage and lined them up at the end of the driveway while I was putting Crews down for nap.

5)      Hammered the wood on his 3 week old bunk beds with a dinosaur bone while showing his friend, “How awesome I am at building.”

6)      Snapped the three lowest branches off of his favorite live oak climbing tree so that he could, “Decorate my jeep like Power Rangers Jungle Fury.”

7)      Shoved a car into the back of his brother’s diaper.

8)      Threw a pillow at my head.  (I know he was totally kidding and it wasn’t meant in a mean way, but still).

9)      Drove a monster truck (that I’d told him to put back outside) across the white carpet of the guest room.

10)  Repeatedly invited his little brother to join him and his friend in the Jeep then drove off before Crews could get in. 

He also opened a window in the bathroom while it was freezing outside and left it open for hours.  Pumped half a bottle of liquid soap into the sink (Alright, this might have been Crews).  And told his friend that his mom “toots.”

Teague is in no way perfect.  But on a typical day, he might make two bad decisions.  These behaviors were different.  And I swear they might have been accompanied by a maniacal laugh. 

Well, maybe the last part was in my head.  But there was definitely a smirk.

I know none of it is that bad. And I'm assuming it's just part of having a boy.  The constant one-upping and doing dumb crap?  This is uncharted territory.  I suppose I have A LOT to look forward to.

Food Snob.

When I was young, I was a pretty picky eater.  I didn’t like sandwiches.  The sight of peanut butter made me gag.  If my food was prepared in a pan that had ever cooked bell peppers I could seriously taste it.  As a teenager I went through a vegetarian phase though I hated all beans and peas.  I still don’t eat mayonnaise or mustard. And if any of the foods on my plate touched, I just couldn’t eat.  I know…ridiculous.

Then I went to college.  Got really hungry.  And decided that in order to survive (and by survive I mean have food delivered to my dorm room so that I didn’t have to stop playing Super Nintendo with Corie Hipp and Jenn Harvey), I needed to broaden my horizons.  This means I ate a ton of fast food, primarily late night, and gained the freshman 15 immediately.

At 20, I met Colin.  He was a good cook and somehow managed to get me to try things.  The first sandwich I ever ate was one that he made for me.  He also taught me to love rare red meat and introduced me to NY style pizza.  For the first six years of our relationship, he was Head Chef and we always ate very well.

Once I remembered how delicious “real” food was and expanded my palette, I turned my back on fast food.  This also meant I turned my back on most chain restaurants which I see as larger servings of fast food with the addition of silverware.  Colin didn’t put up a fight.  He felt the same way about it.  Though I will admit that pregnancy cravings and Chick-fil-a are the exceptions.

It’s funny.  I never really thought of us as food snobs, but I guess we kind of are.  I might still be oblivious if it hadn’t kept coming up in conversation lately.  Conversations about Costco, of all things.

In recent weeks I have had multiple people tell me how good the food is at Costco.  I’m not talking about the items you buy in bulk, stack in a box, and shove in the back of your car.  I’m talking about the “café” at the front of the store. 

Honestly, in all the years I’ve been shopping at Costco it has never once occurred to me to eat there.  It looks like food you would see in a gas station, drying out under a heat lamp or rolling up that never-ending wiener ramp.  The pizzas don’t look appetizing and the only place I’m eating a churro outside of Mexico is at Frontierland in Disney World.

I know my Costco–lovin’ friends are gonna yell at me, but I just can’t do it.  I’m going to have to stand my ground on the whole not-eating-at-Costco thing and just be a big ol’ fat food snob.

In the meantime, head on over to Cibo’s on James Island for fantastic pizza.  Or go to Jack’s Cosmic Dogs if you’re looking for a fantastic hot dog.  Sorry, I don’t have an alternative for the churro.  But I’m gonna limit my time at Costco to buying Dunkin’ Donuts coffee and toilet paper.

Good at "The Hard." Bad at "The Easy."

Sometimes you just have to own up to the fact that you aren’t good at something.  And other times it is absolutely necessary to brag about what you do well.  Well, not absolutely necessary, but sometimes it just feels good.

But what if there are simple things that you suck at?  Like making pancakes. 

I can make a mean pancake batter totally from scratch.  But when I pour it into the pan, creating perfect little silver dollar pancakes, this is where the yumminess ends.  I always cook them too long.  They come out dry.  Or singed.  Maybe a few times squishy in the middle.  Needless to say I don’t bother making homemade batter anymore.  I just buy that yellow plastic jug of Bisquick where all you have to do is add water. 

What’s strange is that I can execute the most complicated of recipes without a hitch.  I can filet, sauté, brown, fry, batter, roast, grill, stew, or flambé with the best of em.  But flipping a flippin’ pancake at the right moment?  Not gonna happen.  It makes no sense.  Luckily, I have learned to accept my pancake-making affliction.

Another simple thing I’m bad at?  Growing a Chia Pet.  For years I have had a beautiful, bountiful garden filled with herbs, vegetables and fruits.  I know when to prune, water, and harvest to make the most out of everything in it.  But the SpongeBob Chia Pet Teague received for Christmas baffles me.  First, I gave it too much water and the seeds drowned.  Then I forgot about it for 3 days and the tiny little green sprouts that had managed to survive shriveled up and turned black.  After scraping off the seeds (And listening to Teague tell me how I killed SpongeBob’s hair, which by the way SpongeBob doesn’t even have hair, Teague), I replanted it three days ago.  It just keeps drying out and looking haggard. 

I’m going to come right out and say it: I can’t grow a Chia Pet.  Kids have been growing them since 1982 and I am physically incapable.  Although it makes me feel a little better that each Chia comes with enough seeds for three plantings.  Clearly, someone else out there has failed and needed more seeds.

Other simple things I’m bad at?  Playing blocks and cars.  It sounds so easy, but when I watch Colin build or pretend with the cars, I realize that my boys must be staring at me like I’m an idiot.  My buildings don’t have roofs.  Who am I kidding?  They don't even have walls.  I usually build a fence and say it’s outside of an imaginary house or stable (I like to add a few farm animals to support my claim).  So an architect, I am not.  And according to Crews, I make the wrong sounds for the cars.  I’m pretty sure I roll them correctly though.

I am also terrible at loading the dishwasher.  On multiple occasions my friend Amanda has just opened it up and stared at me.  I didn’t know there was a method!  I just shove things in until nothing else fits.  Then I lay a few things on top of that… It has come to my attention that doing so is both incorrect and inefficient.  Even with practice my skills haven't gotten much better.

However!  Let an idea flow into my head and I can weave it into a 350 page story.  Need your vehicle parallel parked in a space that is only a hair bigger than your car?  I’m your girl. 

So there you have it.  I’m good at “the hard.”  Bad at “the easy.”  Which is probably why I tend to make everything so difficult!

Here a butt. There a butt. Everywhere a butt-butt.

Having two boys who are 2 and 6 can often be overwhelming.  They fight – a lot.  They call each other super-inventive names like diaper face and poopy soldier.  They refuse to eat anything that hasn’t been processed to hell.  They dump out bins which must contain at least 200 cars/trucks/motorcycles/tractors each.  And they always want what the other one has.

However, sometimes it’s not the fighting or the mess or the refusal to clean anything up that drives me over the edge.  Instead, it’s how many times per day I see someone’s butt.

It’s not necessarily the butt itself that bothers me.  It’s all the wiping and cleaning of said area.  I mean, Teague can totally wipe his own butt.  He is six years old after all.  He just doesn’t do it well.  So even if he does wipe his own butt, I still end up doing some maintenance later. 

And Crews?  Well, Crews totally understands the concept of the potty and even went through a phase many months ago when he was using it.  But now he goes and hides behind the end table in our living room when he needs to poop.  And he doesn’t even slow his pace when he pees.  That kid is a mobile urinator.  (At least he’s wearing a diaper and not using the floor.)

I really shouldn’t be all that surprised.  Teague did the same thing during potty training.  He was using the potty consistently for months before he started school then one day he came home and said he wasn’t going to do it anymore.  He was true to his word.  He didn’t use the potty again for almost 5 months.  He too had a favorite place to poop, but he preferred standing in the pantry.

Anyway.  I digress from the butts.

So today I was about to walk Crews into school after a hellishly long carpool debacle.  Needless to say there was a pee AND a poop situation which needed to be taken care of first.  As I changed his diaper in the back of the car, I said, “Thanks for making sure I saw your hiney one last time before school.”  He just laughed.

Fast-forward an hour and I’ve just finished my workout at the gym.  I clean off the elliptical I’m using, grab my water bottle, and make my way to the locker room.  For whatever reason, there is a group of naked old ladies chattering away with their butts toward the door.  There are six, count them, six sweaty old big butts just right there in my face.  And then for good measure, one more naked butt saunters out of a bathroom stall and joins them.  Ugh!.  I know it’s a locker room and people have every right to be naked, I just didn’t need any more butts in my day.  Much less 7.

Oh well, at least I didn’t have to wipe em’.  And thank God mine is behind me...