I had a great day today. I woke up this morning and looked out the window. My kids had written ‘Happy Mommy’s Day’ in big pink chalk letters outside on the patio. From there I went and saw my own mom and grandma. Then we went to lunch at the Ventura Harbor to a restaurant called Scotch and Sirloin. There were 20 of us total and we spent about 4 hours there eating and drinking.

After dinner we came back to my place and watch the Survivor season finale. (I can’t believe Dreams kept the immunity. Did he really think anyone would vote for him after that?) Anyway, not surprised that Earl swept it.

BTW-I got this photo printer as a gift. The thing is really amazing. The quality of the pictures it spits out is really very good. It’s called an Epson Picture Mate. It’s small and has a handle so I could take it with me to one of my daughter’s tournaments or something if I wanted to.

Anyway, hope you all had a nice day.

I love my son. To death. My son loves to skateboard. I really dislike skateboarding.
I’m having an issue with this right now. I am trying to accept and support my son’s love and passion for skating, but for some reason I keep getting caught up on some issues I have with it and find myself (still after 2 years of him being obsessed with it) not wanting him to do it. I do see this as a character flaw in myself. I just can’t let it go. I can fake it sometimes, but deep down it’s there and I know he can sense that I’m not paying attention or not interested that he ollied an 8 stair.

Here are my pros/cons in what I think is order of priority, tell me if I’m being stupid and selfish.
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Every now and then we have a defining moment in our lives. As a mom of older kids, those moments come few and far between. Teenagers don’t usually provide you with moments that make you feel good about being a parent.

But mine did.

The other day I was picking up my 15 year old daughter from school. She had been in a good mood recently, and particularly on this day I saw a spring in her step. I mentioned it to her. I said “Honey, it seems like things are going really good for you, you seem really happy.” Her response, “Ya, I’m finally comfortable in my own skin.” I was floored!

I’m not even comfortable in my own skin, but for her to say that to me…it brought tears to me eyes. In the land we live in full of material things and airbrushed models, for her to say that to me made my year.

Did I have anything to do with it? I like to think so, but who knows. Regardless, the comment will never be forgotten.

It was a good mom day.

My 12 year old son and I spent the weekend playing Paper Mario on our Nintendo Wii. That’d be the Wii that I slept outside Circuit City to buy for him for Christmas. So now it was all worth it. We love Mario, so it’s a win win situation. We take turns at different chapters, we battle evil monsters, we conquer chapters together, it’s so much fun.

Anyway, if you have kids going in to their teens or in their teens, I recommend, even for a day or an hour or a minute…find your inner kid and communicate somehow on neutral grounds, even if you’re not really talking, just do something you both have in common. Oh and once you find that inner kid, don’t lose it.

My son’s friend from elementary school lost his battle to cancer last week. He was 13. I’ve been thinking about this at length because I can’t comprehend it. I mean 13. It is so unfair. How was I so lucky to have two healthy children? My heart is heavy right now with thoughts of him and his family.

When something like this happens, you tend to pull your children closer. I look at my son with a bit more appreciation now. They are really precious and even though they get older, they are still your kids.

The service for this boy had about 500 people in attendance. The reaction of our community to this tragedy was very uplifting as we all celebrated his life together. This was the only funeral ceremony I’d ever been to where they asked everyone to applaud loud enough so that he could hear us. The applaud soon turned into a standing ovation. Hearing all this noise in honor of this child was amazing. I thought it was a fantastic idea and it felt good for us to have an opportunity to show how we felt.

Thank God everyday for your children.

My kid came home from high school today and told me that two fellow classmates had been suspended from school for being drunk on campus. Apparently, these kids decided to bring vodka to school in a water bottle. They thought they were being pretty slick about it til one of them got totally drunk and passed out in class. The kid awoke only to tattle on the drinking buddy. Both teens were suspended and sent to different high schools.

FYI-these are freshman I’m talking about.

So parents…don’t let your guards down. These were good students that took a wrong turn. Follow up on your kids. Don’t assume things are going fine. Snoop a little. Oh and mark your liquor bottles.

My daughter grew up a bit today.  While I don’t really want to blog about the details, I am very proud of her.  She basically had to approach a teacher about an issue that had come up at school.  Discussing something with a teacher that is out of the realm of the normal class activities can sometimes be difficult.  Well, for some people it is.  I know this was a difficult thing for my DD (Darling Daughter) to do.  But she did it.  She went in to the office at lunch to speak with her teacher and had the discussion they needed to have.  It’s a stepping stone to adulthood for her.  Heck, I don’t even know if I would’ve been able to do it.

  I don’t get it.  I was a cheerleader in high school.  Never in my life have I had so much attention from boys and men.  It was a strange place to be in because it’s really not the norm and it’s not reality.  In our local youth football league, there are cheerleaders as young as 7.  Seven years old!  There they are in short skirts learning how to shake their bums and pose provocatively.  It bothers me that the stadiums are filled with strangers; perhaps there might be a petafile among us in the crowd.  Maybe the guy is taking pictures of these young girls.  Who knows?  Why would any parent put their daughter in a position to be viewed like that?  I just don’t get it.  I don’t get the whole beauty queen thing either.  Are the cheer moms are trying to relive their youth through their young daughters?  Can’t young cheer leaders be taught to cheer loudly and clap hard?  Can we save the hip gyration for the older girls? 

My husband and I have been to 3 Queensryche concerts since we’ve known each other.  We went last night to our third.  It was the Operation Mindcrime 1 & 2 tour.  I had a good time, but I would’ve enjoyed myself more if they would have played more songs from their Empire album.  I mean how could they go the whole night without playing Silent Lucidity?  That is one of my favorite songs of all time.

At any rate, we took our kids to the concert.  They were probably 2 of 10 kids that were there so it wasn’t really their element, but they too are Ryche fans.  It was kind of strange because there were people smoking pot right behind us, so to see the looks on our kid’s faces when they smelled that smell was kind of awkward.  I mean I know far a fact they haven’t tried drugs yet, so it was a good opportunity for us to talk about it.  The funniest thing though was that the lady that was smoking it was old and fat, so it wasn’t the image of a druggie that we expected.

We had good seats of course until the two fattest guys in the whole stadium came and sat right in front of us.  Now remember, I’m short, so it was kind of challenging to see the whole show.  One of them took like 100 pictures throughout the whole show, so on top of his big head blocking my view, he kept putting is camera up to take a picture.  Annoying.

My husband had a great time.  As always he is a true Queensryche fan.

As a parent sometimes it’s hard to let go.  The kids grow up, they don’t need you as much, yet you still worry that they’ll do ok.  My kids both had a great first day of school.  My son was thrilled that he could use his cell phone at brunch and lunch and my daughter found out that she could listen to her Ipod while doing work in some classes.  It’s the little things that matter right.   Aside from the technology revelations, they like their classes and I think they’re motivated enough to at least get to Christmas Vacation.