Austerity measures

Over the weekend, slightly terrified by what I was seeing on the credit card statement, I instituted a handful of Austerity Measures for the Cheung Household. One of the biggest budget offenders is Going Out For Lunch and instead of throwing a little hissy fit about it (because you know it is not ME going out for lunch) I decided I would try to help a dude out. And that meant cooking. 

My husband is not big on, say, sandwiches. When he deigns to make himself a sandwich, which he only does after determining that there is nothing left in the house, he stacks it super high, Dagwood-style, so much so that one package of deli meat produces MAYBE two sandwiches. And then he complains about having to slice cheese. SUCH A BABY ABOUT THE SANDWICHES. 

No, what Phillip wants to eat is Leftovers. And I... hate leftovers. There are very VERY few things I want to eat the next day, I almost never want to take my food home from a restaurant, and it never occurs to me to make so much food that we have leftovers on PURPOSE. I am the person who LIKES sandwiches. Actually, just give me a loaf of bread. Maybe a cup of yogurt. And I'm good! Cooking is for high maintenance people!

My poor husband, huh? Now his MOM would spend her entire weekend making all sorts of nice Chinese dishes and she'd put four or five cups of rice in the rice cooker and he'd be set for the week. But Phillip chose to marry a white girl who cannot stirfry beef to save her life. IT'S HIS OWN FAULT. 

But I thought I would TRY, you know? I make this [ridiculously easy] baked pasta thing that he likes, so I thought I would put that together this afternoon and he could bring it for lunches. Then it ALSO occurred to me that I knew how to make something else that leftovers well - fried rice. I don't make GREAT fried rice, but even amateur fried rice is yummy. So I went grocery shopping with Leftovers in mind and set out the ingredients and felt better about the whole austerity thing. 

The kids stayed with Phillip's parents this weekend [there was a local Chinese school performance for Chinese New Year - Jack and Molly were smitten - am I going to have to send them to Chinese school? - A POST FOR ANOTHER DAY] and P's parents only planned to stay a few minutes when they brought them home. But! Phillip was busy trying to attach his new television (SERIOUSLY, PEOPLE. WE NEED THE AUSTERITY MEASURES.) to the wall and I was trying to not look because THAT IS MY WALL. Anyway, it ended up that MIL hung out with the kids and FIL helped Phillip hang the TV and then I decided to suck it up and just ASK my MIL how she makes her fried rice. Because MIL's fried rice? Like everything else she makes? DELICIOUS. 

Turns out the only difference between my fried rice and MIL's is, well, SHE makes hers. That somehow infuses the tasty magic? I don't know. And then without me suggesting it or implying it or anything, MIL waltzes into my kitchen and takes over the fried rice-making. After they left Phillip asked me if I was okay with that and I was all, "IT WAS THE BEST THING THAT HAPPENED ALL WEEKEND."

So now I have a giant vat of fried rice in my fridge in addition to a giant pan of baked penne and I have high hopes for the budget. Is this a problem/issue/item of concern in your house? How do you combat the siren call of the lunchtime Indian buffet on 4th avenue? 

 

 

In which I take super good news and turn it into a sob story about my pants size

I ran on my treadmill every day last week. I was feeling proud of myself until my future BIL was telling me tonight that he ran 13 miles today, just for kicks. And for you locals, his route (HIS USUAL ROUTE, BTW) took him from Wallingford, through the U District, down through Ravenna, up to the cemetery behind U Village (SO 13 MILES OF HILLS), then past Metropolitan Market and down to Sand Point, then into Montlake and along Pacific by UW, then up 15th to 45th, up to freaking NINETY-NINE, and THEN, if it's a WEEKEND, he throws in a jaunt around Green Lake. But if it's a week day he just goes home. SLACKER. 

Of course, most of you stopped reading at Future BIL and YES I HAVE PERMISSION TO TELL YOU MY SISTER IS GETTING MARRIEEEEEEED!!! (Hence the Pinterest board some of you have asked me about!) 

So there you have my Ultimate Weight Loss Goal: LOSE BABY WEIGHT BY SISTER'S WEDDING. 

This is not the FPC, by the way. (For you Skimmers, the FPC is my OTHER sister. Take notes!) The FPC is already married. BUT SHE IS HAVING A BABEEEEEEE!!!! EEEEEEEEEE!!!

I KNOW. There has been a LOT of Pinning lately. 

The FPC is due in May. I do not feel I have to lose any weight by THAT date. But the wedding date is mid-July and GOSHDARNIT I will be fitting into my old pants by mid-July. OR ELSE!

Last night I saw that I have worn my Fat Pants/Early Pregnancy Pants/Then Fat Pants Again so much that I have worn out the inner thighs and crotch. There are HOLES DOWN THERE, Internet. It's true that I've worn those pants through at least two pregnancies, BUT STILL. 

I'm at this really miserable point where maternity pants are no longer an option and my Fattest Pants give me Saggy Butt, but my OLD PANTS are SO FAR from fitting that if I even TRY I have to schedule a therapy appointment. I may have to actually go and BUY PANTS. WAH.

I've lost 16 pounds since I started keeping track. I have 9 to go before I hit my pre-Molly weight and 14 before I hit my pre-Emma weight. I don't doubt that I can do this, but it's taking me a lot longer than it did last time, for various reasons, and I think I am OKAY WITH THAT, but I am still worried about the PANTS SITUATION. 

It also did not help that Future BIL brought CAKE. Bah.

But I'm starting to think, like... what if I DIDN'T lose the weight? I mean, I WANT TO and I WILL but there's this [GOOD] thing where I don't feel like my entire world revolves around this weight loss project (probably why it's going slower this time!) Like sometimes I think: maybe Hot By Thirty was as good as it was going to get for me, skinny-wise, and instead of feeling bereft and morose, I feel sort of... okay with it. Does that make any sense at all? It's not like I want to stay where I am or whatever, and it's not even that losing weight isn't as IMPORTANT... It's more like I am thinking that some day I will be 40 and 50 and 60 and I would rather be a WISE mother than a SKINNY one. Blargh. Will have to expound on this some other time.

Your standard cop out photo post

Here's my new couch:

...with a bonus shot of the laundry basket. These are all crappy phone pictures, sorry. But WHAT DO I PUT ON THAT WALL? Behind the couch is a tiny little bit of room where the kids play and make a mess, and to the left is a very small end table and a standing lap (in this picture it's going as The Great Shining Orb.) The back corner of the couch backs up right to the wall (the whole thing is at an angle) and there's not really any room behind that side of the couch for, say, a console table. Unless we shove the couch out farther into the room. I don't know. We have a friend who paints Very Very Large Paintings and I am thisclose to shelling out the $$$ for one of them, just so I don't have to look at that big blank spot anymore. 

THIS would be...

.

...my fashion plate daughter dressed up in all of her aunt's jewelry. I think SIL had a whole separate suitcase for her JEWELS, as Molly calls them. 

This one would be of Molly and her fashion plate cousins. Also a scruffy brother.

That little one on the end is a hoot, as evidenced by...

Riiiight. Here we have Mighty Maggie's Dad, the package of fake mustaches he bought at the dollar store, and five of his nine grandchildren (the others being too small or too smart to be caught dead in this photo op.) I'm not sure how my dad is going to feel about his Website Debut, but COME ON. MUSTACHES. I am also dying to call my brother and discuss his son's possible futures in used car sales and other unsavory businesses.

This one is just sweet:

I think I have this exact same picture with Jack and Molly. Same outfits, even. Also, big thanks to SIL for taking pictures with a REAL camera, lest my children grow up believing they were always fuzzy looking.

We all had to have a Moment today when it was discovered that EJ doesn't quite fit in the baby doll stroller anymore.

FATTY.

And tonight we went to the local Candy Cane Lane to see the lights.

Emma slept from 1 to 4:30 today, then she fell asleep in the car when we drove to the lights, then she slept in her stroller, then she slept through our stop for little pink doughnuts at Starbucks, and she is STILL SLEEPING in her car seat in my bedroom. Either this is a wondrous magical miracle OR WE ARE SCREWED TONIGHT. 

Blogger Unnapped

Molly's been doing this thing where I put her down for her nap aaaaand she decides not to sleep. This would be the worst thing in the world if it weren't for the fact that I already have a no-napper and I've grown accustomed to the annoyance. She's not really ready to give it up though - most no-nap days dissolve into puddles of irrational tears and hysterics that would drive me through the roof if she wasn't so pitiful-looking. (Well, sometimes I DO let it drive me through the roof, only to get the biggest guilt trip of a lifetime when the teeny weeny pathetic little three-year-old looks up at me with her huge tears and quivering bottom lip and says, "Mommy I not FEELING good!")

So when Emma didn't sleep well on Thanksgiving Eve at my parents' house or Thanksgiving night at my brother's house or Friday night in her own house, and when I was still staying up late to work on my own stuff and getting up early to take care of the big kids, I thought perhaps I might be tired. And when I spent all of Saturday morning trying to get Emma to take a nap and she wouldn't and I had to put her down and pound my fist into a pillow a few times, and then an hour or so later when Phillip said, "Okay, so the kids are getting hungry..." in that "so what are you going to do about it?" voice and I had to run into another room so I wouldn't burst out crying in front of my in-laws who were visiting... YEAH. I sat sobbing on Molly's bed while she picked out her outfit for that day and thinking to myself, "I need to stop skipping my nap."

Phillip, who at that point would have taken me on an all expenses paid trip to Ikea, The Resort if it would stop the snippy, kept telling me to TAKE a nap. To lie down with the baby. To fall asleep in the chair. But I really really really didn't want to take a nap. What I wanted to do was get all the stuff done that I wanted to DO. 

Which we did. I gave up trying to get Emma to sleep and decided it would be okay if my mother-in-law held her all day long. (She did.) But this is how we moved the kids' beds into the empty bedroom downstairs, moved the extra bed and the crib into their old room upstairs, built an Ikea dresser, moved the old one downstairs PLUS all sorts of smaller projects in between, like more-permanently hanging the felt board and putting up some pictures in the blue room next to the kitchen and sorting some clothes and organizing the playroom. We did SO MUCH WORK on Saturday. So much work. And honestly, that was better than any nap. I was on a freaking organization HIGH Saturday night. 

And even now, on Sunday night, when I am still SO TIRED and yet got SO MUCH DONE - people, I sorted ALL THE CLOTHES and put them in their PROPER PLACES - I am still thinking this is better than a nap. 

I don't quite get myself... I am the laziest person on earth, I really am, but then nothing makes me feel quite like having all the Things in their Places. We're finally using the whole house and the kids are in the place they'll be for the next several years and I hung up some pictures in the kitchen and did I tell you we bought our couch? WE BOUGHT OUR COUCH. All of this stuff makes me feel SO much better. Like I'm on this quest for The Way It Will Be. I want this thing to be in the place where it will be until the kids move me into The Home. 

I used to feel like I needed to move every two years. I hear "third culture children" and military brats, even quasi-military brats like myself, tend to feel this way. They get an Itch. But not anymore, dude. Now I'm all, "This is where the picture is going to hang for the NEXT FIFTY YEARS."

Our Thanksgiving was really nice, if you want to know. It helps to have siblings who like to get together and fun cousins who bring Bananagrams (AM NOW OBSESSED WITH BANANAGRAMS) and adorable children running around and an older generation to make fun of and chocolate OMG THE CHOCOLATE. My brother, who hosted, had a whole tin of fancy chocolate-covered cookies, then a giant dish of Hawaiian chocolate-covered macadamia nuts, then a pho-sized bowl of Reese's Pieces AND sugar cookies smothered in said Reese's Pieces and this was all before we even had dinner. NO I DID NOT WEIGH IN YET. But I've been doing Weight Watchers all week (except Thanksgiving, obvs, when Chocolate Ruled) and I'm hopeful for the morning weigh in. STAND BY, FAT WATCHERS!

I am now going to wake up my baby (!!!) (she didn't sleep all day) (until I took her on a Therapeutic Trip to Target and fell asleep in the car seat and is STILL IN THE CAR SEAT) so I can feed her and watch The Good Wife and revel in the house that continues to morph into the home I've always wanted.

It's Barfsgiving!

Oh wait. Do I have to update this thing tonight? It TOTALLY feels like a Friday. I think maybe because Phillip worked from home today? And we're driving to my parents' house tomorrow morning? We'll stay at their house tomorrow night and road trip it (can you call it a road trip if it's just barely more than two hours?) to my brother's house in the PA for Thanksgiving. 

I don't write about my brother on this website because 1) I think he'd prefer if I didn't and 2) he's a big fat meanie about my website (back when I had ads: "You get MONEY for that?!?!" Then I kicked him in the shins, which is about all I can do because he could squash me with his pinkie finger.) (I have another brother, but he lives in Colorado and probably thinks the same thing about my website but would never SAY so. Well, maybe he would. But he would find a funnier, cuter way to say it, which would make me think he was just joking and teasing me, but deep down I would know that he really thinks my website is the awesomest.) (All right, now you know entirely too much about my brothers, neither of whom are interested in making an appearance on the blog. SHUT UP, ME.) 

BUT ANYWAY. My brother! Who lives in the PA! Got married! I know! And in a huge shocking twist he's become all domestic-like (although I rather suspect he's always been this way, it's just that NOW he has the opportunity to let it shine) and he and his wife are hosting Thanksgiving. And we are staying at THEIR house Thanksgiving night. THIS IS A LOT OF TRAVELING FOR ME. 

I am not a HUGE fan of the PA, as it is... WAIT. It occurs to me that you, my beloved readers, do not know what "The PA" is. !!! And honestly, a snotty Seattleite such as myself has no business calling it that either, it's just that my cousins also live there and they always call it The PA and I think it's cute... anyway, it's PORT ANGELES. Which you know and care nothing about unless (DUM DUM DUM) you have read and are deeply devoted to the Twilight series. 

So the ENTIRE POINT of this post, if you are wondering, is to ask you if you think I can get away with a Twilight-themed Thanksgiving post for Parenting. I COULD skip it, it being a holiday and all, and Parenting being super flexible with the blog schedule (also blog writers - they have, after all, kept ME around for inexplicable reasons). I don't even quite know how I would WRITE a Twilight-themed Thanksgiving post. What would it be ABOUT? Vampires don't EAT. (Right? Am now worried about my vampire lore deficiency.) But something about it sounds very funny to me. And I would probably piss off the hordes of Twihards somehow and that would be good for the pageview business. 

Sadly for my blog post, Port Angeles is not the STAR of the Twilight set, that would be Forks, but I have been to Forks (I even wrote about going to Forks back when this website was a teeny tiny baby website) and I will never go again. Really, why does anyone live anywhere besides Seattle? SNOTTY CITY GIRL ALERT! OOPS!

Anyway, I have to finish packing for EVERYONE and also eat a WW-approved dinner (DID YOU KNOW THEY CHANGED UP THE WHOLE POINTS SYSTEM SO ANNOYING) and then I guess I'll have to feed a baby again. 

OH WAIT! You know what this post should have been about? The fact that I did not get barfed on today. I DID NOT GET BARFED ON TODAY! Today is BARFSGIVING! 

What I did today instead of running on the treadmill

Because Emma took a CRAZY long nap today (JESUS LOVES ME) I had tons of time to do stuff like... fold all the laundry! Run! Prep dinner! Write that post banging around my head for the Catholic blog! PLAY WITH MY KIDS!

Ha ha ha I did none of that. Instead I made an Advent calendar. EYE ROLL. Also: do not get excited! I know you crafty types! This Advent calendar does not involve felt or doors or embroidery or even heartwarming suggestions for Adventy things to do that day! 

TA-DA

Okay, I just didn't have time to write out the heartwarming Adventy things to do. But that's the point. Those are little paper pockets and each day the child who is not driving me to drink will pull out the Thing To Do That Day. The Thing To Do That Day may or may not involve eating chocolate, because what is an Advent calendar without chocolate?

I don't really stress too much about Christmas or how to do it well. I'm not sure why, because I certainly stress about everything ELSE. But maybe it's because I throw all of that energy into our party every year? I LOVE hosting stuff, but I think I get to do all of that with my party, and then I'm happy to do whatever my family ends up doing for Christmas. Which is almost always: descend upon my parents' house on Christmas Eve for wine-fueled present-opening. And until this year we've gone to Phillip's parents' house and had a very low key Christmas Day - this year they're coming to OUR house. But it's still going to be low key. I love my big family and all the bigness that involves, but I've also REALLY come to appreciate the laid back smallness of Phillip's family's holidays and hosting or not, we shall retain the laid backness! 

But Christmas is always Christmassy and always good, even if we're tired of driving and the presents are overwhelming etc. I always have a good time, I always feel like we celebrate the True Meaning and all that. How nice for me to not stress about something!

YOU people, though, YOU people keep writing about how you're doing Christmas and GOSHDARNIT after wrapping a few presents that showed up on my doorstep today (Christmas: Brought To You By Amazon.com) I decided I was not done with the wrapping paper. 

We have about a dozen Christmas books that I save and box up every year. I'm going to combine those with the other dozen I bought from Jack's preschool book order this month and the kids will open one new Christmas book every night. (We'll reuse them next year.) Beyond that I'm thinking of VERY VERY EASY THINGS to go in those little pockets. Like things we will do no matter what (decorate the tree) (decorate cookies) (play Christmas songs on the piano). I'm not sure what else, though. I should probably put some churchy stuff in there. Christmas is not ALL about the party. 

Speaking of, the kids and I went to Target today and we spent a good ten minutes trying to decide if we were going to buy the WHITE tinsel tree or the RED tinsel tree. This was a HEATED DISCUSSION and we COULD NOT AGREE so we did not buy a tinsel tree after all. I'm feeling a little bereft about this now. I NEED a tinsel tree. Preferably a HOT PINK tinsel tree. Get on that, Target!

Emma has fallen asleep on my lap. Some combination of full tummy + intense leg jiggling... wanna see?

Yeah, if you're ever wondering what your Trusty Blogger looks like when she's churning out brilliant after brilliant paragraph, this is it. One handed typing at its finest. Also, you can't see it, but Spit Up has a starring role in this picture. Anyway, I better go put this kid to bed and cut out the rest of my numbers. Night night. 

Aftermath

I made my own birthday cake. And then I made my children sing to me. 

And then Phillip made them guess how old I am.

Please excuse the state of my kitchen. I did not receive a house elf for my birthday.

I usually require, you know, parades on my birthday. But I felt pretty low key this year. I wanted to read my book. (I downloaded A Discovery Of Witches. More on that when I finish it.) Eat some cake. Not do much. My in-laws came over in the afternoon and took us out to dinner. They do this every Monday, actually, but this time I got to pick the restaurant. We usually go to a mall restaurant because it's easy with the kids and I just went ahead and picked the OTHER mall restaurant. So it was different! But the same! And easy!

Oh, and my in-laws... you guys, they are so funny. My MIL walks into the house and first thing says, "Just ignore him." 

And I am all, "Huh?"

And she goes, "I TOLD him to ask you first, but he said no, no, he was just going to bring it, so just ignore him if you don't like it."

So of course I am wondering: WHAT DID HE BRING?

Anyway. My FIL. He is... anxious about certain things. One of my favorites (well, not at the TIME) was when Jack was brand new and we were sitting on the couch under the can lights? Inset lights? The little round lights set inside the ceiling? Whatever they are? And FIL goes, "You need to change these lights! They are too bright for the baby!" 

STUFF LIKE THAT. 

Anyway. One of the things he always wants to know is what we're going to do about the carpet hole. And I always say, cheerfully and nonchalantly, that we just haven't decided yet. Which is true. I leave out the part about how the carpet hole doesn't really bug me. (I know it SHOULD, it just DOESN'T. We will fix it EVENTUALLY.)

Anyway! Today he showed up with a carpet! And he was proud of himself INDEED. BatBat (First Uncle? I'm not sure. There are EIGHT uncles and he is the oldest) didn't need a particular carpet in his condo anymore. So FIL brought it home and then to our house. It will be perfect for the carpet hole! So I just nod and he hauls it upstairs and fusses over the filler carpet which is really too thin to fill out the hole blah blah blah. But finally he gets it to his liking and then! He unfurls the carpet and the whole time he is telling me how it is NOT Chinese style. Except, you guys, it totally is. 

I've decided it's not horrible. It can stay until we really figure it out. 

And then Phillip comes home and is all, "This was in my HOUSE when I was a KID."

Anyway.

What else was I going to tell you? OH. Beach pictures!

CRAZY boys. Crazy crazy crazy. Plus my brother, because someone had to watch the crazy boys and who better than one of their ilk? We are talking SIXTY DEGREES, people. AT BEST.

"Mmmm. Salty, gritty, hints of crab shell and seaweed - this might be my favorite dirt yet."

"I'm happy standing riiiiiiiight here, thankyouverymuch."

One for the rotogravure

Grainy iPhone photo of Molly modelling her Easter dress:

Did we take pictures today? Of course not. My mother did - I'm hoping she has a few of Jack in his clip on tie. 

All I can really think about right now are KEYS. KEYS KEYS KEYS and the fact that we should have them in our hot little hands sometime tomorrow afternoon. 

That and what a wonderful time we had today with my parents, Phillip's parents, and all the siblings and sibling significant others we could scrounge up. On the car ride home I thought back to age eleven and twelve, when I could NOT understand why my parents continued to have children when they'd reached perfection the very first time, when my brothers were the most annoying creatures on the planet, when my sisters were a whole kid era away from me, when all I wanted was to be LEFT ALONE. (And be allowed to use hairspray. C'MON, MOM!) But tweenhood doesn't last very long and I've still got decades left of being a grown up, decades of spending family holidays with some of the funniest, loveliest people I know. This is what I'll have to tell my own children. "Sure, he's loudly mocking you while you're talking on the phone with your seventh grade boyfriend, but when you're thirty, Christmas is gonna be AWESOME!" 

If you're looking for deep Easter thoughts, look elsewhere. I'm out of thoughts, and the kids' Easter bunnies are looking awfully delectable...

Why Lady Gaga reminds me of my sainted father

We did a lot (A LOT) of driving yesterday and since the kids slept through their assigned hour in the car, we got to listen to whatever we wanted on the radio. Phillip and I have pretty varied tastes, but one thing we can agree on is dance music, you know, thump thump club stuff. I sat there in the passenger seat listening to songs that probably everyone else knows but are new-ish to me and thinking about how they ALL sounded like the music we used to dance to in Italian discos in high school. All of it. Is American dance music 15 years behind the Europeans? 

It reminded me of yet another Italian mystery novel I just finished. It was tangentially about kids and drugs in Venice, and there's a quick paragraph or two about a handful of kids who die when they leave the disco at three am and their car wraps itself around a tree. 

I used to be a kid who left discos at 3am, but my dad was always there to pick me up. MY DAD. I don't know if I can explain how... shocking that sentence is, even at age thirty-one. My sisters and I have talked about it a few times (they went out WAY more than my boring self ever did) and we all have the same sort of experience. How normal it seemed then, and how radical it seems now. 

People were just kind of shocked our parents let us go to the disco at ALL. And to be honest, I'm not sure why they did. It's not like they cared about what everyone ELSE got to do. I wasn't allowed to sleep over at a friend's house until my senior year of high school (though my sisters report they eased up on this once I left home.) I can't think of why they allowed me to go to discos, unless it's only because I started going as a senior (I think) and by that time they were well on their way to Once You Hit 18 You're On Your Own, and possibly because I never did ANYTHING on the weekends and they were desperate to believe I had some sort of social life. (I did not.) (I do not feel particularly damaged by that.) (Any more.) The only rule was that my dad would pick me up. He didn't even tell me when to come home. Three was just the standard going-home time. 

So in Italy the discos don't even open until midnight, and until then, if you have a social life, you are hanging out in someone's bedroom putting on way too much makeup and doing your hair. I only did that a few times - most times I went with my dad to pick everyone up... oh yes! He TOOK us to the discos and he took EVERYONE ELSE. See, if you have five children, you probably own what can only be termed a Big Ass Van and this van was WELL KNOWN around base. It was called "The [Maiden Name] Bus" and many a high school boy teased my father about his vehicle. By the way, everyone thought my dad was The Awesome for providing the transportation. (Again: NO ONE drove.) (And I can't remember anyone else's parents offering, at least none of my friends' parents.) I have to say it probably improved his reputation among high school students for years. 

So he'd drive A HALF HOUR AWAY, at MIDNIGHT, to drop his daughter and her weird friends in front of a GIANT DISCOTECA, where ALL MANNER of controlled substances floated around, not the least of them GROSS ITALIAN MEN. Seriously. It blows my mind that I was allowed to do this. 

However. I was, I swear, one of the boringest 16 and 17-year-olds on the planet. I was also deathly afraid of my parents. I knew I liked wine (which I was allowed to drink at home every so often) but the plethora of mixed drinks at the discos (which we could LEGALLY PURCHASE) (SORT OF) were intimidating. I never ever had a drink at a disco until the night I graduated from high school, and I think I only had one then because I was feeling Extra Grown Up. Honestly, the fact that I didn't know the NAMES of the drinks was probably enough to prevent me from standing at the bar and ordering one. 

There were also drugs, but this was a much fuzzier fact. I would hear, every so often, that so and so was smoking something in the parking lot, and once I was told that two guys I knew were CAMPING on this little hill outside the disco smoking inside their zipped up tent. Whatever. That did not interest me in the least and still doesn't. Perhaps my parents knew this about me. 

As for BOYS oh dear. I was either intimidated by or somewhat repulsed by all the boys I KNEW - the last thing I wanted was some drunk Italian dude dancing around me. Which almost never happened anyway, because 1) my friends were cuter than me and 2) I have a pretty powerful Stand Offish vibe that did not bode well for my dating career. (I didn't have one. I married the first boy I fell in love with in college. SNORE!) 

And then, at three am, we tumbled out of the disco, smelling like ashtrays, and piled into my dad's van to be ferried home. 

I don't know. We used to think that our parents had somehow come to their senses. Look at them allowing us to do something COOL! Sure, I wasn't allowed to sleep over at my best friend's house when I was eleven and she lived down the street and her parents WERE FRIENDS OF MY PARENTS, but now I get to dance all night in a disco in a foreign country AND THEY DRIVE US?! Awesome! 

Of course, now I realize that my parents WANTED us to have fun and there really weren't a lot of ways to have any. Everyone lived so far away from each other, no one could drive, and discos really were The Thing. Everyone went. Everyone had awesome times. And my dad was only making sure we didn't end up wrapped around a tree. I'm not sure how this didn't occur to me then. 

My dad is retired. He likes to read stacks and stacks of Military and History and Military History and Occasional Current Event-Ish books, and when he's not doing that he's reading financial blogs on his iPad. We often tease him with that "I must have my Library!" line from Pride and Prejudice. He naps. My kids exhaust him. And he was just this way when I was in high school, only then it was his own kids (and the ones he taught) exhausting him. This is the man that stayed up till midnight to drive us to the disco, and woke up with an alarm at three to pick us up again. 

Since I've become a parent I've spent some time revising my personal history, realizing that horrible terrible awful things my parents did to me were probably things that saved me from various Pits of Despair and Uncomfortable Spots. I EASILY see myself making the same parenting choices. No way my kids are going to STAY THE NIGHT anywhere except MY OWN HOUSE!!! And that's FINAL! But then I also see the ways they let us out, but safely, and at personal cost. I always assumed they fell straight asleep as soon as I was gone, but when I think about my own kids doing that? I'm sure I'll be sitting up in the rocking chair biting my nails and watching infomercials till they get home.

So guilty I feel the need to confess via blog

If you are a SAHM, or any mom really, who lives far from family, you don't want to read this. I'M JUST SAYING. 

We went to visit Phillip's mom today. His dad is visiting other family and his mom is home alone and because they drive up EVERY MONDAY and TAKE US OUT TO DINNER, we figured the least we could do was drive to HER. So we did. The kids and I showed up at ten and then...

Yeah. The kids disappeared into The Toys At Nai Nai's House and Nai Nai was playing with them and/or cooking dinner (there is always much cooking when Phillip is coming for dinner) and I never know what to do with myself. I bring a book, I bring my computer, I bring "work". I sat at the kitchen island entering receipts into my budget spreadsheet and paying a few bills. I caught up on Twitter. I read a few blog posts. I thought about doing Actual Writing and then decided it against it. I drummed my fingers on the counter. 

Phillip's parents own the most glorious couch in the world and I could seriously burrow into it and stay there an entire day. And lots of times I do - with a book or a computer or the newspaper or a TV show. But it LOOKS bad, you know. To be so IDLE, especially at your MIL's house. 

But the thing is, my in-laws are ALL ABOUT me being idle. It's a bizarre world over there, I'm telling you. I never do the dishes. I never help cook. I hardly ever pay attention to the kids. It's not like I don't TRY to help out or OFFER to be useful, but I'm never taken up on it. Sometimes I wonder if it's because they secretly think that letting me into the kitchen means dinner will be ruined, but when I DO get an explanation it's along the lines of, "No no no, you RELAX."

So today I took myself to the movies. I LOVE going to the movies and I totally do not mind going by myself, especially when it's the middle of a weekday and the theater has maybe four people in it and the movie is excellent. ('The Fighter'. Highly recommend.)

I had an awesome time hanging out with just me, but not without a large serving of guilt. I mean, it's not like I don't OFTEN have time to myself. Family and friends abound. Sure my husband is crazy busy, but seriously. I have as much free time as I ask for. AM SPOILED. 

But never as spoiled as when I come back from a movie, in the middle of the day, while someone is watching and feeding my children for free, and that exact person blows off my apologies re: three-hour disappearance with a quick, "This is your DAY OFF."

A NORMAL person would do a happy dance while counting her lucky stars and plastering her in-laws with sloppy kisses, but I am writing a GUILTY BLOG POST. I am so guilty I couldn't even tell my MIL where I WAS all afternoon. She thinks I was running ERRANDS. And she probably wouldn't even CARE if I was out seeing a movie. AND SHE KNOWS I HAVE A BLOG AND EXACTLY WHERE TO FIND IT. 

I love love love my family, if that isn't totally obvious from everything I've ever written. But Phillip's family is still this crazy new experience, even if I've known them for nearly ten years. My family is huge and loud, theirs is small and quiet. In my family I'm the oldest and often organizing or planning or arranging, but in Phillip's family I'm the youngest and no one expects me to be or do anything. It's like I am SUPPOSED to be lazy. I thought this would be hard. I AM an oldest child and I am most DECIDEDLY an anal-retentive control freak. But for some reason, Phillip's family feels like a break from all that. This was always most obvious when I was doing really bad on the anxiety front. For whatever reason, sinking into that couch in my in-laws' family room was like magic medicine. I could actually NAP on that thing. And anxious people are incapable of naps! 

Anyway. I am really really lucky. I know this. I try not to take it for granted. When people talk about how crazy Phillip's schedule is and how crazy mine is as a result, I always mention the fact that we have two sets of super involved grandparents and THANK GOD. There's just no way we can do this without them. I don't know how other people DO. 

When I came home from my movie, the kids were upstairs and Nai Nai was with them. I took myself and my book to my favorite couch, and ten minutes later I was asleep. I heard my MIL come downstairs a few times to poke around in the kitchen, but she left me alone. And when I finally got up and tried to act like I was paying attention to my own children, she said, "Everything's FINE, go sit DOWN, it's your day OFF."

So! Don't mind if I do!