Junior

Summer vacation is officially over as of 7:55 am this morning. Let the education games begin. *May the odds be ever in your favour.* (Can you tell I just watched The Hunger Games? The best part was when it ended. Oh yes, I went there. I'll stick with Lord of the Flies and Piggy for my child on child violence, thank you very much.)

My daughter is a junior in high school, her brother a sophomore. I still remember my first day of school as a junior. I thought I was all fancy in my new shoes and my stiff new jeans and I was making eyes at the senior boy at the back of the bus with big blue eyes.

I spent the entire bus ride pretending I wasn't flirting with him and every time we made eye contact I'd blush and look away. When the bus finally pulled in front of the high school, I had concocted a plan to introduce myself to him. I was going to get off the bus before him, pretend to tie my shoelaces and then pop up in front of him when he got off the bus, thereby forcing a hello.

It was a fabulous plan. It may have worked too. I'll never know. What happened instead was I fell OUT OF THE BUS. Some kid behind me, in their eagerness to get to class, shoved me and I lost my balance because my backpack was crammed full with new school supplies. I face planted into the sidewalk, my nose started to bleed and everyone laughed. Including the cute blue eyed boy on the bus.

He never even stopped to offer me a hand. He just avoided eye contact and kept on walking. I scuffed my new shoes, bruised my ego and wiped the blood off my nose. WELCOME TO YOUR JUNIOR YEAR TANIS. The bell hadn't even rang yet.

Sadly, the first day of class on my senior year was EVEN worse, but that's a story that can keep till next year.

Here's hoping my tribe does a little better on their first day.

To celebrate the occasion, I did what I've done every year for the past 12 first days of school I've had with my kids. I've lined them up and forced them to smile.

Nothing says "Summer is over, get your arses back to class," like me shoving a camera in their faces and telling them to say cheese. Only after barking at them to hurry up and for the love of God, no a can of Coke and a granola bar does not consist a healthy lunch no matter how many times you ask.

This morning was particularly disorganized and if it's a harbinger of school mornings to come, well I am in for a world of trouble.

First, no one wanted to stand for the picture. Because apparently "traditions are pointless and have no meaning."

I may have snarled. And put the fear of death into them at the same time. I don't know. It's all rather fuzzy. I hadn't had my morning coffee yet.

Jumby wasn't quite sure what was going on.

Envision me standing there, with my robe gaping open, holding my camera and screaming out "OW" trying to get my youngest son to smile. (The Jumbster is a bit of a sadist and will routinely smile whenever he hears someone say 'ow.')

Meanwhile Fric keeps telling Frac that he's holding Jumby wrong and he is slipping.

I'm standing there clucking like a chicken, trying to get the Jumbster to look forward when all of a sudden a noise comes from between the kids.

It didn't sound good.

That right there is documented evidence of how two teenaged children react when they realize their little brother just pooped and the only thing between them and 'it' is a diaper and some Old Navy Skinny jeans.

Welcome to the first day of school kids.

Eventually I managed to get a decent(ish) picture. It only required a diaper change, a few threats and a bribe.

I tried taking a few other pictures, you know, just to really push my luck and ensure my kids would have to run for the bus, but once someone busted out with the Zoolander imitation I had officially lost control of the situation.

All of that and we officially missed the bus on the first day of school.

It's going to be a banner year, yo.

Welcome to the 2012-13 school year kids. May your grades be good, your lunches not forgotten and your homework easy. And may your mother not lose her mind along the way.

 *Post Edit*

I want it noted, for the record, that I've actually read The Hunger Games books. And I loathed them. In fact, I loathed the books more than I loathed the movie. Mr. Lady sums up why I hated the Hunger Games books more eloquently than I ever could. Thank God for grammar geeks.

 

Having the Talk

So a little while back Momversation and Kotex banded together to talk about "The Conversation." The conversation a parent has to eventually have with their daughter about how their bodies are going to change and what they should expect.

Ya. That conversation.

It was an interesting afternoon and what I learned in my discussion with Jessica and Linda is that we all parent our children vastly different. Most parents tend not to make half as many inappropriate jokes as I do.

Huh.

But what we all seemed to agree on was how important it is to TALK with your daughter.

I never had the talk with either of my parents. Which likely accounts for why I am so insistent on having it with my kid and why I tend to joke inappropriately as I do.

Kotex has some great tips about “The Conversation" and how to have the talk on their website that you should totally check out.

Now excuse me as I have to go remind my kids tampons aren't really supposed to be stuffed up one's nostrils in an effort to imitate a walrus.



 

One Man's Dream Is Another Woman's Nightmare

It's happening.

The ridiculously oversized, mammoth garage my husband has been dreaming of for over ten years is finally starting to materialize. That's the funny thing about dreams. You dream them long enough and hard enough, guilt your wife and spend every last dollar you haven't even earned yet and POOF! Dreams really can come true!

I leave for America and come home to find I had a popsicle stick roof. I was gone four and a half days. Apparently my husband moves a whole lot quicker when I'm not around to pester him with back-seat construction instructions.

(I'm not a carpenter but my grandfather and my brother are, therefore I KNOW EVERYTHING. It's a rule. One my husband does not understand.)



I have to admit; I was a tad impressed with the sheer enormity of the project once the roof was on. I had a hard time gauging the size and scope of the project from the prints and even when it was just cement walls and open sky it still didn't look big.

It looks big now.

It looks HUGE.

It looks like we are building an airplane hangar for my invisible jet.

Even my husband, the power behind this project, had a moment of clarity and admitted that maybe, perhaps, possibly, I was right and it is a bit of a monstrosity that could have been a wee bit smaller.

It was the sexiest pillow talk ever.

Also? It goes without saying that I am often right. No matter what my husband thinks.

However right I am, the project isn't going to get any smaller and I'm going to have to learn to live with a garage with more square footage than my house.

My tractor totally deserves fancier digs than me. Its been around longer than I have and I'm certain it's resale value is higher.



The upside to this oversized barn/shop/garage/airplane storage facility is that there is an upstairs. My husband contends this will be a games room; a place where he can scratch his manhood, watch movies and throw some darts. Or something. I have a different idea though.

I'm envisioning a rehabilitation room for Jumby, an office for myself and maybe a craft room where I can play with glue and sparkles and all sorts of decidedly girly things.

The truth of the matter is, there is SPACE ENOUGH FOR ALL OF OUR IDEAS.

RE: OVERSIZED MAMMOTH MONSTROSITY.

At least my ugly couch will finally find a home it looks good in. (I am a 'the glass is half full' type of gal.)



Then again, if we don't get the floor poured and the staircase built soon I may have to abandon my lofty (get it? heh) plans for all things glittery because I don't know how many more times I can climb that ladder. My thighs are screaming at me in pain just looking at that damn ladder.

I have nightmares about that ladder, that's how many times I've climbed it.



Of course, I also have nightmares about my kids falling and crashing to their deaths because apparently my teenagers are part monkey and they are fearless. Every time I go to find them I have to look up and then yell at them to get their arses back down out of the trusses, off a wall, please for the love of all that is holy get off the roof before you kill yourself.

This entire project is killing me.



I'm a walking ball of anxiety. I'm either worried about someone hurting themselves, the weather, the fact my husband is practically killing himself to get this done basically by himself, the cost expenditure, the timeline or you know, a myriad of other construction woes.

I am not cut out for building things.

I DO NOT ENJOY.



I feel like an arse admitting this, because you know, I'm getting a fancy, near-indestructible building to shack my car in and I should be grateful that we have the means to do this.

I am spoiled and fortunate and incredibly blessed.

Except I am unable to stop worrying about everything that can go wrong and it's robbing me of the joy of knowing how awesome it will be when it's finished.

Construction: It makes me neurotic. And not in the charming way.

To be honest (or TBH like all the cool youngsters say on Facebook,) I may be going a little crazy.



The upside is, it seems like everyone else around here is losing it too, so at least I won't be alone in my padded cell.

*I swear, one day soon I will stop yapping about this damn garage.*