I know about God because I grew up Catholic. I have spirituality because I've been involved with Al-Anon and I know Grace because I am a mother. As I've gotten older, I recognize that I am now more spiritual than I am Catholic. Dictionary.com sites one of the theological uses of Grace to mean: "the influence or spirit of God operating in humans to regenerate or strengthen them."

The Scene last week:
The Tornado and I are ready to leave the school building and I have just dropped the "we have a few stops to make before we go home" bomb. I was cringing inside waiting for the procession of scowly faces, stomping feet and "humph" noises that typically follow such an announcement. But they didn't come... I eased my finger off my crazy-mom trigger and re-holstered it hesitantly... We made it through the grocery store and to another school site to pick up classroom supplies in a comfortable quiet that was interrupted only periodically by the soft command to "turn it up, please" when he heard the Beastie Boys rattle the already-blown speakers in the car. Our last stop was the library:

{Please excuse the following A.D.Detour...}
 It's really lovely, as a parent when your child shares a common passion, and for The Tornado and I, it's books. We don't go to the library to get a book. We go to get BOOOOOKSS!!!! We then pay lots of FIIIIINESSS because we are not so good at the returning things on time part of the library adventure. 
{umm... The End}

Although I walked into the library, like I always do, with the sense that some wonderful treasure was waiting for me to reach out and grab it by it's skinny spine... I actually found very little that inspired me. However, the Universe was about to remind me that, tonight I'd brought the treasure with me... and for some strange reason on that Tuesday, he was wearing his father's socks pulled way up past his knees. (God, I love that kid...) I was ready to hit the road with the few books I had half-heartedly piled up when The Tornado loped over with a big grin and an arm load that included a World Atlas, Valley of the Dinosaurs, a book about fresh water mammals and Junie B. Jones. The selections were so totally Tornado, it was impossible not to smirk. On our way out, he said as he held the door for me, "Here, I'll take some of those too, Mom. Then you won't have all the load." As we walked to the car I told him he was growing up to be a real gentleman. He said he hopes that means someone who's getting a cheeseburger for dinner. Just as we reached the parking lot, The Tornado looked up and spotted a single star in the sky and started to recite:

Star light, star bright...

I wish I may, I wish I might

Have the wish I wish tonight.

So, I made a wish. I thought it was a pretty great wish... Who wouldn't KILL for Bavarian eclairs that made you lose weight, right??? (By magic, I threw in at the end... none of that shit-yourself-skinny business) Most clever wish I ever wished... I was feeling pretty pleased with myself until I heard from the back seat,

 "Mom? Did you wish that we would always be together?

Humility hit me like a pile driver but I didn't miss a beat. "How did you know?" was the only acceptable response, of course. And his self-satisfied expression confirmed that he's still too innocent to see right through me.

I get discouraged about the things I forget to do, put off doing or don't have any energy to do in a day... I beat myself up about being late, too heavy, financially irresponsible, too loud and completely unfit to prepare a meal that is not 90% boxed or frozen.

You see, there are a great many things I don't like about me. But what I DO like about me is that those moments don't get lost. I recognize and honor the times when God tosses me a shiny bauble.
Ironically, I went into the library looking for fairy tale books that wouldn't make me gag. I feel fairly certain that cheeseburgers were not among the "tokens" typically bestowed upon a gentleman in days gone by, but once upon a Tuesday, under a single star, a budding gentleman scored himself a McDouble for charming my socks off. 

*Wow... God AND fairy tales. This post is a two-fer! You're welcome.

Insert, the waaaaay over used "You like me!" Sally Field reference here... Two people have recently passed on this award to me, which I can't help but snort a little. I am the least stylish woman I know. If only they could see me now in the pajama bottoms I've been wearing on and off all weekend and mismatched socks. My style is the BLAH kind that would make Stacey and Clinton guzzle arsenic martinis - jeans, solid color t-shirt or jersey and May - early December: flip flops. But as there are no images of me that appear on this blog, I realize that the award has been given based solely on my writing. I hope this means I have a unique voice, and developing that writer's voice and finding my own style of writing was one of the reasons I forced myself to add my nonsense to the completely saturated market of Mommy Bloggers in the first place - write as often as you can and write what you know - check... and check. Appreciation for doing something that has been fun and provided me with some personal growth over the past few months is a huge bonus.

THANK YOU,

Shannon and Heather!

Please check out their respective blogs, 

ShaunnaMichelle's and Teens and a Toddler

Now, my job is to award some other blogs that are STYLISH, too. I follow only a few other blogs that don't belong to the lovelies who awarded me, but in the spirit of recognizing and promoting traffic to some other fun blogs with writing styles I love, I'm passing on the award to:

Elizabeth Crocker

http://thewayiseeitthroughmylens.blogspot.com/

her photography is AMAZING and her family story is touching and hopeful....

I have to recognize

Shelbi at

http://www.mymommystory.com/

her tag line says it all: How My life Went from Happy Hour to Story Hour, and

she's also a self-proclaimed mom-prenuer who makes SUPER STYLIN'

hair embellishments for little girls of all ages at Gigi and Lula

also!

The Craft Happy Mom

I'd love to see this blogger get some more traffic too - she posts tutorials and great anecdotes!

I am supposed to post 7 things my readers don't know about me, but because I have been a lazy pile of flesh and pajamas on the couch for the last two days watching Season 4 of Dexter, I have to pry my eyes off the screen and go do something that looks like taking care of the kids or housework... I might "Swiff" the living room and put an open box of Goldfish on the kitchen table for the kids to find. 7 tidbits about the SassMaster to follow... some other day.

Now, run along and play...

Mommy has a headache.



Christmas Spirit Abounds...

My gift to you: some crappy Christmas poetry

'Tis the week before Christmas and all through the halls,

you can hear distinct sounds of

kids bouncing off walls...

They're all giddy, unfocused, anxious and weird

with everyone wondering: "When will Santa be here?"

It's almost vacation and they've completely

"checked out,"

w h  i n i n g r u n n i n g c r a s h i n g

 'til The SassMaster shouts

That gets their attention for a moment or two

and then it's right back to

chaos times 9+2

Perhaps, "In the lanes, snow is glistening..."

but in preschool, no one's listening.

I'd pull out my hair if I wasn't so delighted

to know that at the end, the tunnel is lighted:

when each little bum scoots out of that door,

they're someone else's problem for 10 days or more!

For you, I wish

full tummies, warm beds and safe arms to hold you,

A little magic, lots of love

 and many stories to be told to you.

As for me,

My couch awaits with a (picture-less!) book and a glass*,

I can almost feel it easing the pain in my ass...

toodle-oo, happy vacation

from the Master of Sass!

*Click the asterisk for MERRY HUMBUG MARGARITA recipe

And a cheerful anecdote for your amusement:

"Let go of the tree, woman or I'll stick it where the lights won't twinkle!"

The following is the conversation between The Dad and I on our way home from Target where we attempted to finalize the shopping portion of this year's holiday cluster fuck:

Me: So, I got a few things for the boys to wrap up for you, and you have the coffee mug and the flip flop ornament on your dresser that they can decorate for me. Then maybe you could just pick up a gift certificate for me at Barnes and Noble...

The Dad: Maybe I could just give you a coupon that says you can wax my ass for free...

Me: Score! But fair warning, dip shit... if you wake up one of these days clean shaven, with no eye brows you can consider my coupon "redeemed."

Merry Humbug !

Merry Humbug Margaritas

1 cup fresh squeezed limes


1 cup Cointreau or Triple Sec


1 cup cranberry juice


1 cup POM juice
2 cups sliver tequila

Mix ingredients in a pitcher and serve over ice...

I like my 'ritas on the rocks, but it wouldn't be hard to toss it all in a blender with some ice for a frozen version.

"Salting" the Rim... (It was difficult not to title this portion of the post "Rim Jobs")
If you're all about presentation, you could use the red or green sugar crystals that never made it onto the cookies you didn't bake because the dough disappeared mysteriously before the oven was even pre-heated... And don't even try to tell me that only happens at my house.
OR...
you could scrounge your purse for loose Ambien.

Have fun and stay put - these are not your ordinary holiday cocktails. These are "flip-off-your-mother-in-law-slug-your-brother-with-a-rock-'tails"... be forewarned.

I'd Rather Be...Any Where Else

So this is the guy I spent the last few hours with and while I get as hot as the next gal for a detachable face and above average nostril size, I was less than thrilled about my date...

 

CPR training. Every year I am required to get re- certified in CPR as part of my job. And every year it's the same shit. Three people need to one up each other with the stories about their mother's next door neighbor's half brother who choked on a piece of pot roast... After the instructor had to spend 5 minutes with someone who insisted that her husband had been choking on water in the shower one morning and that she'd saved him by blowing INTO his mouth, I tuned the fuck out... I should have been thinking about ratios of breaths to compressions (in case you have a burning desire to know: 2 breaths to 15 compressions) but here's what was bangin' around in my noggin instead:

• If I ever drop, chances are it's going to happen at work. Some days I'm channelling Jackie Gleason by the time I've intervened twice with two preschoolers having a "whine off" over a race car or from hearing the sound of repeated block towers clattering to the concrete floor. Throw in the kid who opened the barber shop in the art area and I'm a stroke waiting to happen... Watching all the folks in my CPR class, who all work for the same agency, I know one thing - if I do go down, I want the biggest bitch you can find to hammer on my chest. (Incidentally, there ought to be a Medic Alert bracelet to this effect...) Those little skinny girls don't have enough weight behind them to flatten a whoopie cushion. Please, God... don't leave one of them in charge of getting oxygen to my precious brain. It's the only part of my body it didn't take me 25 years to love. I also got a bit worried watching some of these folks with lip piercings mauling the dummies with their stainless steel. The idea that I could end up brain dead with a chipped grill just might be enough to propel me toward the gym and away from the Nutty Bars for now. 
• I started to feel like Mr.Faster! Deeper! Harder! needed a good back story if I was really going to get into the spirit of trying to save his armless, legless torso. So I decided he was a children's librarian with a lovely Italian accent who had lost his arms and legs to a rare, flesh eating parasite he'd contracted while teaching children to read in the jungles of South America. 

I was trying to decide what flavor of gelato is his favorite when the instructor asked me what I would do if I walked into my classroom and there was a child lying motionless on the floor. FYI - "pistachio" is not the right answer to that question...

Thanks have been given. And now the following Public Service Announcements for All Things Retail Related

"Thank You..." words I very often use in my professional environment and shamefully, so often forget to use in my personal life. Here are some of the "Thank Yous" that don't get said often enough:

Thank you, mom and dad for saying, "Sure. Whatever you need..." so very long ago when we asked you for some space. I never dreamed we'd still be living  here, and I'm sure you didn't either. Thanks for never reminding us about the words we make ourselves eat every year that goes by: "just until we get on our feet."
Thanks for your presence in the boys' lives and the every day gift of having Nana and Grampa right up stairs.
It's not perfect, but our family is unique and has given two little boys twice the love and attention that others get since the day they drew breath. In our society, so full of single parents who struggle to give enough, that's one growing pain my kids will never ache from... and I am forever grateful.

It's hard to say that stuff. It's hard to live in your mom's basement with your family at the age of 34... (feel free to gasp. I just did upon reading that in print.) It's hard to feel like a grown up when you are an adult living with your parents. It's hard to know who you can tell that stuff to... hard to swallow your feelings of inadequacy and failure when people you haven't seen since High School note your address (which is still the same) and ask when your parents' passed away. It's hard, at the age of 34 to have to choke down the same meatloaf that made you gag when you were 7.

But it's harder to be worried all the time because there's not enough money. It's harder to be constantly unavailable to your kids because you can't think about anything but the bills you can't pay. The gift of being able to give to my kids all those worry-free moments in my day is invaluable. I should say my "Thank yous" more often.

Other "Thank Yous" that bear a note here are to the people who caught me when I got the wind knocked out of me a few years ago. The ones who shored me up when all I knew about my life was washed out from under me by a 22 year old tsunami who wanted another notch in her belt. Thank you to all the same people who trust my choices and understand that only The Dad and I know what could be rebuilt and how firm the foundation is. I am grateful for this and all the experiences that illuminated what I was too scared to explore of my own free will - I can take a hit and still be who I want to be. No matter what other people's choices set into motion, I can choose my actions, my words, my dignity. I write my history the way I want to look back at it. I can be vulnerable and pathetic sometimes and know with certainty that those times are not the ones that define me. I can manage the mess that I make of my life and help my kids to come through it too. My life as a teenager and as a younger woman used to be comprised of "I can't," or "I could never," and now I know I can... whenever I'm ready. There is deep gratitude in my heart for all that the last ten years has brought me.

With all of that said, I now I have to turn my attention to the retail world, because I DID venture out on Black Friday and was saved from incarceration ONLY because I was wearing my flops and my feet weren't hot. Hot feet make me cranky. Everything else in the universe was aligned in such a way as to prevent an enjoyable retail experience. I started my period, so consequently woke up feeling like manslaughter could possibly be part of the day's agenda. If I was to measure the day by the first words I spoke, it would've been clear after roaring "Get OFF me!" at the children at 7 a.m. that the day was going to suck donkey balls. Look out Wal-Mart... The Sassmaster cometh. At 11:02 a.m. I had a Nintendo DS Lite in hand and I should have gone back home. I'll leave you with the following as we hurl ourselves into the Vortex of Excess and all the caloric and financial debauchery associated with the Holiday Season...

Please take note of the following PSA's for the Holiday Season 2010

• Target stores, please devise a system for tagging and identifying the employees who "Don't Usually Work in This Department." If their only job is to stand around in a Santa hat and ooze out of their signature red "Target" shirt while re-folding sweaters, let us know... It will save us the aggravation of the post-question blank stare and could save the life of the ass hat you bumped out of the stock room who doesn't know what "sherpa-lined" means.
• Don't try to do any amount of Christmas shopping with the children around... hiding presents from their view looks an awful lot like shoplifting. Side bar - have you noticed how many Mall Security folks are short and surly???
• Piling that shit on your credit card and paying 18 - 28 % interest for however long it takes you to pay it off cancels out whatever money you saved on it. Think about that next year before you peel yourself out of bed at 4 in the morning to freeze your ass off waiting in line at Toys-R-Us.
• Gifting any of the following items to my children will mean a swift and painful ass-kicking: Candy Land, umbrellas, Moon Sand, and anything that eats or shits.
• Teacher gifts... please listen carefully. Your child's teacher does not need or want pot pouri, bath products, lotion, or candles. Chocolate, margarita mix, or a handful Vicodin in a decorative tin are all acceptable if you insist on spending your money. But seriously? Don't spend your money. Grab a pen and a folded piece of paper - remember those?? Write a note that thanks him/her for giving his/her time and energy to your child. Say thank you for something that you know has had an impact on your child. And end it with your sincere wishes that the holiday break is well enjoyed, and let 'em know that you know it's well-deserved.

Merry Humbug, poppets...

At Long Last! An Update... Head Start Stockholm's Syndrome

I am trying to forget that there's a health and safety check happening at school tomorrow and that there are a handful of loose ends in the children's files that I left until the absolute last moment, which could result in major disaster should my files be checked on Friday during the return of the federal reviewers...
I am also trying to forget about the two buckets filled with Halloween candy on the shelf directly behind me.
Do you think it's possible to smell a Butterfinger through the wrapper 5 feet away?

I will now attempt to write to forget,  in order not to eat to forget. I have totally neglected this endeavor for way too long and have even gotten requests for updates - Thank you!! Granted, it was my best friend and a family member but it's nice to know someone wants to hear more of my bullshit. I honestly thought when I started this blog that my preschoolers would be a plethora of blog-fodder but, I'm beginning to think I'll have to comb the cob-webby corners of my memory for tales of preschoolers-past in order to keep you entertained.

Stay tuned for A Preschool Story: The Tales of SassMaster Scrooge! Fortunately The Viking has entered full-fledged toddler-dom and has begun his attempt at world domination via tantruming and pinching. There will also be an installment of Viking Misadventures the very minute I'm done with the college course I picked up this semester. That's another blog post in and of itself that's begging to be written - the course is called Students with Special Needs but I now refer to it as "Teachers With Special Needs." I am still astoinshed each and every Tuesday evening to be sitting in a college classroom with 20+ grown ups (who ALL work in the field already) and hearing "I don't get it" more than three times each class.

Pre-blog, I envisioned the same old, same old -  12 rowdy Snotbots who would find their own unique ways to make me wish a meteor would blaze through the atmosphere and directly through our classroom ceiling each and every day, but... guess what... They're all FABULOUS... Even this year's Queen Bee is redeemed, and succeeds in tickling my funny bone rather than tap dancing on my last nerve for once. Sure, she tries the patented Disney Princess, doe-eyed smile as her first line of defense upon hearing that someone else (me) in the room has an agenda, and sure... she then ignores (albeit unsuccessfully) all requests that technique fails to deflect... But she also has no inhibitions when it comes to making silly faces and weird Tourrette's-like vocalizations as she plays. She will "BEE-DOO, BEE-DOO, BEE-DOO" at the top of her lungs in the echo-y bathroom stall and then walk out casually smiling as she continues past me and my clearly amused face. Often, she can also be heard making a strange, gutteral "GAHK, GAHK, GAHK, GAHK" sound with her mouth wide open and her lips curled over her teeth. So, am I completely annoyed by a child who is willful, who blatantly and silently defies me in front of my face? (Anyone one who has worked with me probably needs a moment to stop laughing at that obviously rhetorical question... Take your time.) Yeah... but because she's a pain in the ass who flies her Freak Flag a little higher than all the rest, I am more amused than annoyed for now. I don't mind letting this one wear the crown - she and I have already established who wears the top hat at this Circus...

The truth is they are all interesting and well-behaved. They clean up their shit when I tell them to, they love to sing and be read to, they walk where they're supposed to, and 5 out of 11 of them remember to turn off the faucet with a fucking paper towel! I bet 5 out of 11 of the people who read this don't do that, for Christ sake. They are a really great group of kids and you wanna know what? I'm completely bored with them. Clearly I have some sort of Head Start Stockholm's Syndrome... Apparently I can't function and feel like I'm earning my crappy pay unless someone's tossing chairs around or falling to the ground like a boneless pile of screaming, writhing flesh every five minutes. I have been waiting for 10 years to have a classroom like this and I'm ready to open a vein. What's wrong with me? them? no... it's definitely me.

Last week two little girls ran up hand and hand, waving a book at me and smiling like something out of a JC Penney commercial,  "I can read this book to her?" the bigger one asked. They had one of my "home books" (this year I don't have to hoard them away on my Teacher Desk because everyone in my room loves and respects books) I said "Sure!" and had to stop mysef from adding, "But wouldn't you rather push her?"
It's only the 8th week of school and half of them are already negociating the solutions to their own problems. They only really need me to accompany them to the bathroom across the hall. Thank goodness a few of them still have laces on their sneakers that need tying now and again, or I might be tempted to just lock the door, leave out some juice and crackers and take a nap under the desk.

There's hope for something lively yet - room for a wild card... One of the kiddos will be leaving this week and as Forrest's mama always says, "Life is like a box of chocolates - you never know what you're gonna get." Who knows what or who is coming down the road, but for now, I'll try to be careful what I wish for and appreciate what I've got. And come Thursday I'm really going to miss Mr. "Please May I Can I Have..." Safe travels, N - May peace and plenty bless your world, with joy that long endures.