Briyonce

Our realtor asked us if we were planning to watch the Superbowl.  I asked, “Is that today?”   My husband said, “I’m in marketing.  The commercials are what we watch.”  But apparently my family watched some of it because my husband started calling Bri Briyonce after she started mock dancing during halftime.

Do you remember when I said that everything would be better when Bri got her license?

Of course, that’s true but … a new question has come up.  The question being how many tires can Bri take out within 6 days?

(Hint:  If you note the question – it implies more than one occurrence.)

Answer:  So far (and I mean that) 3.  One last Thursday and two on Wednesday.

My husband just bought 4 tires and a spare and a rim.  I told him to keep the extra two tires because that way she can blow out 3 more.

And Bri doesn’t just put small holes in tires.  Touch your thumb to your first finger; now open that up an inch.  That was one of the holes in the tire last Thursday.  She ran over something then she drove on it … for miles.  One block from school she and Jacob noticed that the car was tilted.  We couldn’t get the jack under it so we had to have it towed home. 

Wednesday she called again in the morning.  My husband went to look at the car again.  He recreated the accident by following the plastic pieces.  She hit the curb, and then scraped a telephone pole -- taking out two tires and the side view mirror in the process.  Again we had the car towed home.

But on a positive note she immediately pulled onto a side street and parked the car.  And Jacob and she are getting mad tire changing skills!

Bri’s Road Test

I’m sure you are wondering why I am driving over two hours away for a road test.  The answer is simple … I live in Massachusetts.

See?

Massachusetts closed down a lot of RMVs (including the one in my town).  Usually I go to the one 30 minutes away, but why would it be simple to schedule a road test in Massachusetts?

I had 3 options.

Option #1.  Schedule through the driving school, pay an extra $165 (after paying over $700 for the classes) for someone to drive Bri to Milford to take the test.

Option #2.  Pay an extra $100 to the driving school for Bri to take the test in our town.

Option #3.  Schedule the test myself and drive her myself and not pay the driving school anything extra.

I chose option #3.  However, when scheduling I checked for anything during the month (any day, any time). 

Within 10 miles … nothing. 

Within 20 miles … nothing. 

Within 50 miles … nothing. 

Within 100 miles … nothing. 

Within 200 miles … oh look, Pittsfield is available.  Ok, we’re driving to Pittsfield.

I am now forced to conclude that the driving school somehow arranged the hurricane.

Hurricane Sandy

On Friday, I went to the grocery store.

Why do I always forget that everyone in New England prepares for every big storm by buying groceries?

Somehow, it surprises me every time!  But as long as I was at the store I figured I should get some extra food as well to make waiting in the extra long line worth it.  At home I unpacked my extra 5 bags of apples, then stared at the gallon of milk, two cartons of eggs and the two packages of tater tots I bought and thought, "when the power goes out, boy will I be grateful for those tots!"

Obviously, I have lost the emergency preparedness skills that come standard in Utah.

School has already been cancelled for tomorrow and you know what else is tomorrow?

Brianne's road test.    Yup, the one that we are driving 2 hours and 15 minutes away to take.  Because why wouldn't there be a hurricane on the one day this year that I scheduled the test?

I don't know who to call to complain about this ... but I know someone who does and I will be calling her to find out who to yell at!

Wrapping dad around her little Finger

A friend of mind told me that there is something about girls and their fathers.  Well, he actually said … And I quote, “my boys, they can drive any old beater car around but for G… I’ll probably need to buy her a pink car.”

I had found a super attractive, almost “antique” car for Bri to drive for the attractive price of $1,000.  My husband asked, “What does Bri think of it?”

I said, “I don’t care.  It’s $1,000.”

My husband responded, “Bri wants a Bug.” 

I said, “This car costs $1,000, what is not to like?”

And so, he bought her a bug that cost a bit more. 

… *Sucka!

*Ok, I don’t really mean that because he is super sweet (nicer than me).  I just didn’t care that the car was not attractive because I never planned to drive it!

History -- Owned

Timeline of Stress

Throughout the summer:  Bri put off reading The Jungle for AP History but finally finished.

Tuesday: Bri finished up her chapter notes due in history and started studying for her test.

Wednesday morning:  Bri started her junior year. 

Wednesday Afternoon:  I picked up a hyperventilating Brianne.  Between breaths into a lunch bag, Bri explained that she had MRS. WILL for AP History!  The hardest teacher.  That her test tomorrow was not just on one chapter of notes but also the previous chapter’s notes as well.  The chapter from last year – the one she already took a test on.  She said, “I’m going to get a 5 on the AP test.  Last year my friend never got above a B- on a test and got a 5 on the AP test.”  Bri spent the rest of the day studying and quizzing me about Lincoln and reconstruction.

Somehow we ended up talking about how reconstruction was different under Johnson.  And I ended up saying, “After Lincoln was assassinated by vampire sympathizer John Wilkes Booth …”  (And yes, that is exactly what it can be like to have a conversation with me.)  Bri said that she was going to use that in her test.

Patriot’s Day 2012

(11 days late … what’s up with that?)  This year was different because we didn’t go over to my friend Katherine’s house for a bar-b-que because 1.)  Brianne ruins everything and 2.) a good friend was running The Marathon and I wanted to scream her name when she ran past me.

Originally we planned on going to DC for spring break but I signed Brianne up for driver’s ed instead.  I wanted her to both enjoy spring break and get driver’s ed over in one week vs. me driving her every Thursday and Friday night to a driver’s ed class for 2 months.  As a special bonus she got to spend her birthday surrounded by her peers listening to a 70 year-old man talk about driving.  It’s like I reached into her brain, found her ideal birthday activity, then paid a lot money to turn it into a reality!  I’m the Best. Mother. Ever.

So, while Brianne enjoyed spending Patriot’s Day in a small, hot room; Lizzy and I hooked up with the Raskell’s on Rt. 135 in Natick.  The Raskells like to show up to activitiesinsanely early and spend the day.  Lizzy and I showed up at 11:30 … long after the wheelchair and elite athletes had run by to watch the pack.

Lizzy and I helped pass out wet paper towels to the runners, then once they ran out sat down in our chairs to yell out runner’s names and the current score of the Red Sox game.  You could usually tell who the Massachusetts’ runners were because once they realized that Don was listening to the game they’d start shouting, “What’s the score?”

I pretended to be a fan (because I’m helpful) would yell out things like, “No score.  Bottom of the third.”  I sometimes like learning new things and I sort of learned a new language – baseball while watching the marathon.  Tiffanie laughed at me for shouting out the score because in 12 years of living here I’ve never even attended a game at the Green Giant oops, Monster (see more sport’s terminology – between my education at the marathon, having the game on in the background and watching Moneyball, I practically have a Masters in Baseball!).

I even saw my friend run.  I got a text when she was at 10k so I started watching for her I got a sweaty hug and ran alongside her for a couple of feet – which is my version of running the marathon.

But I mostly supported the runners by sitting in a chair, eating pizza provided by the Raskells, drinking cold water and by yelling out the runner’s names* because I’m awesome … and supportive.

*Note.  If you run in the Boston Marathon it is easier to read your name if you write it on your shirt rather than on your bent arm, especially if the first few letters are one direction and the letters beneath your elbow are sideways and you’re moving your arm.  But maybe it’s just me.

Stuff My Kids Say

“Lizzy, you’re wonderful!”

“I know.”

…

After changing the bandage on Bri’s back, I said, “Brianne, I’m like a nurse.”

“No, you’re not.”

…

“Jacob, go clean the toilet.”

“That’s not on my job list.”

…

“One fish, two fish.”

“Move please.”

“All done.”

“Girls like boys who have skills”

I cajoled Brianne into taking Will for a walk around the neighborhood as part of our “Reduce the Mass of William” Campaign.  (Don’t give me grief – you would do the same if your twelve year-old was about double the size of your fourteen year-old!)  Will does not love to go on walks.

They had walked up the short hill and down the long when Will took off across the lawn towards a house.  Bri saw that the TV was on in the house and was worried that Will was going to burst through the door and sit down!  She grabbed hold of his arm.  “Will stop!”  She commanded.  He ignored her command and dragged her towards the door.  (He also has about 50 pounds on my fifteen year-old.)

He ran the doorbell.

Bri was embarrassed until my friend Cheryl answered the door.  Will looked at Cheryl.  He walked over to her car, opened the door and got in.  When Bri followed him, Will locked the door.  Cheryl looked at Will and went to get her purse.  She drove him home.

Brianne – point, set, match to Will.

Brat

Bri is away for the week.  I told her I wanted her to call me four times a day.  (The key to negotiation is to start high.  What?  I have skills!)  She countered with never.  We compromised on every other day.

I happened to be on the phone when she called yesterday.

I called her back about 6 minutes after she called.

I called her an additional three or four times to no avail.

(This does not bode well for college.  I should probably learn to text.)

From her message I learned that she loves her Vermontian roommate.  She’s having so much fun.  She doesn’t miss me at all and she eats dinner.

Brat

Bri waited in the car

After picking up Bri from swim practice I had to stop at the grocery store to buy bacon for Jake’s end of the year crew breakfast.  She decided to wait in the car because she was … well, wet.  When I came back she had changed my phone’s wallpaper to a picture of her making a face.  

She had written “lol, hahahaha” on it and changed the background to black.  When I remarked on the picture she responded, “you’ll never be able to take the writing off the picture.”

“Why not?”  I asked.

“Because you don’t know how to.”

Oh, I forgot to mention that Bri is now fifteen and much, much closer to driving

I now only need to figure out how soon she can take drivers ed. and how money this is going to cost me.  But I don’t care about the $ because the sooner she can drive herself to seminary in the morning the sooner I can sleep in past 5:40am.  I don’t get up sooner that that because I drive her in my pajamas because I can’t imagine anything happening at that hour which would require me to be dressed.

We went to Six Flags for Bri’s birthday.  (We’ll be going a lot this year because we bought season passes.  A lot being at least two more times.)  We spread out her birthday.  She had her birthday dinner the night before her birthday and her cake and ice cream the night after.  Trust me – there’s a perfectly logical and thoughtful reason for both.  I didn’t know what time we’d get back from Six Flags and didn’t want her dinner to be rushed.  And people (the weird ones who invited us for dinner even though they aren’t in our community)were coming over for dinner the day after her birthday and I didn’t need an extra dessert around begging to be eaten and/or directly applied to my butt.

Bri had Will blow out her candles because he loves birthdays and it was adorable!

Mary Janes and Plaid Skirts

I had visions of what my children would be like.  Then I had one.  But I still had visions of what they would wear and play with.  I envisioned them playing with and adoring the kinds of toys I wished for and didn’t have!  Well, not my boys.  I didn’t really care about what kinds of toys they had, except weapons.  My boys wouldn’t have guns or swords or anything violent.  Can you tell that I bought into the entire nurture side of the nurture v. nature debate?  The weapons-ban lasted until I noticed my three year-old making a gun out of legos and sticks.  At which point I promptly gave up.

But the girls, the girls were going to have American Girl dolls and giant incredibly cool doll houses to play with.  And I would, um help them decorate the doll house and have tea parties with them and they would dress up and everything would be wonderful (but not pink because pink clashes with my hair – I’ve always had issues with pink).

But children are who they are and you have to respect that.  The first clue I had that Bri would not wear what I wanted her to wear was when she was two.  My mom had saved some of my clothes (circa 1972) and Bri insisted on wearing a yellow, red and blue gathered peasant dress three times a week.  She wore it basically every time it was clean.  And in elementary school she loved bejeweled pants.  I’d go to the store, spot a stripe of cubic zirconiums glued down the side of a pair of jeans and think “Oh, that’s hideous!  Bri will love it!”  I’d buy the pants for her and it never failed … she loved them!

I pinned my hopes on Elizabeth.  She was a brunette just like my mom.  I gave her a bob because I love bobs on little girls with dark brown hair.  My friends gave me adorable clothes for her and I bought more.  Then when Lizzy was one she started insisting on dressing herself.  Do you know how long it takes for a one year-old to dress herself?  Well, I’ll just put it this way -- you have time to read the Lord of the Rings Trilogy.  I quickly learned not to help because then she undressed and restarted the process.  It was a painful year.  And add insult to injury her hair started to lighten.

When Elizabeth was two she got particular about clothes.  She refused to wear knit pants or leggings (She still does) and she started insisting on belt loops and pockets.  If she didn’t like something she refused to wear it. Elizabeth is who she is and will wear what she wants to wear; which usually is a pair of jeans, a huge tee-shirt, a fleece and a pair of masculine sneakers.  On Sunday she wears a pink eyelet skirt with a blue butterfly sparkly tee-shirt, a sweater, pink, white and red striped knee high socks and black Mary Janes.  She’s been wearing the same thing for about nine months now.  I’m sure people think she doesn’t own another dress.  Come to think of it – that’s actually true now  . . . because I gave everything else away!

I’m now pinning my plaid hopes on my future grandchildren.

Yes, I am a brat

I took Bri to Macy’s today for their One Day Sale.  We couldn’t find anything for her to buy.  (But I bought a floor steamer.  I think I’ll teach Will to use it.)  Bri had a difficult time and scratched herself on shelving but all was not lost as she found her phone that has been missing for TWO MONTHS in her purse.  She had a replacement four year old phone that a family she baby sits for gave her but the battery only lasted an hour or so on it and it didn’t have a keyboard for texting so she pretty much ignored it.  

Bri is very obsessed with Kingdom Hearts (it’s a video game) she watches it on UTube, she bought a Playstation 2 specifically so she could play it, she found the piano music for it and plays it all the time.  And most painfully she likes to talk about it.

She started talking about it at the mall.  She talked about it for 20 minutes.  I won’t listen to Jake talk about any game for 10 minutes and this was agonizing.  She talked about Kingdom Hearts as we walked to the car.  She talked about it while I was driving home.  She was still talking about it as we drove up the hill to our house.  I saw a kiddy pool by the street.  Here when people want to get rid of something they put it by the side of the road and whoever wants it can take it.  You can get some pretty cool stuff that way.  Well, I wanted that pool for bubbles for the Fall Festival at Will’s school.  I stopped the car.  “Go get the pool.”  I told Bri.  She didn’t want to.

She finally agreed.  “. . . Ok, but I won’t get back in the car if you don’t listen to me talk about Kingdom Hearts.”  She grabbed the pool and started running up the hill with the pool on top of her head like a giant hat.  Thinking that I really didn’t want to listen to anything more about Kingdom Hearts anyway and that she was adorable I started keeping pace with her.  Everything was fine until she decided to run and jump on the back of the van.  Panicked that she would get hurt I slammed on the brakes.  Unfortunately, she didn’t expect that and ran into the back of the van.  I thought that was quite amusing and decided to tease her.  I drove forward a little, waited until she got close then drove forward again.  Suffice it to say that she walked the rest of the way up the hill and I felt really bad when I parked and looked down on the passenger side to see her shoes.  Honestly, I am really surprised that I didn’t have to go back for the pool!

I told my husband and he was not happy with me. 

Bri's Love Affair with Irrational Numbers Continues

Someone on twitter sent me a link to a Pi song.  Do I even need to mention that Bri loved it?  No, I didn’t think so.  Here's the Irrational Number website.

To Finish Up Bri Week

* * * * * Breaking News . . . . Brianne sadly and unfortunately was not the school’s Pi champion.  She was whooped by multiple sixth graders.  She made a mistake on digit # 103.  And the winning math nerd recited over two hundred numbers.  However, she was the eighth grade Pi champion.  (To be completely honest she was the only eighth grader that entered, though doubtlessly she would have won anyway.)  In honor of her memorization er . .  achievement she will eat a pie, sadly and with regret that this year she did not earn the right to throw it in one of her teacher’s faces.

Math Nerd – And I totally blame this on her father

I picked up Bri from school today to take her to the dentist because she has defective teeth.  Three molars came in with holes.  Honestly – my first thought when they said that was “then why am I paying for braces?”  And no, I didn’t say that out loud because I have a tiny bit of self control.  I was innocently minding my own business for once, usually when she’s in the car with me I like to ask her if she likes any guys or if anyone else asked her out (she can’t date until she’s 16  . . . and be quiet, I already hear how unreasonable that is from Marcy).  So, we were in the car when she mentioned she had memorized Pi to 100 decimals out.  And before I could even ask WHY she had started reciting them.  

As I was driving, I rejected the idea of clubbing myself into unconsciousness on the steering wheel -- but I wanted to.  When she apologized for messing up I refrained from stating the obvious, “sweetie, I never would have known and I really don’t care.”  Bri has been the reigning Pi champion at her school for two years.  Last year her closest competition knew Pi out to maybe twenty decimals so I think she got a little worried.  When she finished she mentioned that she would keep memorizing more until Pi day.   Then she segued into singing Third Eye Blind's How's It Going To Be.  Just when I've pigeonholed her into total nerd status she proves me wrong.

Fortunately (kidding), she was unintelligible, due to the Novocain, on her way back to school so I have no idea whether she recited any more numbers.    And I haven’t told her yet but I think she may have a conflict between an orchestra concert and the Pi competition . . . I guess it’s a nerd conflict.

Update:  When I told Bri I called her a math nerd because of her mad math skills.  She said she wasn't a nerd and disparaged my math skills.  It was as if she thought that I thought anyone with math skills is a nerd.  

Best vs. Bestest Mother

Brianne told me I was the best mother this morning.  I bought her love with Honey Nut Cheerios.  Overwhelmed, I could barely reply coherently.  She added that if I wanted to be the bestest mother in the world she would like the cable back.  I told her I would just have to be satisfied with being the best.

My Rebel

Brianne is partially a punk.  Not always, and certainly not on the same level of other thirteen year-olds; but she has a streak running through her.  I went in her bedroom the other morning to make sure she was up, when I saw a portable DVD player partially hidden under her pillow.  “Ah ha,” I thought, “I caught her!  I wonder what she is staying up late watching that she doesn’t want me to know about?”

Planet Earth … yes, once I thought about it, it should have been obvious. 

Aphrodite

Last week we took everyone to Bri’s middle school play.  Sometimes we trade off nights.  That way we can leave Will home because he doesn’t always like to go to things and is disruptive.  But I had a Ladies Night Out dinner I wanted to go to on Friday so I decided the whole family could see Bri’s play on Saturday.  I brought Will’s iPod and a couple of Dr. Seuss books for him.  We sat on the balcony where there were fewer people and Will did really well.  He took off his shoes, refused to listen to his music and started eating his books.  He clapped and “whooed” loudly at the end (and as much as I’d like to say it was because of Bri's superb acting I think it was probably because the play ended).

My husband took all the other kids home while I waited for Bri.  On the way home we talked about the characters in the play.  I told her that Hector had been my book boyfriend since I’d read the Iliad in high school.  I would have named one of my sons Hector if it sounded ok.  (It didn’t and neither did Henry.)  Bri said that a lot her friends’ book boyfriends were Edward or Jacob.  She said wanted a monster book boyfriend too.  I said that I'd rather have a heroic, human book boyfriend.  She said humans are boring.