Helping your tweenage son navigate puberty, running, Dude Perfect, parallel parking and birthday cake

Junior is going to be 12 this weekend. That makes this blog 11 years old. Happy birthday to me and to he.



I keep looking at my brown-eyed Junior, wondering where my little boy went. How is this man-child the same little boy who used to ask random people if they puffed? Who called big bridges, big bitches? Thomas the Train was long ago replaced by the Transformers, then Harry Potter, then Percy Jackson, then video games, then Dude Perfect, and now memes and YouTube. They’re strung up like Christmas lights in my mind, trailing back to what seems like years ago and yesterday all at the same time.



Looking at Junior, you’d think he was 15. At 5’4”, he is as tall as I am. His feet are bigger than Chuck’s and he constantly wants to show us his leg hair (all four strands). If his voice cracks the slightest bit he’ll ask, “This is puberty, right? Is this it?” As if the Puberty Bunny or fairy can magically bestow this rite of passage on him while he sleeps.



Never one to care about a mirror, Junior now obsesses about his hair and clothes. He has his own hair gel. He firmly closes and locks his bedroom door while he changes, and every morning he emerges from a cloud of AXE body spray and asks, “Too much?” 



He and his friends have their own vernacular. Things are “cringy.” His two younger brothers are easily “triggered.” If they lose their cool Junior mumbles “get wrecked.” 



Speaking of his two younger brothers, Junior isn’t always a willing leader of this little tribe of men. Directives like, “Well, help them become the brothers you want to be around” carry little weight. I have to remind him daily not to speak to 4-year-old Cam like he’s a bad pet (“I told you not to sit on me, Cam! Don’t do it again!”). 



And poor Everett. Once his partner in crime, Everett has been relegated to the land of Cam. Once in a blue moon, Junior will pluck Everett out and play Legos with him or jump on the trampoline, and Everette beams so brightly I swear aliens on other planets can see it. Basking in the glow of Junior’s attention, Everett will do his best to talk about video games or memes with Junior, putting his hand on his arm and calling him “dude.” There’s such admiration there, it breaks my heart that Junior can’t see it. 



As someone who survived being left in the dust by my older step-sister when she grew up but who also left my younger brother in the dust when I grew up, watching it unfold just hurts all around.



But I get it, it’s the ebb and flow.



I don’t always know how to parent this Junior. We don’t always speak the same language. When he was a toddler, we could solve most problems with a lollipop. Now, his problems resemble a real person’s. We can’t solve his problems, nor would we want to. He has to learn how to succeed and how to fail.

We also have to help him make healthy choices, which is excruciatingly painful. Worse than round-the-clock dental work. He’s still a bookworm but we fight daily about screen time, social media and all the things his friends are allowed to do. “Call of Duty, Mom! R rated movies! They can stay up as late as they want! Stay home alone all day!" (I don’t know who all these parents are but I could care less about their parenting. Twelve is not the new 17.)



And hormones! He is moody AF. One minute he’s rowdy and laughing; the next he’s scowling and huffing, telling me I just don’t get it. Me? Not get it? But I’m hip! I’m in the know.



Ok, no, no, I’m not. I don’t know half the celebrities out there. 


I like to be in bed by 9:30. I now own more comfortable clothes than not.

Despite the fluctuations in temperament, Junior’s quickly becoming a guy friend I’m happy to be around. He makes me laugh! The other day, after I parallel parked our beastly truck, the woman next to us got out of her car and said to me, “You did an amazing job parking that truck. You go girl!”



Now, any time I make a pronouncement Junior clasps his hands and shrieks, “You go girl!”



Like, if I tell everyone I tried a new recipe for dinner, I get, “You go girl!” Or if I tell Chuck I finished a big project before the deadline, there’s Junior in his high-pitched voice: “You go girl!”




Just one last thing in this little ode to Junior...


Junior has always been a Great Dane who would rather be a lapdog, and so I have to keep him moving. I take him on nightly walks/runs with me, and he complains the whole time, dramatically holding his rib cage and wailing about his aches and pains. Kind of like how he is when he is sick. 



The other night, eager to have some peace and quiet, I let him skip the last half of our walk and run home alone. It felt so good to be in my own company, I decided to run two laps around the track by our house. The sun was setting as I finally made my way home, and I ran into some neighbors who were also on a walk.

“Oh good,” they said, “you’re okay.”



“Of course,” I said. “Is something wrong?”



“We ran into Junior,” they said. “He asked us to keep an eye out for you. He said you were alone.”



When I got home, Junior was in the bathroom. “He’s been worried,” Chuck told me. “He knew you were running without your phone on you.”



When Junior heard me coming up the stairs, he burst out of the bathroom and threw his arms around me.

“I was worried about you!” he said. Thrust into his sweaty, pubescent armpit, complete with its three hairs and thick layer of AXE, I had never felt more loved.

"I went around the track twice," I said. "That's why I'm late."

“You go girl,” he said.

Happy birthday, Junior. I love you more than a million universes.

I'm starring in the new Stephen King book!

After Chuck and I had been dating for a few years but before we had kids, family excursions consisted of me, Chuck, my younger brother and my father. This worked out well for my father. Chuck is a fellow history buff so when we'd do our guided tours of dusty, historic homes/plantations/mills/settlements, Chuck and my father would listen intently to the tour guide and try to drink in as much knowledge as they could.

My brother and I, on the other hand, would usually mock the tour guide—discreetly, of course—make lewd comments about our fellow tourees—again, discreetly—and/or escape the guided tour via an open window so we could make a run for it.

Like I said, my father was in heaven when Chuck came along. Until he'd had a comrade, he'd literally pass out from the exertion of trying to listen intently to the tour guide while simultaneously expressing his disgust at our juvenile behavior. Our trips usually ended with him throwing his hands up in the air and swearing at us under his breath.

Things changed as my brother got older. Chuck seemed cooler to him, I guess, so our family excursions began to feel more like "sausage and cheese" trips, with me starring as the cheese who stands alone (I'd certainly rethink that trip to France).

Then Junior came along—and there was more testosterone.

Then Everett came along—Ibid.

Then I found out I was having another boy. And I kid you not, when I turned 40 this winter and they all stood there singing me happy birthday—Chuck, my brother, my father, Junior and Everett—and I rubbed my 8 month pregnant belly—which contained another sausage—I felt like I was in some crazy Stephen King book in which every woman on the planet, save myself, had been eaten and I was the lone survivor of Womankind.

I wish this blog wasn't anonymous because I took a picture of all of them standing there and it's a lot of dudes.

Late at night, when the house is quiet, I think about why it is that I'm surrounded by men. Is my astrological star aligned not just with Orion but with his 25 brothers? Was I a tragic wannabe football player in a former life and so the universe is making amends by giving me my own team, so to speak? Or am I part of a psychological study conducted by Thomas the Train, in which researchers try to gauge the exact moment a mother's brain will explode after a decade of exposure to Percy, Edward and Gordon?

Of course, there is no real answer. I love all the men in my life and that's the only thing that matters. And I'd worry that our future family trips (with me, Chuck and our sons) are going to feel like "sausage and cheese" trips part deux, but hell, why start worrying now? Cam is only four months. By the time our boys are tweens and interested in spending weeks playing Laser Tag or camping, I'll be ready—to fly myself to a swim-up bar with some girlfriends.

Until then, I just need to remember to keep my hand out of my pants. Must...not...assimilate...

Keep your hands off my dots

I'm all over the place on this blog, I know. One day I'm talking about the economy, the next plastic spiders, the next pajamas, and the next freeze-dried tortilla soup. I want to try to connect the dots, I really do, but I'm coming to realize that these days my dots behave more and more like rodents that scatter in the light than like pretty, orderly circles—and that maybe trying to connect them is a lost cause.

My dots are a huge clusterfuck and I need to embrace that.

Here ye! Here ye!

Of course, I blame my dot mutiny on the children.They've all but ransacked my brain.

Take tonight for example. All I wanted to do was brush their teeth. Two children. Two toothbrushes. An Elmo toothbrush for Everett; a Transformers toothbrush for Junior. Thomas the Train non-fluoride toothpaste for Everett. Kid's Crest for Junior.

(Do you see what I'm doing? I'm lining up my dots...)

We were doing fine. We were getting along swimmingly. Then, in a matter of seconds, mayhem.

Someone was shouting weiner. There was toothpaste on the wall. The cat jumped out of the tub. I stepped on Mr. Potato Head's eyeglasses. Frothy blue drool ran down chins. Someone needed a towel. Someone needed to spit. The Thomas the Train wall decal was stuck to someone's shirt. No, it wasn't. It's Gordon, Mommy! Don't you remember Gordon?! And then Everett, I honed in on his teeth like a ninja. Armed with Elmo, darting in and out of his little mouth to get those tiny crevices.

Hold still, please hold still.

(Cue dot explosion.)

When the toothbrushes were finally rinsed and placed back into their cups my head actually felt hole-y.

And I hadn't even gotten into pajamas—"Please stop jumping. Please get your finger out of your nose"—or picked stories—"Please not Dr. Seuss again, Junior. Mommy's brain hurts"—or told bed time stories—"There once was a man with a nose. No wait, a horse. And the horse had a nose? Sorry, where was I?"—or shot down the stalling tactics—"Junior, honey, your curtains are .005 centimeters apart..."  

But this is nothing new. When I was pregnant with Junior in 2007, my co-worker told me that parenting was the toughest job I'll ever love (remember that Peace Corps slogan?). These observations, these ruminations, are nothing new. There are so many parenting blogs now, they're actually becoming tiresome.

Still, I wonder: Where is the fairy or woodland creature that will magically appear and grant me a few months off so I can catch up on sleep? I love my spawn, I really do, but this fog has enveloped the land—the land! We should all give ourselves some major credit for even knowing how to write our own names, never mind helping our off-spring learn how to write their own.

Or dot their i's.

Now that is something I cannot help with.

Not my words Wednesday

Oh my freaking gawd. We're drowning in snow, and we're getting more. We're freezing our buns off. There's really nothing to do...except watch Junior's trains go around the Island of Sodor.



I'm afraid that one of these days I'm going to go to the Island of Sodor and never come back.

I can't complain too much though. Really. Junior is happy to pass the time pretending to be Sir Topham Hatt. About 20 times a day we overhear this from the living room:



That Fat Controller is so critical. And loud! Curiously loud. I was interested to see how Junior was able to throw his voice so well, so I checked in on him.



At least the damn breast pump is good for something.

Hah. Like I really take bubble baths

Dear Junior,

At one time, you slept like a butterfly in something my friend liked to call that sack.



You loved your Amby Bed sack, so much so that I worried you’d always need to sleep suspended in the air. But one day, after I learned that putting you to bed earlier—rather than later—made falling asleep easier, you spent the night in a crib. And there you’ve slept for a year and a half.



You never once tried to climb out of your crib, which surprised me. Isn’t that a rite of passage? Weren’t we supposed to awake one morning to see you standing by the foot of our bed?

I guess there’s plenty of time for that now, because your father found this on craigslist:



When your father told me it was a train bed, I didn’t make the connection. Or maybe I did and I just didn’t want to accept the fact that another piece of your life had fallen prey to that fat-faced train.

I’m happy Thomas brings you so much joy, but between the Thomas lamp, night light and train station set, our home is starting to resemble the Island of Sodor, and that freaks me out. Some days it bothers me because the Island of Sodor sounds a lot better than Mulletville, and I don't really want it to be my go-to place when I'm in the bubble bath.

Unless Sir Topham Hatt suddenly started looking like this:



Other days it bothers me because Thomas the Train seems like a big commercial machine. None of the other characters you could have chosen to embrace seem as heavily outfitted. Curious George doesn’t have a shed he sleeps in or a platform he puffs up to (one that retails for $19.99 anyway). And Clifford the Big Red Dog doesn’t even have a dog bowl—at least one that I’ve seen in the stores.

I want to be sure you don’t become the kind of kid who walks into a store expecting five new Thomas friends. I know that has a lot to do with us, your parents, but the Thomas the Train empire is the size of planet earth, and your father and I are the size of, well, just middle class Homo sapiens.

Everything seemed so much simpler when you were dangling from a metal spring. Your gray, creepy-faced train bed has made me realize that I'm not ready for you to be ready for a real bed. I had a lot of wine tonight and I'm really, really crumpled up over your sudden leap into big boyhood.

Could you please slow down? Could you please give me a second to absorb all this? Could James or Percy possibly talk to the Fat Controller about starting an exercise regime?

No? I didn't think so.

P.S. If you have an Amby Bed, the company did a voluntary recall in January. All the details are here.

A parent's worst nightmare

Junior and I were coloring and I offered to draw Thomas.



I'm no Picasso but I thought I'd done an okay job. Junior didn't think so. Junior said Thomas's tender was too small and that he wasn't on tracks.

Looks like I'm raising a know-it-all. Is there anything worse?

(And what the heck? Thomas is clearly better than my horse!)

The puffers vs. the gamblers

Yesterday's outdoor wedding, sit-down dinner, winter hike and child’s birthday party went swimmingly, thanks to the four changes of clothing I brought.

And actually, it was such a beautiful day that I didn't feel like slitting my wrists until after we got to my nephew’s birthday party. But only because Chuck’s brother’s wife is a she-beast. I won’t get into that now, however. Instead I’d like to tell you where I've been for the last week—and not because I want to bore your pants off, but because I think I started dating someone.

It all started Tuesday night. My brother Ted called me in tears. He and his fiancee Holly were having problems. She’s getting clingy and is too eager. He needs space. They would be at our house bright and early Wednesday.

Joy.

On Wednesday, Ted and Holly arrived for brunch. Chuck beat his chest and said he was going to Home Depot; Ted would help him. Holly and I spent the next two hours watching Junior push Thomas the Train around the track.

"Is Thomas puffin'?"

"YES. YES. YES."

When Chuck and Ted got back to the house, I contemplated puffin’ myself.

Ted informed me and Holly that he was getting together with the boys to play poker; Chuck offered to sit in for someone. Holly looked forlorn and asked if I wanted company. Despite my internal noooooooooooo, I heard myself say yes. I spent the next few hours drinking wine and listening to Holly’s childhood pet stories.

The highlight: The time Holly’s guinea pig had pneumonia and she nursed it back to health with a heating pad. The lowlight: The time Holly’s guinea pig had pneumonia and she nursed it back to health with a heating pad.

On Thursday, Holly spent the day with her family. While Ted farted and enjoyed his space (all ten feet of it), we ate turkey at my mother’s house.

On Friday, Holly and Ted came over again. After lunch, Chuck and Ted "got lost" at the casino on the way to Home Depot (don't ask). Holly and I spent the next five hours watching Junior push his trains around the track.

"Is Thomas puffin?"

"YES. YES. YES."

Somewhere in there I drank mass amounts of wine and sent Chuck threatening text messages like, “I guess u never want 2 hve sex again.”

The men came home. Chuck left for a stag (yah, I know). Holly and Ted spent the night. We played Scrabble. The only words Holly and I could come up with had to do with trains. Ted felt suspiciously like a third wheel.



On Saturday, Ted left at 8 a.m. to be to work in Boston. Holly offered to keep me company for breakfast while Chuck slept (bastard). Again, we watched Junior push his trains around the track. When Junior asked, “Is Thomas puffin'?” she answered, “Uh huh! Yes! Yep! He is! Uh huh! He is, sweetie!”

Suddenly I realized I’d become numb to her eagerness to please. I also realized I’d rather hear her sing-song voice than my brother’s toxic flatulence. When Holly left at noon, Junior and I watched her from the window. I started to feel something, something achy and sad in the stillness: separation anxiety.

If a train puffs in a playroom and Holly isn’t around to hear it, does it make a sound?

I swear, if my brother breaks off the engagement, I will date her myself. Even if she is clingy and lazy and she monitors my wine intake like a busybody. Even if she does tell too many guinea pig stories and leave lubricant everywhere she goes.

I’ve invested too much time to let her go that easily. We can make it, baby!

Holly and me, up in a tree
P-U-F-F-I-N-G
First goes Chuck,
Then goes Ted
Then comes Thomas in Tidmouth Shed

Hah!

News flash: Thomas the Train does not have a bar car

I don’t mean to be overly dramatic but holy shit, we made it. We spent our day with Thomas the Train in Essex, Connecticut. Walking into that Lala Land of Sodor music and screaming kids was downright trippy. I’ve never seen so many Sodorites. Every kid was sporting Thomas gear. And meltdowns? Scary. Ear piercing. Frequent. On more than one occasion I held Junior to me and whispered, “Thank God you’re mine.”

Junior was pretty juiced to ride Thomas. The bouncy train seats were nice. As was the open window. The sunshine. Mellow Junior.

But.

I know, I know, there’s always a but.

The ticket-taker talked the whole ride. On a microphone that was wired into enormous speakers—speakers that were everywhere. If your toddler wanted to ask you a million times “Is Thomas puffin?” you had to keep shouting yes. YES, YES, Thomas is puffin!

And instead of “Day with Thomas,” it should have been “Five minutes with Thomas.” Unless you walked to the front of the train after your ride (and by “walk” I mean let the crowd carry you), you didn’t see him. Junior kept asking us where Thomas was hiding.

For $90 ($18 per ticket x 3 tickets + $17.50 service fee + $15 shipping fee), my kid should not be struggling to locate the whereabouts of a bright blue locomotive with a face! It’s almost funny.

Almost.

Know what else is almost funny? Overhearing other parents’ conversations as we ate our $3.50 mac and cheese (to be fair, hotdogs were $1.50). My favorites:

“I need a cigarette and a nap.”

“Godammit, Spencer! [belch] Now I have to get you another [belch] straw!”

I don’t know what was scarier: The fact that someone thought picnic tables next to Porta-potties was a good idea or the loose interpretation of the term parenting I observed.

I don’t mean to put a negative spin on the experience (I mean, when Junior reflects on his life this will probably be up there with getting laid), but I feel jipped. The ad said storytelling. In reality, a video of Thomas played on a pull-down screen. The ad promised “Build with LEGO bricks.” There were LEGOs in the shape of Thomas, but he was already assembled, and kids were playing King of the Mountain on him (I’m not kidding, Junior took a heel to the cheek trying to just stand near him). Sure, you could meet Sir Topham Hat—for another $20.

Twenty bucks! To meet a scary-looking plump white guy who’s always giving orders.

And what the frick? The allure of Thomas the Train isn’t just Thomas, it’s all of his friends. It's the "You're cross" and the "No, now he's cross" and the "Check the signals!" and the "Ok, even though we're fickle little engines let's be friends again" comradery that makes it special.

For some kids, naming Thomas’ friends is as much a rite of passage as knowing their ABCs. Yet the only sign of Gordon, Emily, Percy, James, Sir Handel, Henry, Stanley—crap, I know too much about this topic—was one incredibly lame waist-high poster with a few of the trains on it.

Oh, and in the gift shop. The gift shop’s cup runneth over.

Well, next Saturday my cup will runneth over. My aunt, cousin and mother want to experience Thomas with Junior. He’s a lucky little boy in that he gets to go twice. I'm lucky in that now I know exactly what to bring with me:

1) earplugs

2) a peanut butter and jelly sandwich

3) a flask

It's time to snuff the puffer

Something incredible happened this weekend: I went somewhere in the vicinity of Mulletville, and I have nothing bad to say about it.

I won’t lie. I’m kind of bummed about it. Cheery posts devoid of mullet sightings are diametrically opposed to the raison d’etre of this blog. The mullet carnage feeds me.

Alas. We must grow beyond our own fences.

So, here goes. Gigolo—I mean, Chuck—and I took Junior to Mystic Seaport. Chuck’s been trying to get me to go there for ages, but I always put up a fight. Not only do you have to pay $24 to get into the seaport, but you have to walk through an entrance gate and once you’re in, you’re in (they shackle you with wristbands and everything).

That only means one thing: let the price gauging begin.

You know exactly what I’m talking about. Once you’re inside anywhere lately, cups of ice are $15. Hotdogs are $35. A beer is $99.99—and it’s not even good beer; it’s Bud. They know you’re hungry, thirsty and trapped.

But honk my hooters, the seaport didn’t try to financially rape us. A respectable beer was $5 (if you wanted Bud, they were giving away free samples in the restroom). A 30-minute boat ride was $5.50. Heck, they even let us put the entrance fee we’d paid toward a year-long membership. Plus, they threw in a free hat for Chuck.

They were nice (like, I'm getting misty). In Connecticut, that's practically unheard of.

But the very best part of the whole day was that it was a gorgeous sunny day in Connecticut and the place wasn’t mobbed. Look, there's hardly anyone around:



If I were a gusher, I’d gush. Look at the crusty ship innards we were able to experience:



If you’re from Connecticut or visiting Connecticut, I highly recommend a trip. The bathrooms aren’t a mangy afterthought like some other places in Mystic, and you could easily spend more than one day in the seaport with children of any age. There are kids’ theater performances, anchored boats to play on, a children's museum on-site, horse-drawn carriage rides, old fashioned shops that do more than sell tacky t-shirts, etc., etc. Look, more boats:



My only regret is that before this trip, I had no idea that my two-year-old was a Thomas the Train droid. There were hints, to be sure, but nothing worrisome.

Now? Now I am scared shitless. While at the seaport, every boat whistle elicited a “Thomas is puffin!” from Junior. Planes in the air were Jeremy; helicopters were Harold. While aboard a boat, Junior was convinced he saw Salty and Cranky by the docks. When the steamboat captain yelled, “Let’s get going” before the boat tour, Junior turned to the woman next to him and said, “We’re going to the Island of Sodor!”

If I hadn't been sober, I might have believed him. He was so convinced.

These little trains are evil. Just look at them! I know they're plotting to kill me in my sleep.

Life can be such a bridge

Chuck’s been laid up in bed the last two days with kidney stone issues—do I need to take him in more often for servicing?—so the ex-nanny came yesterday. Her son grew a buttload of crooked teeth, giving him a distinct Ferengi look, but I was pleased Junior’s nickname is still intact.

As she was packing up her stuff to leave, Diana told me that Junior was saying the…[here she paused, looking for the right word]…darndest thing.

“Yes?” I asked.

“He was saying, ‘Come on…bitch. Come on, bitch’.”

“What???”

“When he was playing with his Thomas the train set—”

“—Bridge! He meant bridge. That’s how he says bridge.”

“Oh! Of course. He was trying to piece the tracks together to make a tunnel, but they wouldn’t fit. Ooooohhhhhhhhh.”

We had a good wholesome chuckle then. Still, as she dragged her child and cheese and loaf of bread to her car, I couldn’t help but wonder what she’d been envisioning all afternoon before we cleared the matter up: Me smacking Chuck’s ass in front of Junior and nodding towards the bedroom, saying, “Come on, bitch”?

Oops, I mean my Chuck slapping my ass.

Mrs. Mullet, you are not the dude.