So....the boy is going to take Driver's Ed this summer, and it has inspired me to reflect on my many experiences with cars.  I have been accused of being a....ummm..."challenged" driver!  Personally, I think the fact that I correct papers at red lights shows how great I am at utilizing every second of the day!  Unfortunately, not everyone shares this feeling!  Regardless, I would like to dedicate these next few posts to Jay.  May you learn from your mother's mistakes and not make the road an even scarier place to be! 

Driving in Cars - Volume 1

I think that part of the reason I sometimes see road signs as "mere suggestions" is because the laws were A LOT more lax when I was a child.  The seventies were all about peace, love, granola, and free range car travel.  I don't even think the cars of my youth had seat belts. Once the car left the garage, we were free to roam about the cabin - and we did!  I lived in Denver until I was 8 years old, but one set of my grandparents lived in Bountiful, Utah and another set in Las Vegas.  Driving from Denver to Vegas can be PAINFUL when you are 5, so my dad would  boost the entertainment value of our road trips.  We had a huge, green van with benches that could easily (?) be unbolted and removed in just a few short hours!  He would take out the benches and load in our play kitchen - table and all.  Those road trips were THE BEST...unless our tea party was upended by a sharp turn!  Now don't get me wrong.  It wasn't that my parents had no regard for safety.  It's just how things were.  Trust me - I believe my current chest size is due to the "arm seat belt" my mom would constantly thrust in front of me whenever she sensed danger! 

I loved going places with my parents, but my dad was especially awesome.  He would constantly do silly things to keep us entertained.  One of these was to honk the car horn.  I don't know why my sisters and I thought it was SO funny when he honked the horn, but we did!  Like "roll on the floor" funny.  Come to think of it, we probably did roll on the floor.  It sort-of lost it's charm, however, that fateful day in '75 when we were a good half hour from home, he honked the horn for giggles, and....it stuck!  THAT was a long ride home, for sure!

Okay - now I have to confess a dark secret from my childhood involving cars.  On occasion, I used to sneak out of bed and watch shows like "Charlie's Angels" or "SWAT".  I think I understand now why my parents put me to bed before they watched these shows, because I might have developed a tiny bit of paranoia.  I can remember a few times when I would be alone with one of my parents, and they would drive somewhere I was unfamiliar with.  I was POSITIVE that I was being kidnapped!  Somehow, the kidnapper had been able to elaborately disguise himself or herself as one of my parents, and now we were off to a secret hide-a-way.  No worries though!  I knew exactly what to do.  Every time it happened, I would just excuse myself, wander to the back of the car, and mouth "Help me!" to the drivers behind us!  Why my parents were never hauled off to jail, I will never know!  I am just glad that it NEVER worked!  Come to think of it - that may be the reason that seat belts began to be installed.  Awwwww...good for me!

Holy cow!  Just for kicks and giggles, I decided to read through my tiny little pile of old blogs.  I had zero recollection that I had already posted the story of my first substitute teaching job back in August.  I guess that makes last Sunday's post about the story of my first substitute teaching job (?!?!?!) a bit redundant!   I swear - I hope they'll know when to put me in the "home".  Sorry for the repeats people! 

In honor of Mother's Day, I thought I would take a minute to blog about the three coolest kids I know. Stewart, James, and Taylor have made every day of the last 19 years and 8 months an adventure!  Most days it is a wonderfully amazing adventure.  However, every now and then.....

The following is a list of 5 embarrassing mom moments (because typing all 3,129 - yes, I have kept track - would give me carpal tunnel).  Enjoy!

5.  While I was teaching music lessons one day, my boys decided to take their little sister out to play.  Since Taylor was only 3, I asked them to keep a close eye on her.  When James came in a little while later in a panic and screaming something about Taylor, I ran like crazy to see if she was okay.  Oh...she was!  James had been so upset he had been unable to communicate the problem to me.  She had decided to kiss the neighbor boy!  By the time I got to her, he was at the controls of her hot-pink Big Wheel and she was hopping on the back.  I can't say for sure, but I think they were heading for Vegas.  Bottom line:  She is the only one of my children who has a height requirement in place before she can kiss another boy.  You know...sort-of a "You must be this tall to ride this ride" kind of rule. 

4. I don't know if this particular story qualifies as embarrassing, but it must be told.  When my oldest was my only child, I worked as a tutor in the evenings.  That gave us all morning to mess around, so we did!  A personal favorite of ours was "Hide and Seek".  I was running a little late for work one day, so I was getting both of us ready in a rush.  When I went to grab the keys, they weren't were I kept them.  I looked around for a few minutes until I heard this tiny little giggle.  Sensing he knew something I didn't (watching those detective shows had really paid off!), I asked him if he knew where my keys were.  After a full minute of hysterical giggling, he said, "I hid them!".  He kept on giggling as I ATTEMPTED to calmly ask him where.  He giggled for about 30 more seconds, and then said (without a giggle!), "Ummmmm....I can't remember."  Suffice it to say, I was an hour late for work that night, there was not much laughter in the land for a few days, and the keys finally showed up in one of my boots....6 months later.....

3. One Christmas season,  I was busy doing something in the kitchen (I can't remember what...but I think we can all assume it wasn't cooking!) while my boys were playing in the living room.  They were about 4 and 8 at the time.  One of them had a balloon, so they invented this game where James would throw the balloon over the railing and Stewart, standing down below, would try to hit it back up.  It must have been much more entertaining than it sounds, because they were laughing like crazy.   In the middle of it all, there was a horrible "thumping" sound followed by James letting out a scream.  Being the fantastic mother that I am, I stayed right where I was and yelled for Stewart to be nice to his brother.  After about 5 minutes, Stewart finally came in the kitchen and suggested that maybe I ought to come take a look.  Low and behold - Jay was bleeding like a stuck pig.  He had slipped on the rug and cut his head open!  I grabbed a couple of towels, slapped them on his head, and started herding them both to the car.  As we were heading to the After-Hours Clinic, Stewart gets all serious and says, "Before we go in there, we need to get our stories straight!"  Note to self:  While watching those detective shows has made me better at solving little children crimes, perhaps I shouldn't have let the child watch them with me.

2. Taylor was an early speaker.  The problem was that she had verbal dyslexia!  I was dad, Rob was mom, James was Stewart, Stewart was James, juice was milk...you get the idea.  One day, while navigating the Walmart jungle, she and I ended up on an aisle alone.  Rare experience at Walmart, right?  I happened to have a tickle in my nose, so I very quietly sneezed.  Taylor, who heard my sneeze since she was sitting in the child's seat, yelled out, "Ewwwwwwww!  Mommy!!!!!! You just pooped!!!!!".  I was quite the popular attraction as people came from the adjoining aisles to find the crazy, poop lady!  Thanks dear!

1. Stewart.  Stewart, Stewart, Stewart.  So MUCH vomit - so little blog space.  If I wasn't deadly afraid that someone might attempt to read this blog while eating, I would devote an entire entry to all the many places and ratings (mild to nuclear) of this child's spewiness!  I think I'll just share the one that was the most publicly embarrassing.  To be clear, I don't mean the ONLY time it happened in public.  I just mean the worst of all the public vomits.  It  happened in Smith's grocery store one day.  It was one of those weeks where you decide to buy for the entire week.  At just about the moment when I piled the last item on the tippy top of the mound in the cart, my darling boy turned around in the child seat and offered a Mt. Vesuvius-sized spew festival.  The short version is that I was given a plastic bag to toss paper towels in as I wiped down EVERY item (not one item was spared - true story) so that the grossly underpaid cashier could take it by the corner, scan it, gag three times, and bag it.  We were not welcome in that store for a few years afterward. 

Despite the above, I LOVE these kids. To all the amazing moms out there who do it ALL with little sleep and no pay, Happy Mother's Day! 

I don't know how it happened, but another school year is in it's final weeks!  Once again, I will be faced with the most unpleasant task of sending another group of kids off to the junior high jungle...never to be seen again!  Actually, that is not entirely true.  I keep a candy bucket by my desk to lure them back every so often.  I realize that probably sounds a little creepy, but it works!  This is usually the point where that teeny tiny rational part of my brain says "stop talking", so I'll move on.  The other thing that happens at this point every year is that I look back over the year and think about whether or not I have done all I could do for my students.  The bad news:  I could have done better.  The good news:  I've come a long way baby!  If you don't believe me, sit back while I share one of my first substitute teaching experiences:

Even though I obtained a degree in Music Education and student taught at a junior high in 1993, I spent my post-graduate days at a Sylvan Learning Center tutoring kids a few at a time.  I LOVED working with the kids there but doing so did not keep my teaching certificate from expiring.  Fast forward a decade to when a fantastical man named Principal Broderick pulled me into his office while I was volunteering at my kids school one day and talked me into getting back into education.  One of the things he recommended I do was sign up to be a substitute teacher.  Sure.  Why not?  How hard could it be?  Insert scary and ominous music here - duh, duh, duh.....

My first chance to substitute came when one of the first grade teachers came down with a horrible flu.  She made it through Monday but decided that she needed to be face-first on the floor for Tuesday.  I was 36 years-old, 5'12", and a good 1&% pounds, so I figured a bunch of shrimpy 6 year-olds would be easy peasy!  Right?  I won't bore you with the ugly details, but let's just say...they won!  BIG TIME!!!

Thursday night rolled around, and she called to say that she wasn't doing any better and needed to take Friday off too.  She was either CLEARLY medicated or hadn't heard how Tuesday had gone, because she actually invited me back.  That night I began scheming and plotting.  I would win round 2!  I would be victorious!  The next day I showed up armed with a bag of Pixie Stix (thus the birth of the candy bucket).  While candy can be quite a positive motivator (you wouldn't believe how many of my kids I would sell for a Reeses), I am ashamed to admit that I used it for evil.  I put two Pixie Stix in each of their "pockets" on the discipline chart.  I warned them that if they crossed me, I would NOT scream.  I would NOT yell.  I would NOT make my head spin around like that poor, unfortunate Excorcist girl.  I would simply take one of their candies, rip off the top,and laugh maniacally while I downed it!  Before you call my principal, there are two things you should know.  1. That was the maiden voyage AND the sinking of that tactic. I have not tried to use it again. 2. I didn't end up scarring any little darlings for life because it TOTALLY WORKED!!!  There was a volunteer coming to teach a little business mini-lesson that morning, and had those kids sitting quiet as church mice leafing through books when he walked in.  It was amazing!  I was fairly certain that he would be so impressed that I would be receiving some sort of "Substitute Teacher Medal of Valor" award - that's how good they were being...except for that one kid.  Just as the volunteer walked in, this little boy jumped out of his chair, nailed a three-rotation somersault, stuck the landing, and threw both arms in the air with a loud, "Tada!".  WHAT???????  While the volunteer set up his lesson on a table near the window, I very calmly invited this young man to join me on the ramp - just outside the window.  Once the door was closed, I knelt down next to this young man, got my pointer finger within a quarter-inch of his nose, and basically told him there was a new sheriff in town.  I knew this volunteer could see me, but surely he would understand.  When I thought this child and I had reached an "understanding", we headed back in.  Once inside the door, he turned to the volunteer and said the worst thing imaginable.  Can you guess?  Can you?  Can you??????  He said......., "Sorry dad!". 

So again, as I wrap up another school year with another amazing group of kids, I apologize for my failings.   However, I think I can at least end the year without the need to say sorry to any of my moms and dads!  Merry end of school year to you all, and to all a good night!