Ex-hausting

Ex came by yesterday. My daughter had forgotten her swimming backpack in his car on Sunday and he needed to bring it back to her. So at around 4:00 he came over to play! He and my son played hockey on the street while I took my daughter to swim practice. Honestly, I forgot all about him until he showed up at the practice with about 20 minutes left. We all came back home and I began to get dinner ready. As I'm making 3 kinds of pasta, salad, and pizza dough rolls, he's sitting at the kitchen table chatting with my daughter. So weird!! Like he's here, but he's not here, he left, but he's here all the time. Just bizzare. It was civil, and all that- we don't fight in front of them- AND he loves to tell me the prices he pays for his weekly groceries, "I got oranges for 49 cents each!" or "Those juices the kids like- they were on sale 2 for 4 dollars!" or "Cucumbers were 37 cents a pound!" and I'm always like- "Uh, OK. Great!" Huh? He left before we sat down to eat, thankfully. Oh- and barely a word of Ukrainian to the kids. I fume quietly, but it is so hard to listen to him not even pretend to speak it to them. I feel so stupid that I put such a premium on finding a Ukrainian husband who didn't even turn out to want to pass down the Ukrainian heritage. If I want it, it's got to come from me. Exhausting.

Crap Unearthed

The snow is finally almost all melted. It's astounding to think that back in January our street was the width of one car, and now it's back to normal. I spent about an hour cleaning the pine branches that had fallen during that ice storm and I only removed about half of them. The gigantic one that took down my power line is still laying there- I'll have to chop it or saw it to be able to get it out.

I went for walks almost every day this month. I really missed not being able to do that with all the ice and snow on the ground. I've mentioned that I pick up cans and bottles as we have a 5 cent refund on them so it's free money. (For those of you who don't understand- when you buy carbonated beverages, water, or beer you have to pay 5 cents extra per container. You then redeem them and get your money back. If you pick up cans that you didn't pay for, it's free money!!) There's been some serious cash up for grabs!! I found 41 today alone!! My kids are mortified that I'm like a bag lady picking up crap, but I don't care. I look at it as if someone dropped nickels all over town, and they are there for the taking. Anyway, lots of stuff on the streets: dead squirrels, newspapers in bags, skunks, TONS of branches, sand, rocks, salt, plus we have serious flooding 'round these parts. The beauty of March!!

Dinner out

We haven't gone out to dinner in a long time. So yesterday, after having to practically DRAG my kids out of the house, we went to Friendly's. Yes, Friendly's!!
Surprising that I have to drag my kids, but go figure. Nothing can be easy. Anyway, it was delightful! I love the hamburgers there and certainly the ice cream is awesome. I remember the first time I took the kids out after their dad left us. It was a Saturday after Ukrainian school and I just wanted to go out. So there we were eating and one of my kids, I think my son says, "I have to go to the bathroom."
Dilemma! Do I let him go alone? Do I go and leave the other one alone? Do all 3 of us go together? I ended up letting him go alone but I stood in the aisle so I could have an eye on both kids. It all worked out in the end, but that was the first time I really had to think about what to do. When they were really little, we'd all go together, usually BEFORE we sat down to order and eat. Just one of those little things you don't really think about until wham!- it slams you in the face and you've got to make a decision.

AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!

I just did Ukrainian School homework with my daughter. It wasn't as bad as usual, but a pain nonetheless. I end up dictating everything word for word, letter for letter to both her and my son when it's homework time. I literally do all the work!! Everything short of holding the pencil and moving their hand for them. I remember doing my homework on my own from a very young age. PLUS- my son has to learn a 20 line poem for the Taras Shevchenko play on the 13th. He was like our Shakespeare and every year we have a production in his honor. Last year it was the day after the Championships at Harvard, so I ended up leaving from Boston Sunday morning and driving straight to Hartford for the play. That was fun. Anyway, I'm going over this poem with my son and you'd think I was torturing him. Everyone in his class has to learn something and be prepared to perform, but he acts like he's the only one. All of this is such a drag. I thought after Ukraine gained its freedom we'd be able to speak English (HA!) and forget about this hassle, but it wasn't to be. I want my kids to know their heritage and stand out by knowing another language. But it's a real pain in the ass.

Lax Sax

My son had the biggest meltdown yesterday when I asked him to practice his saxophone for 10 minutes. 10 minutes! I won't get into the details, but I had to ask myself-should I still be pushing him to play? He proclaims total and abject hatred for this instrument. He does not want to play anymore. Do I give in? I don't want to.
I think he should play to engage another part of his brain and to become a well rounded person. Am I being a total nag? All I ask is for 10 minutes a day. He never plays on the weekends, and will usually get out of playing 2 or 3 other times, so he's basically playing ONCE a week. I look at this "Tiger Mother" (The Chinese mom with strict parenting philosophies who wrote a book) and she made her girls practice 2-3 hours a day. I'm not that crazy, but her shtick was that the more they practice, the better they'll get and the more they'll want to play. I think that is a logical way of thinking. But it's not working here. I tell him, "Fine, you can ditch the sax, but you'll have to play something else, and it will be hard to start from scratch now," but he doesn't care. I don't need this grief, but I'll take grief if it makes him a more interesting kid. I played guitar when I was young, wasn't too crazy about it, and of course wish I were better at it now. The easy thing would be to give in and let him quit. I know it's not the right thing. WWYD?

ATTENTION!! LOSER!!

I remembered something funny from our ski trip. After we got our tickets and rented the equipment, I took my kids and their friend over to where the lessons would take place. I made sure they were supervised, plus that friend's mom was there, just not on skis, and I decided to go to the easy slope and see if I remembered how to ski or if I'd make an ass out of myself. So, I'm shussing over to the chair lift, people are crowding around, there are kids, dads*, skiers, snowboarders, I'm in the bottle neck heading towards the chair and then a cold sweat breaks out over me. I am alone, and if you are skiing alone, they really don't want you going on a chair alone and wasting the seats. The etiquette calls for the person to shout out "SINGLE!" to let the others know and perhaps you could then mooch onto someone's group of three and get a ride. My situation considered, I really wasn't in the mood to start shouting "SINGLE!" Har. So I chickened out, turned around and went back over to where my kids were. (I got to watch their lesson, take some great photos, and I even skied down the bunny slope and was actually fine.) So lame. I know it's just a word, but I was so NOT in the mood to shout out my status. It makes for a cute story, I guess.

* It's astounding how many dads I see with their kids all over the place. By that I mean, it's the dad who does the activity while mom sits in the lodge, or on the lounge chair, or beside the pool, while I'm the mom who is skiing, swimming, playing tennis, riding a bike with them, etc. When I took my kids to Wildwood this past summer, we had the most fun at the water park. I was one of 2 moms, I swear to God, that was riding the slides and actually getting my hair wet among all the kids with their dads. Also, we went to an indoor water park for New Year's Eve 2008 and 2009 and there were VERY few moms running around. Seems like they all just sit and save seats for their families. yay me...

Highs/Lows

Just to make it official, our girls won the 8 and under championships!! They scored something like 244 points!! They already received their plaque and it will go into the awards cabinet at the Y. At practice today, all of us moms were just beaming, thinking about how far the girls came from a year ago.

OK- to be fair, I have to mention that my son had a hockey game on Sunday. His team won 5-0! YAY! It's so different watching a sport with individual races versus one with the entire team playing at once. I guess it's like watching gymnastics or skating versus basketball or football. Less stressful, for sure!! Plus he can still play with the same group for the next like 4 or 5 years while my daughter "ages up" into the 9 and 10 year old group with longer, more grueling events. And so it goes...

I went to the library today to hang out and read. I came across the Sunday Times Magazine (used to get it delivered but can't afford it anymore) and there was an article about a mom blogger who makes like $40,000 A MONTH!!!! I read it with great curiosity. She started out when this blogging thing was new and got in fast and strong. I don't know how she got the following she did- something like 1000 hits a day from the get go. Makes me feel like a doofus for wanting to get something out of this. Like, who do I think I am? I'll keep doing this because I enjoy the discipline of writing and coming up with ideas every day, but who the hell am I kidding? "For entertainment purposes only..."