Lazybones

Mark and I are in a constant battle over what's right versus what's fast. I am all for shortcuts, but I only want to do the job (whatever job) once.

Mark does not share this point of view. Instead, he will repeat a task 10 or 11 times, taking a shortcut each time. He spends twice as long to use his "shortcut" as it would to simply do the task right the first time.

A prime example of this is making his bed. Mark is a strong advocate of the simple yet effective "pull the comforter over the blankets" method. But it never occurs to him to first smooth out the sheets or blankets underneath, nor do the resulting unsightly lumps bother him. I told him to make the bed, he made the bed. Task complete. Until...

"What are all those lumps?" I asked him, pointing at the camel-like bed.

"What lumps?" he answered. He looked straight at the lumpy bed and said, "I don't see any lumps."

"Right here!" I said, removing the comforter and exposing the tangle of sheets.

"Huh," Mark said, genuinely surprised. "I don't know how those got there."

His next move was to come up with a new shortcut. My genius son realized the housekeepers make his bed to my very exacting standards, so he decided to just ride along on their coattails. He began sleeping on top of the covers every night.

Well, I nipped that idea in the bud quite quickly. But then he moved on to a more stealth solution:



That's right, he's sleeping under just the comforter. This way, the sheets and blankets don't get messed up, and with one fell swoop, his bed is easily made every morning.

I did notice this method might have a drawback, though.

"Aren't you cold at night?" I asked.

"A little," he admitted. "But it's worth it, not to make my bed."

"Yeah, but you spend 10 hours a night being cold, and two seconds a day making your bed," I pointed out. He shrugged and said it's still worth it.

I tried a different tact, the hygiene route. I knew this would be completely lost on a 10-year-old boy, but I had to try for my own sake.

"Sheets do, in fact, have a purpose," I told him. "They protect the blankets from smelly little boys like you."

But he remains unconvinced, and continues to crawl between the comforter and blanket layers each night, after I kiss him goodnight.

I know this will lead to nowhere good. I can't believe Mark hasn't thought of it yet, but I fear he will soon realize his best solution to not making the bed at all: a sleeping bag. It'll keep him warm and he won't have to deal with those pesky sheets.

And so I'm off to hide our sleeping bags, because it'll be easier to keep them out of his hands altogether than to take them away once he figures that out.

Cheers to the newlyweds!

This weekend my family had the pleasure of watching one of our own walk down the aisle.

This time, it was Brian, one of our "blond brothers." He and his brother Brad (aka Big Brad) grew up across the street from my family, and we kids spent every waking moment together, trying unsuccessfully to maim or kill one another. (Not on purpose; we were just a rowdy bunch, and it really is a miracle we all survived childhood intact.) I call them my blond brothers because the only way you could tell us all apart in the mob was by hair color. If you had brown hair, you were a Dinsdale; if you had blond, you were a Roppé.

There was a giddiness in the air before the ceremony. Brian looked so proud (and tall!) in his tuxedo. He was very excited, as was his family. We were all in a bit of disbelief; no one could believe this day had finally arrived. Brian's mom asked me no less than four times if I could believe this was actually happening; we'd all had our doubts about Brian ever getting married.

My family (minus Smed the groomsman) outside the chapel (yes, that's a full moon behind them)

But when the wedding started, all doubt was erased from our minds. Brian cried throughout most of the ceremony, while Colleen beamed at him with love and unabashed joy. When the chaplain asked if she took Brian to be her husband, she boomed confidently, "I DO!" The church erupted in laughter, then she looked at Brian and repeated, "I do." It was a wonderful moment.

Mr. and Mrs. Brian Roppé!

Then it was on to the reception. Our family was split between two tables, but my brother Scott quickly rearranged one into a kid's table. The second generation of Dinsdale and Roppé kids (another mob of brown and blonde kids!) took up the kid's table, and I smiled at the sight of them all.

The kids were in heaven. Upon arriving at the reception, they'd been plied with all sorts of toys--coloring books, colored pencils, puzzles, games (Note to all future brides and grooms--this was a genius idea!). But the big hit was the box of glow sticks. At one point, Mark was wearing a glowing rainbow of bracelets, and told me he was going back for more. I suggested he remove the bracelets he had on first, to improve his chances of getting more. Apparently it worked, because by the end of the night, the kids had all worked together to make a giant hula-hoop-sized ring of glowsticks.

The kids were thoroughly entertained. We adults were happy, too. The open bar and warm appetizers helped, and the company was good. We spent a lot of time just laughing, with and at each other.

We watched all of the wedding rituals--first dance, cutting of the cake. Brian and Colleen invited all the other married couples to the floor to dance, then kicked them off according to how many years they'd been wed. Slowly, a winning couple appeared.

Yahoo for my parents!

"Please congratulate Ralph and Virginia Dinsdale!" the man with the microphone announced. "They've been married for 48 years!"

"Yep, and 27 of them happily!" I joked to the people around me. We all clapped and cheered them on. It was awesome to see my parents on the dance floor having so much fun.

But my favorite part was the roast--err, best man's speech. Big Brad took his job very seriously, and with a straight face, congratulated Brian and Colleen. And then, with equal seriousness, he told the crowd that Brian was a stand-up guy, offering up as proof "the BB gun incident."

All he had to say was "BB gun" and our half of the room fell to the floor with laughter. Brad regaled us with the infamous story of how he and my brother Tim turned their little brothers into moving targets, pelting them with BBs. This story is a legend in our families, and we laughed uncotrollably at Big Brad's hilarious version of it.

And that moment reminded us we Dinsdales and Roppés have a very sick sense of humor. My sister-in-law Mary pointed to the other side of the room and whispered, "Look at them--they're HORRIFIED at this story!" It was true--the bride's side of the room sat in silence, mouths agape, gasping at the awful story. Meanwhile, our side of the room was in tears, also gasping, but only because they were laughing too hard.

It was living proof that you can dress us up and take us out, but eventually, we still revert back to those immature kids growing up together.

(For the record, the bride's side of the family also gave speeches. Her maid of honor and father toasted with wonderfully sweet, emotional words, which the other side of the room loved. It was very nice!)

It was on to dinner, dancing, and cake, and then suddenly, the lights came on. The party was over much too soon, for us anyway. We collected up the children and glowsticks, hugged the bride and groom one last time, and made our way home, still laughing.

Congrats, Brian and Colleen! Thank you for including us all in your celebration!

Celebrating National Diabetes Day

Sunday is National Diabetes Day, so in its honor, I am giving the spotlight to the disease that has transformed my life by way of the young, brave boy I proudly call my son.

Mark has taught me what it means to be strong and brave, what it means to live daily with a chronic disease when all you really wanna do is just be like everyone else. He has taught me what strength and bravery really are. He has taught me that life isn't fair, and while it's okay to whine about that occasionally, it's not really a place you want to spend a lot of time in. He has shown me that living with a chronic disease still means living, celebrating, rising above, even when diabetes tries to beat him down. He has taught me to be an advocate, to fight not only against diabetes, but for him, and for other kids who also live with this monster every day. And I'm glad, too, to take on that fight, because I know one day, when I'm tired of fighting it and think I can't go on, there will be a cure. That thought alone keeps up my strength, and my resilience.

Five years ago, I didn't know anything about diabetes. I was completely ignorant about it, and thought it was a disease you got from being unhealthy, or that old people got. I thought a diagnosis automatically meant losing a limb, because mention the word "diabetes" and everyone will share a story about their grandma/grandpa/great uncle/elderly neighbor getting their foot or leg or finger amputated.

I thought diabetes meant you got an occasional shot, some orange juice if you got shaky, and a lecture from your doctor for making yourself diabetic in the first place. I thought it was some weird disease that made you shake and eventually killed you just because you wanted one thing (a baby) more than anything else in life, even living. (Yes, Steel Magnolias was my favorite movie.)

I thought a lot of things. And I was wrong about most of them.

I learned that diabetes doesn't just affect your blood sugar, it also changes the way you see the world. It looks like an angry little kid who misses out on school parties because no one can give him a shot for that cookie. It looks like a pale, shaky little kid whose blood sugar is so low, you can barely think through the fear long enough to shove a juice box into him. It looks like a bad habit, falling asleep on the couch every night, instead of in my bed, so I wake up to test Mark's blood sugar.

Diabetes feels like a lot of things, too. It feels like fear, worry, anger (which is always really just a subset of fear), my heart breaking--why did it have to be my kid? Or ANY kid? Or anybody?

But those are the dark moments. I try to focus on the good things it feels like, such as gratitude, gratefulness, a lump in your throat you can't name when people bend over backwards to accommodate this goofy little kid on something as mundane as a field trip.

It feels like a giant hug from random people, strangers really, people you wouldn't ever have met except for this one crazy coincidence--they too, have a little kid with a chronic disease. They, too, have bad sleeping habits and worry incessantly over Halloween and Easter baskets. They, too, know how you feel.

It feels like pride, when that kid learns to poke his own finger, read his own numbers, count his own carbs, bolus his own insulin. It feels like an angry hive of bees buzzing around your head when he ignores all those steps, and it feels like all-consuming guilt when you realize he's just a little kid who shouldn't have to remember all that in the first place.

But mostly, on both my best and worst days, it feels like hope. Hope that my kid will learn to co-exist peacefully with his disease. Hope that maybe they really will find a cure in his lifetime--heck, they created continuous glucose monitors and insulin pumps in the last 20 years alone! Hope that this little kid brought to the rest of my family, who have been diagnosed with their own flavor of diabetes in the past few years. Hope that while diabetes may not be beaten, it also won't beat us down, either. Hope that because of this damned disease, I have learned a lot, so much, and that I can pass that knowledge to other parents, walk them through their own scary initial journeys into this dark tunnel. Hope that I can gift them, to say it really is just a tunnel, and that every tunnel has an end. And at the end of each tunnel is your kid, or your loved one, that one person you would slay dragons to keep safe.

So take that, diabetes. You may get your own day, but even that day celebrates hope. Hope that education, that a cure, that your disappearance, will prevail. It's not a day to celebrate your existence, but rather to celebrate our rallying against you.

A day I can't wait to embrace, when my son finally rips off his pump, tosses away his meter, and eats his fill of jelly beans because he wants to, not because he has to.

A day when I hear the last story of amputation someone tells in front of my kid...except for the amputation of you, diabetes, from our lives.

That one I can't wait to hear.

Cave man like dirt *grunt*

Apparently, a hurricane hit Mark's room the other night, because it was a pig sty. There were dirty clothes strewn all over the floor, along with his comforter, blankets, clean clothes, sweatshirts, baseball gear and his favorite books. I literally could not walk from the door to his bed without stepping on stuff.

"You need to clean this room!" I ordered, and Mark looked at me in disbelief.

"It's fine!" he insisted. He kicked a few things out of the way to clear a path to his bed. "See? Better already."

"No, it's not!" I told him. "It's disgusting! Pick it up!"

Then he opened his mouth and said, "But this is how men live."

I turned to look at him in horror. "Not all men live like this," I told him, but he didn't hear me. He was too busy scratching his bum.

I swear, you can't make this stuff up. I looked at my bum-scratching little cave man, who justified his dirty quarters as an homage to manhood, and I shook my head. I have no idea where he comes up with this stuff.

"And people wonder why I never got married," I said under my breath. "Honestly...I don't think I could live with a grown-up version of you messing up my house and saying, 'This is how men live.'"

I shook my head again and walked away. And said a silent prayer for my future daughter-in-law, if I ever have one. Because she will need all the help she can get to deal with this guy!

Huckleberry Mark

Mark called me from school on the day of the Halloween Carnival to ask if I'd put any money in his backpack.

I told him I had not, and he asked how he was supposed to partake in the festivities without any tickets.

"You're a creative boy," I told him. "You'll figure something out!"

And indeed he did. When I picked him up, he was clutching a 2-liter bottle of Diet Dr Pepper, a bag of goodies and he couldn't wait to tell me all about the giant slide he and Kyle rode down five times.

"You got all that without any tickets?" I asked.

He brushed me off. "Yeah, and the third time we went down the slide, we--"

"How'd you get the tickets?" I interrupted.

"From Kyle," he answered. "Kyle had $20 and all he wanted to do was buy soda with it. I talked him into going down the slide instead."

"Very helpful of you," I noted.

"I know," Mark said. "And I got this soda because I'm really good at huckling."

"At what?" I asked. I wasn't sure I'd heard him right, but he repeated, "Huckling--I'm a really good huckler."

I thought maybe he meant hustling, because honestly, that boy can sweet talk candy from a baby--if you have something he wants, give him five minutes, and he'll convince you to hand it over.

But he meant something else. "You know," he said, "I'm good at getting the price down. This soda was supposed to be two tickets, but I got it for one!"

"Oh, you mean haggling," I said.

"Yes, heckling," he replied. "I'm good at heckling people."

"Not heckling, haggling. Heckling is making fun of people."

"Whatever," he said. He was tired of my semantics, and wanted me to be impressed with his prowess at riding the slide and getting free junk food.

And so I was. I listened to his tales from the Halloween Carnival and laughed. Because truth be told, he is a very talented huckler, and you just don't come across that every day.

Bling

My kid loves the bling. That's what he calls the decorative bands he wears around his wrist.

I say "decorative" because technically, only some of the bands are true bracelets. Some are special Halloween Silly Bandz, one is a strand of glowsticks he got on Halloween, and one, to my dismay, is something he should not be wearing at all.

"What is that?" I asked, pointing at the gray band he wore.

Mark immediately reversed the band so I couldn't read it. "It keeps flipping over," he said.

"That's not what I asked," I said. "I asked what is it? Where did you get it?"

It wasn't the look of the band that alarmed me. It was the saying on it: "Desperate."

He smiled, trying to charm his way out of it (it works on everybody else in the world except me). "Ummmmm..."

And then it hit me. I knew exactly where he'd gotten it, and exactly what it was.

"Is that one of my beer bottle labels?" I asked, referring to a gift my friend Vic had given me. They were playful rubbery bands with silly sayings on them, like "Egomaniac" or "Snob." You slip them around your beer bottle, to keep track of which bottle's yours--kinda like those cutesy wine glass markers.

Mark smiled sheepishly at me, and ran a protective hand across his bracelet. He was going to fight to keep it. "Fine," I said. "You can keep it, since you don't mind people knowing you're desperate. But don't take any of the other ones!"

He smiled triumphantly. And I wiped the sweat from my brow, grateful he hadn't chosen any of the racier bracelets, like this one:



Because I really don't need a call from the school asking me to explain why my 10-year-old son's wearing that one.

Sock it to me

At my house, fashion is strictly observed by only the male family members. It's a varied and complicated thing, and the only rule of thumb seems to be that more is more.

For example, take socks. A seemingly simple article of clothing, especially when it comes to boys. My nephews don whatever socks they can find; the socks don't have to be clean or matching, they just have to be readily available. They are a necessary evil.

Not so with Mark. He's got a whole rule-book on what kind of socks to wear and when to wear them.

I bought him a couple 10-packs of your average boy's socks, and he rebelled. He didn't want socks that went above his ankle. So I bought him ankle socks. He liked them so much, he stole all of mine to increase his collection.

The ankle socks are great because they go with everything Mark wears: high-top sneakers, dress shoes, pants, suits, or pajamas. There's nothing better than a flash of pale white ankle to break up the monotony of navy pants and black shoes.

When he runs out of ankle socks, he simply takes the awful calf-high socks and folds them halfway across his foot so you can't see them. Apparently, he's trying to single-handedly resurrect the sock-free Miami Vice look. (I'll draw the line at five o'clock shadow!)

However, when he wears shorts, the exact opposite rule goes into effect. With shorts, Mark doesn't hide his socks; just the opposite. He regularly leaves the house like this, reminding me of an old-school newsboy in short pants and knee-high socks:



He loves to wear his soccer socks with shorts, yanking and tugging at them until they go over his knees. The brighter, the better, and he doesn't limit himself to only matching colors. I find it ironic that the boy who could never once find his soccer socks during the soccer season can now pull a matching pair out of the dresser on command.

My friend Edra described it best when she said, "Man, there's no middle ground with that guy. It's either all or nothing, knee-highs or no socks at all..."

She's right.

The Book Report (from hell)

Last month, Mark told me in horror that his teacher expects him to read an ENTIRE book and write a book report about it EACH AND EVERY MONTH.

"That's like, 12 book reports!" he gasped.

I reminded him school's only nine months long, so he actually has nine book reports due. I then wondered aloud (based on his miscalculation) if one of those books could be a math book.

Last month's book report was a rousing success, if you are a card-carrying member of the Mean Mom's Club. What started out as loving, encouraging support ("You can do it! We'll read together!") quickly melted down into a yelling, screaming session at 9 p.m. the night before the report was due. I'm pretty sure I threatened to take away everything Mark owns, including his skateboard, his cat, his college education, and any future children he might have, if he didn't write the damn report RIGHT NOW.

I kicked myself mentally afterwards for being such a horrible mom. Then I realized redemption was possible with the next report. I vowed to be a nicer mom with the second try.

And Mark lapped it up. He loved the positive reinforcement, and the genuine encouragement I gave him. We began on October 1st, so that he would have the whole month to read the book. We planned to write a quick summary of each chapter, so that when it came time to write the report, he'd have notes to remember the entire story by. Things were going wonderfully, right up until October 15th.

"Look, Mom!" Mark said that day. "Check out the cool books I got from the library today!"

I looked over the two Garfield books.

"Where's your Chet Gecko book?" I asked, referring to his book report book.

"I turned it in so I could get these," he said.

"How are you going to finish your book IF YOU DON'T HAVE IT??" I asked. Calm down, I told myself. Loving and supportive moms always remain calm, even in cases of extreme adversity.

The light of recognition went on in his little head. "Uh oh," he whispered. But he quickly recovered, and said, "I'll check that one out again on Monday."

Which gave him exactly 10 days to finish the book AND write the report. It had taken him two weeks to get through six chapters--there was no way he'd finish the book in 10 days. I declared it happy hour, and opened a bottle of wine.

By the beginning of this week, I gave up. I realized, sadly, that my kid is the kind of kid who has to learn lessons the hard way. I could keep nagging him about that dang report, and it would probably get done. And then I could repeat that same harping for the rest of the school year.

Or, I could give him a little tough love. Let him suffer the consequences, and get the lesson out of the way now.

I chose the latter. I emailed the teacher and explained there's a really good chance Mark won't turn his book report in on time. I asked not for leniency or deadline extensions, but for consequences. Good consequences if he finished it, other consequences if he did not. Luckily, the teacher was on the same page, and assured me there would be consequences if the report was not turned in.

And so here we are, three full school days later. The good news is Mark finally finished the book yesterday. The bad news is that he spent every morning and lunch recess on the red line to do it. Which meant that because he's not playing during those breaks, his blood sugar's also been through the roof (If ever you needed living proof that exercise lowers your blood sugar, Mark's your man).

But the upside is I haven't had to micromanage it. I got to let go of the issue, of all the stress. I got to let Mark own up to the problem, and realize that while I was here to help, it wasn't my job to make sure it got done. And I got to watch him fix it without yelling and screaming at him, and then regretting it all later.

I think we both learned our lessons.

He doesn't mints words

Mark and I were playing catch outside yesterday, when he brought up the subject of allowance. He informed me that he'd played his drums all week, and finished his day's homework, and that I owed him $3.

"OK," I answered. "But let's try something new--let's put your allowance in a jar in the kitchen, so you can actually see how much money you have."

He frowned at me, so I went on.

"When you keep it in your wallet, you never have any money," I said. "What do you spend it on?"

"I buy mints," he said, with a shrug.

"Ooh," I said. Then, mimicking an adult Mark, I said, "I wanted to buy a house, but I bought mints instead."

He giggled, so I went on.

"I wanted to go to college, but I bought mints."

He laughed out loud.

"I wanted to travel the world, but I bought mints." Then I frowned, and in super stern voice said, "I wanted to buy my mom a Christmas present--"

"--so I bought her mints!" Mark yelled, and fell into a fit of laughter. I couldn't help it, I laughed along with him.

So, if your birthday is coming up, or you exchange Christmas presents with Mark, don't be surprised if this year...you get mints.

Halloween 2010

Another Halloween has passed us by, and in its wake, it left behind a tired, oversugared 10-year-old.

Mark earned the fatigue honestly--he had a super busy weekend.

We started with a photo shoot at the local pumpkin patch. Pa's Pumpkin Patch, where a gritchy old Pa waving a light saber yelled at us as soon as we pulled into the lot.

We still managed to have fun, anyway.



Mark found a little pumpkin stem, and an empty space in a row of pumpkins. He quickly filled it by pretending to be a giant pumpkin.



We spent most of Saturday night carving pumpkins in a panic. I panicked that Mark would slice his hand off, and he panicked he would never cut through the top of his pumpkin. I'm happy to report that my panic, while justified, went unrealized, and that Mark did, indeed, finally open up that gourd. Which made him really happy for five minutes--until he tired of scooping out pumpkin guts and whined about that instead.

I carved a cyclops pumpkin sticking its tongue out, and Mark added lots of decorative colored toothpicks to his. I was pretty happy with the results.




On Sunday, we visited a local rancho, which was hosting a Halloween extravaganza. Mark and his friend Sean ran from game to game, while Sean's mom, Liz, and I trailed behind them. They played sports from all around the world, and both boys turned out to be expert bocce ball players. They also engaged in a knock-down, drag out tetherball game. They used a racket to smack tennis balls that a super nice volunteer tossed at them. I warned Mark not to hit it over the fence when it was his turn, and Liz laughed at me. Then I stood by and gave him the stink eye, and he still knocked it over the volunteer's head, but not as far as he wanted too. I guess that counts as a small success, huh?

After a quick dinner, it was showtime! Mark and Sean couldn't wait to get out in the neighborhood, so they suited up and grabbed their bags. Sean was Elmo, and looked hilarious. It was even more hilarious when he told us the biggest size Elmo costume they had was a 4T, and he fit in it!



Mark was, of course, a Dodger player. My nephew Johnny was mad at me because I didn't buy Mark a costume--he couldn't believe I made Mark wear "old" baseball clothes. I explained that's what Mark wanted to wear, but Johnny still frowned. Apparently, costumes only count if they come in a box from the store.

I should've known better than to put Mark in white baseball pants. He did his best to make his uniform look authentic by sliding across the front lawn, which Sean strongly encouraged. When Mark got enough grass stains on his pants to look like a pro player, the boys high-fived and took off.

We met up with some of Mark's friends from school and their older brothers. They all looked great!



We've always gone trick or treating with Mark's cousins (with my brother pulling a wagon full of margaritas), so it was fun to actually go with Mark's friends instead. I really like all the parents (who are also Cub Scout parents), so we laughed a lot and had a good time.

The kids darted through the dark neighborhoods, zigzagging across the streets rather than utilizing the more traditional up one side/down one side of the street method.

An hour into it, the kids' bags were already full, and they were tiring out. We ended after 90 minutes, and the kids immediately tore into their bags and started trading fast and furiously. They were protective of their stashes, and one mom told me she knew a kid who inventoried all his candy using an Excel spreadsheet. Now that's an organized kid!

Liz and I collected our tired boys and lead them back home. The boys were simultaneously exhausted and jacked-up on sugar, and I thought the sugar buzz might keep Mark awake for a while. But the minute he laid down on his bed, he passed out.

He was tired, full of candy and happy--the way every kid should be at the end of Halloween.