Sweet tooth

Halloween scares the crap outta me, and not in an "Ooooh, ghosts and goblins" kinda way. No, living through Halloween with a diabetic child is like living next to a dynamite factory with a pyromaniac child. Each year, I literally wait for the house to explode.

Halloween is like a bad after school special that re-runs each October. It's the episode entitled, "Sugar--it will KILL YOU." And it stars a very cute little brown-haired boy, cackling, scoffing, and swallowing copious amounts of sugar all at the same time.

Our annual Halloween Disaster came early this year. Usually, Mark's blood sugar-raising adventures wait until after Halloween, but this time, he was ahead of schedule.

I stumbled across Mark's latest folly while putting away a bag of cat food. I knocked over a jar of marshmallow creme in the pantry, and it rolled kinda funny. Something about it just hit me weird.

Sure enough, when I opened it, half the jar was gone.

I know I didn't eat half a jar of marshmallow creme, and the cats don't have opposable thumbs or they would clearly be guilty. (They are seriously naughty cats.) So that just left one other critter in the house...

Maybe it wasn't Mark, I thought naively, totally disregarding the pattern of inexplicable high blood sugars he'd been having over the last week. I thought that for all of ten seconds, until I checked his room and stepped on this:

It was shoved halfway under the bed, directly under his shoe rack. Which made me think, "Ewwwww!" for a whole lotta reasons.

My first instinct was to immediately wake Mark up and start yelling at him. But what fun is it to fight with someone half-asleep and clearly not on top of their game? Mark's a sneaky guy; I had to respond in a similar fashion. This was going to be a long, painful lesson.

I emptied the jar, and scrubbed it clean. Then, I grabbed a piece of paper and scribbled a quick note to my darling son:

I folded the note and dropped it back in to the jar. 

I returned the jar to the pantry. I also did a quick scan for a giant jar of marshmallow fluff my friend Amber had sent us but couldn't find it. I wondered how Mark was still alive, and not passed out in some diabetic coma.

But I wasn't done. I had to set the stage, make Mark sweat a little. So the next morning, I gleefully announced that we were going to make whoopie pies! I dropped the whoopie pie recipe book into his lap and told him to pick out a recipe.

Mark, bless his clueless little heart, was thrilled. He was so excited I realized he must not have eaten the marshmallow fluff--even he couldn't pull off an act that well.

Mark couldn't decide whether to make lots of little whoopie pies, or one giant one. I saw my opening, and I took it.

"Let's make one huge pie!" I said. Then I paused for a moment, and said, "But I don't think we'll have enough marshmallow fluff for the filling. Maybe we can combine the fluff and the marshmallow creme together."

"No, I don't wanna do that," Mark answered, quickly. "Let's just make the little pies instead."

"What?" I asked, innocently. "Why? I think one big one would be cool! We could take funny pictures of it."

"I don't know why, I just don't want to make a big one," Mark answered. "I just want one little pie to take to school."

"It's a good thing Amber sent us that jar of fluff," I said. "You can't even buy that stuff out here. They only sell it back East."

"I wonder why?" Mark asked. He was starting to sweat a little.

I let it drop. I got the info I was looking for. After I quick search back home, I also found the jar of marshmallow fluff.

That afternoon, Mark got home about 20 minutes before I did. I knew he'd be drawn to that jar like a moth to a flame.

I reminded him he had drum lessons, and to eat a snack beforehand.

He opened the pantry to get one. Just as I peeked over the cabinet door, he very casually kicked something to the back. That little kick told me he'd found and read my note.

"Why is your foot resting on the pantry?" I asked.

Once again, he feigned ignorance.

"What?" he said. "Oh, I didn't even notice."

I could tell right away he'd gone for the good stuff again, but found my note instead. He was really sweating it now, so I let it go.

But this morning, he was in quite a mood. He ignored everything I said or asked him to do, explaining, "I can't, I'm playing with my kitten." I waited until he had his backpack on and was ready to walk out the door, and then I called him into the kitchen.

"Can you hand me that marshmallow creme?" I asked. He knew the gig was up.

He sighed. He held the jar out toward me, rolling his eyes the whole time.

"Open it," I said. He did, refusing to look into it.

"Is that a note in there?" I asked. "Read it."

He did, pretending like it was all new to him. Then, silently, he twisted the lid back on and tossed the jar into the recycling bin.

"You want to talk about this now?" I asked.

"No," he said, flatly.

"We can talk about it now, and you can come up with the consequence," I said. "Or we can talk about it later, and I'll come up with the consequence. You know which one will be worse."

He simply turned and walked out the front door.

So the bad news is, we didn't resolve it this morning. The good news is, he's at school, sweating it out one more day, and worried abut the nice, long talk we're gonna have tonight. Unfortunately for Mark, he has rotten timing, and a punishment the day before Halloween will absolutely be reflected in his candy intake tomorrow. 

Looks like the dynamite factory exploded a little early this year...

The (Not-So-)Great Pumpkin

Alternate title: Sometimes I'm not even sure why I bother...

Yesterday was our annual trip to the pumpkin patch, and Mark could barely contain his enthusiasm.

"You ready to go get pumpkins?" I asked.

"Nah," he sighed. "I don't want one this year."

"You...what?" I gasped. "How could you not want a pumpkin?"

"I just want to hang out at home," he said. I must note that the activity I was interrupting was...nothing. No video games or TV shows, he was just too lazy to leave the house for a pumpkin.

But I wasn't having it. I strongly encouraged him to get his shoes on and get in the car, and he was smart enough to do so.

I planned our trip around 5:30, because I figured the light is best for photos then, and all the families would be eating dinner. Boy, was I wrong...the pumpkin patch was mobbed, with more people than I've ever seen there, and the sun was already setting behind the buildings. Strikes 1 and 2.

I thought Mark would be interested once we got there, but he really wasn't. He refused to sit on the big pumpkins, or to sit with any other pumpkins in the field. He demanded we buy a huge pumpkin immediately so we could leave, but I reminded him he doesn't get a pumpkin until I get a nice photo. He just groaned.

He darted toward the giant pumpkins, trying to pick up the biggest one. I saw $50 of pumpkin dropping to the ground in my head, and hissed at him to put the damn thing down.

He did, but only because it was too heavy to lift for long. He tried lifting every other giant pumpkin nearby, and finally settled on an already-broken pumpkin.

"I want this one," he demanded. (He was in quite a mood!)

But Mark's not the first (or last) strong-willed, stubborn Dinsdale.

"Let's go," I answered. "I'm not leaving until I get a nice picture." 

I finally did get a decent picture, though:

After all the demands for a large pumpkin, here's the bad boy he settled on:

"Really?" I asked him, flabbergasted. "THAT'S the pumpkin you want to carve?"

"Yup!" he answered. "Let's go."

He paid for his baby pumpkin. It was $1.20, the cheapest it ever cost me to get out of there. But Mark was furious when the lady stamped a "paid" stamp on it--he immediately wiped it off.

"You have to show them the stamp when you leave," I reminded him. "How will they know you paid for it?"

"I paid!" he snorted. "No one's gonna check."

And they didn't.

My obnoxious young son had done everything he could to ruin our trip to the pumpkin patch. He was making me grouchy, and I thought it best to leave before I lost my temper in front of the approximately one million people surrounding me.

But just as we left, a guy in front of us hoisted a giant pumpkin onto his shoulder. It looked heavy, but he never slowed down. I looked at Mark and his tiny little pumpkin, and at the guy in front with his giant pumpkin. The contrast was hilarious.

Turns out, not even Mark's bad attitude can trump a funny picture.

I mustache you a favor...

During a recent San Diego visit, I decided to mess with my nieces and nephew while Mark was outside unloading the car.

"Hey, guys, come here!" I whispered, motioning for them to come over. They reluctantly left the T.V.

"Yeah?" they asked, all at once.

"Um..." I paused, awkwardly. "So...you know how when you get older, your body changes?"

They all looked at me, horrified. The last thing they wanted to talk about was changing bodies!

Undaunted, I charged on.

"Well, Mark's getting a little...hairier," I said. "He's growing a little mustache, and he's really self-conscious about it."

They all exhaled with relief. In the realm of body changes, mustaches were safe to discuss.

"We won't tease him," Nathalie assured me.

"Gross!" Gabi shrieked.

"Mark has a MUSTACHE???" Grant gasped.

I put my fingers to my lips. "Shhhh," I told them. "Don't say anything or you'll embarrass him! Don't make him cry!"

They all agreed. A moment later, Mark slammed the car door outside, and the kids darted back into the living room.

Mark entered the house, and the kids very politely got up to say hello. They were so sweet, trying their very hardest to be nonchalant and polite, and not hurt poor, sensitive Mark's feelings.

But when they saw Mark, they totally disregarded everything I'd just said and laughed right in his face.

"What?" Mark asked, twirling the ends of the disgusting candy mustache he'd worn the whole drive down. "Do you like my mustache?"

The kids just laughed again, smacked me on the arm, and yelled, "You're so stupid!"

And all I could do was laugh with them.

My cat rocks (and skateboards!)

Our little Fernando is growing up very quickly. He's quadrupled in size since we got him, and his eyes have changed from blue to green. He's just as curious as the day we got him, but as he grows into a teenager, he's become super nosy and much, much naughtier.

And like most teenagers, he can't resist a skateboard. Mark set his out momentarily the other day, and Fernando immediately jumped aboard.

But Fernando didn't just want to sit there. He wanted that danged skateboard to roll!

 

Alas, he wasn't strong or heavy enough to get it going. I am, however, worried that day will soon come, and I will resort to dodging our little striped hell(cat) on wheels in the hallway. And I just know he won't be wearing a helmet.

Sigh...

The haunting begins...

I spent the past weekend in a ghost town, with a bunch of creepy ghouls skulking about. Oh yeah, the Boy Scouts were there, too.

It was the annual Boy Scout camping trip in Calico. Calico's an old desert mining town that's been transformed into a touristy ghost town. Usually, "ghost town" refers to the fact the mines were abandoned long ago, but during the two weekends before Halloween, it becomes a more literal description--it's a real ghost town, filled with monsters and other scary things!

We got to town late Friday night. We had a few glitches--due to traffic, it took us four hours to get there (instead of two). Once there, we began setting up Martha's tent in the dark, only to realize she didn't have any tent poles. Luckily, I also had a tent, so I just offered to share. And then, approximately five minutes after handing Mark a walkie talkie in case of late-night low blood sugars (he was in a different camp), I lost my walkie talkie. I was super bummed, because it turns out they don't work so well as singular devices. But the worst part was explaining to Mark that I'd lost it (usually, he's the one who loses everything). His initial reaction of concern was quickly replaced by a smirk (and relief) he wasn't the loser.

The good news is, we got all the bad news out of the way that first night. Once the sun came up, we started a whole new day, and everything turned out much better.
The boys were chattering excitedly about a visitor. Apparently, somebody left a loaf of bread out, and a fox ate it. The story quickly changed as it passed through the group, from "There was a fox" to "I saw the fox!" It was alternately described as small and reddish, about the size of a dog, and big and brown, like a wolf.

I noticed in the daylight that the rock structure behind us resembled the top half of a skull. It was soooooo cool!

I met up with my friends Karen and Greg, who'd arrived while we were sleeping. They made a fantastic French toast breakfast, and I marveled at how much better food always tastes when you're camping. They joined the Scouts after breakfast for a hike in the hills, and I returned to my camp to enjoy the momentary peace and quiet.

Calico's in the high desert, so I'd mentally prepared myself to sweat in the projected 90 degree weather. But a nice little breeze rolled through the campground, and kept everything cool. While the Scouts were gone, I crept into the leaders' camp to sit under their tree and read in the shade. It was quiet, breezy, and I was completely happy.

As I was reading, a group of Scout parents passed by.

"Come on, Heather, we're going to town!" they shouted. How could I resist?

It's a short hike to town, maybe half a mile. It's easy during the day, but there's one section that's pitch black and pretty scary at night. I was glad it was daytime.

We passed through the campground, admiring all the sites decorated with Halloween gear. There were graveyards, cauldrons, inflatable pumpkins and all sorts of spooky stuff. Later on, at dusk, costumed trick or treaters ran wildly through the camp.

The town was already filled with scary people--we followed this group in.  

But the decorations weren't just limited to people. The buildings were decked out, too, all along main Street. This one even had a giant spider on it, who was about to eat an orange stuffed cat. The whole scene freaked me out, as the cat bore a striking resemblance to our beloved little kitten Fernando.

We wandered through town, drinking sarsaparillas and inching our way through the mystery house. The house, built at all different angles, severely messes with your head and your balance. At one point, I gripped a handrail tightly, convinced that gravity had failed me, and that I was about to fall down.

By the time we got back to camp that afternoon, the gentle breeze had grown into full-force hurricane winds. We rescued our neighbor's tent, which flew in to the mountain side, and then reinforced our own tent with as many big rocks as we could find. Our tent didn't blow away, but I spent the rest of the night tripping over rocks.

The Scouts went up to town, returning in a steady trickle over the next couple hours. They all returned carrying the same two things: brown sarsaparilla bottles (which looked like real beer bottles) and toy guns. Hey, what do you expect, it is the Wild West, after all! (Mark came back with candy cigarettes. Apparently, his vice is smoking, not drinking and shooting.)

After a nice dinner, we all walked back to town for the evening haunting and a comedy hypnosis show. (I'm not sure what hypnosis has to do with Halloween, I just went with it, but the boys loved it.)

I thought our boys went home after the show, but somehow, we beat them back. At one point, Martha and I went looking for them, but we stopped when we got to the super dark valley. I had a wimpy little lantern that did not shine light anywhere past three inches of my face, and Martha held only a wimpy little glow stick. We stood in the dark, contemplating our next move. All I could think about was last year, and how a coyote had walked this trail just moments before we did.

"Maybe I'll just pick up a rock," Martha said casually. Then she bent down and picked up another, and I couldn't blame her.

In what may not have been my proudest maternal moment, we decided not to go any further. We reasoned the boys would be much safer traveling through the darkness because A) they are loud, and would surely scare away any predators, B) they had much brighter flashlights than we did, and C) they were not scaredy cats like us. A and B turned out to be true, and C probably did, too, though no boy would admit to it.

When we woke up Sunday morning, the wind was in full force. It was whipping everything around, including us. We tried packing up the tent and tarp, but the winds were blowing them around so hard we just couldn't. I crammed them into my duffel bag to repack at home.

Martha and I broke down our camp fairly quickly, then wandered over to the Scout camp to see how they were faring.

Their tents were much bigger than ours, but the boys were much smaller. The wind was tossing them all around pretty good. I watched some older Scouts wrestle their tents. Then I turned to see how our boys were doing. Mark and his friend Sean were gripping the ends of the tent's rain cover. But instead of packing it away, they were running. The wind was blowing straight into the rain cover, puffing it up like a parachute, and the boys were cracking up.

Eventually, the Scout leaders gave up on the slacker boys and the gusty winds. They ordered the boys to do as we did, cramming the tents into the cars, to repack when we got home.

The trip always ends at a dry lake bed, shooting off rockets. Because of the weather, the troop decided to shoot off just a few token rockets, most of which broke or were carried off by the wind. We drove by the swirling dust storm over the lake bed, and decided to keep on driving--our teeth and skin were already gritty with sand, and we just wanted to go home to a hot shower.

The trip ended as it always does, with the exhausted Scouts unloading the trucks back at the church, and the parents yelling at them to hurry up. I'm glad we showed up, because it turns out one of the leaders found my walkie talkie and returned it. 

It was the perfect way to end the trip--definitely on a high note.

Autumn in California

I have the most amazing family in the world, and if you don't believe me, just ask them. Reason #5623 why I love them: Child-free weekends.

This spring, after I suffered a nasty bout of depression, my mom declared I needed one  child-free weekend every month. She offered to look after Mark so I could look after myself, and I gratefully agreed.

This month's adventure was originally a trip to the Big Bear Oktoberfest, but slowly evolved into a trip to San Diego instead.

Though the calendar says fall, the weather screams back "SUMMER!" Seriously. It was a nice, crisp autumn day when we arrived in San Diego:

There was a chill in the air, as the offshore breeze cooled us down to about 80 degrees. Brrrr....

I spent the weekend with my friends Michelle and Nicky. Nicky was a wonderful hostess, plying us with food, drinks, and allowing us to sleep in late. As frazzled mothers, Michelle and I appreciated this a lot.

We didn't really have any big plans other than to just catch up, which we did over the most fantastic lunch. 

Nicky took us to an amazing resturant inside a trendy Pacific Beach hotel. We sat outside, basking in the sunshine, and staring at all the shirtless, buff men walking by on the beach path. (Seriously, San Diego, what do you put in the water? Protein powder??)

Our lunch was slightly marred toward the end, when a fly dive bombed Michelle's champagne cocktail. I immediately covered my drink, and endured a good 10 minutes of heckling from Nicky and Michelle over it.

"It's not gonna happen again," Nicky chastised me. "It was one fly, and now we got that out of the way. What are the chances another fly is gonna land in your drink?"

Apparently, the chances were slim to none. But exactly one minute after Michelle received a replacement drink, a kamikaze fly splashed into it. This time, I was the one snickering.

We lingered over lunch a long time. When we finally left, we strolled down the  boardwalk, enjoying the sun. We stopped to look at the cute little cottages on the pier, and at all the people sunning themselves on the beach. We watched people roll by us on skates, skate boards and bikes. We even watched a crazy dude teaching tourists to hula hoop. 

It was wonderful. We had nowhere to be, and nothing to do, and we loved every minute of it.

Eventually, loud, thumping music and laughter lured us into a nearby restaurant. It was filled with twenty-somethings drinking energy drink and vodka slushees, and watching college football. This was my crowd--like, twenty years ago. I couldn't hear a thing the girls were saying over the music, but it didn't matter. I had a front row view of the beach and the boardwalk, and I quietly took it all in.

We walked back to the car, but got distracted once more along the way. We ambled in to another beachfront bar, where the bouncer carded me (bless his little heart!) He stared at my ID a little too long, until I finally told him, "Come on, I'm 43. Do you really think I'd lie about that on my ID?" He laughed and agreed if I was gonna to fake an ID, I'd probably shoot for a lower age.

This place was hilarious--more twenty-somethings, apparently all on a pub crawl. They also had funny cardboard cut-outs, which we just had to take our pictures with.

Nicky opted for a photo op with the President. But lest anyone be offended, there was also a cut-out of Mitt Romney...and Fabio. 

Huh, I didn't even know Fabio was running for office. (Sorry for the blurry photo--as Fabio might say, "I can't believe it's not better." ;-)

We stopped by one more bar on the way out, to say hi to some of Nic's friends. But Michelle and I were definitely done, so after a brief stay, we cabbed it back to Nicky's, ordered pizza and called it a night.

And the next morning, when I picked up my boy, I was completely relaxed and happy to see him. Ah, these weekends are just what the doctor ordered. (Dr. Mom, that is.)

Reading is Fun(damental)

My one great pleasure as a child was escaping my brothers, finding a quiet, peaceful place, and curling up with a good book. My mom and I would spend hours in the living room, she on one couch, me on another, silent, absorbed in our own books, happy as clams. Although I no longer avoid my brothers, reading is still one of my great joys.

I always hoped my child would share my love of the written word. Well, the universe has a funny way of smacking you down and keeping you humble; instead, I got a child who could not spell and hated to read. (Ack!)

Mark liked books well enough, as long as I read them. I didn't mind; my favorite time of every day was bedtime, when Mark and I crawled into bed and read together. The books started out small with a short sentence or two on each page, and I read them quickly, so he didn't lose interest. As he grew, so did the books, getting a bit bigger each month, and I slowed my pace, savoring the words.

When Mark learned to read, I encouraged him, making him read the last word of each sentence, and then, gradually, read full sentences. He hated this; he simply wanted to listen to the story, not be an active participant.

"I read all day at school," he'd complain, breaking my heart. And so I continued to read to him.

Even as he got older, he refused to read books. He'd read magazines, manuals with one-page ideas on training cats or making paper planes, comics, anything with words but not a linear story. He loved Calvin and Hobbes, because he could pick it up, read a few pages, and put it down again without keeping track of a plot.

This, too, broke my heart; I wanted him to love books like I loved books. I took him to the library so he could pick out whatever he wanted. I bought him the latest and greatest in kid lit: The Hunger Games, the Warrior books. I bought him my favorites as a kid: The Great Brain series, A Wrinkle in Time. I bought him Harry Potter. I bought him whatever he wanted out of the Scholastic catalog every month at school. Alas, he spent most of his time reading Pokemon cards and Diary of a Wimpy Kid books, which had lots of pictures. He'd read just about anything that wasn't actually a book.

(And when he did have to read books for school...well, that was a disaster!)

Whatever, I figured, as long as he was reading something, it still counted. And so I stopped trying to force my favorites on him, and gave in to what he really liked. I bought magazine subscriptions to Mad, Thrasher, and Boy's Life. It was like feeding a baby pureed vegetables; I'd get those words into him one way or another, even if he spit most of them back out.

And then, a couple months ago, the most amazing thing happened. Mark brought home the first Harry Potter book. And he read it! Without prompting, without pushing, he read the whole book by himself, whenever he had a spare moment. He read it in bed, at night, and before school. He read it in class, and when he came home from school, even on the weekends. He read it when he was supposed to be cleaning his room, and eating his dinner. He read it while I did yard work, and yelled at him to help. He. read. the. whole. book.

As soon as he finished, he immediately asked to return to the library for the second book.

My heart sang with joy! Here he was, my avid reader, another lover of words and great stories. He'd read a book, a whole book, chapter by chapter, on his own, because he wanted to, and he'd enjoyed it! 

Woo hoo, I wanted to dance around the house! I felt like so many doors had suddenly opened for him, without him even knowing it. I felt like he'd joined a secret society, a smart, erudite society, with all the answers to the universe bound between two covers. I welcomed him to the society, and returned to the library to reward him.

He still checked out a Simpsons comic book, but hey, that's cool. You can't live on pureed vegetables alone, you gotta have some junk food, too. And right next to that comic book was this, the third Harry Potter book. It doesn't have any pictures, and it's 730 pages long! But Mark didn't even hesitate; he picked the book up and started reading it two days ago. He's already on page 124.

It's like the floodgates have opened, and Mark can't read enough. I recognize that kid, because I was that kid, always wanting to read more, to inhale words like other kids inhaled candy or soda. He's gonna cost me a fortune now, but it's the best money I'll ever spend, and I'll do it willingly. I renewed all his magazines, and his library card.

I also renewed my childhood memories, of mother and child, in the living room, quietly reading together. Only this time it's not me and my mom, but me and my son. 

But it's just as great the second time around...

Happy Adoption Day!

Today is our fifth (!) Adoption Day. This year, I'm going to let Mark describe how adoption feels from the kid's point of view...this is an awesome paper he wrote for class last year, which immediately brought me to tears. 

Happy Adoption day, Mark--I love you!

My Best Gift
By Mark Dinsdale

It was a gray, dingy, dreary, and uninteresting day. I was tired of moving from place to place. This day I didn’t realize that I was going to a place where I was going to stay forever.

Once a week, a lady called Heather would come and play with me. I thought she was a person who just came to play. One day when I was playing in the freezing cold, frosty air I had to pick up all my favorite belongings. I had no idea where I was going.

After I loaded up all my favorite belongings, I had to put them in Heather’s car. It was Thanksgiving Day when I went to her clean, tidy house. There was not a speck of dust in the huge house (although it was only one story). After five minutes of being in the home, unknown people started pouring into the house. I started to flip out and dove under my soon-to-be bed.

About ten minutes later, I came out from under my bed. After Thanksgiving, I went to my real house and I was explosive with anger. I did not want to go back to my real house; I wanted to stay at Heather’s house forever. When I finally got back to my house, I sprang to my bed.

About a month later, I was adopted. I had no idea! No one told me, until about fifteen minutes before my new mom came to the house. The person who adopted me was Heather.

“I should’ve known,” I whispered to myself because Heather came to my house every so often.

I still had a lot of stuff in the garage. Heather yelled, ”Holy cow, that’s a lot of stuff.” I looked for all my absolute favorite stuff. I got most of it and shoved it into the smooth, sleek, black car.

I bet if I was never adopted I would probably be at my fifteenth or sixteenth house. I’m glad I was adopted. Now I am the happiest kid on earth. 

Welcome, Spinster Aunts!

This past weekend, I was invited to my cousin's wedding. It was a beautiful ceremony, held in a garden at dusk. The bride and groom were gorgeous, the flower girls were adorable, and my whole family was ecstatic.

After the ceremony, we moved into an adjacent courtyard for appetizers. A mariachi band serenaded us, and we made our way through the crowd, greeting and hugging relatives. It was great to see everybody, and just when I thought it couldn't get any better, my brother Smed shared some incredibly happy news of his own. (I'm getting a new sister-in-law, and I'm THRILLED!)
 

So it was a pretty awesome evening. The sun was setting, and lit up the sky in a soft orange haze. It was the perfect evening, in the perfect setting. Until...

A waiter circled through the crowd, gently herding the crowd toward the tables on the lawn. As I passed my brother Smed, he snickered and said, "You're at the kid's table!"

I looked at him, confused, as my mom dragged me off to the seating chart. And sure enough, Smed was right. 

My table was all kids--my son, my nieces, my nephew, and my cousin's kids.

I just stared at my mom.

"It's okay, Kathleen's at your table, too," she said. And then I felt even worse, because Kathleen doesn't even have any kids! 

I adore my nieces and my nephew, and my son. I would've hung out with them anyway, checking in on them throughout the night. I wasn't upset about their company, per se, because I love those kids. It was the whole spinster aunt/babysitter vibe I had a problem with. There were no other parents at our table.

You'd think they'd seat Kathleen with her mom, and Scott and Mary with their kids. Somehow, Kathleen ticked off the seat planner, and Juan paid the price!

But I made the best of the situation. I was gracious, understanding, and demure.

OK, no, I was not. In reality, I collected up all the champagne on the table, and split it with Kathleen. I then proceeded to drink too much, say bad words, and let all the children gorge on candy before dinner. I was seated at the kid's table--might as well act as if I belonged. I figured if I was gonna be publicly humiliated, I was gonna do it on my terms.

"We can eat all the candy?" my cousin's kid, Lauren, asked, incredulously.

"Do what you want," I said. "I'm not in charge."

The only time that comment didn't work was when Grant started arguing with Mark. I shushed them both, as Kathleen reminded me, "You're not the babysitter!"

I nodded, then pointed at Mark and said, "I know, but this one's mine, so I actually do have to discipline him."

Turns out, despite the public humiliation and marital status discrimination, I had a pretty good time. But hey, that may be all the glasses of wine talking. Because Scott rounded us up immediately after dinner, and said we were going home. It was only 9:30!

Oh, well. So I got banished to the kid's table. That's the bad news. The good news is I won't have to worry about that again, since I probably won't be invited back to any more weddings. (Did I mention the dinnertime karaoke at our table?)

But that doesn't matter. The married people can have their lovey-dovey romantic evenings back--I won't be at the next family wedding. I'll be at the bars with my single friends, whooping it up, and having a blast.

WITHOUT kids.

That's not Jesus

I love my home. I love my area, I love the local school, and I love my neighbors.

Well, most of them, anyway.

A few years back, my next door neighbors got divorced. Up until then, they'd been very nice, quiet, friendly neighbors. But once divorced, the woman went crazy, whooping it up and turning her also very-nice house into a crack den.

I tried for two years to get rid of her and all the druggies who flocked to her house. Nothing worked--not the stink eye, not rallying the other neighbors, not the police, nothing. It seemed like no one would help.

During the worst of it, I gave up my fight and decided to just move. I put my house up for sale, sat back, and waited for the offers to roll in (this was before the housing market crashed).

When they didn't, I resorted to something I don't normally--religion. Someone told me to bury a statue of St. Joseph in the backyard, upside down. Apparently, St. Joseph is the patron saint of homes or something, and brings good luck and fast offers to your home.

What the heck, I thought. Those crackheads were driving me nuts, and I wanted to get out.

And so I ordered my very own little plastic statue of St. Joseph. Mark opened the package when it arrived, and was befuddled.

"Mom!" shouted my six-year-old son. "Somebody sent us Jesus!"

"That's not Jesus," I corrected. "It's St. Joseph. We're supposed to bury him in the backyard, and he'll help us sell our house."

Mark looked at me, confused--pretty much the same feeling I get now, telling this story with a few years of perspective on it. But I buried St. Joseph, just like the instructions said. I waited, but the offers never came.

But Mark still had concerns about our friendly saint. And because he was little, without filters, he voiced them often, and loudly, and never at the right moment.

"Tell her we buried Jesus in the backyard!" he shouted, while I was talking to our real estate agent. I shushed him, growling, "It's NOT Jesus!"

He also wondered who got possession of the saint when we sold the house.

"Tell her about the guy buried in the backyard," Mark said, nudging me in front of one prospective buyer. "Does she get him if we move? Or does he come with us?"  

Needless to say, that lady did not put in an offer.

He was fascinated by St. Joe. Mark told numerous people about him, always leading with, "We buried a guy in our back yard!" I'm pretty sure people thought I was a serial killer.

Well, the economic down turn foiled my plans, and we never did sell the house. Ironically enough, our luck finally changed when the neighbor almost burned her house down while we were on vacation. The crackhead and her squatter posse moved back into the condemned house, and that was finally what the city needed to get them out once and for all.

Like I said, all that happened years ago. I hadn't even thought about it until last night, when Mark and I were tossing the football in the backyard. Suddenly, apropos to nothing, Mark said, "Hey Mom, there's Jesus."

"What?" I asked, confused.

"Jesus," Mark repeated, pointing at that ground. "Remember, we buried him?"

And so he was--and so we did! Somehow, he'd found his way up and out, and was lying in the dirt.

"Huh," I said, brushing him off. "He looks like he's carrying donuts and a jug of wine."

I took a good look, and thought of how much more involved in our community we are today, and how much I love our little home. I silently thanked him for not being much help after all.

The I picked up the football, turned to Mark, and repeated what I've been saying all these years.

"That's not Jesus," I told my little heathen son.

This dinner had a lot of merit

Last week was the big Court of Honor for Mark's Boy Scout troop. They have three a year, but this was the formal one after summer, when the boys work hard to rank up and earn merit badges.

The boys are supposed to look their best, wearing their Class A uniforms, including the sashes with all their merit badges sewn on. Apparently, none of Uncle Brad's two-hour lectures about tucking in your shirt or looking your best have stuck, because Mark looked like a hot mess. His shirt was untucked, his sash kept falling down, and his neckerchief was rolled up too high and flapping around at his neck. At one point, he was asking the troop leader a question, and I could Mr. Lane's hand instinctively straightening Mark's sash and neckerchief. I just sighed.

Mark's patrol was selected for the color guard, and did a great job. Mark carried out and presented the troop flag. He treated his task quite seriously, ensuring the flag was perfectly straight.

There was a slide show running on a big screen throughout the ceremony. My favorite picture was of the boys who went on the Sequoia camping trip this summer. The boys and leaders were huddled into a big ball of smiling, happy Scouts, goofing for the camera. In the background was a small speck, but I couldn't tell what it was. Luckily, someone circled the specked and added a very simple label: "Bear!"

And it was that very moment I vowed Mark would never camp again! (Well, maybe not in bear country...which happens to be all of California...so maybe he can camp at the beach...no, let's just be safe and keep it at NOWHERE. NO TIME. EVER. AGAIN.)

The boys had their own tables--I'm not sure if this was by their choice, or the parents' choice, but it worked out well for all of us. It was fun to sit with my friends and not next to a squirrelly boy.

The table decorations consisted of small wooden statues fashioned into the Scout hand sign, and mini Snickers bars strewn about. I wandered by Mark's table a few times, silently moving my fingers over an imaginary device. This is our shorthand sign for "Did you bolus?" and Mark's response is always the same--a confident, annoyed nod, as though he had indeed taken care of it, and then a frantic scrambling to pull the insulin pump out of his pocket and really bolus.

Dinner was actually pretty good, even if Mark had a hard time sitting through it. He kept running around the room, getting in to whatever he could. As I was returning to my seat, I heard him yell, "They took my plate again? That's the third time!" Apparently, Mark couldn't sit still long enough to eat his dinner, was keeping the kitchen busy washing all his dishes!

There was a raffle during the ceremony, and every Scout won a prize, which they immediately took to the table, opened up, and started using on each other. This wouldn't be a big deal at most kid's raffles, where the prizes are harmless, but this is the Scouts. Mark won an outdoor camping saw made of a thin, serrated wire with handles at each end (the perfect tool for a serial killer). And indeed, Mark was wielding it like a serial killer. He was also trying to saw everything in sight, including other kids' arms. I was appalled, and only a little less so when I saw another kid with the same prize doing the same thing. The rest of the boys were using their outdoor camping gear prizes to irritate one another, in the way only rowdy, hyper boys can do. One boy, who'd won a compass, realized his prize was worthless in this department, and just resorted to punching the boy next to him.

I fought every maternal instinct I had to scream, "What are you boys, CRAZY?" Instead, I zipped my lip, and walked away. (But only after I made sure no one was being choked by a camping saw.)

Then it was on to the awards. The boys who'd earned merit badges during the summer were called up to receive them. Most boys went up to Scout camp or the local Sea Base camp to earn their badges. Mark, who spent five weeks of his summer at Sea Base, brought home a whole bag of badges--15 in all! I was super proud and a little guilty at how much work he'd done. (I didn't realize how much work those badges involved--at one point, Mark was grousing about how he felt like he was in summer school. To which I answered, "You're welcome! Your school smarts aren't withering and atrophying over the summer.")

The parents lined the walls like paparazzi, waiting to photograph their boys. But the boys have short attention spans, so it was like a game, seeing how fast you could get off a shot or two before the kids escaped the stage.

I actually got a pretty decent shot, considering this was last year's proud moment:

Well, at least his shirt was tucked in then.

Mark also earned another rank, moving up to Second Class Scout. He earned a spiffy new badge for that as well.

Somehow, I missed that there was a giant cake for dessert. I found out when my diabetic son (who'd also gorged on the mini Snickers) appeared at my table, frosting smeared across his darling little face, and dumped something into my lap. Turns out it was his disconnected insulin pump.

"My site came out," Mark said, brushing away cake crumbs. "So here's my pump."

Mark was not at all concerned that he was no longer receiving any insulin. But this is my worst nightmare, especially since I never carry around extra supplies. (Note to self: Start carrying around extra supplies. Especially to Boy Scout events, since their motto is "Be Prepared.") But it turned out to be the best worst case scenario, since we were only a mile from home, and the ceremony was ending.

There was, however, one last raffle left, with two winners. Two boys would take home gigantic fancy fishing poles. The first winner was Mark's friend Josh, who was so excited, he leaped up from the table screaming, "It's me, it's ME!" He immediately ran to the stage, while the troop leader said into the microphone, "Josh, the pole is in the BACK of the room! Go to the back, Josh!" Josh turned, ran to the side of the room, made a left, ran the perimeter of the room, and finally made it to the back to claim his prize. It was hilarious.

The next boy who won was Calvin, who'd been the boy leader of the troop until just recently. He'd just earned his Eagle award, and was equally thrilled to win a fishing pole. When they called his name, he jumped straight up on his chair a la Tom Cruise, and hefted his arms into the air victoriously, screaming, "YESSSSSSSSS!" Also hilarious.

And with that, the dinner ended. I collected up my scattered, tired, and inexplicably sweaty kid, and all of his badges. With all those badges, I see a lot of sewing in our future (well, maybe Auntie Michelle's future?? ;-). Mark may not have been the picture of comportment at the dinner that night, but he'd worked hard all summer, and boy, was I ever proud of my Scout!

This is how I feel about my parents...

My toast from the anniversary party the other night...and yes, I even left in the now famous, "Hi, I'm Heather..." part. (Which is how my son, nieces and nephews now greet me at every opportunity.)

Hi, I’m Heather, also known as “the Daughter,” or you can just refer to me as “the Funny One,” if you’d like.

Thank you all for joining us tonight. Most of you traveled a long way to celebrate with us, and I want to thank you, because that means a lot to my family.

As you know, we’re here to honor my parents’ wedding anniversary. Fifty years—-that’s a long time.

“How did they do it?” I’ve been asked, again and again. “What’s their secret to being married 50 years?”

My answer is always the same. I smile knowingly, I nod, and I invite them in closer. Then I answer in a low, serious tone: I have no idea.

I’m not married, and as an observer, it doesn’t look all that easy. I don’t have a simple answer to what makes a successful marriage. What I do have is a little insight into my parents, the kind of people they are, and maybe that will help.

My parents are nothing short of amazing. They’ve given me and my brothers the most wonderful gifts you could give a child—a happy childhood, and a (mostly) loving family.

They gave us love, and by their actions, they showed us love is more than just three little words you say in passing. They gave us time—dinner together every night, coaching our sports teams, forcing us on family road trips that seemed like hell at the time, but are now some of my best memories.

They gave us a home—and then they opened that home up to all our friends, our family, our neighbors. They gave us the freedom to fly off and become who we are, and they gave us roots, so we could always find our way back.

They taught us so many important lessons. They taught us to be fair, and to treat people kindly, and that sometimes, those things would be really, really hard to do, but that’s when we needed to do them the most. They taught us about hard work, and discipline--and you knew that discipline was gonna hurt something awful when it started out with, “I’m not your friend, I’m your Mother!” (My Dad was also not our friend, though his language was always a little more…colorful…when he told us that.)

My parents taught us to follow our dreams, to speak up for ourselves, and that when we did disagree, to do so respectfully. (A lesson no Dinsdale has yet mastered, by the way.)

They taught us to have a sense of humor, and to laugh.

Out loud.

A lot.

With each other, and often times, at each other. (OK, we taught ourselves that part.)

It’s what I love most about our family, that raucous, demented, teary-eyed, oh-my-god-my-face-hurts laughter. That laughter has gotten us through many a happy holiday, and has seen us through some pretty rough times as well. (Sorry about all those jokes in the hospital, Dad!)

But the lesson they hammered into us the most was how important family is. Having three rotten brothers, I refused to believe that growing up. But they insisted, raising us with an intense, Godfather-like sense of family loyalty. No one will ever look out for you like your brothers, my dad would say, and I would scoff. But he was right. He’s still right.

They’ve given us so much, my parents. They’ve given us everything we needed to grow into happy, successful adults. And best of all, it turns out their gift keeps on giving—because now, we’re handing all those lessons down to a whole new generation of kids, a whole new bunch of rowdy little Dinsdales, who also know that they are immensely loved, and cherished, and funny.

So maybe I really do know how my parents succeeded at being married for 50 years. They just took the same ideas they used raising us kids—love, respect, inappropriate laughter—and applied that to each other, and to their marriage. Turns out there is no big secret, no short cut, to how they succeeded. They just put in a lot of hard work, and commitment. It was teamwork. It was helping one another down the long road to today. It was, as my dad likes to say, one hand washing the other.

So instead of congratulations, I want to say thank you, to my Mom and Dad. Thank you for all your wisdom, your laughter, for being my parents instead of my friends. Thank you for all the love you’ve given me, my brothers, my son, and everyone else in this room. Because tonight, we aren’t just friends, or neighbors—tonight, as my parents taught us—tonight, we’re all family.

This is what Happily Ever After looks like...

Alternative title: Best weekend ever!

This weekend, we got to honor two of my very favorite people ever, my parents. The occasion? Their 50th wedding anniversary. The guest list? A boatload of people. (Literally!)

The party started in San Diego on Friday night. Mark and I arrived just in time to join my parents and some of their friends Diana and John from Arkansas for dinner. Diana and my mom taught at the same school, and Diana had gone to the wedding. She was a riot!

Our family friend, Torsten, and his young family also arrived that night, all the way from Germany. We sat outside, catching up, our kids sipping hot cocoa, even though it was almost 80 degrees that night.

My brother Scott and his wife Mary were also in the hotel somewhere. I didn't see them, but their children attacked us at the table. They were all staying overnight at the hotel; the girls with their Grandma from Santa Maria, and Grant with Mark and I. Both Mark and Grant sighed, "Awwwww!" when I suggested they could share a bed. Grant informed me that you could order a bed to the room. He ran off to the front desk to see how much it cost. He returned a few minutes later, and told me it was only $10. When I said we didn't really need it, he said, "But I already ordered it."

"How?" I asked. "You don't even know what room I'm in!"

"231," he answered. And sure enough, when we opened the door, there was an extra bed!

"Way to take care of it, Grant," I told him. The bed stayed, and the boys were both thrilled.

By Saturday morning, the arrivals were in full swing. My brother Tim and his family arrived, followed by my aunt, uncle and his girlfriend Denise. As we were heading out for lunch, my brother Brad and his girlfriend, Shanda, arrived. It seemed like no matter where you went in the hotel, you ran in to a relative or friend.

Tim and Kim ordered lunch by the pool. Since Mark wanted to stay with his cousins, I gave him a room key and strict orders to get some lunch. Mark really enjoyed his new freedom--throughout the day, I found him buying drinks and snacks at the gift shop, or lounging in the room watching TV. 

I returned from lunch to find empty dishes outside my door. A sheepish Mark admitted that yes, he did order himself room service, but in his defense, he also bought Grant some snacks as well. I don't know what was worse, an 8-year-old ordering beds, a 12-year-old buying...well, everything!...or the hotel letting the kids charge whatever they wanted. (I realized later, as I was ranting about all this that maybe...perhaps...ok, yes, for sure, I should have kept a little tighter control on the key cards!)

Anyway, more friends and family arrived, including our friend Brian and his VERY pregnant wife. (Colleen was actually due that day!) Since they weren't going on the boat, it was fun to see them for a while.

More family arrived, including Shanda's parents, who Tim heralded as "Mr. and Mrs. Shanda." I just love them--they are so sweet, normal, and down-to-earth. So excited the next big family party will include them as well, and cement our family connection. ;-)

At 4:45, everybody met up in the lobby, where Tim was passing out champagne, and I was furiously trying to photograph all the families.



Greg and Denise, so cute!



Me and the girls

I didn't get them all, because our chariot arrived, in the form of a giant bus. We loaded up the hotel guests--all 50 of them--and headed over to our party location--a yacht my parents had chartered for the evening.

My parents had only informed the hotel guests about the bus, so the guests waiting by the boat were getting a little anxious that no one else was there. Our friend Steve Schanes thought maybe we were arriving in a limo, when suddenly, our giant bus pulled up, and the family started pouring out. It was hilarious!

The kids all ran ahead so they could board first. I had my camera out, ready to photograph my parents boarding their anniversary cruise together.

As I snapped their photo, I turned to see this motley crew hanging out the windows, yelling out that they were enjoying their champagne very much. (It was really sparkling apple cider.) Those kids crack me up!

As soon as we were onboard, the boat took off. It was still a bit crazy--my mom was passing out name tags, friends we hadn't seen yet were greeting us, waiters were passing out champagne, and the boat staff was setting up the cake. In the midst of it all, my sis-in-law Kim ran by and yelled, "Is this the Titanic?" Mark assured me we couldn't get hypothermia in the warm California waters.

Yes, these are the grown-ups. Scary!



We cruised around San Diego bay for the next four hours. My parents seriously could not have picked a better night to celebrate--the weather was warm, and the moon was a full, harvest moon. (My mom LOOOOOOVES the full moon so much, Mark asked if she'd intentionally picked this date because it was so full. Nope, serendipity!)

 

The happiest couple in the room (beside my parents!)

 

 

That's a lotta Landas

As the sun set, and the sky turned beautiful shades of blue and purple. We sat down to dinner, and I giggled as I watched the kids (and all my brothers) completely bypass the vegetables and head straight to the meat. 

Somehow, I was wandering around downstairs and almost completely missed my parents cutting the gorgeous cake. Luckily, Mark leaped into action, and though he forgot to turn on the flash, he captured some pictures of them. 

The kids were crowded around the table, drooling. They had a long wait, as they completely ignored the first two layers (champagne and raspberry), desperately waiting for the chocolate mousse layer.

After dinner came the toasts. Although my parents think we're funny, they apparently did not like the roast we gave them at their 40th anniversary party. This year, they requested real toasts instead of a roast, and my mom threatened us if we weren't nice.

Tim was the first kid up to bat, and he started off very nicely. He talked about how when you're a kid, you think your parents are superheroes who can do no wrong. He said that changed when we became teenagers, and convinced ourselves they didn't know ANYTHING. Tim momentarily lapsed into roast mode, saying that if he really wanted to go there, they were pretty easy targets. He was cracking up the whole boat by prefacing each comment with, "I don't want to make fun of them because they're too old for technology, but let's just say that none of their kids has their email address!"

But in the end, he came around to nice again, and ended by saying, we'd come full circle, and that now, he realized once again that my parents were indeed superheroes. I thought I might burst into tears right there, it was so sweet!

Brad, aka Smed, was up next, and his toast was exactly what you'd expect--goofy, funny, rambling, and silly. He did point out what wonderful role models my parents were, and how hard he was trying to raise his son the same way. It was also very touching--Smed's in such a good, happy place in his life, and it really showed.

I was up next. I'm a nervous speaker, and I was worried I'd forget everything I wanted to say, so I wrote my toast out beforehand. As I looked into the sea of faces staring back at me, I realized that was a good idea. I cleared my throat, willed my voice to be steady and calm, and started.

"I'm a better writer than I am a speaker," I told the crowd. "So I'm just going to read my speech."

I took a deep breath and read directly from my paper...

"Hi, I'm Heather--"

And the room erupted in laughter. For a minute I was confused, because that wasn't the funny part, and I wasn't sure why they were laughing yet. Then I realized that duh, I was related to 90% of the room, and the other 10% had known me since I was born. Though it seemed casual and conversational when I wrote it, it did sound ridiculous when I read it!

But it did help calm my nerves. I instantly knew this stupid introduction would live on in Dinsdale history for the rest of my life, and I just smiled. It could be worse.

I made it through my toast, and passed the limelight over to my brother Scott. He gave an awesome speech about how marriage is not just a success for two people, but for their whole support group. He talked about how many people had supported my parents over the years, and how that's what he looks for as well. He even grinned and said ominously, "We're Dinsdales...once we're your friends, you can never get rid of us!" It was very funny, and heartfelt.

(Thank you to everyone who sat and let us ramble on about how fantastic our parents are...I know you agree, but thank for sitting through it all!)

We wrapped up all the talking, and my mom decreed it time to dance. She ordered everyone downstairs to dance.

And who doesn't do what my mom says? We filled the tiny dance floor up in no time, except for the poor Roppe's, who were too tall to fit down there! We danced ourselves silly to all my parents' favorite songs--"YMCA," "We are Family," the Chicken Dance, the Macarena, even the Electric Slide (which most of us had forgotten how to do). The kids even formed a conga line and danced off around the boat. They also stole my camera and took lots of funny candid shots!

The DJ played my favorite, "I Will Survive," and I did my infamous dance. I didn't know my niece Gabi knew every word, and she's got an attitude, so we engaged in a dance/sing off. It was AWESOME!!!

The kids and grandkids danced to every song. Suddenly, "I've Got Friends in Low Places" came on. The adults went nuts, but the kids just froze. They didn't know what to do, and literally just stood there on the dance floor.

But then Mary saved the day. She requested "What Makes You Beautiful" by Nathalie's crush, boy band One Direction. This time the opposite happened--the kids all exploded in to song, along with their parents. The rest of the adults looked confused, and I heard a couple say, "I've never heard this song before!" You could tell which people had teen or pre-teen kids. :-)

My parents got a slow song in there, and danced across the floor, like the king and queen. They were so happy, as was the whole room, which was literally surrounded in love. We just smiled, watching them, as the DJ told us, "This is the last song."

I thought he was kidding, but Monica said, "No, look, we just docked!" I couldn't believe it. The four hours just flew by!

The tired group loaded back up on the bus and returned to the hotel. The kids went to bed, and the adults went down to the pool to listen to Crosby, Stills and Nash, who were playing at the hotel next door. When they closed down, we grabbed a table, unwilling to end the amazing night.

Even my parents, who are usually in bed by 9, stayed up. We ordered drinks, drank half of them, and then finally called it a night at 12, when the next day began.

I may not have been at my parents' first wedding reception, but I was at the 50th, and it's a night I will always remember.