Second Day of School

After getting my kids off to the second day of school I feel qualified to judge the start of the academic year. The first day was smooth, fueled in part by the anticipation (largely unspoken) they were feeling about seeing their friends after a long summer. We had also been very careful about getting prep done the night before, which calmed the morning down a bit. Back packs were at the ready and school supplies labelled. After a summer of going to bed and getting up at obscene hours everyone made the effort to get to sleep at a decent time. Lunches were packed with hand picked goodies, new clothes were on freshly showered bodies...life was good.

Sasquatch, an incoming High School sophomore (the first year of HS here), was the most nervous of the three, but happy that the first day was only an orientation day for the newbies, and a short one to boot. I was happy (understatement alert) that he was keeping it together, because the dividing lines for the schools here meant that one of his very best friends was going to the other High School, and the drama levels over this have been acute this summer. My buddy Laurie, mother of one of his other best friends, the Red Headed Step Child, offered to drive them so they could arrive together and we could ensure they'd be on time. The two of them even stood still and grimaced against my porch railing so she could take pictures of The First Day of High School. Two tall long haired boys, one skinny (one not), one red headed (one not), dressed in cargo pants (or shorts) and dark t-shirts, climbed into the car (on time) and off they went.

Gumby and Surfer Dude got ready early and even had time for a round of Animal Planet before we had to leave. No drama whatsoever. I took them to school and went in with them to find their classrooms. Surfer Dude is in a one section class and has been since First Grade, so he's been with the same group of kids for four years. I always pity their teacher, whoever they may be. Twenty to one is not good odds. Gumby got a brand new to the school teacher this year and a MAN, no less. He doesn't look a day over fifteen, but he sure knew how to work this crowd. When I picked them up he raved about how much he liked his new teacher and that he couldn't wait for school today to see what he had in store for them. Wow. Fresh out of college and full of enthusiasm, you've gotta love it. Give him a year. Less if he helps in Surfer Dude's class.

The two younger ones came home and hung out. Sasquatch went to a friend's house and hung out. We had a calm dinner and a peaceful night, with only one piece of (fun) homework to be done. Nobody got sent home on Top Chef. Everyone went to sleep at reasonable times again. As I walked through my still house before bed, I sent a silent prayer of thanks to the patron saint of melodramatic children for the quiet of the day. I should have known better.

It started early with Sasquatch having to be physically parted from his bed by yours truly, Amazon Mom (superhero motto: Boys of sloth, Muscles of steel). Then when he came downstairs he couldn't find his glasses case. These are new glasses ( and expensive as hell, BTW) and he doesn't want to wear them any longer than he absolutely has to, so he needs the case to take them off and put them on per whim. On reflection, he reckoned he had left the case at his friend's house the day before. And, with Sasquatchian logic, he refused to take the glasses to school since a) he wasn't going to be wearing them for the entire day and b) they would break in his pocket without the case. (Ya think??) We were still hashing this out when I tried to give him his lunch account check to take with him and give to the lunch ladies. He was positive he knew what I was going to say, so every three words he interrupted me to say " I know, mom" in the most pathetically resigned voice he could muster. He didn't, in fact, know what I was going to say, so every time he interrupted me I, out of pure spite, started all over again at the beginning. Some time was chewed up here, trust me. Chewed up and spit out.

When we left the house (I was driving this time), Gumby was getting in the shower and Surfer Dude was making his lunch. A glitch or two under our belts, but still running smoothly. We pull up to get TRHSC and he doesn't come out. We go in to see what's keeping him, and find him running around looking for the paper which proves he's had his tetanus shot, a requirement for incoming sophomores. I would think a distemper shot would be more appropriate for the little darlings, but nobody asked me. Laurie, in pajamas and getting her other kids fed, was trying to help him narrow down where it could be. To every one of her suggestions he said "It's not there, mom" in the most pathetically resigned voice he could muster. Finally he reckoned he could have left it in her van and took her keys to go look. No dice. With us about to leave without him he took one last look around his room and found it...on the windowsill, where, he suddenly remembered, he had put it so he would remember where it was. As we pulled out of the driveway I told them, in the most pathetically resigned voice I could muster that I reckoned there was a reason the two of them were friends. They beamed proudly at their own ineptitude and off we went toward unsuspecting high school teachers.

When I got home Gumby hadn't gotten in the shower because SD wouldn't go and sit in the bathroom with him, and due to the "ghost" in our bathroom he won't go in alone. Drama ensued, but it was short lived and everything went smoothly from there on. Until...

As we were leaving to get them to school, my phone rang. It was Laurie, on her way to her first day on a new job. And she said...

"Please tell me you have my keys. Please tell me he laid them down in your car."

He didn't. I reckon they're in his pocket.

Kid's Top Chef...the results

The challenge was to make a pizza. Any kind of pizza was acceptable. Each kid got five dollars to spend and we allowed them fifteen minutes in the supermarket. Then we would come back to our house to put their creations together. We didn’t put a time limit on that, since we knew we’d have to juggle cooking times and oven space. There ended up being nine kids, since my kids had a friend came over specifically to compete. His parents own a restaurant, so he came to show the other kids how it’s done. On your mark, get set, go!

I live an easy walk to the market, which is a Dillon’s. I also live very close to a retirement community. Taking this logic one step further, the retirees also live very close to Dillon’s. Still with me? In hindsight, it was a mistake to take nine kids to Dillon’s, stand them by the door and, looking at our watches, say “You have fifteen minutes. GO!!” Startled old people scattered like flies as crazed wannabe chefs raced by them on a mission.

The first problem they all ran into was that pizza crusts are expensive and would take a big chunk of their budget. This was also when they started getting creative with it. Some went with a biscuit crust, one bought a boxed mix and made his own and a couple decided on dessert pizza and bought rolls of cookie dough. Not one of them went with a Boboli, even though they’re two to a pack, and we encouraged everyone to share what they could, like cheese, pepperoni and crusts. We had also raided my cabinets and pulled out things like pineapple, barbeque sauce, black olives and chopped jalapenos that could be used by anyone who wanted them. When they were finished shopping we headed back home. Only one of them had gone over budget, but he sold someone a handful of pepperoni and we called it even.

Once we came back they all got to work quickly on their projects and chaos reigned in my kitchen. Everyone was competing independently except for the two youngest girls who had opted to work as a team. Every counter was full, the kitchen table was a hive of activity and the island was covered with pizzas ready to go into the oven. The three moms were giving advice and help when absolutely necessary, but mostly we were trying to stay out of their way.

There were three junior high boys in our group and they were all in varying degrees of protest, feeling they were far too mature to participate. The junior high school girl, on the other hand, was game from the beginning. Two of the boys (not mine) got into it and really made an effort. Sasquatch, on the other hand, was just determined to be a pill. I know that’s hard to believe. He bought a frozen microwavable pizza (words that should never be used in the same sentence) and a bunch of Slim Jims. He nuked the pizza, then chopped up the Slim Jims and threw them on top. Dinner is served. If you’re a fifteen year old gorilla with no taste buds that is.

When the pizzas came out of the oven (which took a while, believe me) we assembled our judges, who were the three moms and the Film Geek. He hadn’t been there for the whole thing, so he was good for an impartial opinion. They would be judged in four categories – taste, presentation, use of ingredients and creativity. Let the judging begin…

The youngest girls made a white pizza, with a biscuit crust, butter and mozzarella cheese. The junior high girl did a dessert pizza, with a chocolate chip cookie base topped with chocolate syrup and M&Ms. The visiting friend created a multi-cultured pizza, with BBQ sauce, pineapple, pepperoni and jalapenos on a boxed crust mix. The red headed step child was the only one to actually cook a topping. He made a spiced ground beef mixture to go on his biscuit crust. The other junior high boy did a cheese and black olive pizza on a biscuit base.

Now we come to my own aspiring chefs. Sasquatch you already know about. His pizza continued to deteriorate before the judging, because a lot of the kids kept sneaking pieces of the Slim Jims off the top. His score wasn’t helped by the fact that not one of the discerning judges would even taste his pizza. Not one single bite. Never before have I been so happy to have vegetarianism as an excuse. Gumby made a dessert pizza on a sugar cookie base and topped it with fresh fruit, a drizzle of yogurt and crushed Butterfingers and Nestle Crunch bars. Surfer Dude used a biscuit base and added pepperoni and black olives. His attempt to do something different was to add pineapple juice to the biscuits. I had a bad moment when I saw his crust literally floating in juice, and convinced him that maybe that wasn’t the best idea after all. He grabbed the turkey baster and sucked the juice out of the pan, but there was still enough left to fill the kitchen with smoke when it started burning off in the oven. You’ll be happy to know that not one of my brand new smoke detectors went off. Yes, I said brand new.

And the winner is…a tie between Gumby and the visiting friend, who each got perfect scores. The lowest score would be Sasquatch, with an amazing 0/20 points. Surfer Dude had a very respectable 17.5 score. We may have scored the visiting friend higher than we should have out of politeness, because when his dad came to pick him up he had a piece of the pizza and boy, you should’ve seen his face. He could barely swallow that bad boy. And while I’m at it, don’t waste any time feeling sorry for Sasquatch, because he was absolutely reveling in his lack of effort. He positively beamed when his score was announced. Makes me so proud…I have a little tear in my eye.

Stay tuned for details of Kid’s Top Chef 2, now in the planning stages. This time we’ll warn the retirees.

Kid's Top Chef

There are a few people in my house, yours truly included, who are Bravo reality show junkies. It all started with Project Runway, which, if you haven’t seen it, is an amazing show. It’s more about the creative process than scripted reality sound bites, although I will admit that they edit the bejeezus out of it. When PR ended we sort of segued into Top Chef, mostly out of curiosity, but also because we missed the ongoing conversations about who did go home and who should have gone home and who was plain old brilliant and who was smoking crack that week. And while Top Chef isn’t Project Runway, it did make us keep watching. It’s also about the creative process, just in the kitchen instead of on a sewing machine.

One week an odd thing happened. Surfer Dude picked up one of my cooking magazines and asked if he could plan a meal for the family. Are you kidding me? Be my guest. So he did. This was his menu – Meatless Chili Mac (a macaroni and bean stovetop dish), Italian green beans and a dessert that I have to admit I can’t remember, but I think was a cinnamon pumpkin cake. We made that cake a lot last fall. He made a shopping list for me and then, with my help, prepared the entire meal himself. It was fabulous, everyone heaped praise on his sweet little head and all of a sudden we had a chef in the making living in our very own house. Life was about to get interesting.

Over Spring Break the idea came up to do a Kid’s Top Chef. For those unfamiliar with the show the contestants are given a specific challenge, a budget and a time limit to come up with a finished dish. Then they are judged on taste, creativity and presentation. One person wins and one person goes home. The last person standing at the end of the season is the Top Chef. Two of my friends, Laurie and Stacey, thought it would be fun to get our combined eight kids together and do a little competition of our own. Surfer Dude and Gumby were beside themselves at the idea, so the planning began.

Come back tomorrow and see what happened…

Easter Revisited

I have one kid hiding on the bottom shelf of his wardrobe and one kid sitting in the huge Rubbermaid container we have in the laundry room that we keep dry dog food in. The hanging up laundry is, he hopes, shielding him from casual vision. The third kid is up in his room, blithely oblivious to anything and anyone except the video game of the day. My husband is passed out cold on our bed from a sudden onset migraine and the dogs are out in the yard eating all the candy filled eggs that the kids missed. Oh yeah, one more thing. Did I mention that our company is still here and that things have deteriorated to the point where they’re barely speaking to each other? Aren’t holidays FUN?

It all started so nicely, too. When I finished my post yesterday the house was presentable, the food was done and the kids were excited about the day. My trouble started when Gumby and Surfer Dude got into a huge argument in the front yard and the Film Geek blew a gasket. He was shouting and grabbing kids by the scruff of the neck until I was pretty sure all of our neighbors were calling Child Protective Services simultaneously. The man never has realized that his voice carries like a bull walrus on a desolate iceberg. He hadn’t started out short tempered, but had become that way in the minutes preceding this episode, when he and Sasquatch got into it because everyone else in the house was helping to get ready and our charming eldest refused because “it isn’t on my chore list, and by the way, will you drive me to a sleepover tonight?” Ain’t fifteen grand?

So between the impending migraine and the urge to maim his firstborn, he just plain lost it. He made the younger two stand in the corner in the entry hall, at which point Sasquatch looked downstairs and had the idiocy to laugh. Cut to three kids standing in the corner in the entry hall and me, with steam starting to spew out my ears. I went into the hall and in my sweetest most loving voice said “Honey, can I see you in the kitchen NOW????????” The kids were just leaving their corners when our friends got here, but I was still madder than H-E double hockey sticks.

So we did the Easter egg hunt for the younger kids. The older boys volunteered to hide the eggs and we took them up on it, which proves that the Film Geek and I may have been smart once, but it wore off. We found eggs in the most god awful places you can imagine. Think floating in the gunky green water in the outdoor fire bowl. We ate our dinner, which was wonderful. We had dessert, which was a lemon cake that was to die for. The day was picking up. See what happens when you let your guard down?

Now, the piece of information you don’t have here is that our friends are in the process of trying to buy a house and that things are at the really nerve wracking stage. They had a meeting last night with the prospective sellers to pitch themselves as buyers, since there are a lot of people interested in this house. It has been pretty stressful and the two of them are at the point where not a lot of civil words are being said. At one point after my own beloved and I had snapped and clawed at each other, I said how nice it was to be so comfortable with another couple, because usually you make nice in front of other people and we obviously are well past that point. I think that’s a good thing, but can’t positively swear to it.

Okay, now I’m going to fast forward this, so hang on. First, DeeDee the bipolar dog gets out of the house and we all tear after her screaming and yelling. The Film Geek gets to her first and drags her back home. Then John and I go outside with all three of their kids and my younger two to play baseball. He didn’t want to, but Laurie had to type up the document they were taking to the house meeting and print it, since their printer is on the fritz. Their kids are roughly the ages of ours, by the way. The game is going fine until their eldest, who is also fifteen, gets into it with Gumby and Gumby storms off. We call this fifteen year old the red headed step child since he’s here so much he seems like part of the family. Well, Surfer Dude, who never sticks up for his brother, is enraged, and attacks the red headed step child. John and I break it up. He attacks again. Did I mention that the red headed step child is six feet four? It gets ugly. I restrain Surfer Dude. The red headed step child trips him. Surfer Dude spits at him. John, whose bellow matches the Film Geeks, is shouting. I’m waving my arms and wringing my hands simultaneously. The only thing we’re missing at this point is a trailer and a bubbling pot of meth.

My two kids run in the house and hide because they’re so angry. The Film Geek has disappeared, and come to find he’s just gone upstairs, company or not, to go to sleep. Laurie is on the computer saying bad words of her own. It seems that every time she types the word “will”, the computer changes it to “poop”. Now, this was a very amusing incident in our recent past, where Sasquatch thought it would be funny to change the settings on Gumby’s files. It stopped being so funny when Gumby had a paper due and the word “poop” was liberally scattered through it. You can spell check all day long, but it doesn’t help, since the computer recognizes “poop” as a word. Sasquatch had to write an apology letter to Gumby’s teacher when a couple of “poops” got missed. The teacher was no help, since she was laughing so hard she had tears in her eyes. So I run screaming upstairs and demand that he fix it yet again. As I pass our bedroom door, I see the Film Geek sleeping like a *%&! baby.

He comes down and fixes it, laughing all the time. The paper gets printed and our friends leave, arguing all the way out to the car. I’m saying silent prayers that there are no “poops” in their letter to prove what a lovely family they are. Surfer Dude climbs out of the dog food and Gumby reappears. The Film Geek snores. The dogs have jelly beans stuck in their fur.

Honey, if you’re reading this today while I’m at work, this is what happened that you slept through. And when you woke up and ran through the house in a hurry to leave to go let your students into the studio…did you notice I looked a little peaked? WELL? Did it never occur to you to ask WHY?

I’m done. I don’t even have the energy to try to make this funny. I have to go and make sure that Child Protective Services hasn’t shown up to interview the neighbors.