Sacramento Parent Magazine

We live in an older, established neighborhood, walking distance from coffee shops, bars, salons, antique stores and banks.  But sometimes I feel like we live on the very edge of wilderness.  I guess we do.  The American River Canyon is just a block away. 

A few years ago, walking back from viewing fireworks on the Fourth of July, we were warned by neighbors along the way that a bear had just been spotted walking down the very same street.  Just last year, we were riding our bikes along the railroad tracks when a State Parks vehicle stopped to warn us that there was a bear just down the tracks, and perhaps we wanted to consider a different bike route. 

Just this afternoon, my husband saw a State Park truck driving up and down our street.  We didn’t receive any official warnings, but all the same, we alerted our children that they should probably stay in the backyard, just in case.  You never know what kind of predators are lurking around the neighborhood, and I’d prefer stearing clear of them.  Though it would be exciting to actually see a bear, wouldn’t it? 

I had to laugh when I read Roseville Dad’s last post, High-Tech Mondays.  He lives in Roseville, I live in Auburn, but we are worlds apart.  We live a rather low-tech life.  Neither me nor my husband telecommute.  In fact, most days, my husband commutes by bike.  We have no gaming devices, no satellite dish, no cell phones.  Our cordless phones are almost always on the fritz.  We do have two computers and wireless internet access, but at least once a month we debate whether or not to keep wi-fi. 

Our low tech life is intentional.  We used to have cell phones and satellite dishes.  Now we have a garden and chickens.  Instead of playing Wii, we play board games.  My daughter probably wishes we were more like Roseville Mom and Roseville Dad, but alas, she’s stuck in Auburn with Mom-Made and Dad-Made.

My parents, however, live a little closer to Roseville.  I called my dad on his cell phone the other day, and while we were talking another call came in.  I answered the other line (always amazed when my ancient phone lets me do this), and it was my mom calling from her cell phone.  There I was, talking to both my parents from the same house, on different lines.  I told them, “This would never happen at my house!”

They had a good laugh with their low-tech daughter. 

Riley’s May Bio

Favorite Pastime of the Month: Pretending to be a superhero and indignantly demanding to only be referred to as such.

Annoying Habit of the Month: Leaving the seat up and aiming off target.

Exasperating Moment of the Month: Screaming like a girl at all bugs big or small.

Raised Eyebrow Moment of the Month: Asked to be brought a toy and when it wasn’t delivered in a timely fashion stating, “Well do you think you could get up and get it?”

The only place I want to eat dinner these days is down by the river.  At about 6:45, the sun slips behind the ridge, and you couldn’t ask for a better table than a flat rock down at the Confluence.  A few nights ago we enjoyed Chinese takeout at the river’s edge; tonight it was roasted chicken with potatoes, asparagus, broccoli salad and pineapple. 

For dessert, we take a walk up the river and comb the beach for interesting rocks.  Egg shaped rocks, heart shaped rocks, rocks with holes, rocks with stripes.  The striped rocks are my favorite; if only I could find a striped heart shaped rock.

The kids aren’t nearly as interested in the rocks though.  They’re looking for different treasures.  They thought they hit the jackpot the other night when they discovered several orange life jackets. 

“Can we take them home?” my children begged.

“No, but when it’s time to swim in the river we can use them,” I answered.  Driving over the Old Foresthill Road bridge, I spied a whole lot of orange life jackets hanging on a fence.  The life jackets are available for anyone to use while down at the river.  There are more life jackets up at Lake Clementine.

If you’re brave enough to go in the river, please be smart enough to use a life jacket.  Leave a few for us - I have a feeling we’ll be swimming in Clark’s Hole come June. 

“Okay, I think that was the last item on the agenda.  Have a good day in Singapore, and goodnight to the team in Texas,” I say and hang up the phone.

Another Monday, another evening high-tech supply chain teleconference with lots of program management words tossed about, and info being shared via some cool software that allows people to share their desktop screens with the entire team. It sounds fun, but trust me, it’s really boring.

As I type the meeting notes my boy races into the home office and sits down at the other pc next to me, clicks on his favorite WW2 game and says, “Hey dad, wanna play against me online? You can be the Americans.” “Can’t right now, I need to finish up some work.” It’s 8:20pm and I want to end this workday like every other Monday night for the past year.

A few mins later, an instant message pop-up with a sad puppy emoticon from my girl appears on my screen, “Daddy, where is my iPod?” I respond without using a puppy face emoticon, “Check the kitchen.” I see the boy next to me going to town on the high graphics large screen monitor and I think, I really should be gaming and not doing work!  Next I get an instant message from a colleague in Singapore. It’s almost lunch time there, and I need a shipment of a part to the US today so I take a few mins to answer questions. Finally I e-mail my meeting notes out to the team, thinking gaming here I come…my phone vibrates and it’s my buddy watching the ballgame, texting me about how badly the Sox did tonight. So I flip to the ESPN dot com for an update, then text him back.

At 8:40pm in comes my wife, reminds us boys that we need to vacate the office as she hosts a high-tech supply chain teleconference with folks in India and the US at 9pm. Darn it, online battle postponed!

“Come ‘on boy, let’s go see if we can wrestle the clicker to the 200 channel large flat screen tivo’d HD TV away from your sister!” We sound like crazed warriors invading the family room and my girl has a white knuckle grip on the all powerful clicker and gives us the “DON’T YOU DARE” glare. The boys plop down on the couch and settle for some iCarly TV with an ear towards the home office as per chance the 9pm teleconference gets done early.  I pull out my blackberry and see what’s on Tuesday night’s schedule and note that the home office is free all evening.  “Hey boy, get your homework done early tomorrow so I can kick your online butt right after dinner!”  The boy smiles and says dryly, “I’m gonna squash your army like a bug.”  I bet it wont be long until my boy and I communicate only via texting…

2 weeks ago at 3am I woke up to my husband yelling, “Get out of the house!” When I opened my eyes I realized I was unable to see due to the vast amount of smoke surrounding me. Coughing, I leapt out of bed and ran to my son’s room to grab him as he proceeded to tell me in a stupor, “ I am still sleeping mommy!” He then grabbed a hold of his bed like the kid in poltergeist being sucked into the closet and refused to let go. I finally got him and all the animals out of the house. I say, “I got..” because my husband was running around panicking like it was Backdraft.

The fire department came and quickly discovered the problem. A piece of kindling had escaped from our wood stove and had smoldered through a rug, a large piece of carpet, and started to char the floorboards. A fireman told us we had hours before our house would have went up in flames.

While we were sitting out front waiting for them to blow out the smoke, the fire captain came out holding one of our smoke detectors. He asked us if we knew all of the batteries had been taken out of our smoke detectors. I had no idea and was shocked when my husband LIED to tell him I wanted him to take all the batteries out when Riley was an infant so they wouldn’t chirp and wake him up. It was 3:30 in the morning so I let it go but he has been educated since.

Needless to say we bought 3 more smoke detectors and replaced all the batteries in our old ones by 9am the next day. In addition, my husband finally mowed the premises of our yard in regards to “defensible space”.

I, on the other hand, have learned my lesson on how my house should look pending unexpected company.

It’s mother’s day and I am obliged to get a card for RosevilleMom, but those cards can be rather hokey and she doesn’t look or act like the moms depicted in a typical card.

No card that displays how good she looks each day going to work or when she’s coming thru the door at 6pm.  

No card unveils how many hours she spends in the laundry room or keeping up on the most critical issues local or national.  

No card proclaims her yelling “brush your teeth” to the kids thru her Hollywood smile.  

No card exposes how she can sip white wine with the ladies or slug back a cold one with the guys.  

No card offers a view of how hard she works at her six figure job and her size two figure.  

No card shows off the hip styles she wears or indicates the envy of the other women who say, “I love your hair!”  

No card reveals the enjoyment she gets when she works in our kids class even if it means a late night to make up what was missed at work.  

No card speaks to the kindness she dishes up to all the neighborhood kids who show up at lunchtime every Saturday and stay thru supper.  

No card divulges the silly teenaged feeling I get when she winks at me from across the dinner table as our boy spills his drink and our daughter has a meltdown over pepperoni on her part of the pizza.  

No card could or ever will completely showcase what she has accomplished as a mom, what she has accomplished in her career and what she has accomplished as a wife. If there was a card that depicted all of that it would simply say, “Sweetheart, you are truly amazing and I don’t know how you do it!”  

So until I get hired by American Greetings, my daughter and I will go out and get one of those cards that doesn’t tell a fraction of the story. There is no card that conveys what the mother of my kids is like.  

It’s a mild rainy Sunday morning and we have no place to go. No chores to do save for making coffee, breakfast and newspapers to read. My baby girl is in the family room watching something stupid on the tivo and I smooch her on the forehead on route to my easy chair with a pile of newsprint under my arm.

After a while RosevilleMom comes down stairs, grabs some coffee, quietly asks for the front page…and the rain continues to fall outside.  Finally a sleepy-eyed boy appears and is hungry. Somehow I end up with breakfast duty.  Fine, but if I’m cooking, I’m making what I want. Things start to look up when I find eggs and bacon in the fridge.

The smell of bacon cooking draws my girl into the kitchen hoping to steal a stray piece and thus securing her position of obtaining more than her brother. He doesn’t care, but it’s a game she plays…and wins.  “The smell of this bacon reminds me of vacation!” she says with a smile on her face.  Ah yes, vacation smells, I love ‘em!

For the past few years we have had the good fortune to vacation at a condo down in San Diego County near the beach. It’s fabulous, but the best part is the mornings. Bacon, fresh bagels and newspapers abound!

My mind returns to the crackling fry pan at my finger tips and I shoo the girl from the kitchen as she’s eating all the bacon.  The rain continues to fall in the backyard as I gently flip eggs on the griddle. My mind wanders, I think about the economy and this year’s vacation. I have a hunch the vacation is probably not going to happen, but a guy can hope, right? “Who wants bacon?” A duet of “We do!” puts an end to the tranquility that is this Sunday morning. I become the bacon referee and dole out the greasy slices evenly amongst the tiny diners.

On this rainy Sunday, with kids arguing over the last slice of pork fat, I think there’s not much in this world that tastes as good as vacation bacon, but Sunday morning bacon is a darn close second.

(Sing to the tune of Eye of the Tiger by Survivor)

Risin’ up, back on the juice
Took a nap, didn’t want to stay down
Destroyed my room, now I’m back on my feet
Just a 3 year old and his will to survive

So many times, it happens too fast
You change your passion for tantrums
Don’t lose your grip on the joys of the past
You must fight to keep them alive

Chorus
It’s the eye of the toddler, it’s the cream of the fight
Risin’ up to the challenge of our firstborn
And the last known survivor must be the parent
And he’s watchin’ us all in the eye of the toddler

Face to face out in public
Hangin’ tough, feelin’ hungry
They stack the odds ‘til we take to defeat
And get back into the car to survive

Chorus
Risin’ up, straight to the top
Have the guts, got the glory
Will win this fight, and make you a human
Just a 3 year old and his mom tryin’ to survive

Chorus

Since having kids, I’ve found the most interesting things in my dryer.

In all the loads of dirty clothes I’ve washed, this is the first bug I’ve found.  I wonder, was he stuck to a sock?  Stuffed in a pocket?  How did he get there?  Was he dead before the spin cycle, or was it the final rinse that did him in?  Hmmm.  I guess I’ll never know.