Dr. Aurora on Parenting

I've had a multitude of questions from my adoring fans out there. I try to take time out every now and then from my busy schedule of writing scintillating blog posts and answer a few of them so you can get an even better picture of the incredible vision that is moi. That's just how I roll.

Question #1: "Your kids are pretty nearly perfect, as far as I can tell. What is it like to be able to brag about your children and not only not make everyone start to hate your children vicariously, but to nod in serious agreement to everything you say?"
~hahanotreally, California

Answer: It's something I take great, but humble, pride in, thank you. Yesterday, Husband and I were able to get out and grab lunch and a movie and we only got two calls from home. The first was during lunch, and it was from Gabrielle about Elannah. Apparently, those darlings had had some sort of minor disagreement, and Elannah had dumped an entire container of hot chocolate powder on Gabrielle, after which Gabrielle chased Elannah out into the backyard and threatened her very life. Elannah grabbed the phone and said she was going to call the police, but Gabrielle brilliantly snatched it away. Elannah, quick as she is, ran back into the house and closed and locked the back door, causing Gabrielle, after a brief interlude of pounding on the glass, to attempt a trek around and through the side gate, which is hard to unlock unless you're eight feel tall, and to the front door, which Elannah had already had the foresight to lock. It was at this point that I got the phone call (which came two seconds after a phone call in which we learned that a dear friend of ours had just been diagnosed with acute hepatitis) from Gabrielle. I calmly instructed her to proceed to the front door and ring the bell over and over and over until someone answered it. The phone, which had not been recharged in a couple days (what is that maid thinking?? It's so hard to find good help anymore), started beeping that it was low on power. Fortunately, the doorbell ruse worked and Gabrielle was once again admitted into the family manor, whereupon I asked to speak to Elannah. After a quiet, logical discussion about the processes by which we go about settling our differences, and how Elannah would need to go to her room to reflect upon her actions(and Gabrielle would get the same treatment after Husband and I had arrived home and made sure that the boys were still alive and well), the phone must have suddenly shut off because there is no WAY Elannah would have hung up on her mother.

The second call came during the movie. Oops. It's not my fault if they don't show some sort of slide before the movie starts about turning off cell phones. This time it was Elannah phoning in an inquiry about what to do about Sophia's promise to beat her to death over something or other. Ha ha ha ha. Girls are just so carefree and light when it comes to using words as weapons. I reminded Elannah that I had had to run out during the movie (by this time she had digressed and was asking about some chocolate popsicles in the freezer and seemed ready to carry on a lengthy and detailed treatise about nothing in particular) and that if she could remain intact for the next 40 minutes, I would come home and take care of everything.

We fielded no more calls during the remainder of our date and arrived home to find not really that much blood spilled and Little Gary completely naked, as per his determination that small boys turning three should never, ever have any clothing on despite being dressed several times a day in order to horribly embarrass his sisters and their friends.

I really hate to brag, but you can obviously see that I should write a book about parenting techniques.

Great Writing Doesn't Start Here

Myles the Cat visited the vet yesterday and had himself an antibiotic shot to heal an infected abscess he must have acquired in that nasty cat fight we heard about a week ago but were too tired and in bed to go out and yell about. When I asked Gabrielle to find me some vets in our town, she came back with a search she had done on the internet. All the vets were in the Big City 40 miles away and had fought in wars. I had a little, quiet chuckle before doing my own search.

Remember Babe, our big, orange duplicate of Garfield in both looks and manner? He got hit by our neighbor's car a year ago and all we could find for about 40 minutes was a huge patch of fur in the middle of the street, which we realized later was from his tail. After much searching in the dark with flashlights, Husband found Babe cowering under another neighbor's bushes. Remember that? Well, the top half of his tail has fallen off now. It just died and dried out and fell off, like an umbilical cord on a newborn. I know! Who knew that would happen? He's fine and probably even fatter than before, with his half tail held proudly in the air. I mean, I've had a toenail fall off months after kicking the wall during a game of racquetball, and a couple more years later after playing hours of cricket in shoes that were too small (that's not really a long story, either. I grabbed the wrong shoes, I was in the mountains on some very scrubby and prickly ground, and couldn't really walk around barefoot), but now I wonder if I had a car run over a finger or something if it would just dry out, die, and fall off? Not that I'm willing to conduct that experiment or anything.

I just saw "Eclipse." I am not currently going to share any thoughts or feelings on that movie in order to allow everyone a chance to watch it without being in any way affected by my opinions. In fact, I will probably never get around to sharing my thoughts and feelings about that movie. Just so you know.

I don't seem to be improving my Scrabble game at all!

I've had a lot of Dr. Pepper in the past 48 hours, and I don't usually indulge that much in soda. Some of it was diet, but some of it wasn't.

Is it wrong to paint one wall orange? (rhetorical question. I'm doing it anyway) It's a grayed-down, non violent orange, so I could add some wall sconces and there would be this amazing, warm glow on the stair wall, especially if I added a copper wash over the top. The rest of the walls will be this neutral, gray-blue that changes color with the light during the day, so sometimes it looks bluer and sometimes it's grayer and sometimes it's almost light green. I only ask because I currently have black leather couches. I would hate to invoke Halloween all year round.

.......

I've been writing these random thoughts in an effort to come up with something much, much more interesting to write about, after which I would then erase these random thoughts from existence and spare us all, but it just isn't happening. We're all stuck with these random thoughts today. Sorry.

I Ran a 5K! How Cute!

Hello, all. It's been a while. I took a couple months off in order to start my new job writing articles for search engine optimization (you know, that information that pops up when you do a Google search) and live some amazing life in between. I am assigned an article to write and given keywords that must be included in the body of the article. Right now, I'm bogged down on an article that must be 1000 words about some aspect of nuclear medicine. Everyone say it with me: noo-klee-ur. Thank you. We'll have no "nuculars" on this blog.

Okay. Quick news update about what's going on in the family: The kids are out of school and bouncing between extreme boredom and planning too many activities for me to keep up. Hubby also finished the school year and has 6 weeks off. He hasn't had much in the way of vacation time the last few years because he has been teaching multiple tracks in his year-round school. This next year he will only have one track, so he will go on and off track with his class. That's bad for the finances (he gets paid more for multiple tracks), but good for his writing career.

I ran in my first ever 5K on July 3rd. I've been walking and running 6 days a week for 2 1/2 months now, and a friend encouraged me to just make the leap and sign up for a 5K. It's only 3.1 miles, after all, right? Fortunately, it was mostly downhill, and since we ran on the parade route, people were all lined up cheering us on while waiting for the parade. There were little pockets of people I know, but they were mostly toward the end of the route, when I had to take a few 60-second breathers and just walk. They were good about motivating me to keep going. What that translates into is that they were good about heckling me about walking ("Hey, aren't you supposed to be running") and I was breathing too hard to shout back what I would like to have said, so I just smiled and waved. No, it was good to have cheering sections, actually, and I loved seeing my friends along the route. Linnea got me to sprint the last 50 yards by coming back for me and running with me. At least I finished running hard, even if I'm still paying for that last sprint.

Yes, I know 5K is nothing to all you folks out there who run, but I hate running. I HATE running. I run three times a week and walk the other three times, but I only love the exhilaration of moving my body through the cool morning air, meeting Mr. and Mrs. Goosey-Goosey Gander near the corn patch (they tell me off about it, too. Every. Single. Morning. Honk, honk, honk!), and hitting that part of the route where one of those flowering trees scents the air with such a delicious odor I start hyperventilating trying to get my fill. I relish those few minutes alone, too, and I have time to think a thought all the way from inception to completion. I've come up with a great short story idea.

I also love how I feel. While I've only really lost four pounds, I've dropped a lot of inches and I am fitting into clothes two sizes smaller. That's a good feeling. I did quickly notice the return of some of those pesky iron-deficiency feelings (glancing longingly at piles of dirt, having a crazy desire to put the piece of chalk in my mouth when I'm writing the music numbers on the chalkboard at church, thinking about how delicious the scent of water on cement is) and I'm taking my favorite iron supplement.

This post is a warm-up. Now that I'm back in the blogging game, I'm hoping to post much more often. I got distracted for a while there.


Before the race, outside my house. Yes, I'll get better sunglasses for running, but that's what I had.

This is SUCH a Mommy Blog!

Two of my girls decided to start their own Mommy Blogs. No, they're not mothers (Sophia is 11, Elannah is 9), but for some reason, they started blogs about being mothers of a couple kids each. They thought it would be fun. What I find hilarious is that they have absolutely no idea what motherhood is really like, so someone reading their blogs who didn't know they weren't actually parents would probably try to call DCFS on them. Although the blogs are meant to be funny, maybe it's actually a really horrible commentary on me. Or, as I'd rather think of it, a flattering imitation of how absolutely literary and intelligently humorous I am. Yes, that's what I'm going with.

Husband and I went to try out for our city's Choral Arts Society yesterday evening. We went to one of their recent performances and were blown away by it, so when the director announced try-outs were Saturday (yesterday), I was very eager. Husband, not so much; but, because he's a good sport, he came with me. The only reason he's not as excited is because he doesn't sight-read music, although he can sing just fine. Plus, the rehearsals are all on Saturday evenings.

The rehearsal was so much fun. The people are so kind (including Linnea, who was the source of many witty and hilarious comments), and the music is seriously challenging. I'm not sure if we actually are in or not, though, because we missed the part where we had to stand up and sing "The Star Spangled Banner" a cappella in front of the group.

Sigh...

I spend a lot of time in front of this computer. How's the weather out there?

THESE SMALL HOURS!!!!!!

As my oldest daughter, Sian, climbed wearily into the car after yet another long, 12-hour day of school and play practice, I realized I had never taught her a fundamental method of relieving stress: singing as loud as you can to rock music. At least, I had never forced her to actually do it, although she's had to suffer through my own stress-relieving sessions. After telling her to belt it, I cranked up my current mixed CD and we sang lustily along with ColdPlay and Rob Thomas. She doesn't have as much experience as I do in quelling the feeling of self-consciousness during song-belting sessions, but though she laughed, she persevered. When we got home, she gave me a hug and thanked me.

Am I a good parent, or what?

News Through a Haze

No politics. I promise. I'm way too tired.

News:
I have almost perfected the art of making really tender and flaky Southern-style biscuits.
My supervisor called me "the best outsource writer in the world" today. I put that on my calendar.
Elannah and Sophia both tried out for Annie, and only one of them made it, despite both of them getting call-backs. That was a little painful. Elannah, the lucky one, is an orphan now (not literally) and has a grueling rehearsal schedule. She has wanted to act for a long time, so I hope she's happy.
Husband finished the last re-work of his novel. It should be formatted and sent to publishers soon. He is not expecting anything, but at least he wrote the book.
Gabrielle bought a cat with her birthday money. It was either a cat or a guinea pig, which her sister, who shares a room with her, was not at all excited about. The new cat, Lincoln (or Link, for short), has now been schooled by older and larger Myles. Lincoln knows his place now. I find him mostly adorable.
My part-time job is taking me 8 hours a day.
We got a Kinetico water softener installed. My hair is so soft and silky, Sophia's dry hands are healing up, and I don't feel all that scale in my intestines anymore. It's wonderful.

That's it, folks.