the pieces of my life

Would I Lie to You?

October 7th, 2013 § Comments Off on Would I Lie to You? § permalink

Hungry, desperate furloughed-government officials came knocking on the door this afternoon. The only thing that I had that would cheer them up was a Charleston Chew bar of my daughter. I sent them on their way with the chocolate and that, my dear daughter, is why your candy bar is missing. There is no other reason. No, don’t go looking in our trash can for an empty wrapper. It’s not in there. What kind of mother would steal her own child’s chocolate and then lie about it? Seriously, get away from the garbage can.

Of course, if I had eaten her candy bar, it would have been justifiable (not that I would do that!). On this miserable, foggy, rainy morning, as I was rushing to pack lunches, finish exercising, and clean up the mess that forms after every weekend, she stopped me to ask, “Mommy? What month did you and Daddy have sex in to get pregnant with me?” It wasn’t the question I minded so much as the math. Math before 7 a.m. is not my forte. “Uh… November? December? I don’t remember!” When I asked Adam, he just sort of gave us a panicked look and ran back to his computer.

Kids had their annual check-ups today. The 8 year old is officially taller than the 10 year old. Not that I told her (that’s not a lie! Just an omission) as she would never let him live it down. However, I think she figured it out. Eh, if he’s upset about it, I can give him some candy. The girl has another Charleston Chew lying around. At least for the moment she does.

Define “Too Much Sugar”

September 26th, 2013 § 1 comment § permalink

Q: How many servings of candy corn are there in a nine-serving bag of Brach’s candy corn?

Sorry, that was a trick question. Because all of you, knowing me, would answer, “One.” But I’m PMSing, which means it’s really only about 3/4th of a serving. But what to do what that needed additional 1/4th? How long before the kids notice that their candy stashes are slowly disappearing?

Hey, did you see what now lives in my front room?

It is freakin’ ginmormous.
“How am I going to cart that thing around?” I muttered this morning.
“Bass cases have wheels on them,” Doodles said.
“This one doesn’t,” I said.
“Oh,” he said. “I guess Pie will have to carry it by the handles.”
Really? Your sister is going to carry this thing? And this is coming from the boy who frequently asks, “Mom, can you please carry my viola?” Viola, boy! A viola is the size of that bass’s pinky! And, help me lord, because that bass is a 1/10th size. I cannot fathom the mama bass that goes with this baby bass. The girl had better stop growing right where she is, if she plans on continuing to play bass. Jealous much?

Eating 3/4 of a serving of candy corn makes me realize that too much candy corn is not a good thing. It really needs to be balanced with other foods. Like, say, a bag of gummy bears. Or a box or twelve of Peeps. Why don’t my kids have any good candy in their candy stashes? And it’s not just because I’ve already eaten it all. They have bad taste in candy.

On a non-musical, non sugar-related note, guess what I just received!

Yep, containing my lovely essay (yes, I know you can’t read the name, but that is my finger pointing to me).

Get yer own copy of The Best Women’s Travel Writing, Vol. 9: True Stories from Around the World

I’m off to work on the ol’ novel. I advise you all to lock up your candy cabinets. When I’m writing, no sugar is safe from my clutches.

Who’s the Boss?

September 19th, 2013 § Comments Off on Who’s the Boss? § permalink

As if there was really any question about it.

Instrumental Madness

September 11th, 2013 § 2 comments § permalink

Everyone has crazy, over-scheduled children and the mishegas that goes with that. I’m not alone in the “Who am I taking where today?” mindset. This year’s planning has required extra care: Pie has Hebrew school Tuesday and Thursday (with a friend who comes home with us); Doodles on Monday and Wednesday. Dance on Monday (with a different friend who comes home with us). Soccer for Pie on Mondays and Thursdays; viola for the boy on Mondays and Thursdays. Girls Scouts the first Friday of the month. And this doesn’t include weekend games and Hebrew school nor the upcoming hockey season.

Pie has been taking piano lessons for a couple of years. And for a couple of years I’ve begged, screamed, bribed, and screamed some more about her practicing piano. She just wouldn’t do it. No amount of anything would get her to practice. So I said, “Fine. No more piano.” I’m not going to pay for her to take the same lesson over and over because she wouldn’t practice. She agreed pretty quickly and we said we’d re-think instruments in 4th grade when wind instruments are introduced at the elementary school. Third grade is string instruments, which she has no interest in, and I’m not letting her do an instrument this year when our schedule is already crazy and she refuses to practice.

Perfect.

Until she came running out of school today. “I’m going to play the bass! I’m going to play the bass!”

And now the battle of the wills begins. Me, who doesn’t have the inclination for her to 1) play an instrument twice her size and 2) not practice yet another instrument and 3) schedule in more lessons because bass instruction is after school at the high school.

And her. Who wants to play the bass.

I think we’re about to find out who is in charge in this house. If you see a small girl with a huge instrument, you’ll know it’s not me.

Doodles Can’t Read

August 30th, 2013 § Comments Off on Doodles Can’t Read § permalink

I asked my son to read me the weather report but he said he couldn’t. What exactly is he learning in that school of his?

Ice Ice, Baby!

August 28th, 2013 § 1 comment § permalink

Minke whale and puffin on the menu

Gullfoss Waterfall

Helicopters over Reykjavik

Toto, I don’t think we’re in Boston anymore!

Hello, Iceland!

Where in the World Are Doodles and Pie?

August 26th, 2013 § Comments Off on Where in the World Are Doodles and Pie? § permalink

Off on another grand adventure! This time to…

Interview with an Eight Year Old

August 25th, 2013 § 1 comment § permalink

Me: What’s today?

Eight Year Old: August 25, 2013, also known as my birthday.

Me: How do you know?

Eight Year Old: Because I know.

Me: What did you do for your birthday?

Eight Year Old: I went to the Southwick Zoo with my family.

Me: What do you like to do these days?

Eight Year Old: Dance. Play soccer. Sing. Eat junk food. Eat fruits and vegetables. Go to exciting places and travel.

Me: What kind of exciting places? Eight Year Old: Like the Galapagos Islands and the park and the zoo and when you’re lost in a another country and your parents don’t know what to do!

Me: Does that happen often?

Eight Year Old: Yeah! It does happen often, Mommy.

Me: I don’t remember getting lost.

Eight Year Old:You don’t? Like when we look at a map and you say, “What direction are we going in?” Wait, did you write that down? Oh God!

Me: What are your favorite places to go?

Eight Year Old: My favorite place where I like to go is the Galapagos Island. Like travel right?

Me: Anywhere.

Eight Year Old: School. Home. New York. Different continents and countries. Stuff like that.

Me: What are your favorite books?

Eight Year Old: I like the Dork Diary series, the American Girl books, Kylie Jean and Heidi Heckelbeck and I really like Drama and Smile, which are books by the same author.

Me: What do you like to listen to?

Eight Year Old: I like Selena Gomez. Lady Gaga. Rhianna. And Nicki Minaj. Oh and I also like Ke$ha.

Me: What do you like to watch?

Eight Year Old: I like to watch Lab Rats. Phineas and Ferb. Project Runway. Abby’s Ultimate Dance Competition. Dance Moms. Johnny Test. Brain Games. And Mad.

Me: Sounds like you have an irresponsible mom, letting you watch those reality shows.

Eight Year Old: No.

Me: It sounds like you have an irresponsible mom and a brother who controls the remote.

Eight Year Old: No and yes.

Me: What would you watch if you had your pick?

Eight Year Old: Johnny Test. Lab Rats. Brain Games. Abby’s Ultimate Dance Competition. And Dance Moms.

Me: So your brother makes you watch Mad and your mother makes you watch Project Runway?

Eight Year Old: No, I like Project Runway. And I do like Mad, but I wouldn’t watch it if he didn’t live because I wouldn’t know about it. But I still like the other ones.

Me: What do you want to be when you grow up?

Eight Year Old: A writer. About animals. Which I will work out with my friend because she wants to be a vet. [whispering] Which is Jasmine.

Me: What are your goals as an eight year old?

Eight Year Old: To not be scared of spiders. To maybe raise some money for a charity. And just relax over the year.

Me: Do you have problems relaxing?

Eight Year Old: No, it’s just sometimes I get scared about stuff.

Me: Like what?

Eight Year Old: Like roller coasters, which I’m still scared of. Even though there are some very small ones. They’re still pretty fast.

Me: What are you looking forward to in third grade?

Eight Year Old: Doing my biography report. Because I already know what to do it on. I’m doing it on [omitted].

Me: You want me to put that in there?

Eight Year Old: Yes!

Me: But I thought you wanted to keep it a secret.

Eight Year Old: Right! Thank you for reminding me. Don’t put it in.

Me: Any grand pronouncements?

Eight Year Old: No.

Me: No?

Eight Year Old: What do you mean for a grand pronouncement?

Me: I explain it every year.

Eight Year Old: What’s a pronouncement?

Me: Let’s look it up. Because apparently every year I’m not doing a good job of explaining it. [Look up the word on M-W.com.]

Eight Year Old: Oh. Strawberries are awesome!

Excellent. Happy birthday, Pie!

Interview with a Ten Year Old

August 23rd, 2013 § 2 comments § permalink

Me: Whatâ€™s today?

10 year old: My birthday

Me: How do you know itâ€™s your birthday?

10 year old: Because we have stuff like calendars and computers and stuff and also I know because I know when camp ended and I knew certain days after that and blah blah blah.

Me: How does it feel to be a ten year old?

10 year old: Same as it felt to be a nine year old.

Me: How did you spend your birthday?

10 year old: Playing with laser tag, playing on the computer, and sorting Magic cards.

Me: By yourself?

10 year old: With friends. Well, laser tag with friends.

Me: Was it a good birthday?

10 year old: Yes.

Me: What do you like to do these days?

10 year old: Go on the computer. Play on the computer. Animate.

Me: Can you be more specific?

10 year old: Animate stuff, play Minecraft, code, do stuff on the Web.

Me: How do you animate and code?

10 year old: I use Komodo Edit for coding and I use Blender for animation.

Me: What are you coding and animating?

10 year old: Animating movies and coding just random projects.

Me: Like?

10 year old: I don’t know.

Me: What are your favorite books?

10 year old: I don’t know.

Me: What have you been reading lately?

10 year old: What have I been reading lately? Books. The Secret Series. House of Stairs.

Me: What are you listening to?

10 year old: Kiss 108.

Me: But who?

10 year old: The popular artists, I guess. Macklemore. Eyal Golan.

Me: What are your favorite things to watch?

10 year old: Phineas and Ferb. Mad. Lab Rats.

Me: What do you want to be when you grow up?

10 year old: Computer programmer.

Me: What do you want to program?

10 year old: Stuff that will get me a lot of money.

Me: What are you looking forward to in 5th grade?

10 year old: Going on all the outings, like going to a sleepaway camp [science camp] and going to Canobie Park.

Me: What are your goals as a 10 year old?

10 year old: To… to… to… I don’t know.

Me: You can do better than that.

10 year old: I’m sure I can, but I don’t know. To fart less.

Me: Really?

10 year old: Fine! To code more stuff! To animate more stuff! Is that good?

Me: Any grand pronouncements?

10 year old: I am awesome.

Me: That’s the first year I didn’t have to tell you what a pronouncement is.

10 year old: Actually I still don’t know what it means. I just said that. It’s my default answer for anything I don’t know.

Me: We’ll buy you a dictionary. Happy birthday, Doodlebug!

When I’m 44 (Plus One)…

August 17th, 2013 § Comments Off on When I’m 44 (Plus One)… § permalink

Two old ladies walk into a bar. No, it’s not a joke; it was last weekend. With Doodles still at camp (a representative letter: “Send me more books. I ate a hot dog and a hamburger today. I’m having fun”), and Adam continuing to do this thing he calls “work,” Pie and I snuck off to New York for a few days to see my parents and to visit with T Rex and Pad, who were on vacation there from San Francisco.

On Sunday night, though, my college roommate, Jax, and I went out to tear up the town. And by “tear up the town,” I mean we had dinner and then a drink. Jax and I were a force to reckon with once upon a time, but not so much anymore. Now she had to get back to Westchester to her two kids, and I fall asleep before the Late Show goes on. But we headed to Bathtub Gin for a drink before she went home. Bathtub Gin is one of these swanky bars that you can’t tell is there. No name, no sign, no nothing. It’s behind a coffee stand, and you have to enter the coffee stand and then go through the back door of the stand to enter the bar. Oh so chic. As we walked in, Jax was most impressed with me. “Oh my God!” she screeched in a high-pitched New York-accented voice. (She really does talk like that. I think if they ever did a “Real Housewives of Westchester,” she’d be a righteous contender.) “How DID you find this place?” I think I broke her heart just a smidgen when I looked around, leaned in, and whispered conspiratorially, “Google.”

We were clearly the oldest by a decade or two. We were definitely the only one bemoaning kids’ soccer schedules. But what upset Jax the most is when I pointed out that pretty much everyone in the bar had been born around 1990.

“NOOOO!” she yelled.

“Even our bartender,” I said.

“NOOOOOOOO!” she yelled a little louder.

So we asked. “Hey bartender, what year were you born?”

He told us to guess. “1987” was my opening bid.

“Close,” he said.

“1988?” Jax tried?

“Closer.”

Our lovely bartender was born in 1989. The same year I graduated college. Jax howled for a good five minutes, but we had a nice chat with our young man, and before you know it, I was handing over a phone number. True, it was Adam’s number–our young man had a good friend who wanted to work at Adam’s company–but hey, I was out at a bar in New York, passing out phone numbers.

Yeah, I’ve still got it. If I can only remember where I put it.

Who I Am

I read, I write, I occasionally look to make sure my kids aren't playing with matches.

My novel, MODERN GIRLS will be coming out from NAL in the spring of 2016.

I mostly update the writing blog these days, so find me over there.

More about me and my writing.
Where to Find Me

jenny at jennyandadam.com

Follow @j_s_brown

Goodreads

Writing Blog: Jennifer S. Brown

Photo Blog: jPhone Jenny
Archives
Archives
Meta

Who I Am

Where to Find Me

Archives

Meta