Recipe of the week

You will thank me for this after you try it....

Crab Boil Potato Salad
courtesy of Food Network's 50 Potato Salads

Mix together:
1/2 cup corn
1/2 cup chopped celery
1 cup mayo
1 T lemon juice
1 and 1/2 teaspoons Old Bay

Toss with:
2 pounds boiled, cubed red potatoes
1 cup crabmeat

Chill and serve, assuming you don't eat it all yourself while making it.

Truth be told, I never measure for this sort of thing.  In my last batch I forgot the celery, used more lemon juice and less mayo, and had a greater crab-to-potato ratio.  Still great!

Be prepared

“Be prepared” is a motto we hear a lot.  Two simple words.  In every facet of your life, there is something for which you need to prepare.  You’ll need to eat sometime today, right?  Have you been to the store?  Do you have money in your account?  You have a conference call coming up in a few minutes that will last two hours.  Have you been to the restroom and filled your water glass?  Nobody needs to remind you to do little things like this.  It’s automatic.

If you’ve mastered these essentials of daily living and working, then it shouldn’t be difficult to extrapolate these concepts to being prepared for the more challenging curve balls that come your way, but I am seeing a lot of difficulty with this.  Maybe you were never taught how to plan ahead.  As a parent, my job is to prepare my kids for life without me.  Lessons are learned most easily at a young age when the consequences are small. 

For example, I am doing my best to coach the boys through their summer projects.  You might say, but school just let out a week ago, give them a break!  I disagree.  The last message I want my kids to get is that it is okay to wait until the last minute to complete a project when you have the ability to do it now.  We didn’t know how long we might be on the waiting list at the library for the books to come in, so we put the books on hold as soon as we got the assignments.  We talked about how the reading would need to commence as soon as the books come in, because you only get to borrow them for three weeks.  A renewal might not be available since lots of kids need to read these same books.  Since we talked through these contingencies, when the books arrived, the boys were ready to go.  Dodge finished his today and Hank is almost there.  Now we have time to enjoy the summer and maybe even check the books out again in August as a refresher.  Better safe than sorry.  The boys understood all this.  They never complained.  Each morning and afternoon trip in the car this past week has been spent reading.  It was automatic and it made sense.

It’s not so easy to coach an adult to be prepared.  There are so many excuses – I have other priorities, it can wait, I’ll get to it tomorrow, that’s someone else’s job, I don’t like that task, maybe it will go away.  Well, tomorrow is here, and you still have to do what you always needed to do.  Is it going to be any easier now that you’ve waited until the last minute?  Will you have time to do your best?  Do you know how many people are relying on you?  I'm not sure how well Love & Logic works on adults, but we're about to find out.

Grow up! You live in Texas!

For the past several weeks, I had the joy of driving by fields of beautiful Indian Paintbrush wildflowers.  One day I even pulled over and made my kids wade through them for a photo opportunity, which may or may not make its way into a Father's Day gift for Christopher (the kids spilled the beans within about two minutes of said photo session).  Yesterday my flowers were gone.  Mowed down.  Obliterated.  With intense fury I marked my mental to do list to call the city and demand to know why my flowers were chopped down in their prime.

The answer was surprising.  The Parks Department didn't want to mow those fields.  They were forced into it by residents in the surrounding neighborhoods.  I said surely they couldn't have been complaining about those gorgeous flowers, right?  No, they were complaining about more mice and snakes than usual and demanded that the wildflowers be mowed to curb the problem.  The gentleman told me he really appreciated my call because it gave him some hope that there are still residents out there that appreciate the beauty of nature, but for every call like mine, he was fielding ten complaints about the mouse and snake population.  He had already delayed mowing well past the normal schedule because our relatively cool and moist spring has allowed these flowers to blossom longer than most seasons, but finally the resident demands became too much to handle.

Listen, I am as anti-critter as they come.  I don't even like most domesticated animals.  You will never catch me camping, hiking, or swimming in anything other than a highly chlorinated pool.  I like my animals safely contained at the Dallas Zoo.  However, we made a choice to live in Texas, in a suburb, where in the neverending battle of man vs. nature, you are going to lose.  You can't totally dominate your weeds.  You can't make it rain.  You can't determine whether your pest of the month is going to be the fire ant, coyote, rat snake, or armadillo.  You grow up and deal with it.  You accept that for whatever reason, Noah put those creatures on the Ark, and you put out a mouse trap or two if that's what it takes for the community to enjoy some flowers.

Fifteen

Fifteen years ago tomorrow Christopher and I got married.  It was a warm and sunny day in Fredericksburg, Virginia.  I tossed flowers to little cousins who are now in college.  My grandmother lectured me about hills and valleys and bumps in the road.  We went home and wrote thank you cards and finished packing for our European adventure.  Beggars stole the bread off our table in Paris.  We drove overnight on the "wrong" side of the road.  Every honeymoon picture has me in my favorite sweater that I wore for years until it had holes.

We have some pictures but no videos.  No tweets or posts or blogs.  Yet we can remember details from those days more clearly than most others.  The next day that I could recount minute by minute would be Dodge's birth, and then the younger kids.  Our wedding was the birth of our family.

So, go with me here for a minute. If the firstborn is the marriage, did you care for it like the typical overprotective new parent?  Did you buy it a wipe warmer?  Did you call the doctor when it sneezed?  What about now?  How are you nurturing your now teenage baby?  As for us, we will celebrate with Mickey D's and baseball practice....but never fear, mommy/daddy tasting menu lunch date part two is coming up soon.

Baseball 101

I live far away.

I needed to get gas.

I went to a wedding last night.

These are the verbatim excuses that parents on my son’s baseball team gave me for why they were late to our tournament games this weekend.

Did your house move?

Did your gas tank spring a leak and it took you an hour to MacGyverize a solution using duct tape and a wad of gum?

You got invited to a last minute elopement?  How special.

No, of course I did not actually say those things.  Something in me prevents me from doing that.  I did, however, make a scene stomping around the ballpark, snapping at strangers with dogs, crying in frustration, trying to figure out where to get a spare uniform for my second son so that he could be our ninth player, even though doing so would probably get my coach suspended.

You might say that this is just recreational ball, the kids are just there to have fun, don’t take it so seriously.  My response is that this has nothing to do with baseball.  I’m not going to critique how the kids play, who is an athlete, or who has no business being on the field in the first place.  My beef is solely with the parents and the example they set for their sons.

When you sign up for a team sport, you sign up your whole family, not just the player.  You are making a commitment to get your kid the right equipment, get him to practices and games on time, and practice with him at home.  You are making a decision to give up other things during the season, like sleeping in late on Saturday mornings, watching American Idol live, or whatever else floats your boat.  If you have other kids, they are making sacrifices too.  They will have to do their homework in the car, stay up later than they should, or miss a few friends’ birthday parties.

Obviously I think these sacrifices are worth it.  My kid enjoys playing a sport.  He has put in a lot of effort to become reasonably good at it, but he also understands that the whole team needs to operate as a unit for success.  Not a bit unlike the real world.

Would you tell your boss that you live far away, needed gas, or went to a wedding and couldn’t function the next day?  Well, these parents probably would, but that’s beside the point.  Most of us plan how long it will take to get from point A to point B and add a cushion.  We don’t let the gas tank get below a quarter full.  We plan a vacation day after a wedding if we think we won’t be a good worker the next day.  (People who still think they have a “right” to get drunk once they have children in their care might be a future topic of conversation.)

Your actions tell your kid that he’s not a crucial part of the team.  That his activities are not as important as your fun.  That the work the team put in all season, culminating in a single elimination tournament, is worthless.  That you don’t care.  And we wonder why kids are complacent.

Life happens.  Tires go flat.  People get sick.  I’m not saying you have to make it to every single practice or game.  However, if you gave your firm commitment that you would be there, especially for a tournament, then that needs to be your priority.  There are ten other families on the team that could have picked up your kid and gotten him where he needed to be on time if you called.  If you wondered why we all exchanged names, phone numbers, and email addresses in that initial parent meeting, that’s why.

Ok, so now that we all understand how important just showing up is, let’s briefly cover a few other rules you might not know.

1. Coaches talk to umps, not parents.

2. Your league’s rules are posted.  Become familiar with them so that when you choose to yell at the ump anyway, you will at least have your facts straight.

3. You do not smoke at a kid’s game.

4. He may be your best friend, but he’s not mine.  Keep your dog on a leash.

5. We play when it is hot and cold, but usually not when it is raining or has been raining.  Know the rainout line for the field where you will be playing. (Yeah, this one requires knowing where you will be playing!)

6.  Generally speaking, if the coach yells "throw to first" and you yell "throw home," your kid will not make any play.

7. Your coach is managing the clock.  If he calls time, swaps out players, or tells the third baseman to check his shoelaces, there is most likely a strategic reason for doing so.  Ask the coach after the game if you don’t understand why certain moves were made.

8. Bring a cooler with ice, even if it is a cold day.  When your kid catches one with his nose, you’ll be glad you had the ice.

9. Get out of your car and watch the practice or the game.  You’ll learn the rules of the game and figure out if your kid and your coach are a good fit.

10. Take your kid to see the pros and semi-pros play his sport.

Stuff someone should have told me a long time ago - part one

1. Make your own laundry and dishwasher detergent.
2. I didn't need calculus, but more classes in languages, negotiation, and standing up for yourself without getting fired would have come in handy.
3. A year long family membership at the zoo costs about the same as an action figure or doll for each kid but won't break as easily.
4. Step away from the book store.  That's what the library is for.
5. If you still have cable like I do, call the company every three months.  They will give you some kind of discount if you ask sweetly.
6. Baking soda and vinegar can fix a lot of problems.
7. Pets are more work than kids.
8. It took four kids to get one who needed or wanted it, but now I truly appreciate the pacifier.  She can keep it until high school as far as I'm concerned.
9.  Pack your lunch.  It makes the occasional lunch out seem like a big treat.
10.  I spend more and waste time when I try to save money using coupons.  Just go to the discount grocery store.  It's all the same underneath the packaging.

Fundraising

This one is late because 1) I'm as guilty as everyone else for shamelessly plugging various fundraisers, and 2) I'll probably generate a lot of ill will for slamming my school.

Over the years I have sold cookie dough, magazine subscriptions, raffle tickets, wrapping paper.  Just this week I used social media, word of mouth, handouts, and begging to get people to eat at Buffalo Wild Wings, which generously donated 10% of their proceeds from the day (not just based on the sales of the people who brought the ticket, but for all their tables!) to support Dodge's fundraiser for ALS.  I've also tried to support other people's fundraisers as much as possible - Girl Scout cookies, restaurant discount cards, Rangers ticket deals, car washes.  It's a game we all play - you support my kid, I'll support yours.

I don't mind any of this kind of activity.  If I don't need wrapping paper, I don't buy it, and I don't feel guilty about it.  If you don't like wings, I don't begrudge you for eating at home.  However, I do find the following scenario annoying, to the point that it made me envious of my homeschooling friends who probably don't have to deal with this kind of convoluted extortion.

For Field Day, which for some odd reason is always held on a muggy day in May instead of a pleasant March day when the weather in Dallas is near perfect, we had to bring plain white Ts for each kid to be tie-dyed.  Had I been smart, I would have found classmates roughly the same size as my kids and pooled money to buy the multipacks of undershirts, but instead I am now the proud owner of one pink shirt (Dodge), one purple shirt (Hank), one blue shirt (Corda), and 9 extra white shirts.

The kids are going to be exercising really hard in the humidity, so they are going to need lots of ice and coolers and water bottles and towels and sunblock and hats.  Should I forget this, I have been given 4 notes, 3 emails, and a 1 robocall.

However, Field Day is not really about exercise or three-legged races or a freebie day at the end of the school year.  No, it is a fundraiser for the PE department.  So, each grade has been assigned snacks to donate to the school, and those snacks will then be SOLD BACK to my kids when they get hungry, and the proceeds go to the PE department.  Yes Mom, you will be paying twice for those Cutie oranges and vegan granola bars.  My kids are well aware that Field Day is an opportunity to eat all day, and they are asking for money for tomorrow's festivities.  On the way to school Dodge asked me to please go to the bank today and get singles as an advance on his allowance so that he can buy snacks (ummm....did you clean the bathroom or do dish duty or put away your laundry or practice your instrument this week?).

I know I have no grounds for complaint because I chose not to be on the committees that make these decisions.  That's fine, and I'll probably even dig up a few dollars so the kids can get their snow cones.  However, in the future, let's simplify.  Let's just say that if the PE department needs $1000 for X, Y, and Z, then let's collect donations or get Sports Authority to sponsor us.  Let's keep the fun days and the fundraisers separate.