The one that made me cry.

Tomorrow Suttie turns 5. It’s impossible to digest that it’s been 5 years since I was cleaning my baseboards, anticipating being induced the next morning, and thought, “Hmmm…am I in labor?” 5 years since I called my friends who’d already had kids and my mother to ask them if I was in labor. 5 years since I called Sutton at work and told him to meet me at Burger King because I was, in fact, in labor, but had waited to take a shower, apply makeup, and straighten my hair, thereby putting us into a bit of a time crunch. 5 years since I met a chubby-cheeked, completely snuggable little boy who, thank the Lord, still likes to cuddle with his momma.

And while today and tomorrow will be days of remembrances – “remember when he pooped while you were giving him his first bath, remember when he was terrified of that stuffed cow, remember when he used to say ‘Bee-ya’ instead of ‘Bailey,’” there will also be days of looking forward, which is something we do all the time anyway: “He’s so sweet and sensitive; I’m already dreading his first broken heart.” / “The kid’s crazy smart. We have to make sure that he uses it for good instead of evil.” / “He’s going away for college. That’s final.”

5 seems big to me; 5 marks a change. He’s transitioning from little kid to kid. He’ll start kindergarten in the fall. He’s losing all of the lisps and language hitches that sustained his babyhood. He says “dominoes” instead of “donimoes.” He wants to take showers and apply the shampoo himself.

This post seems sad, and, of course, in a way, it is. I’m his mother. My chest clenches tightly when I hear him say “Mom” more than “Mommy.” My eyes mist when I watch his toddler videos and realize that he’ll no longer play with “Tono the Train”; it’s Thomas now.

But it’s happy, too. He’s 5. He’s healthy. He’s happy and blessed. He knows love, how to give it and how to receive it. I am so immensely proud of him. He’s caring and good and kind. He’s no longer afraid of a stuffed cow, and it’s been weeks since he’s slung mashed carrots on the walls. He makes me a better person by reminding me of what gentle innocence can be.

So, tomorrow, when he blows out a giant #5 candle with his eyes closed and makes a wish for more Skylanders or for a later bed time or for the end of all human suffering (each equally likely), I’ll be making a wish as well. A wish for his continued happiness, a wish that, as he grows, he doesn’t lose the qualities that make him essentially Suttie, his goodness and his compassion. A wish that he will grow up strong and confident, but that he won’t do it too quickly. That we’ll have a few more years of Legos and Ninja Turtles and wanting to hang out with Mom and Dad, years of just being a boy who should be in no rush to be a man.

Take one step closer, my friend, and find out what Lemon Breeze tastes like…

I’ve been on mommy blog hiatus because, when I add teaching into the mix of my already hectic schedule, I have to save all of my creative energy for writing comments like, “Do you even come to class?” or “Your incorrect use of there, their, and there makes me want to drink bleach” on student papers.

But I’m breaking this self-imposed interval for an important public service announcement: Keep your #%$% germs at home!

This has been the sickest year in the O’Neal household to date. And it’s not because we’re unclean…I scanned the first few lines of a study with a bunch of statistics and other maths that said that our lax bathing schedule actually increases immunity.  And it’s not because we don’t take vitamins…since they came out with gummies, we’ve been all about the supplements.

No, it’s not any of these things. It’s you. You who stood behind me at the grocery counter sneezing into the ether. You who coughed on your hand and then used it to open the door at work. You who *gasp* waved at my toddler when your stomach was doing noxious flips.

And, unfortunately, it’s me. Because I have also made the unwise decision to grace a public forum with a snotty nose and a sore throat.  But no more, I tell you! Because I’m a firm believer in you get what you give, and maybe if I don’t give anything, I won’t get anything. Karma is law.

The worst sick moment of the year for me came when my son and I struggled with a weeklong bout of H1N1. SWINE FLU, people! The entire week I had to rely on my husband and thank my husband and grovel to my husband. It was excruciating because, if anybody insists on being the martyr of the family, it’s me. And here he was heating up towels and making soup and running out for Gatorade and just being all kinds of obnoxiously caring.

I will NOT go through that again.

So the next time you get the sniffles, and you think, I’m just gonna run up to Publix for a bottle of wine and a free cookie, DON’T. You hear me? Because if I’m there and I see you wipe your nose with your hand and then open the freezer, I’m gonna start shouting, “Unclean! Unclean!” and spray your ass with Lysol.

P.S. Pick up milk.

Dear Future Suttie and Molly,

You’re welcome.

You’re welcome for whooping your tails when you needed it. You’re better for it, which means that it was worth the tears (yours and mine…secretly shed in the closet after the fact).

You’re welcome for caring enough to show you love but also discipline and love in the form of discipline. I have seen too many children with constant praise and no punishment turn into butthole adolescents and asshole adults. I don’t want that for you, and I wasn’t put on this earth to make you feel good about your bad choices.

And, yes, I realize that you are growing up in what many have dubbed an “entitlement culture.” And that’s fine…as long as you understand that I, too, am entitled. I am entitled to spank your butt, to revoke your freedoms, to enforce my rules, and to embarrass you in public. So choose wisely, my dear ones, so that I can invoke my other privileges of showering you with affection and rewarding your good judgment.

Now, you may be thinking, Mom, what has brought on this sudden bout of sincerity and plain speaking? Well, it all started with a normal Wednesday morning trip to Walmart. Ah, Walmart, the cradle of life for misbehaving children, both of you included, who seem to lose every lick of sense as soon as we cross that ill-maintained threshold.

On this occasion, Suttie, you were at school, and I’d remembered to load up a snack bag for Molly, so things were on the up and up. I cannot, however, say the same for the poor mother of at least three who I encountered in the food storage aisle.

This unfortunate soul was trying to wrangle her very loud, very active boys into her cart as one was ripping Ziploc containers off the shelves to build a fort and another was jumping up and down in the main area of her buggy like a ritalin test monkey. I didn’t realize there was a third until I saw her bend down and try to coax him from beneath the cart where he was hanging on for dear life upside-down with his back against the “coke rack” like a hissing possum. She was clearly overwhelmed, and I couldn’t help but think, “Woman, where is your wooden spoon?!”

Then, just as I was turning my cart around to give her some privacy in which to wrench the conch back from Jack, Piggy, and Ralph, the Ziploc engineer sauntered up to me and smacked me on my thigh. Yes, smacked a total stranger. Not really knowing what to do, I simply said, “Hi,” and looked at Mom, sure that she would prompt him for an apology or, at the very least, devour him whole. I would have been happy with either.

But instead of correcting his behavior or forcing him to admit fault, she looked back at me and muttered an exasperated, “Kids!”

I would have gone with “demons,” but I rarely argue semantics in Walmart. And after letting out another defeated sigh, she called for my attacker, leaving the containers on the floor, and wheeled her cart onward, with Bubbles still going ape-shit up top and the possum still hanging and hissing from the bottom.

Now, you two are not perfect, and Molly, sweetheart, at times, you border on psychotic, but by now, you both know that homey don’t play that. I will never be okay with you disrespecting and purposefully disobeying me or acting with the intention to hurt another. Never. ever.

And I will gladly cut other moms (and dads) slack because kids misbehave, they act up, they go wild. When they exit the walls of their homes, they think that none of the rules apply, that every store, mall, playground, and restaurant is a Lord of the Flies-style anarchist state. But as a parent, you have to do something. ANYTHING! Even a step in the wrong direction is better than no step at all. If you yell too much or lecture too much or invoke the Devil too much, you can rein it in and begin again. But if you do nothing, then their young, but acute sense of logic says that what they’re doing is okay. And if they feel validated in doing whatever they want, regardless of appropriateness, at 6, then you can’t question why they share that mentality at 16.

The whole situation reminded me of an encounter that we had with a father and son right after the 2011 tornadoes, which devastated parts of this area. Your father and I were helping to clean up the remains of a friend’s nearly destroyed home, and we noticed a teenage boy working his tail off over here, over there, doing whatever he could to help. When a local church brought around sack lunches, your dad and the boy and the boy’s father all sat down to take a much-needed rest. But the father, noticing that the boy had a lunch when not everyone had been served, told him to give his lunch to your dad (who was still waiting) and to help pass the rest out before eating his own. After the boy left, my husband complimented the father on how well behaved and hard working his son was, and the father simply responded, “I stays on his ass.” It has become our parenting mantra.

And although I hope that today was a fluke and that the mother who I met was just having one of those days (we all have them – the days when I can’t tell you “no” anymore, when we’ll have to start again tomorrow), I have a sinking feeling that her sons won’t turn out to be the well behaved, hard working kind.

So you’re welcome, my loves. I care about you enough to correct you, to hug you, to scold you, to tickle you, to question you, to love you…they are all equally important to me. You are entitled, yes, that is true. You are entitled to my love and also to my direction. And you are blessed because your father and I stays on your ass.

--------------------------------------------------

Dear Mom,

Thank you.

Thank you for the whoopings, the spankings, the pops, the stink eyes, the scoldings, the lectures. Thank you for taking the time to set me right when I was wrong, even when you were tired from work and overwhelmed with my extracurriculars, when you would rather have been hugging your little girl or, God forbid, taking a moment to eat a hot dinner or just catch your breath.

It made a difference in the person I’ve become. And only through adult eyes can I truly see the value of those less-than-fun memories. I now know that it was hard for you, too…that it was necessary…that it was done purely out of love.

“And when I’m 35, I’m going as Thor’s second cousin’s hairdresser…”

Ah, Halloween…the time of year when we can dress our children up like the living nightmares that they are. I kid.

One thing that my children are learning about this Halloween is that you have to lock in those costume choices early–just like Christmas gifts. If I don’t know what you want by November 17^th then you’re getting whatever I can find at Sam’s (“Dear Santa, thank you for the 300-count box of vacuum bags. I didn’t know what to do with them, so I gave them to Mommy. She laughed like Ursula from The Little Mermaid. It was scary.”)

Suttie decided back in July that he wanted to be Jack Skellington after seeing The Nightmare Before Christmas for the first time. He also decided that it was crucial to the authenticity of the character to learn all of Jack’s songs and dance moves and to perform them for us twice daily. Thanks, Tim Burton, you sorry son of a bitch.

So the search began. We went to the ends of the internet searching for a Jack Skellington costume and only found one: a $55 number from somewhere in the UK that we unearthed on ebay. And four days later, after I talked myself into buying a $55 used costume, Jack was on his way to our house. I even ordered him some separate skeleton gloves to complete the ensemble because I’m just that kind of super mom–you know, the kind that worries about skeleton gloves but can't remember if the kids actually had a bath this week or if we just talked about it.

But after the Jack costume arrived and his excitement died down, Suttie saw a picture of the latest Ironman movie and declared that he wanted to be Ironman for Halloween. Say what?! Uh-uh, hells to the no, you are going to be Jack Skellington if I have to glue that mask to your face and round out our night of trick or treating with an ER visit to have it removed.

And every week it seems, he’s got some new character that he’d just love to be for Halloween: Thor, Luke Skywalker, Spiderman, all of the Ninja Turtles…at once, a kid with a limited understanding of personal space (no costume necessary). He’s even started charting out his costumes for the next several Halloweens to make sure that he covers them all: “And when I’m 32, I’m going as Batman, and when I’m 33, I’m going as Robin, and when I’m 34, I’m going as their butler.” It’s good to see him planning for the future.

But the only thing that’s worse than Suttie asking for a new costume every other day is his constant queries about what I’m going to be because apparently an exhausted, overworked, overstressed mother of two was soooo last year.

Now, I consider my husband and me to be “fun” parents. We have tickle fights and wrestling matches (with the kids, not each other….weirdo), we risk staph infection going to Chuck E. Cheese, we make jokes at the kids’ expense. But we draw the line at dressing up like Mario and Luigi to drag our children from door to door hours after they were ready to go home...cause $55, people. We don’t really have a strong reason to back us up on this other than the fact that the kids make us look like idiots enough on a non-costume day. And like most true Americans, we like to take a stand before we've thought up any real reasons to do so.

So tomorrow, when Suttie asks me what I’m dressed up as for the big night, I’m going to tell him the truth…that I’m an undercover spy with an invisible uniform and hidden weapons. Because blatant trickery is the third line of defense in my parenting arsenal behind bribery and hiding the good snacks in my closet.

P.S. Here's a glimpse of Suttie as a young Jack Skellington. He made me post this:

For better, for worse, for richer, for....pass.

2013 has been an unlucky year of expenses for the O’Neals. I don’t want to bore you with the details, but here are the highlights: a brand new trampoline that hated our kids so much that it chose a mangled death in a field over their happiness, a dish washer that out-logiced us when it found no reason to clean our plates since we’d be dirtying them up again anyway, two car batteries that wanted to meet Jesus on the first day of our vacation, and some truck wiring that was far too appetizing to the local field mice. Such is life….especially for the O’Neals whose bad luck can only be rivaled by the descendants of Stanley Yelnats.

On the up side, I’ve racked up an impressive amount of credit card points with the sweetness that is 1% cashback , so it’s all good. I mean, who isn’t willing to spend $3000 to get $30 back?

Amid such financial hickups is when the differences between men and women and how we approach spending really shine. Now, Sutton and I have similar viewpoints on the big issues: we treat most things with humor, especially if it’s inappropriate; we value our time together as well as our time apart; and we never eat after 9:30 at night. I don’t pretend to know the secret of good relationships, and Lord knows that I’ve had many fail (I mean a lot…like a whole lot…seriously, I got around), but this is what works for us.

We even have a shared ideology when it comes to spending: DON’T. Apparently, cheap is contagious, and I caught a bad case right after I married an engineer. Yes, we’re serious about saving money, but not in a doomsday-prepper kind of way. It’s more of an our-kids-break-everything-we’ve-ever-bought-and-their-replacements kind of way. However, when money has to be spent, my financial philosophy and that of my husband occupy different time zones.

For example, Sutton might say something dumb like, “Kate, we need x, y, and z home repairs, or our house is going to collapse around us,” and my totally reasonable response might be, “No, what we need is some new throw pillows in the bedroom because the old ones are jacking up the French provincial vibe that I’ve been trying to copy from The Bronson Pinchot Project for two and a half weeks. You know that my best friend just redid her living room, so if you don’t let me do this, you might as well kill me now!”

Both are equally valid claims, with one being slightly more valid than the other (I needed those pillows, people), but they showcase how differently we approach our spending habits: mine focus on creature comforts and his try to keep us alive.

Similarly, I can justify buying a $49 set of Pottery Barn place card holders for a Christmas dinner that consists only of our parents and two small, place card-eating children, but if he comes home with a 20oz. Mountain Dew that wasn’t on my shopping list, I’m looking around the house for things to sell.

We also differ drastically in how we keep track of our finances. My husband hasn’t kept a checkbook register in…forever.  Literally never has. Money comes in, some goes out, some stays…he’s good with that vague sense of awareness.

Not me. I work out our bills and chart our monthly/yearly savings goals down to the penny – with no less than 5 calculator windows open on my computer at a time. In fact, I’ve already got us mapped out for 2014. And if there is a seventy-five cent difference in where we are and where I thought we’d be, well, let’s just say the kids know where the emergency smelling salts are stashed.

And that’s not to say that he’s not an excellent financial planner; thankfully for my sometimes part-time, sometimes no-time working ass, his financial wisdom is always on point. He’s just so much less panicked about it than I am, which makes me jealous, which then pisses me off. So what’s the moral of the story? Saving money is great and definitely a wise decision in these uncertain economic times, but sometimes Mama needs her hand-knotted throw pillows, and everyone’s gonna have to just deal, okay?