We're Clearly Doing Something Right

My brother-in-law remarked to my sister the other day that if their kids hate them, clearly they must be doin something
right. She said that she's going to print that up and stick
it on the refrigerator.
And now that his comment has reached my ears, I must say,
Dude is on to something. I hear all the time from my elder
teenager that I am hated. Of course, it's usually just after
he gets sent to his room for being disrespectful or hitting
someone or calling someone an insulting name involving a
specific part of the human anatomy.
Speaking of disrespect, my 11 yr old is now telling me as
I type this that if I "continue to treat" him the way I have been (read: demanding respect or he spends time in his room), then he's going to run away from home! I wonder if there is a respectful way for me to offer to pack his bags.
Probably not. Instead, I'll choose to just ignore the remark.
I keep trying to encourage them to use real words to discuss their issues but they prefer the slap-down/cry hysterically method. One slaps down a sibling who proceeds
to cry hysterically. The result usually involves loss of
computer priveleges or ability to play outside. The fighting
levels are starting to go down a bit, even though the "I-hate-you's" are going up. So, I'm thinking David's correct
that clearly, we must be doing something right.

Teenagers, Lessons, and My Hellish Day

My apologies if I sound like a broken record
with my needle stuck on the lyric "teens suck."
But it's true. This is absolutely the most horrible
experience I've ever gone through. (Mom, I'm so
sorry for any hair-pulling, anti-depressant down-
ing, top-of-your-lungs screaming I may have put
you through all those years ago.) Ismail has begun
his walk down The Teenage Turnpike a little
earlier than his older siblings. He's not even 11 yet.
Today I went on the balcony to bring in the dry
laundry off the line when some white stuff caught
my eye on my neighbor's balcony (down one floor
in the building next door to ours.) I managed to
focus my non-caffeine-jump-started eyes on the
white stuff and realized it was about 15 to 20
snot-filled tissues. "ISMAIL!" I shouted.
He came out onto the balcony with me and I
asked him about the mess littering my friend's
veranda. He answered with a flip "I dunno." But
I caught a quick glimmer in his eyes before he
looked away. (Tell number 1.) I asked him if he
blew his nose in the tissues and threw them down.
"No, I did NOT," he replied, corners of his mouth
turning up for a nanosecond before scowling again
to show he's shocked at my disbelief. (Tell number
2.) So I looked right in his amber colored eyes and
said, "So, you're telling me that if today was
Judgement Day and you were standing before God
and He asked you about those snotty tissues on
Hayba's balcony you would HONESTLY be able to
answer that you did not do that?" He looked right
at me and said, "Yes (eye shift to the right and down)
I'd be able to answer that I did NOT do it! (mouth
corners up, then down, then eyes up and to the left....
Tells numbered 3, 4, and 5.)
"Go get the broom, dustpan and an empty shopping
bag, NOW!" I got dressed and pushed him ahead of
me to my friend's house. My friend, Hayba, has three
daughters, ages 14, 9 and 5. The oldest has autistic
tendencies and keeps to herself. The two younger ones
are smart-mouthed girl versions of Ismail and LOVE
to antagonize him. In their defense, they did NOTHING
to him....today. I forced him to apologize to Hayba for
littering all over her balcony and then forced him to
go out and sweep it for her.
My brother-in-law saw this when he was coming in
from the street and yelled at him to put that broom
down and what was he? A street-sweeper? And why are
you embarrassing your father like this? Ismail explained
to him that Mom was punishing him because he threw
used tissues all over the neighbor's balcony and she said
that he wouldn't learn his lesson if she apologized for his
behavior and the neighbors don't deserve to touch his
germs. His uncle told him not to ever throw trash off the
balcony again and went upstairs. Ismail went home and
started fighting with his older brother and things just
sort of escalated from there. I'm really too tired and
emotionally drained to relive all of that today. So I won't.
In fact, I was feeling rather depressed about how everyone
around here is going to think I have such a bad son when
I know he's just the posterchild for ADHD and he really
is a good boy.
Then Hayba called me and said that the neighbors
upstairs from her and across the hall all asked why I made
him sweep her balcony. She explained that I force my kids
to be accountable for their mistakes and apologize to those
they wrong. The woman across the hall from Hayba totally
hates me. But even SHE said, "Wow. If all of us did that
with our kids when they are young they'd grow up and be
respectful adults and not throw trash out of their windows
like so many people on this block do." And the woman
upstairs who is really old and cranky said, "Good for her."
Hayba said that she was surprised at their responses because
they are two of the most judgemental people she knows.
That made me feel better.
Maybe I'll survive this ride yet.

Success, Fail, Success, Fail

We had a relatively good day, today. I slept until 11.
I got the laundry in before the lady upstairs beat the
dirt out of her rugs all over it. I sent Hamo and Samiya
to the supermarket to buy the stuff I needed from there
and at the same time, sent Ismail and Aiman to the
open market to buy the produce we needed. Randa and
I enjoyed about 30 minutes of quiet bliss! I had 2 great
cups of coffee and cut and cleaned 2 kilos of okra to
put in the freezer to save myself some work during the
month of Ramadan (starts in about 20 days or so.)
Then things started to go downhill.
The ceiling fan in my bedroom crapped out. Sound
the air-raid sirens...there is NO WAY I'm sleeping with-
out that thing. I can handle no air conditioning. I can
handle making my own ketchup. I can handle life
without Wal*Mart. BUT I NEED MY CEILING FAN!
So, I've planned to swipe the box fan we've been using
in the living room because that ceiling fan has been
running rather slowly. (And yes, I DO know that if I
wipe the 46 pounds of dust off the blades that it'd run
faster...but did YOU know that I'd have to do this
with the fan off and on top of a ladder and well, heat
rises, for crying out loud and I don't want to sweat
that much when I've already got prickly heat!)
Once the temperature goes down about 5 degrees,
I'll clean it off. I promise.
Anyway, I made the kids chicken nugget sandwiches
and chips. I had no intention of cooking today. It was
too hot. And I ate 2 pears instead of that. Come to
think of it, I've not eaten anything else today except
for 1 chicken nugget I tasted and oh yeah, 3 chocolate
chunk cookies that I made for the kids tonight. I know.
I'm just a walking contradiction. Too hot to cook a
nutritious meal but not too hot to bake cookies.
But Randa wanted cookies and just now came in to
tell me, "I'm STILL happy!" That's her way of thanking
me. I love her. She's a great kid. Always honest, too.
Like yesterday when she shouted at me, "EWWW!
Breath stinks!" as I was trying to tell her to please say
hello to her father when he called from overseas.
Well, excuuuuuuuse me. Gave her father a good laugh
anyway.
I didn't get to sew today. OBE once again. (That's
Overtaken By Events, for those of you who've never
worked for the gubmint.) One of these days I'll get to
sew. Maybe. If I could only get over my fear of my new
sewing machine. It scares me. It's got 60 different
stitch choices. And these things called cams so that
you can use the different stitches. But I read the
manual from cover to cover and there is no mention
of what to do with these cams. And I really want to
learn to use this machine. I've got lots of plans for it.
Other than just dusting it every day. Maybe I'll be
able to make myself another dress but in LESS than
a year this time.
Oh and I tried to upload about 60 photos onto
Facebook and it was taking forever. Then after
nearly an hour it only had three photos left. The
boys were outside playing and called me to the
window. Randa was in the shower. So, I ran to the
window to see what the deal was with them and
I swear I wasn't gone from the terminal longer than
four minutes when Randa's radar went off and she
knew I was away from the computer. She wrapped
herself in a towel and ran into my room and clicked
the X in the corner of my window and zapped my
wait time into an hour long waste of time. Oh well.
One more fail to add to my list of failures for the
day. Tomorrow will be better, God willing.
I'll cook. I'll clean...maybe even the ceiling fan
blades. And I won't be baking any cookies. And
perhaps I'll sew. And maybe, just maybe, my teenagers
will all come down with a big, fat case of laryngitis...
non-painful, non-infected of course. And maybe
my husband will hit the lottery and come home next
week. I won't hold my breath...but here's hoping.

This New Jacket is the Perfect Fit!

So, it's 4 o'clock Friday afternoon and I'm STILL
waiting for Hamo to finish eating lunch so that I
can sit next to him and force him to study his
Islamic Studies books for his re-take test scheduled
for TOMORROW. He has the attention span of a
fruit fly on crystal meth.
I swear I'm losing it. Between fussing at Randa
every 5 minutes to turn down the t.v., at Samiya
to stop tattling non-stop, at Hamo to get back in
his room to study, at Ismail to stop teasing Hamo
to the point that he COMES out of his room to kill
him, at the people upstairs who decided to start
smashing their floors in with sledgehammers around
8 o'clock last night until 11:30 and then pick up up
this morning with their annual dwarf-tossing and
furniture juggling contests, I'm on the brink of
sanity.
I think I could've handled things a little better with his
failing his final back in June had I not been blamed for
it. I tried to reason with him and explain that he needs
to take responsibility for his own shortcomings and how
you only get out of things what you put into them, etc.
Then I remembered he's 14 and all he hears is the WAH
WAWAWAWAH sound of Charlie Brown's teacher's
voice when I talk to him. So I went back to the old
"Get your butt in your room and you're grounded
from computer until after you pass your exam with
an A," strategy. He's pissed off, of course. But you know,
when isn't he? He's a teenager. He's ALWAYS pissed
off.
I think the real trick is going to be coming up with
various errands to send Aiman and Ismail on today. If
I can just keep them busy enough, then they won't
fight or tease Hamo giving me just enough quiet to
stuff this vocabulary and memory work into his thick
little head. Don't get me wrong. He's not dumb and
this really isn't that hard. He's just bored of school,
lazy when it comes to study and blames me, the school,
the curriculum, me again, global warming, (fill in the
blank) for his shortcomings in this one subject.
I'm praying that I can make it through the next 24
hours without killing, maiming, or seriously hurting
the feelings of anyone I come across.
Oh, and did you see the picture of my new jacket?
It's just the right size, too!

A Moment of Booze-Free Clarity

I was just sitting here going over a few issues in my mind when I
came to the brutal realization that I've become....a little insecure.
I know! ME? Insecure? Never. I'd have never thunk it either, but it
is true. And this is a first for me. So I may not be handling insecurity
all that well. I'll explain.

If you ask any of my friends, family, acquaintances, high school
pals, former work mates, "What is Nikki like?" I'd be willing to bet
that NONE of them would say I'm insecure. You'd be more apt to
hear words like loud, wild, uninhibited, funny, crazy, short, a legend
in her own mind, and creative. But insecure was something
I could never be. And then a few events in my life left me in a tail
spin. Marriage, children, becoming a Stay-at-Home-Mom.....nah, I
could handle those. My two oldest kids becoming teenagers, however,
has just about sucked the life out of me....and I still have 3 more
teetering on the brink of Teendom. (God help me!)

I've always been just one step shy of "cool." Not quite a dork with
pocket protector and elbow patches, but still acceptable enough to
sell donuts for the junior class during lunch breaks in high school,
and able to give the old "I'm really flattered that you like me" speech
to guys at work who wanted to date me but DID have pocket protectors
and elbow patches. I've always been able to do anything I've set my
mind to do. I wanted to learn to speak Arabic and I have. I always
wanted to travel the world and I have. I wanted to marry a great guy
and have a big family...boy, did I ever! So, what's with the insecurity?

Well, I want to write. I've been talking about writing a book now for
ten years and I just cannot seem to get the flow going. Yeah, I write
all the time on here....but I can't make a book out of a blog. And
then I meet people on the internet like Shauna Glenn and I think,
"Wow. She's younger than me and she's published and she's got
one fewer kids than I do. Why can't I get my stuff together? I should
have even MORE to write about than she does?" And damn if that
little bit of intimidation starts to expand into full blown discouragement.

I know I can write. I know I can make people laugh. And I don't mean
just my friend, LaRonda. Yeah, she has a great sense of humor but
she and her husband have a pest control business. So who knows
what she's been sniffing all day prior to reading my blogs. She may
laugh at anything now, for all I know! (Just kidding, LaRonda. I know
you keep your chem-sniffing to a minimum.) I guess I just had that
moment of clarity where you realize what's been holding you back
from your dreams. So I guess I'd better get my stuff together and
start writing for real.

Life and Death Reasons to Fist Fight OR Why My Kids Woke Me Up Early Today

**Due to over-the-shoulder-editing by one of my kids, I will refer to them in NO
PARTICULAR ORDER as Kid A, Kid 2, PITA, Brat and HeyYou. That way no one
will be able to identify which one irritated the crap out of me most today and Kid
A will get over his complex of having people know stuff about him.***

So I went to bed around 3am after staying up late with my hubby watching a really
lame movie (View From the Top with Gwyneth Paltrow, Christina Applegate,
Candace Bergin, Mark Ruffalo and a cross-eyed Mike Myer.) I got up around 9 to go
to the bathroom and was overjoyed to find the whole house still asleep. Happy, happy,
joy, joy! in the immortal words of Ren and Stimpy. For a brief second, Responsible Me
thought, "Hmmmm. Now would be a good time to get up and hit the vegetable market
with no one to whine "buy me some cookies while you're out" or "can I come????" or
"It's myyyyyyyyyy turn! You alwayyyyyyyyyyyss take PITA with you!" ResponsibleMe
also thought, "you can beat the scorching humid heat, too, if you go now." But then
SelfishNeverPassUpTwoMoreMinutesOfSnoozeTimeMe said, "EFFF THAT! Get your
arse back in bed!" And I did.

An hour and a half later, I heard a body slam against my bedroom door and PITA comes
flying in with a stuffed Clifford the Big Red Dog toy in hand and Kid A hot on his heels,
shrieking. PITA took a running leap across the footboard and bounced off my left ankle,
causing me to sit up in bed and yell, "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING????!!!" Hubby
faked like he didn't hear anything and rolled over because...well, that's what husbands do,
isn't it?

Kid A started screaming, "HE TOOK MY CLIFFORD! It's MINE, I tell you. Baba bought it
for ME! And he TOOK IT right outta my hands!" PITA countered with, "THAT'S A LIE! I
had it first and HEEEE is not sharing with me!" After a few more exchanges like these and
decorated with various insults and bad words, I finally yelled, "GET OUTTA HERE YOU
FIGHTING FREAKS! One more fight over that stupid toy and I'll rip the stuffing out of it
and throw the shell away after burning it!" This, of course, was followed by screams and
wails of "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Exit fighting boys.

Twenty minutes later, I heard another body slam against the door which then slammed
against the wall. Only this time PITA was chasing KidA and both were shouting insults
and bad words at one another and threatening to kill the other. HeyYou came in just as
I closed my eyes and asked for strength. KidA and PITA ran back out to finish brutalizing
one another in a different room. HeyYou climbed up between Hubby and me and I
smacked him on the back of the neck and said, "Look, if you're gonna tease your brother
go get the ass-kickin' you deserve and stay outta my bed!" He cried. It was then I realized
that I truly AM blind as a dingbat without my glasses. Poor HeyYou! He didn't do anything
to deserve that. So I let him cuddle with me and I apologized for smackin' him and then
excused myself to go beat the hell outta his brothers. I took the Clifford toy away from
whichever of the two had it (remember, I couldn't see still, no glasses) and hid it far away
from both of them. (Only HeyYou saw where it went and was sworn to secrecy!)

Then I realized no more sleep for me and both Brat and Kid 2 were on the couch watching
cartoons and waiting for breakfast. So, I got up, made breakfast, returned the toy 9mm
plastic gun with suction cup arrow-type bullets to HeyYou (he'd had that taken away from
him because he kept shooting the tv screen with it, as well as, PITA used the same gun to
shoot KidA in the face when KidA refused to give him a quarter they were fighting over.)
I am in search of vitamins that bring on maturity in teenagers. If anyone has any idea if
Flintstones makes a chewable vitamin that makes teens act their age and wards off tantrums
the likes of which would make 2-year olds shudder, PLEASE e-mail me fast! or leave me
the info in the comments block! Thanks!