It’s Love Thursday today!

I love the Fall season. I haven’t loved THIS year’s season as much as I normally might because it’s been raining so frequently which leads to dampness and chills and sitting inside. Overall though, Fall is my favorite season of all. I love the leaves changing colors and I love the way they crunch under my feet when I walk after they’ve fallen to the ground. I love the way Hayley picks up leaves on our walks and brings them home so that she can give them to George or decorate my desk with them.

I love the crisp feeling in the air and the need for thick sweaters or light jackets, and maybe even a scarf for good measure but without the ridiculous amount of layers and boots that winter calls for. I love the squash that’s in season, the pumpkins that people put out on their front steps, and the apple pies and apple crisps that taste so good on a chilly afternoon.

I love running aorund the park or hiking through the woods without overheating like you can so easily do in the summer months. I love the way the sun shines brightly without making you break into a sweat and the way the clouds make the sky more interesting without the threat of snow. I love taking my girls outside in this wonderful season.

Two girls, one rock, one edge of the woods, lots of fallen leaves.

One little girl who loves sitting on the grass to play with the fallen leaves.

I am utterly in awe of the beautiful art and magical words created by French Toast Girl.

Chantal knows that no one is ever as sick a man is.

Today was George’s birthday. He’s a big ol’ 44 years old now. Doesn’t look it, does he?

While he was at work today, I helped Hayley make a card because she loves that. She drew a picture of our family and I used photo corners to stick it to the front. Then she wrote Dad on top and Happy Birthday on the bottom. I put red tempera paint on her hands and got her to put her handprints on the inside, then I used blue to do the same with Breanna. I wrote High Fives! across the top, and then Hayley signed both their names.

She had a great time. I think Breanna was traumatized, because although she didn’t cry, she sast and stared in horror at her blue hands until I washed them off.

I was inspired by Chantal who just posted recently about her own husband’s birthday and listed 20 reasons that she loves him. Thus, on this festive day, 20 totally random and possibly goofy reasons that I love George.

1. He tolerates my age jokes (my favorite still being the time I told him that when he say Star Wars in theaters at age 15, I didn’t see it because I was only three years old).
2. He has a sense of humor that sends me into hilarity.
3. Despite the fact that I consistently leave at least 3 cups in the bedroom, he hasn’t made me move out yet.
4. He rubbed my back for two straight hours while I was in transitional labor with Hayley.
5. When I told him I felt like I might need to push while in labor with Breanna, he didn’t say a word but just sped up a little more since we were in the car and still about 15 minutes from the hospital.
6. He brought “The Family Guy” to my life and between Stewie and next door neighbor Joe, I now have an endless supply of stupid-yet-hilarious one-liners in my repertoire.
7. Despite the fact that we’ve been together for over seven and a half years now, he still thanks me for supper every single night.
8. In fact, he thanks me whether I made some delicious meal like Moussaka that takes a lot of time in the kitchen or whether I made hot dogs and french fries.
9. One time I was really half asleep but thought I’d make him pancakes for breakfast anyway. In my delirium I accidentally used baking soda instead of baking powder which resulted in beautiful pancakes that tasted like burnt ass. And he ate every single one on his plate without a word because he didn’t want to hurt my feelings.
10. He recorded four songs that I co-wrote back when he did his album.
11. He also wrote something awesome about me in the liner notes.
12. He regularly brings home chips or a chocolate bar for me just because he knows I like them.
13. He boosts my self-confidence when I really need it.
14. He constantly says that I draw so well when he sees things I’ve doodled while drawing with Hayley. I really can’t draw that well, trust me, but he makes me sound like Van Gogh (without the missing ear).
15. He isn’t afraid to be silly with the kids.
16. After this much time together we still haven’t run out of things to talk about.
17. He listens to me talk about stuff on TV that he doesn’t watch and doesn’t care about. For instance, he says he hates my soap opera but he knows who everyone is and occasionally asks me what so and so is doing (of course he regrets asking when I immediately launch into a ten-minute detailed explanation).
18. He only mocks me minimally when he catches me crying at television shows or movies.
19. He shares my raunchy sense of humor so he laughs at my lame and often inappropriate jokes.
20. Dude, he’s hot.

Hayley with her cake, truly in her element.

Hayley took this picture of me with Breanna.

Breanna clapping for George’s birthday.

And Breanna decided that her dad’s birthday was the perfect time to give me a heart attack by learning to climb the stairs.

So last night I was watching “CSI: Miami”, as I do every Monday night at 10 pm (and I always feel like I should apologize to my sister for that because of her intense hatred for David Caruso, but I can’t help but love Horatio even with all the overdramatic flair). George was doing some work on a song down the hall, so he only came in halfway through. With crime shows, you can’t just pop in at the 30-minute mark and expect to know what’s going on. On top of that, all three CSI shows have been experimenting with weird camera angles and bizarre shots to make things a little, I don’t know, edgier.

George: This episode of CSI is like watching Seinfeld.
Sherry: What do you mean?
George: It’s just a show about nothing.
Sherry: It’s not about nothing, all this stuff ties in together.
George: It’s about nothing.
Sherry: That’s not true, you just missed the first half and have no idea what’s going on.
George: Whatever.

*Calleigh and the father of a victim are standing in a cemetary. The background grass, trees, and tombstones are heavily, HEAVILY oversaturated.*

George: And what the HELL is up with all these stupid shots? First the split screen crap, and now this.
Sherry: Actually, I was just thinking, wow, that’s some cool saturation effect right there.
George: What is that? Did Jerry Bruckheimer take the day off? This is like the Aaron Sorkin on mushrooms shot.
Sherry: Really? I think it’s cool.
George: MUSHROOMS.
Sherry: I thought it kind of had that “Six Feet Under” look to it.
George: Hmm.
Sherry: You know, except without all the wild gay sex over the hood of a car in a dark alley stuff.

I have a story that I wanted to share, even though it’s only partially mine. I asked my sister if she minded since it’s also about her and she said it was okay. I’m glad because it’s something that has been simmering in my brain for awhile, between the knowledge that Hayley starts school next year and the near-constant news stories about shootings and horror in school halls.

I don’t remember exactly when it all happened but I do know that I was 18 because I remember being aware that had things gone down differently, I could have wound up in jail because I was an “adult”, at least in the legal sense. That means Amanda would have been 13. When she was going to school, she shared her classes with many very nice kids and with one very horrible bitch named Jennifer. Jennifer was constantly mean to my sister, mostly just in that horrifying non-physical yet still really destructive verbal and emotional way that girls have a great knack for. She had her own little pack of peons friends and in that girl-pack manner they would bully anyone who was not a part of their special group. As far as I know, Amanda mostly ignored them since she had her own friends; at least she wasn’t that one loner who gets stuck eating lunch all alone so she did have a support group. You’d really have to ask her though to know how much it all affected her; we weren’t as close at that point in our lives so maybe it hit her harder than I know.

What I do know is that one day Jennifer started being nice to Amanda. No one really knew why but my sister being the person she is didn’t question it and accepted her as a friend. Jennifer lived on the same street as us, one block down, and one day – I guess it was a weekend – she invited Amanda to come over to play. Off she went, down the street to play. Once she got there, Jennifer had some of her little posse bitches friends over as well and they started pushing my sister around, bullying her and taunting her. It ended with Amanda getting trapped inside Jennifer’s closet and getting hit over the head.

I was home when Amanda arrived at our door in tears, spilling the details of what had happened. Before she had completely finished the story my shoes were already on. My mother tried calling after me, but I was already out the door and halfway down the street. I do have a vague recollection of my mother coming down the stairs, calling, “Sherry! Sherry, stop, come back!” but she would have needed to physically restrain me by then because although Amanda and I weren’t what you would call friends back then, she was my sister, my little sister and someone had hurt her and all I cared about then was that someone needed to get hurt in return. As I ran down the block, I knew very well that a legal adult punching a minor was going to lead to me being in serious trouble with the police if someone filed charges but I truly didn’t care.

Luckily for Jennifer and her little cronies, they were idiots but they weren’t stupid so they had fled the house as soon as Amanda left. By the time I arrived they were long gone but her father was there, so instead of pounding on someone, I angrily spat out what had happened. I’m pretty sure that obscenities were involved. I do know that sometime during our supper, Jennifer and her father arrived at our door so that she could deliver a forced – and fake – apology.

Of course, I’m not 18 anymore, so I no longer have any desire to go punch Jennifer in her face. On the other hand, if she ever decides to go and google herself, I’d like to say:

Hi Jennifer Taylor, you little snot! I’m sure you’ve matured over the years, so I am glad that I didn’t actually beat the crap out of you. However, I would still love to hear that you went on to, I don’t know, maybe contract a raging case of genital herpes or something. Karma’s a bigger bitch than you! It’s an even bigger bitch than me!

Anyway. The reason that I think about this sometimes is because that knee-jerk reaction that I had 14 years ago scares me now that my own kids are here. As a parent I can’t go and thwack some kid in the side of the head if they hit Hayley when she goes to school. It’s just not an acceptable reaction. And yet I challenge any parent who has a kid who came home crying after being bullied to honestly tell me that they didn’t have the urge to do exactly that.

Somehow I need to find a way to protect my children from bullies. Somehow I have to find a way to make sure neither of my girls BECOMES a bully. I need to teach them to be those kids who aren’t on either end of the bullying spectrum. I don’t even know where to begin. I have a book about it, but I don’t know if any one book can really help. I know that I have to just do the best that I can to make sure they both know that they can come to me or to George and talk to us and that we will react in a positive way (which does not involve acts of impulse like that day 14 years ago). All we can do is our best and hope that it’s good enough.

At least I still have almost a whole year before Hayley starts school and before I have to worry about it. Hopefully I can come up with a plan that will help by then. It may require taking up deep breathing for me. How DO you protect your kids and also make sure they don’t become the kind of person you want to protect them from, without also scaring the holy shit out of them, AND also managing to keep yourself from developing an ulcer? Parenting is the scariest and most responsibility-laden job I have ever had.

Sheesh. I guess I’m a little ill-prepared for the coming winter. This afternoon I took the girls to the park. They were both wearing pants (duh), t-shirts, long-sleeve shirts, and coats. I also put a hat on Breanna. I wasn’t wearing a sweater, just a t-shirt under my coat, but I also wore my Harry Potter Slytherin scarf (god, I must admit my inner dork is happy to have an excuse to wear that again, and some day I really must finish my Gryffindor scarf too).

It was still freezing. It’s only 8C out there. In fact we’ve been home for almost 20 minutes and Breanna is sitting here on my lap and her hands are still little blocks of ice; next time I’ll have to put her little mitts on too.

I’m not looking forward to another long winter.

Happy (chilly) Friday the 13th!

So, just out of curiosity, does anyone reading me need a design for their site or blog? A logo? Business cards? Because in case you weren’t aware, I do all those things and more and I also just did an overhaul on my design site. If you think you could use something along those lines, take a look and let me know. I know that I have a site design coming up but she’s not quite ready yet so my schedule is open at the moment.

Jesus. Aircraft crashes into Manhattan high-rise. It’s still being called an accident and not terrorism, but that doesn’t make it any less scary.

Sometimes you do something and you think it’s going to be a great idea and then later you wonder what in the hell you were thinking. I did exactly that the other day.

Hayley loves jokes. She’s especially enamored of knock-knock jokes and she’s pretty good at remembering all the different punchlines for them. I decided out of the blue that I should teach her a regular joke, one that was guaranteed to make a four-year-old laugh.

Q. Guess what?
A. Chicken butt!

Say the word “butt” to a four-year-old and it is almost impossible that she won’t laugh hysterically. As expected, Hayley fell to the floor, laughing with ginormous guffaws. It was a hit. In fact, it was so incredibly funny to her that the first few times she tried to say it herself, she couldn’t because she would dissolve into giggles halfway through. The only thing that has ever made her laugh that hard with any regularity is anything to do with farting.

The downside to this new favorite joke is that for the past three or four days, I have had “CHICKEN BUTT!” yelled at me at least eight billion times after I wearily ask, “what?” to the question. It’s getting a bit old now, but apparently out of the two of us, I’m the only one who thinks so; she still thinks it’s the funniest thing ever.

Chicken butt.