The Twins, They've 'Come of Age'

Okay, here are the deets on why I've been in cone of blogging silence in this space: I've been super-busy helping The Eldest Boy and The Girl prepare for their Coming of Age ceremony -- and their accompanying service projects -- at our local Unitarian Universalist church. In the Unitarian Universalist (UU) church, the Coming of Age ceremony is like a low-key confirmation or a waaaay extremely mellow bat/bar mitzvah when the kids reach at 13, although the ceremony only happens once a year, regardless of the dates of the kids' birthdays.

What did this "Coming of Age" stuff entail? Each kid had to select one of the seven Unitarian Universalist principles that resonated with him or her then design a public service project to go along with it and write a speech to be delivered in front of the congregation. Mommy got to be alongside them through it all with the exception of prepping the Power Point presentations, which The Spouse handled.

The Girl immediately seized upon the principle related to the "interdependent web" of life and decided to research and support no-kill animal shelters. Our resident animal lover used our rescue dog Max (see above when he was a puppy), whose litter was originally found in the trash, as her inspiration.

We twice visited Buddy Dog, a local animal shelter that's been in operation for decades, for the first time on Valentine's Day. The Girl interviewed Buddy Dog's director, gathered info about shelters in general and toured the facility. She then organized a pet supply drive through our church to benefit the shelter. It was during our second visit when, while dropping off donations that we saw the puppy that we very nearly adopted but alas, did not. (I'm not dropping the second dog subject though, especially now that Coming of Age is over.) Thus supporting no-kill rescue shelters to help dogs and cats who've been abandoned through no fault of their own became the theme of The Girl's Coming of Age speech.

The Eldest Boy selected the second principle about "justice, equity and compassion in human relations." Inspired by an extremely sad image he'd seen of a malnourished Kenyan toddler in the Wall Street Journal (see above), he decided that he wanted to do something to help hungry children in Africa. He became quite passionate about the subject.

So we, the Picket Fence Post family trekked down to New York City to the Unitarian Universalist Association's United Nation's office during the February school vacation and met with the man who runs the Unitarian Universalist Association's program, Every Child is Our Child, that helps orphaned children in Ghana with food, clothing, health care and an education. Thus The Eldest Son became an advocate to our congregation for this program, which became the focal point of his Coming of Age essay. (The kid wrote a compelling plea for donations. He's got a way with persuasive writing I tell ya, though I'm not always keen on him training his persuasive arguments on me.)

Prior to the kids' speeches, The Spouse and I had to "introduce" them to the congregation. We divided the duties with The Spouse introducing The Eldest Boy and me introducing The Girl. Our goal was to try to not get too emotional because, in the past, I've teared up watching other parents present their children and I didn't want to start blubbering. (I was stressed out so starting to blubber was a distinct possibility when you're talking about your child entering youth adulthood.) The Spouse and I made it through our speeches dry-eyed, but our relatives later told us that they were grabbing for tissues. (I didn't notice that because I was trying not to drop the microphone or flub my lines.)

Couple the public service component and the speeches with preparing a tri-fold display board for each child which photographically traced The Eldest Boy and The Girl's 13 years (this is where I needed my tissues, both for the passage of time AND for the fact that I suddenly realized that I hadn't printed out any family photos since 2009 and had to pay a rush shipping fee to get hard copies of the photos) and feeding our immediate family at our house afterward and the past week was kind of a blur.

Today I had planned on decompressing from all the excitement and actually working on some writing, but those plans were thwarted by a medical issue with my other child (the one who has asked me to refrain from writing about him on the internet). Suffice is to say that it's been very dramatic here.

Nonetheless, with the Coming of Age projects and ceremony behind us, I'm hoping to resume my regular blogging schedule, that and to actually exhale. I can't even imagine how stressful it must be for parents of children having a bar or bat mitzvah. The twins have been to a couple of them already and they were both very well done. (The Pajama Diaries comic has recently featured a humorous storyline about bat mitzvah planning.) Luckily, the UU Coming of Age isn't as involved as all of that.

Image credit for second photo: Rebecca Blackwell for the Associated Press via Wall Street Journal.

Quick Hits: Clothes Shopping Hell, Oodles of Braces & No Second Dog (Yet)

Clothes Shopping Hell

The Picket Fence Post kids keep doing this growing this, lately in giant, sudden spurts. The amount of time in which they have to wear their clothes before they turn into high-waters or become so tight that they look like something the Hulk might wear seems to be shrinking. It seems like we're buying new shoes and cleats constantly. The boys' pants aren't worn enough to get rips in the knees.

Thus I took the three kids to Old Navy this week in order to pick up some inexpensive shirts and sports shorts, given that they said, "Nothing fits anymore!" It proved to be bad timing. Did every other mother with kids home for spring vacation have the same idea? The place was mobbed. Between following my offspring around to make sure they picked out the right sizes and nothing too expensive (or inappropriate, like 2-inch long shorts that the store was peddling to girls), it got chaotic, prompting me to start sweating and my patience to evaporate, which is why I think was of the kids who shall remain nameless, was able to sneak in a Lakers shirt without me realizing it. I'm not much of a shopper anyway, so having to go clothes shopping with three children in a packed store . . . well, let's say I'd rather have my teeth cleaned.

The spring shopping excursion then led to another one of my least favorite tasks, one I avoid as much as possible: Going through the kids' clothing to find items that no longer fit, determining which items can be passed down to someone else and making the kids try on certain items, even when they swear that they didn't fit when, in reality, they're just trying to get rid of the unwanted item so I can no longer bug them about why they don't wear it any more. (When I make them take the item back, they resort to cramming it in the back of a drawer hoping I won't see it until another clothing purge session.)

And we didn't even have an open bottle of wine in the house.

By the time all the sorting and shouting was completed, and after I'd uttered my version of "money doesn't grow on trees" and "do you know how much these clothes cost?" parenting classics, we all so needed the laughs that Modern Family afforded us. I love Manny.

Braces, We've Got Braces

Adding insult to the whole shopping debacle was the fact that The Eldest Boy got braces on his lower teeth before our Old Navy trip. Plus, his top braces were tightened. The kid was in some serious pain. And Tylenol didn't really help.

The Girl, meanwhile, was informed that in two months' time the palate expander on the roof of her mouth -- which has been pushing her teeth outward to make more space -- will be removed and replaced with a full set of braces on the upper and lower teeth. Cue the groaning and teenage complaining. Times two.

This ought to be fun: Two pubescents enduring frequent pain in their teeth, begging for milkshakes, soft food and Tylenol. I think I'd better buy the Tylenol by the gross.

No Dog #2 (For Now)

This searching for a second dog is stressing me out.

We've tried several times in the past month to adopt rescue dogs I've seen on PetFinder -- dogs the Picket Fence Post family thinks will fit in nicely and get along with our 3-year-old, 25-pound Max -- but our efforts have thus far been fruitless. We came close last week to getting an adorable Havanese puppy mix (Max is a Havanese/Wheaten mix), but alas, we submitted our application after another nice family who eventually adopted the little guy.

A few days ago, I scared the pants off of The Spouse when, after bringing some donations to a local dog shelter with The Girl, I wound up placing a $25 deposit on a puppy with whom The Girl absolutely fell in love. She'd insisted on returning to the puppy area multiple times, after I said it was time to go, and snuggled with this one adorable, silken puppy. Although I can now admit that the puppy, whose lineage is unknown, would grow to be a fairly large dog, larger than what The Spouse and I had agreed upon, I was in a vulnerable place having lost out on the other puppy last week. I foolishly acceded to The Girl's request to put a 24-hour hold on the puppy and even allowed myself to begin thinking of names for her.

However when I showed The Spouse photos and a video of the dog, he said aloud what I was thinking but didn't want to admit: The cuddly dog would be bigger than we wanted. I sheepishly followed The Spouse up to The Girl's bedroom and informed her that we wouldn't be adopting the puppy. I think I took it harder than she did.

I've decided to stop trolling the PetFinder web site for a while. I need a break.

Image credit: PetFinder.

Quick Hits: Sexism in Sports, 'Miss Representation' DVD & Dog #2?

Women Athletes Should Get Paid More, So Says The Girl

I'm so proud of my burgeoning feminist gal. She was recently assigned to write a persuasive essay for her Language Arts class. The Girl selected a topic near and dear to her heart: Women's sports.

In particularly, she wants to make the argument that female professional athletes, as well as those who coach them, should get paid more money and get more media attention. She settled on her topic days after we watched the NCAA basketball championship when Baylor beat Notre Dame and she was ticked to find that the following day, there was hardly any media attention paid to the women's championship as compared to the amount of coverage devoted to the men's championship.

After I gave her a recent New York Times article about the appalling, yawning gap between the financial compensation for coaches of men's NCAA hoop teams versus women's teams, she was all fired up to write her essay. Can't wait to read it.

'Miss Representation' DVD

Speaking of feminism . . . remember a while back when I wrote a post about the disturbing documentary Miss Representation about the damaging impact of media sexism on girls? Well it has now been released on DVD.

I've ordered a copy for The Picket Fence Post house and plan to watch it with The Girl. I'll report back here on her reaction. Given her anger over how women's sports are trivialized in comparison to men's sports, the documentary will likely galvanize her.

Dog #2?

I've submitted an application for the Picket Fence Post family to adopt a rescue dog who's 3-4 months old. Everyone -- even the reluctant Spouse who thinks adding a second dog is lunacy but has nonetheless given his blessing to this endeavor -- fell in love with the little guy after we saw a video of him online.

However we're second in line behind another family who submitted their application before us. We should know this week if The Picket Fence Post family is about to be catapulted into swift action in preparation for a new arrival, or whether the pup will find happiness in a different home. We shall see.

Image credit: Amazon.

Jonesing (Again!) for Another Cute Canine

It was the perfect storm with which to rekindle my dormant interest in adopting doggie number two, on Valentine's Day, of all days.

During Valentine's Day afternoon, I took The Girl to a local animal shelter as part of a service project she's working on for church. As part of the tour of the shelter, we got to see where all the animals who are available for adoption are kept and met the critters, big and small, young and old. It was then that I became interested in an absolutely adorable 7-year-old mutt of a thing and a three-month-old, energetic mutt puppy who would likely be a ton of work. I then had the powerful urge to do something completely out of character for me: Impulsively take one of those furry balls of love home.

Some context: The Spouse and I have prided ourselves on having a cooperative partnership. We almost always check in with one another and discuss -- ad nauseum sometimes -- big decisions, purchases, etc. Well, almost all of the time. There was one instance when The Spouse bought a flat screen TV for his home office/man cave without speaking with me beforehand. He just showed up at home with it. On another occasion, he placed a bid on an Orlando vacation rental at a charity auction (and won a week at the rental) without first sending me a quick text about his bid. But other than those two pricey examples, over the course of nearly 20 years, we've made the bulk of our decisions together.

As for this whole second dog thing, it's been an on-and-off discussion which I've spearheaded for some time, a subject upon which I get all hot and bothered for while, then something happens (like Max eating baking chocolate and almost dying) when I can't envision how hard it would be to have two dogs, plus two parents with careers and three kids with all their various and sundry activities and I'll drop the notion like a bad habit. But inevitably, the interest will build again and I'll say over dinner, "I think Max is lonely. He'd really like a friend." The Spouse typically humors me. He not-too-subtly ignores the listings for rescue dogs that I e-mail him on occasion as he waits for me to drop the matter.

I really didn't want to drop it yesterday though. I wanted to go rogue as I looked at those two dogs and imagined one of them playing with good old Maxie boy, whose hair is still way too shaggy. (Mental note: Book a groomer's appointment ASAP.) But I didn't act impulsively. I restrained myself and simply thanked the woman who ran the shelter and headed home with The Girl.

However that night -- after enjoying a candlelit dinner with the family, comprised mostly of stuff I'd just picked up at the grocery store -- I couldn't find anything in the vein of a romantic comedy or a plain old romance (because it was Valentine's Day) on TV, and happened upon the Westminster Dog Show. And when that Purina ad (see above) was aired repeatedly throughout the broadcast, I got all sappy, cuddled my non-show mutt of a dog and entertained some more rogue thoughts about going back to that shelter.