Name them one by one...

Hello.

We celebrated David’s 14th birthday yesterday. And birthdays are just one more thing that I don’t do very well so it was a rather sad little affair, with one of my traditionally pathetic-looking cakes. Fortunately, 14-year-old boys seem to mainly care about the presents...and he got his Ipod Touch...so he was a happy camper.

But the highlight of the day for me was when we forced him to go out to eat with us, and while we were eating we decided to "bless" him. Which sounds weird, I know, but the "blessing" used to be one of our family traditions and while it is now defunct, basically it involved my mom forcing us to gather around and say nice things about each of her grandchildren, as they turned 13. We gave them "the blessing" so to speak. Of course, most of us thought it was a BLESSING when we stopped having the blessings, because it was supposed to be serious and my family doesn’t do serious too well. And none of us look or sound cute when we cry, so it was just one giant mess of a time. But when all was said and done, I think most of the kids liked it and I know my mom loved it, so I don’t know why we all griped so much about it, except that griping is one thing we do well.

So at Pizza Hut last night, the five of us decided to revisit the tradition. We all said our piece (actually Rachel and Dave said a bit more than their piece) and it wasn’t so bad, and I think David liked it. Everyone had something nice to say...and no one seemed to be making anything up (like in the old days). And it didn’t get too maudlin since it was buffet night, and sometimes in the middle of a speech, a Pizza Hut employee would bring out a new pizza and we would all have to jump up and run to beat the other diners to get our share.

And incidentally, it was a bit easier to come up with some good stuff for the blessing since we had just come from parent teacher conferences, where the kid got good reviews. The choir teacher actually told us, "I don’t know what I’d do without him," which we found strange until she added that he’s one of the only middle-school boys who can sing baritone. But everyone else said nice things as well. This was not surprising because our fall conferences for David are always very cordial. It's not until the spring conferences that things get ugly...where the teachers unanimously recommend a muzzle for him because he talks too much.

Okay, enough about the birthday boy. Let’s move on to the girls.

Due to some scheduling issues at the high school, Emily had to be moved out of her conditioning class and into a fashion marketing class. So no more sweatin’ to the oldies for her. Now she has to learn about fashion design. And rumor has it that this class will go to Dallas in the spring for a field trip...where they will be forced to attend fashion shows, get pedicures and eat at Wolfgang Puck’s Five-Sixty restaurant. Once again, I marvel at the changing face of education. We never went much further than the planetarium 20 miles down the road for our field trips. Except that one year when the art club went to Branson and we slept in sleeping bags in tents which were pitched on very rocky ground, and this was during the coldest weekend in October. That was one miserable weekend, but I guess I was getting what I deserved since I never took an art class and only joined the art club so I could go on the trip.

But back to Emily. She is busy practicing her dances for Senior night (she’s doing two for some reason) and I am dreading the whole night since it’s going to be cold, and sad, and my only consolation is that my brother and his family are supposed to be coming to visit. But I am feeling sort of guilty about that too because I think he thinks he has to "pay me back" so to speak because I went to see his son play ball when he was a senior. And I hope he knows I don’t think watching my daughter dance and prance about in a cheerleading uniform is the same as watching his son actually play football. Not that I don’t whole-heartedly believe that cheerleading is a sport. It’s just not a sport like football.

And one last note on Emily. Last night she watched Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? with Dave and me and she giggled through the whole thing even though we’ve seen it a hundred times. And then she came to kiss me goodnight and sat down on the bed and started talking about this and that...and I finally had to tell her to go to bed sometime after midnight. And then I felt bad because I know she’s not going to be able to hang out and talk to me late into the night for very much longer. So this mother of a senior thing is getting to be a real hassle.

I better write about Rachel and Dave and the basement next time, because this post is getting out of hand lengthwise. Dave won't mind because he doesn't like to read anyway. And I don’t suppose Rachel will mind either, since she can't be BOTHERED to read my blog. Which really hurts since I know she reads a lot of other drivel, as evidenced by the titles on her bookshelf.

And for lunch today, I had some Kraft mac and cheese, and a fortune cookie I found at the bottom of my purse from last time we ate at Pei-Wei.

Much love,

Shelley