1 post tagged “step-parents”
I didn't think that I did much of anything this weekend...until I started to write about it. It was a three-day weekend for my kids (Monday was an 'observance day'...observance of what? The moon? The fact that I don't like to get up at 6:15 a.m. on school days? A day in which someone could stand and 'observe' the difference in me when I don't have to roll out of bed until 9:00 a.m. or so? ) Oh! Maybe if my kids 'Googled' it they would find out that it was actually a Jewish Holiday! And that it might carry some meaning about why they had the day off from school. But instead, the state/country keeps these things shrouded in mystery so as not to mix 'church and state'. Of course, it's perfectly okay for our President to talk about 'thanking the good Lord' and such. Just don't tell the kids why they're getting a day off...they may be exposed to diversity...'Heaven forbid'!
Okay, 'nuf said about that.
Friday after school I took my ten-year-old over to one of her best friends house for a sleep over. Her mom just had a baby a week and a half ago, so I of course went in hogged the baby all for myself. What a cutie-pie.
It was so nice to cuddle with a newborn. And then it hit me...I felt old. My youngest 'baby' is now a few months past her tenth birthday, and my oldest 'baby' will be seventeen next week! Of course, I'll be turning forty on Wednesday, which doesn't help matters much. You'd think the fact that my husbands kids each had babies this past year would have put me over the edge as far as feeling old, especially when people say, "Wow! You're a GRANDMA!". But the truth of the matter is, I'm only a Step-Grandma. Not that I love them any less. I love them like crazy, but, my husband being eighteen years older then me, his kids were already in their twenties when I met them. So I never referred to them as my "Step-children", because they were already adults. And they have a Mom and the babies have two Grandmas. So I sign our cards, Love Dad and 'D' or Love Grandpa and 'D'. We (unfortunately) don't see much of any of them, so when we do get to see them, it's more like we're spending time with 'R's' kids and the babies. But seeing that baby this weekend...well...I guess that feeling 'old' really isn't the right word. I just felt, different. Because I really don't feel old. But I don't feel young anymore, either. I just feel like I'm in some sort of limbo. Not really fitting in to any one place....strange. But he was beautiful and 'our' newest babies are beautiful too...and they make me smile.
So, I spent Saturday chauffering my fourteen-year-old and her friends from one house to another and then finally just with my daughter and her best friend, we stopped at a local 'street fair' where we managed to purchase a few really cool pieces of jewelry and the girls ran into a few of their friends.
Next, we made the trek to a nearby apple orchard that we've visited the past few years. Sometimes we pick apples, other times we're lame and just buy the apples that they've already picked and purchase a few other yummies from their country store. But the one constant is our love of the fresh, hot donuts. OMG, they are so good. And this is coming from someone who does not touch a donut 364 days out of the year (because really...HOLY FAT CONTENT!!) but just one day in Oct. I feel that I can say "screw the fat!", because these are that good. HOWEVER...
Upon arrival at the orchard, I decided that it was just NOT going to be one of those 'picking' days...seeing that it had just rained for two days straight and I was not going to chance taking the car mud bogging amongst the apple trees...so we said "So what! We'll just pick up big bags of apples from the 'already picked' bins...besides...we're really here for the donuts!" And then we discovered some disturbing yet exciting news...the place had new owners. Mmm...this news could go either way. It could be bad (very bad!) if they didn't have the delicious donuts BUT...they had added a few cool things, one being a huge corn maze. (I didn't care one bit about the corn maze; I could close my eyes and spin around in the parking lot and be lost for hours, without paying eight bucks!) but the girls were psyched to try it out. So, we went forward with an open mind. The place looked a little different...they didn't seem to have as many pumpkins as before and they had moved things around a bit. The good news, however, was that the donut line was waaaaaayyyyyy long. And I'm not saying that was good news because I just love to stand in line with a bunch of strangers for an hour so that I can get some donuts. I was just thinking that with a line that long, the donuts must still be very yummy. I hoped. Or maybe all of the people were also returnees from past years and just as clueless as we were. Either way, we decided to go do a little shopping in the 'country store' thing they have. I've always loved it. In the past. Unfortunately, the past is what 'was' and the present is what 'is' and the present wasn't looking so good seeing as they took most everything out of the cute country store! It was very disappointing. Most disappointing of all was the fact that the couple of apple bins that they had in there were practically empty! Any way, we bought absolutely nothing inside so I decided that I'd at least go stand in the two-mile long line to get us some donuts, while the girls went wandering around with my camera.
Par for the course, my place in line was behind a biker guy and in front of a family from the city. It was entertaining, to say the least! The icing on the cake was that when I finally got up to the front of the line (after at least 45 minutes), I ordered our cinnamon sugar covered donuts and the woman goes to the back....and comes back empty handed. "Uh, I'm reallyy sorry, but we only have plain left." WTF? Plain? Plain! I waited forty-five friggin' minutes to get fat-laden, once-a-year, cinnamon sugar covered donuts and they RUN OUT (of what? Cinnamon and sugar? How can you run out of cinnamon and sugar? It's not like they make them with the cinnamon and sugar inside of them. It goes on after they come out of the fryer!) So yeah, just my luck, the biker dude got the last of my donuts. So, what was going to be a dozen and a half purchase (not just for us! I was going to take some home for the rest of the crew...I'm not that far gone!) turned out to be an order of six. They were pretty good, because they were all hot and steamy...but they weren't OMG! these are soooo good! like they would have been if they had the cinnamon and sugar on them. I'm better off for it, actually, since I only ate one. 'A', however, was feeling mighty p.o.'ed.
Then...for the final topper of the trip to Sucky Orchards (as we're now referring to it), the girls went to get tickets for the corn maze, only to discover that they stop selling tickets two hours before closing! Soooo....yeah.
After our adventure at the orchard, I decided to really torture the girls with a trip to the Wholesale Club near us that we belong to. Of course my daughter managed to finagle a book, a three-pack of camis and a hooded sweatshirt (with the breast-cancer logo on it) out of me before the end of the shopping trip. (Yeah, I know, I actually tortured myself by bringing them along!) And all of this was AFTER she mortified me in the 'Incontinence' isle, (which also carries vitamins, which I was shopping for) when she loudly asked, "Mom! Do you want to get these?" I looked up to find her halfway down the isle, holding up a wharehouse sized case of Depends. "Um, no, I don't need those yet, but thanks!", I replied. And shortly thereafter, when I apologized for running over her friends foot with my cart she replied, loudly, "That's why none of my friends ever want to come over!" The woman next to us apparently thought that it was funny since she proceeded to break out into laughter. (I wouldn't encourage her...seriously!)
We then went home and brought in all of our purchases, which brings me to the Flava-Flav portion of the post. (You know you were wondering how he could possibly fit in to my weekend.) I'll tell you how. While we were putting away the groceries, the girls put on VH-1 which was airing a few episodes of the ridiculous "Flavor of Love" show. Have you ever watched it? I hadn't either (although I do admit to a few sick weeks, a while back, watching him and Brigette Neilson on the 'Surreal World') but I had seen previews of it here and there and I was always all "yeah, like I'd ever watch that crap..." Which, of course, is exactly what I did...for an hour and a half! Even after the girls left and went downstairs to watch it in A's bedroom. I even got to the point where I was calling down to her on the intercom, "Did you see that? She's craazzzyy!" I couldn't help myself. It's like driving past an accident and slowing down, not because you want to be careful not to hurt anyone else, but because you have this sick interest in seeing something so that later you can say "ewwww! it was sooo gross, why did I look?" And that's pretty much what I said after the show(s) ended.
Unfortunately, I have a feeling that if I'm ever channel surfing past that car-wreck of a show again, I'll probably find myself slowing down to get a closer look.
