We had a blast of a party today for the Superbowl. We invited all of our favorite people (Hello to C and D if you are reading this.), everyone brought a dish to share (Great pate b-t-w), the kids jumped on the trampoline, played ping pong  and everyone took part in the Superbowl pool. The main attraction, however, was the halftime show and  I don’t mean Roger Daltry and the Who. No. I mean our son, Mark and his newly formed rock band who performed in our carport and they were GREAT. ( I’m sure everyone in the neighborhood thought so too.) Paul and I were beaming with pride.

A few weeks ago Mark came to us and asked if he and his bandmates could practice at our house. We said yes, but so far they haven’t since there has been an issue with the transportation of the drum set. I guess those things aren’t so easy to tote around. In any case, we were delighted to hear them play. Mark often plays in his room and we listen through the door, but this was the first time we heard his band play together.

I have to say it was a relief that they were good, although I should not have been surprised. Mark has a real passion for music. In fact, just last week he revealed to us that he has no plans to go to college and is actually looking forward to “living the hard scrabble life of his rock idol Slash.” Can’t begin to tell you how comforting it was to  hear that. Paul and I  took one look at each other and just laughed. Kids, kids, kids. We sat him down on the couch to lecture him on the benefits of going to college and the downside of the hard scrabble life. We certainly didn’t want to talk him out of his dream, especially since he has so much talent, but we wanted to make him understand that in order for him to be in control of his destiny he has to make the choices instead of having choices thrust upon him. We counseled him to do his  best in high school and when the time comes to decide about college, he will have a lot more options than someone who slacked off.  (His last report card was less than stellar.) If he decides he doesn’t want to go to college then the decision will be his. If he  wants to go to college, but can’t get in because of poor grades, then the decision is not his. I made the analogy that it is like going on a job interview you are not sure you want. Go on the interview, give it your best shot and if they offer you the job, then you get to decide if you want it. I think he understood. His driving privileges have been restricted until he pulls up his grades. He’s a smart kid with his head on straight so we are confident he will make the right choices. As for his musical talent: the kid’s got it. If the girls aren’t beating down his door now, they will be soon. And that will be another on-the-couch conversation for sure.

Paul is traveling much less these days and spending more time working from his home office in his study which is furnished with a comfy couch next to a fireplace. I, too, work from home in my art studio, which is in the back of the house. When it rains, Paul lights a fire and I bring my laptop into his study and we work side by side next to the fire.  We both love this new arrangement because not only do we not have to go anywhere, we get to spend more time together. Yesterday was a fairly sunny day, about 65 degrees, so we decided to take a drive up the coast after lunch so that we could go to the dump. Yes, the dump. We had a lot of things to recycle and the Santa Cruz dump is probably the most beautiful dump you will ever see. It is in on a hill top in the middle of farmland with the most stunning, panoramic ocean view. Gorgeous. We recycled all our cardboard and old files and then headed back down the hill where I witnessed my first ever glimpse of a wild turkey crossing the road. Aahh. What a nice afternoon. Dump run, turkey sighting. I just love living in Santa Cruz.

Whew! Wow, what a month this has been. It flew by. I cannot believe it. I just finished my first course, Media Literacy, for my master’s degree in Internet Marketing and I ABSOLUTELY loved it. I think going back to school  was the best decision I ever made. I am learning so much my brain is bursting with creativity. I made my own website on iWeb, a movie about myself on iMovie, set up an iGoogle page and created an avatar in Second Life. The latter of which was way cool. If you have never been to Second Life I highly recommend it. It is virtual reality at its best.

The greatest part of all of this is that this whole experience has brought Paul and me even closer together. We talk endlessly all day (we work together, remember) and into the night about  how we can work what I am learning into our current and future business plans. I have to create a marketing plan for my master’s thesis on a company of my choice so I am doing mine on our business. Paul tells me he has never seen me so happy, energized and creative. I agree. Going back to school at 48 , with five children has been an amazing experience. Everyone chips in to help out and whatever doesn’t get done I am learning to ignore. My standards of cleanliness have gone lower than ever before but who cares? I am a vessel of knowledge now and nothing is going to stop me.

I’m starting a new blog called Stepmoms Talk that I want to be a starting and on-going resource for stepmoms. There are lots of us out there and we all come from different perspectives and stepmom situations. Some of us have kids of our own, some don’t  and then have some or don’t. Some have ex-wives to deal with and some don’t, but we all have one thing in common and that is we are helping to raise our husband’s/spouse’s/parrtner’s children and we want to do it right. I am looking specifically for stepmom bloggers to be panelists on weekly videos, kind of like momversation, and every week there will be a topic for discussion that runs the gamut of our collective experiences. It will definitely have a positive tone because we are here to help people offering inspiration, advice and constructive criticism only. If  you are interested, please contact me at carol@shwanda.com.

The best part of the homemade dollhouse  project was that it was made in our art studio. Paul built it for me when we got married. It was a place for me to do my writing and seaweed art, but also a free space for the children to invent, create and make messes. We work on art projects, make candles, sew, have my Just Imaginate craft classes. It’s a fun room. When we lived at our old house, my girls had a play house that their father had built for them. They missed it terribly. This special room is for all of us and I love enjoying it with them. The photos below are of our studio.

art studio entrance

art studio interior

another view

Last week the kids had a four day weekend because of the semester break. Sophia had her wisdom teeth out on Friday, but was feeling well enough by Saturday to spend the rest of the weekend working on a homemade dollhouse. She came out to my studio (where I write this blog, among many other things) and told me that since she didn’t have any homework, she wanted to tackle a project she always wanted to do and that was to make a dollhouse out of card board boxes. She worked on it the rest of the weekend, enlisting the aid of her two sisters to help her. It was amazing what they came up with. They built, decorated and furnished the entire house all with found objects. The made bookcases filled with books, lampshades out of sewing thimbles and shower curtain rods out of bead wire. Everything was in miniature and it was a masterpiece. Here are some photos of their homemade doll house.

Our family was featured in the San Francisco Chronicle yesterday in a column called “On the Couch.” It is a series that comes out every Sunday in the Style section about how couples met. Our story was titled, “Second Marriage, a Second Chance at Love.” It was a really nice write up and we were all so excited that we ran out and bought four newspapers. Today I looked up the article online so that I could write about it here with a link to it and to also send it to all my friends and family who live on the East coast.

The interesting thing about reading an article on-line is that you can read what people comment about it. There were 14 comments and I was very curious to see what people wrote. Most were positive but some were so vitriolically cynical I was stunned.  There’s some pretty sick people out there. No one said anything bad about my husband or my kids, just me.  I was accused of being shallow, materialistic, lazy and stupid.  Some of the comments must have been so bad there were withdrawn because they violated the paper’s policy. It was really mean and totally uncalled for. My oldest daughter was reading over my shoulder as I recoiled in shocked disgust. She reassured me by saying, quite profoundly, “You know, Mom, happiness is boring to some people. Conflict is what sells. Whenever I have to write an essay about something in school, I always make it up because otherwise, the truth would just be too boring.” Well, said, my darling daughter and how true.

I’ll let you in on a little secret. I’m getting old. Old as in… when I bend down to pick up something my knees creak and I’m not sure I can get back up. Old as in… I’m getting red moles of the back of my knees like my mother had. And old as in … sometimes I forget where I left my kids. For example, this past weekend Eva had a sleepover at a friend’s house and she was gone Friday night and all day Saturday. With a houseful of all her siblings and their friends, I hardly missed her. Around 5pm on Saturday night she called me on my cell phone and asked me to come pick her up. And I thought to myself, “Pick you up? Where? All this time I thought you were in your room.” Nooooooo. I’m turning into my mother. Help!!! The red moles, the denial that I am losing my hearing, sight, mind… fill in the ___________. And now… I’m losing my kids!!! When they were babies I used to have nightmares that I drove off and left the car seat on roof of the car. Those were only bad dreams. This is my sad reality. In spite of my exhaustion, when they were little I always knew where they were. Now that they are teenagers, not so much.

I guess I shouldn’t be too hard on myself since my mom was guilty of  misplacing her children too. When we were kids she used to take us to WaWa after church on Sundays. (WaWa is a Northeastern regional convenience store chain similar to 7Eleven. I wish they had them here because they have the greatest milkshakes.) While Mom was at the deli counter we five kids would run wild through the store. My younger sister Jill and I would dip our hands into the pickle barrels, lick the pickles and throw them back in. (Aahh. Those were the days.) One day, Jill must have been in the bathroom when we left the store and drove home without her. I think we were home about a half hour when my mother  realized her “oversight” and shrieked in horror, “WE LEFT JILL IN WAWA!!!!!!!!!!!” We all clamored into the paneled station wagon (which my father had decorated with embarrassing Flower Power stickers) while my mom sped like a maniac back to the store where we found Jill wandering the aisles aimlessly, oblivious to the fact that we had left her in the store and had gone home without her.  My mother covered well when she told my sister, “Come on, Jill. Time to go.” Just as I did when I told Eva, “Sure, I’ll be right over to get you.” And we wonder why some children have abandonment issues.

Sophia got her wisdom teeth out on Friday and she came through like a real trouper. I know she was scared, but she kept a stiff upper lip (even though it was ashen, like the color of her face) and I was very proud of her. It was her first time under anesthesia  and I was a bit nervous myself. I assured her all the way that it was no big deal, that I had my wisdom teeth out when I was her age and I got to drink milkshakes  and it was so fun. (I didn’t mention that I remember puking blood into a bedpan afterward. I chose to keep that thought to myself.) In those days you stayed overnight in the hospital. Now, in this day and age of revolving door medical care, it’s in and out. I was horrified, truthfully, when the nurse called out to me, “Here’s your daughter. She’s ready to go,” and presented me with a wobbly teenager still doped up from the anesthesia. The child could barely stand, but she was cognizant enough to show me a baggy filled with her bloody teeth. Eeeeew. (I kept that thought to myself too.)

Fortunately her dad, Jared, my ex, was with me and together we carried her to the car. When we got her home, Paul was there to open the door and turn down her bed. Jared sat with her while I ran to the store to stock up on milkshake ingredients. When I returned, it was time for Sophia to ice her jaw. I gave her two baggies filled with ice cubes which she held to her face. She complained of being bored because she wanted her hands free. I tried tying the bags with a towel around her head, but that didn’t work so I asked my engineer husband for a problem solving solution. “What can we tie to her head that wouldn’t be too heavy and would stay on?” Seriously, without any hesitation, he responded, “How about a bra?” He then put the ice bags in  two socks and placed them in the cups of a bra and hooked it to her head. Voila. It worked. Sophia was able to ice her jaw for several hours while she played on her computer. And she got to experience the love and attention of her three parents. I would show you the photo I took of her, but she won’t let me. Just as well since some images are probably better left to the imagination.

Sophia won, “The Don’t Eat the Marshmallow Award” in math class this past week. It  was given to her from her teacher for “showing exemplary self control, delaying gratification and focusing  on the long term goal of doing her best every day throughout the course of Trigonometry/Analytic Geometry.”  The award is named after a groundbreaking experiment held at Stanford University in the early ’70’s in which four- year-old children were given a choice. They were each given a marshmallow, which they could eat right away, or they could wait 15 minutes and then have two. Two thirds of the children immediately devoured the marshmallow, some hung on as long as they could, and the rest were able to wait  and were rewarded with two marshmallows. Fourteen years later there was a followup study done that revealed that the kids who waited were much more successful in life, with better grades and life goals, than the ones who ate the marshmallow right away. The study’s findings were that self-discipline and delayed gratification are the most important factors for success.

Needless to say, I was extremely proud of Sophia, but more importantly, she was very proud of herself. This recognition is particularly significant because Sophia does not have a natural aptitude for math. She really has to work hard at it, that entails working with tutors  4-6 hours a week plus additional studying.  I have always told her that what she lacks in ability she  makes up for in dedication and perseverance. Way to go Sophia!!! We are all very proud of you. One final note: the award was in the form of  a certificate, which we framed, accompanied by two marshmallows, which Sophia promptly ate.