Whenever the kids first start back to school I am always amused by all the horror stories they have to tell about all the mean teachers they have. It makes me think back to my 5th grade teacher, Sister Andrea, whom we referred to as Prune because of her shriveled up, leathery skin. (I guess nuns didn’t wear sunscreen. ) The woman terrified me. I can still remember her making me stand at the black board in the front of the room until I finally understood how to do long division. How horrible of her.

Since I have five kids at five different schools, I hear LOTS of teacher horror stories. And if someone has a teacher someone else had the year before, then there’s LOTS of commiseration too. Last year we all heard  about Ms. Grellman, the P.E. teacher that Sophia and Eva both had. Doesn’t that sound like a P.E. teacher name? You can just picture her ordering the kids to do suicide laps or push ups. “Grellman really knows how to drill ‘em.”  

No other teacher quite  conjures up images of horror or makes kids quiver in fear  like the 7th grade math teacher Cheryl has this year that Mark had two years ago –Ms. Piannavilla. If you say her name fast it sounds like Piranha Villain, which apparently she is. Particularly if you don’t do your homework, which I think Mark might have been guilty of. She is a big woman with an overbearing presence that makes even some of the parents afraid of her.  Legends and rumors abound about this woman that only add to her evil persona. For instance, my personal favorite is that  the reason she’s so pasty faced is because she has been seen eating mayonnaise directly OUT OF THE JAR.  Gross.

I can’t help but laugh. I’m sorry, but I have to meet this woman. I don’t care how mean she is, I can take her. I can’t wait for Back-to-School night. I’m going. I’m sitting front and center and I’ll let you know if she lives up to her reputation and if I can smell mayonnaise on her breath.

Last week the neighbor’s cat started showing up at our portico door, meowing for food. Her owners are away so I guess she was feeling lonely or neglected. So Sophia, being the empathetic sort she is, fed her and now ”Bonnie”  comes over ever morning and we feed her. What the hell. If you have five kids, four cats, three dogs, two fish and a bird, what’s one more cat?

Cats aren’t the only ones showing up at our doorstep these days. We have had some stray kids too. Well, not exactly strays since we know who their owners/parents are. The kids I’m referring to are some of our children’s friends who have made our house the “after school hang out”. It’s a kid friendly house. We have a trampoline, an art studio, a ping pong table, yummy snacks and an endless supply of warm hugs and compassionate understanding.

Last week Cheryl brought her new friends from her new school to our house to introduce them to her blood brothers and unblood sisters. The kids did not seem to want to leave. Not that I minded having them here but around 6:30 in the evening I asked them, “Are your parents coming to get you?”

“No. They’re at work still.” They replied.

“Oh. OK. How about you stay for dinner?” I asked them.

“Sure!” Was their enthusiastic response. I noted  that neither girl made a call to check to see if it was OK to stay. They simply came to the table. I would hope that there is a parent or caregiver somewhere wondering where these children are.

After supper I drove them home and the girls were extremely polite and grateful when they got out of the car. I told them, “You are always welcome at our house.” And I meant it. I would much rather have the kids at our house so I can keep an eye on them and keep them safe.

Last night, our home became a safe haven of a different sort. One of Mark’s friend’s mom called to tell us that she and her husband got into a fight and their son, Mark’s friend, stormed off. They did not know where he was and asked that we please call them if he turned up at our house. We immediately called Mark at his mom’s and told him to call his friend to tell him he could come to our house if he needed to. Around 10PM, a bedraggled, tired, worn out kid came lumbering down our driving. He had been hanging out at a park, got cold and when he got the call from Mark, he decided to come here. Paul sat him down and talked to him while I served him up a big helping of pie and ice cream. The boy was very relieved to feel safe and unjudged. Paul told him he could relate to his issues as he was once a teenage boy himself. The boy called his parents to let them know he was with us and he spent the night in Mark’s room. Afterward Paul turned to me and said, “Every teenager needs to have a friend’s family to be their safe haven when the going gets tough and they don’t feel like anyone understands them.” I am happy to say that our home is such a place.

Sam, our oldest son now lives with his mother. He moved out in July and we have not seen very much of him since. He chose to live with his mother because he will be attending the local community college which is closer to her house. In addition, Sam is a self-described nerd, and computer geek who enjoys a lot of solitude. The chaos of a large family can be a little too much stimulation for his sensibilities, which is why he prefers the company of his cats, his books and his computer. But even a loner can get lonely, as he admitted to me recently when he called up and asked, “Can I come over for dinner?”

I came home from work to find him on the living room couch starved for someone to talk to. He sat at the kitchen counter (scarfing chips and salsa)  and talked to me while I prepared dinner. He told me all about the work he was doing for his grandfather, the courses he was going to take in school and his new contact lenses. (Which he got to replace the glasses taped together with masking tape. Seriously, the kid’s a nerd.) Then he told me something that I think every kid has to experience firsthand in order to fully appreciate their parents. He said he MISSED HOMECOOKING! On the weeks that all the kids are at our house he is  often left alone at his mom’s to fend for himself while she is out either working late or doing her own thing. He is, after all, 18 and dude, sooner or later you’re on your own.  I think the real truth is, he missed us. And we missed him too. I told him, “Sam, our doors are always open. You are welcome to come over any time. ”

Sam is in transition. He is learning to be independent while he still has the support and comfort of his family. The next day I took him to the college bookstore to get his books (ouch) and then dropped him at his mom’s. On his way out of the car he turned to me and said,” Maybe I’ll swing by some day next week too. ” Sure. Any time.

Cheryl  just completed her second day at her new school and apparently  is already the most popular kid in the class. Yesterday she called me after school to ask if she could hang out with her new friends. “Only if you stay at school, don’t go anywhere else and then come right home.”  I told her. Today she brought her new friends over. Very sweet girls. I can’t remember their names. That would be lot to ask of me. Actually I do remember their names, I just don’t recall which one was which.

Cheryl started off by giving them the complete tour of the house. “This is the great room, that’s the laundry room, that’s my stepmother sitting at the computer, here’s the dog…that’s my sister, Eva doing her homework…” One of the girls, it turns out, is a member of a blended family herself and she wanted to know the bloodlines. “Are your siblings half? Whole? Step? What are they?” Cheryl did not skip a beat in her response, “I have two blood brothers and two unblood sisters.”  UNBLOOD SISTERS? It was as if she’d been reading those historical romance novels with those complicated and confusing family tree diagrams at the front of the book. I could just imagine Cheryl elaborating, “These are my sisters  Eva and Sophia. They are  really not my kin. Father married stepmother when I was just a girl and they came to live with us at the manor. We tried to keep it a secret that they weren’t really ours, but somehow it got out.”

I was amused by the parsing of words. Eva, Sophia and Cheryl are sisters, blood or no blood, but when pressed for the distinction, Cheryl described the situation the way she knew they wanted to hear. As the saying goes, ”Blood is thicker than water.”  I am here to tell you, “Not necessarily.” 

It reminds me of a story I read about years ago,  about two teenage boys with similar sounding last names who lived on similar sounding street names, in a small town in Florida. It was discovered when they were 16 that they had been switched at birth. Once the parents and siblings of these boys knew that their son and brother was not their blood, they  made the unanimous decision to keep the child they raised. In this instance, blood was not thicker than water. As I am sure every adoptive parent will tell you.

Half. Whole. Step. Blood. Unblood. Whatever. It’s only a name. A word. It doesn’t really mean anything… Unless of course you are the heroine in a bodice ripping romance novel and discover that the peasant you met and fell in love with in the woods turns out to be  heir in the royal bloodline to the throne and you can ride off into the sunset with him and live happily ever after… Then it means something. But otherwise, these days. Not so much.

I have a new blog called Just Imaginate, that I just launched that is dedicated to super fun crafts and activities for children.

When my children were small they were always coming to me and asking, “Mommy, can we do a project?” Since I was determined to raise my kids to be self-directed and creative without a dependency on TV to be entertained, I was more than happy to comply with their requests. One day when my oldest daughter Sophia was about four, she was working on an ”invention” and someone asked her how she came up with the idea for it and she replied, “I just imaginate.”  This blog is a compilation of all those fun years we spent together imagining, creating and “imaginating”.

Please check out Just Imaginate. Bookmark it. Forward it to your friends and send me all your suggestions, questions and contributions.

Today was just about an all around weird day. I hate those days where I get all embarrassed because it would appear to any sane person that I am losing my mind.  Because I think I am. And just when I thought I had it all covered.

School starts tomorrow, but both Cheryl and Eva had orientations today. (Or so I thought.) Cheryl headed over to her school in her squeaky shoes  and all seemed to go well with her. Eva was at her dad’s so I called him to remind him that Eva had to be in the school gym at 11:00am to get her schedule. He called me around 11:15 to tell me, “I dropped her off and Eva just called to say that there is no orientation today. ”

“What do you mean?”  I replied in disbelief. “It says very clearly on the newsletter that the 7th grade orientation is TODAY at 11:am.”  It turns out Eva is in 8th grade. Isn’t that pathetic? I forgot what grade my kid is  in. Wait. It gets worse.

Since it was the last official day of summer, I decided to take all the kids and their friends to a water park in San Jose. We packed the car with towels, beach chairs and sunscreen and made the 45 minute trek to Raging Waters. It was closed. The parking lot was desolate. I couldn’t believe it. I felt like Chevy Chase  in National Lampoon’s Vacation pulling up to Walley World. Bummer. As a consolation prize to the kids, I let Sophia and Mark, who both have their driving permits, drive around the empty parking lot. We drove home and got ice cream and hung out at my sister’s pool.

On the way home the girls decided to make dinner. They rode their bikes to the store and got ingredients to make Puttanesca. It should be interesting because they are asking me questions like, “What’ s a skillet?” and “What does simmer mean?”  We’ll see. Tune in tomorrow and I’ll let you know how everything turned out.

Cheryl is starting her new school today. Actually today is just orientation for new students. She is in 7th grade. Her last school was a small community elementary school, (K-6th grade)  with only 140 students. All the teachers had aides and often times she would have the same teacher two years in a row. The principal was outside every morning greeting the kids when they arrived. Everyone knew each other very well.

Her new school, a middle school of 6th through 8th graders, is much larger. They change classes and have lockers and all that stuff. There’s some mohawk action and blue hair going on there. None of her friends from her old school are going to her new school, so she doesn’t know anyone. She is very nervous about this, but I also think she is secretly excited. I took her shopping yesterday for some retail anxiety therapy and we bought some really cool clothes: funky tops and sportin’ Van sneakers to go with the pencil thin straight leg jeans I got her when we were on vacation. With her new wardrobe and her siblings’ advice on how to fit in and make friends, (”Just be cool. Cool. Got it? And funny. They love funny.”) she was ready to face the day. She set her own alarm, got up by herself and walked out into the kitchen. I heard her before I saw her. Her new $42 sneakers… squeak. Squeak in a very obvious, squishy way, like she is walking in a muddy puddle of slush, that is unmistakably coming from her. I couldn’t help but laugh. She smiled sheepishly.  I told her her nickname  at school is already established, “Cheryl, you will be known as ‘the girl with the squeaky shoes.’ ” The fact that she had such a good sense of humor about this assured me that she is going to be A OK at middle school.

I asked her is she wanted me to walk her to school. She said, “No.”

“How about if I follow behind you and hide behind the bushes?”

“No.” Again

So independent.

Paul and I have spent the last few days in deep, intense discussion about the state of affairs with our business. These are tough times. Business growing pains, employee issues, decisions to make about what direction to take. Paul is a talker. He needs to blow off steam, vent his frustrations and talk out loud to sort out his thoughts and feelings. I now know this about him. He can repeat the same statement 50 times. And I let him. I listen for the 50th time like he’s telling me for the first time. I realize a lot of what he is telling me of late stems from pent up emotions because I was gone for two weeks and he didn’t have anyone to talk to. He’s very worried about a lot of things. I, (oddly) however, am not. I am serenely at peace with everything. Why? Because I know that even if our life were to go to hell in a hand basket I will always have him.  I remember reading a saying somewhere, I think from Dear Abby, that said “The same fire that melts butter, makes steel strong.” Our stuggles of late have made us stronger. And I have never loved him more.

Soccer season, like school, starts this week and all three girls will be playing this year like they have for the last 10 years. I have attended just about every single game, have never forgotten my turn for snack, collected money for the trophies and always offer to make the cake for the end-of-the-season party, which I decorate to look like a soccer field. One would probably perceive me as “soccer mom extraordinaire” but I’m not. I have a confession to make. When I go to the games, I don’t pay attention. I’m too busy talking to my friends. I don’t even understand the rules and I couldn’t tell you what positions my kids play if my life depended on it. And I don’t feel the least bit guilty about this. I figure this is my way of multi-tasking. I’m putting in my face time and supporting my kids, and I get to socialize with my friends. It is my release. But don’t worry, somehow I always manage to tune in just in time to watch my child score a goal. I am a mom after all.

To know me well is to know that I love cake. My family used to joke that all the early photos of me were of me licking icing off my fingers.  Perhaps that is because the only time my parents took photos was on birthdays. Still, cake and I have had a long love affair.

I recently discovered this great blog called  Piece of Cake Decorating. They offer custom made cakes as well as directions on how to make your own. My favorite is the slumber party cake, a variation of which I have made for my own kids. Check it out. Great fun.