Don't want to jinx myself...

I was cleaning off bookshelves this week making room and purging because I like to do that.  For some reason, throwing things away makes me happy!  Most people like to fill up shelves with "stuff" for me I'm  happiest with a clean, empty shelf...weird I know, but it is what it is.
Cleaning off this shelf really brought me back to a time I had almost forgotten about.  Here is a small list of the books I've relegated to the Goodwill bin...

1. Parenting with Love and Logic
2. How to Behave so your Children will too!
3.  She's Gonna Blow!  Real help for mom's dealing with anger.
4. When We're in Public Pretend You Don't Know Me.
5.  "Mom, Jason's Breathing on Me!"  The Solution to Sibling Rivalry.
6.  Get Out of My Life, but first could you drive Cheryl and me to the Mall?
7.  The Big Book of Simple Solutions - Training Your Dog.
8. The Everything Dog Training and Tricks Book.

It seems so long ago since these books were my bibles.  I hardly remember the despair and frustration.  Without jinxing myself, it seems like we've navigated those troubled waters pretty well.  Brenna has turned into a (mostly) amazing, thoughtful, funny young woman.  And Zack is giving us sooooo many fewer "issues" than Brenna did at the same age.  He seems to just coast, calmly through life, doesn't fight us on much of anything, whereas Brenna fought us on everything!  Boys vs. Girls I guess?  Although, I was a good girl until I turned 16 and then it all went to hell!  So, I guess I'm not out of the woods completely yet.  But for now, I'm so proud of my peewees... I'd like to attribute it to great parenting and obviously my reading material, but I think it's got to be mostly luck!  Either way, I hope these books go on to inspire some other poor schmuck who thinks their kids are going to grow up to be sociopaths or serial killers!  Hang in there... you come out the other side of the despair tunnel and it turns into a happy story!

Where has January gone?

Does it seem to anyone else the older we get the faster time goes? That just doesn't seem fair. I can't believe the month of January is almost over. Frankly, I can't believe that January is here at all! So, since I just started re-blogging and for the sake of consistency let's do a January recap. The trick I've discovered as I sit down to write is knowing what I should and shouldn't include. What I might think is funny, my kids very likely will not agree about or want shared. Do I or don't I? And since my kids are no longer little, the funny "firsts" aren't so funny anymore.

When you have an 18 year-old getting ready to head off to college, the firsts you are looking at are...first kegger, first frat party, first broken heart, first hangover none of which I want to think about, acknowledge or even consider. With a 13 year old boy, on the horizon I have... first school fight, first suspension, first angry girlfriend, first "body" hair, all of which can go on the "don't want to know about it" list. So... what's left?

January - Brenna was accepted into Radford University and Old Dominion University, both of which she promptly informed us she didn't want to go to! But at least she can go somewhere. :0) Her first choice is James Madison University - we won't hear from them until April, so we'll keep our fingers crossed for that. I think she has a good chance of getting in there, but you just never know, it all depends on the group of applicants that come in at the same time. She also applied to Virginia Tech, but on that front unless a blind man is reviewing her application I don't think we'll become Hokies. But, you never know. Also on the Brenna front... got fired (no details provided), almost got suspended from school for 5 days (not sharing those details, but in my opinion it was totally bogus and since it didn't end up happening we're moving on) and celebrating her 8 month anniversary with her love Zack-Zack. We call him Zack-Zack to differentiate him from our Zack. Since he's twice as big - he's Zack-Zack.

Our Zack - Doing great in 7th grade. All A's including in high school Spanish 1. He had his 7th grade chorus concert in which he didn't sing. :o) Mainly made faces at me and goofed off. Frankly I think requiring these kids to either take chorus or band is stupid! They should have other options, but the middle school is a whole other post in itself.

He is a Call of Duty master, known as the duct tape kid at school due to the fact that everything he owns is covered with duct tape. If you go into his room right now there are at least 25 different rolls of colored and patterned duct tape. I find bits of it draped all over the house.

Halloween - Duct tape man!

Otherwise, Dogs are good. Snakes are good. John and I...good. January....good.