Dress code malfunction

I'm at a lunch/business meeting when I get a text from my 13 year old telling me she got a dress code violation and needed me to bring her a sweater to cover her shoulders.  I immediately think she's probably wearing a tank top with spaghetti straps.  The school is quite rigid on exposed shoulders.  Unfortunately I can't make it back to her before the end of the school day so she gets the consequence of wearing her PE/gym uniform all day.  Which, you can imagine, is quite the punishment for a trendy teenage girl.

Turns out, the sweater I thought she needed wouldn't have made much difference since she was wearing her one-piece romper.  Which would be fine if she didn't have mile long legs.  For perspective, we're both 5'7, but her legs are at least 3-4 inches longer.  Something that makes me jealous but I've learned to accept my long torso over the years.  Somewhat. Not really.

Her legs are so long that a friend of mine nicknamed her Baby Giraffe.  We often refer to her as Baby G.... So when she becomes famous (she's convinced is a matter of time) she already has her rapper name.  "Baby G. in da house!"

Texting + illness = unresponsiveness

At 1am, my husband's cell phone rings/vibrates.  Of course, I hear it and he doesn't despite being on his night stand.  I confusingly nudge him to answer, in his groggy/sleepy state, he tells me it's our 13 year old and that she's not feeling well.  Which just adds to my confusion since she's sleeping in her room, down the hall from us.... yes, in our house, less than 20 feet away!  Turns out, she woke up with a stomach ache and was TEXTING my husband to do something about it for over one hour.  Instead of getting up and asking for help... WTF?  Call me crazy, but this is where my old-school style of parenting comes in.  Are you friggin' kidding me?!? You're in that much pain you decide to message me, in capital letters no less, instead of rolling your butt out of bed to get help.
My husband gave her Advil and was back in bed in 2minutes.  Not another sound from her, and she was bright eyed and bushy tailed in the morning.  Oh the drama of a teenage beauty queen...

I admit after this situation, I agree with my parents and their usual "kids and technology these days..."

Here's what it looked like:

12:01AM
PLEASE HELP ME!
12:07AM
MY STOMACH HURTS
12:15AM   
DAD!!!PLEASE HELP ME!
IT HURTS SO MUCH... I CAN'T SLEEP.... 
12:38AM   
PLEASE HELP ME.... 
12:49AM   
I'VE BEEN TEXTING YOU FOR 1 HOUR!!
12:56AM  
DAD! HELP ME!!

Beware! New driver.

Recently, my stepson has come into his own.  In the past 4 months, he turned 16, became an all-star on his high school varsity soccer team (1 of 3 sophomores) and got his driver's license.
His new-found freedom has afforded him the luxury of driving himself to school & his infinite number of soccer practices. Hooray!  I think I was more elated than he when he got that sheet of paper allowing him to drive a vehicle sans adult passenger.   No more carpool, means I don't have to get myself and the toddler out of bed (of course she only slept in on the mornings I had to get her up), stick her in the car half asleep, drive around the neighborhood picking up 5 teenagers and driving them to school in rush hour.  I'll especially miss that brat of a kid who could never get his sh*t together on time, had 4 or 5 bags/shoes/books on the loose and always ran late.

So J has been driving himself around for nearly 2 weeks.  The other day when his alarm failed him, he panicked and asked for a last-minute ride to school.  Huh? What? Why?  Do I drive that much faster?  No.  He just figured it would be easier (which it would've been for him) to not have to worry about parking.  Easier for me?  Negative.  I was just waking up, still in PJs (aka no bra), changing my toddler's diaper and hadn't even started my caffeine ritual.  This could not end well.  Luckily he spoke to his father/my dear husband, who convinced him he was wasting time trying to get a ride when he could jump in his car and get there.  Which he did, of course.  Found a parking spot et al.  At the end of the day, I asked how he managed to get through the day without his 45minute shower?  He responded "My hair was all wrong".  LOL I can't imagine the horror he felt every time he saw his reflection with 'imperfect' hair.

So... I put a bottle of Dippity Doo hair gel in his car for such emergencies.

Meeting the ex-wife's parents? How did I get here?

It's the holidays and everybody's happy and grateful and feeling generous… However, what I would like to know is why am I meeting my husband's ex-wife's parents?  Don't get me wrong, the relationship is amicable. We respect each other, mostly and definitely when it's regarding the children's sake. 

True, her parents live out of state, they are visiting for the holidays, and they're my step-children's grandparents. But that is the only connection. I am not related to them nor them to me nor them to my own child yet we are scheduled to meet them tomorrow for a quick pop in.  What the...?

They are from the south and I am sure they are lovely people. Honestly, I understand them wanting to meet their grandchildrens' half-sister. Kind of. Sort of.  Ugh... So unbelievably weird!  And being the cool stepmom I believe I am, I agreed to meet them since my husband asked so cautiously and politely. Promising me that we will not stay for more than a few minutes and that we were doing it for the children. 

I get it. I really do. It just doesn't make it any less awkward.  

Brush your damn hair!

My darling 12y.o. stepdaughter comes back from spending the week at her mother's with the absolute worst matted hair I've ever seen.  Now you probably think I'm overreacting, but rest assured, you would think there was a small animal living in this giant mess.

Couple of things before I get into this... why do teenage girls hate the shower?  What is it about hot water and steam that sets them off?  This has been an on-going struggle for years, actually,  since I first met her.  It's a constant negotiation with getting her in the shower. Sometimes it's : "Go have a quick shower and we'll do your nails after" or "go rinse off (after swimming lessons) so we can watch a movie tonight" to which her rebuttal has been "I don't need to shower, I had swim today"  WTF?  Seriously, that's when I go through the damaging effects of chlorine on her (drying) skin and the potential of having her gorgeous, shiny blonde mane turn green from the dye.  So when she's in the shower, which lasts up to 1hour, we just keep our mouths shut and praise her for keeping her body film-free and relatively odorless.  She's a teenager after all...

FACTS:

1. There are 24inches of hair
2. It's gorgeous, shiny and blonde
3. The matted area has shortened the hair to 12inches
4. This is the result of at least 4-6weeks of unkept hair

Sadly, my Super-Stepmom radar has been too busy lately to notice that she's been tricking us for at least one month if not since school started (10weeks ago!).   Her MO? Showering without shampooing and quickly putting her hair up in a bun so we wouldn't notice the nest building up at the nape of her neck.

I mentioned her need to shampoo a few weeks ago cause I could smell (wwww) that it needed refreshing.  So yesterday, after our big welcome back bear hug,  I suggested we start brushing her hair out.  And for a change, she was very quick to agree and ran upstairs to shower.  When she came back to me, comb in-hand,  I didn't expect the grapefruit size matte of hair...

After trying to work through it for 2 hours, laughing at some jokes about white-girl dreadlocks and a bird nesting in there and a few tears.  I Googled everything about detangling hair, from wide-tooth combs to detangling spray, but nothing seemed to work.  We tried soaking it in conditioner overnight and are going to continue the painful process again tonight and every night this week... worst case is she's going to get an infamous bad childhood haircut we've all had.

I believe I'll let her bio-mom take her for that salon appointment.  :-)

Don't let this happen to your child's hair!

My stepson? He loves me. He really does.

Being one of three girls, I grew up with nothing but girly things, (sorry Dad).  Yes, one of my sisters ended up being a 'tomboy' but we definitely had more Barbie dolls than sporting equipment in the house.  And sure I played with WWE figurines just as much as the neighborhood boys with whom I traded my Macho Man Randy Savage for the newest British Bulldog (no brainer, right?).  

So when we got married, I had no idea what to expect from my husband's kids, especially then 12yr old boy, J.  He never says much, keeps to himself and his Xbox and frankly,  we don't have much in common.  I'm this outgoing, cheery and sometimes opinionated Canadian girl who works in the beauty industry,  in other words, I don't knew what a soccer ball looked like but rarely got passed the uniform colors.  While he is the calm, cool and soccer type.

I've been in their lives for nearly 3 years and it's been an incredible journey.  I've learned more from both of my step kids than I could have imagined.  It's hard to know if I'm doing a good 'job' with them... Not being their 'mother' but still playing such an important role at this insanely crazy teenage stage is a huge undertaking.  I accept I have my limits and I might not have all the answers but... I am doing my best.

So, despite this 15yr old man child's quiet and reserved existence, he made my heart melt when I opened my birthday card and read these 2 words, in his own handwriting... "Love you, J."

Hooray for me!  I'm doing something right by him.  According to my loving husband, the boy wasn't even coaxed/threatened/bribed into writing it.  Totally on his own volition.  And that, my friends, is good (parental) stuff. :-)

Lessons? Why? I'm really good.

So my 12 year old step daughter is taking band at school.  She is supposed to practice her saxophone every day so my husband decides to rent her a saxophone so she doesn't have to carry the case back and forth from school to home every night.  Well, though the intention is nice, the playing rarely occurs.  More than once have I signed her weekly practice sheet with gaping holes in it and a few 'incorrect' data points.  Alas, I've accepted that when she does practice, she actually is pretty good.
I'm reminiscent of my 8th grade saxophone fiasco, which involved an ambulance and an angry teacher. (while playing the sax, I fainted and knocked over several sheet stands when I tumbled off my chair.  Minor headache ensued, followed by much ridicule as I was switched to a different instrument, the coveted triangle.)

So when I was looking for summer camps and fun things for this tween to do during her 12week-long summer, music lessons came up.  My husband loves that she likes to play an instrument and so we talked about getting her some private lessons.  Without batting an eye, her response?  "No,  I don't need lessons.  I'm REALLY good." This response killed me.   Seriously, I thought I would die.  Initially, I'm thinking; Who the f#@k do you think you are? John Coltrane? Kenny G maybe? Jeezus girl! Take it down a notch!...  Then my husband, the ever proud father to his spitting image daughter, tells me about how proud he is of her confidence.  Which, in hindsight, I might just be jealous of.  I mean, there's no way I thought I was too good for any kind of musical learning so who am I to judge this 12yr old who seems to know everything?  After all, she might be a child prodigy.  Right? Maybe?.... hmmmm

Basically, she's a 7th grader looking to make the big time.  Any agents out there? :-)