I went to a function at LilZ’s school yesterday. This was one of those mid-day events, so part of it involved me being able to eat lunch with him at the cafeteria. I used to do that all of the time when he was in elementary school, but this was the first time for middle school. I wasn’t even sure if he really wanted me too until I saw how excited he was to see me standing outside the door of the lunchroom. It was totally cool and boosted my ego exactly when I needed it. It’s nice to see I haven’t embarrassed him to the point where he hates me yet. This is the age where I wouldn’t even sit next to my Dad at the movie theater (Dad: Please forgive me for being an asshat) so I’m bracing myself for the phase where I’m supposed to not even act like we know each other when we’re in public.

It was a very strange experience. An anthropological study, of sorts. Me being the observer at this foreign tribes mealtime. They have to eat lunch with the class they were in before lunch, so I didn’t know most of the kids at his lunch table. One girl who LilZ described as “a little hyper” asked LilZ, “Who is THAT?” when I sat down. I thought, “Wow. That was confusingly rude, does she think I’m deaf?” Not that I think her looking at me and saying, “Who are YOU?” would have been any better..but still. LilZ said, “My Mom.” And then, she won my a little bit of favor by saying, “Aahhhh…she’s so pretty.” But again, kinda weird behaviour because, am I a dog? Why do I suddenly feel like an animal at the pet store? Kids these days…

The weirdest thing, however, was getting a feel for the barter system they have going on in their little cafeteria village. The second the girl who had a school lunch salad with strips of grilled chicken sat down - the group went into a frenzy. They were all offering her bits of their lunch for a piece of her chicken. CHICKEN. School lunch chicken. And they were FREAKING OUT over it. It wasn’t even fried. She got a yogurt-covered granola bar from LilZ, 4 Pringles from some girl, and a bag of grapes from another. And then, another girl tried to trade her jello dessert cup and no one would take it. I kinda wanted to offer her my laughing cow for it, but I didn’t think they had welcomed me enough into their tribe yet. I don’t think newcomers are aloud to shop at market the first day unless they have something awesome, like CHOCOLATE.

Some other girl dropped what looked like a three-day old breakfast cinnamon roll on the table saying, “You all can have this” and it was like a damn pack of starving wolves the way they all dove in for a piece of that thing. I think I saw blood drawn at one point. And grapes? Those are the things everyone wants. LilZ wouldn’t even trade his for a bag of potato chips, and he loves chips. It looks as though if you had a lunch consisting of strips of grilled chicken, grapes, and stale breakfast pastries - you would probably be elected their leader in 1.2 seconds flat. I think that’s what I’ll bring next time.

The experience was enlightening - although LilZ almost died when I dropped the word “damn” in the middle of conversation. It was an accident! I don’t think anyone noticed because no one was listening to me anyway. I’m the dorky Mom at the table - like I would have anything important to say.

In the 3+ years since I’ve been blogging at different variations of this site you see here, I’ve been amazed at how dependent I am on it as a sort of therapy. If something major happens - I come here - to tell you. I recall nights at the emergency room with my kids, or bad doctor’s visits when we were having fertility struggles. I tell you about family members that I’ve lost or struggles that I’m facing. There are so many things I use you all for, and you don’t even know it. Or maybe you do and you’re okay with that.

This dependence has caused me to wonder what other major events in my life would have been like if I had been blogging. Would it have been easier to lose friends when I made big mistakes, because I would know you all would still be here waiting to share your similar stories? When my mom was in the ICU for five weeks, would it have been helpful to come here everyday to tell you about her progress, or lack thereof? Could you have helped me plan my wedding? Graduate from college? How awesome would it be if you all had been here for me through all of that.

My point is - I’ve come to depend on you all as my counsel. You sympathize when I’m facing hurdles by sharing your versions of similar challenges. You console me when I’m down and you laugh with me when I’m goofy. I just can’t imagine going through any major life challenges without stopping by here everyday to let you know what was happening. This is the beauty of the blog: Free Therapy.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot this evening after reading Heather’s entry and seeing how much she faces in silence. I wonder, if there are things she keeps off the blog because the negative chunk of her readership is just so damn evil. I have been so blessed not to hardly ever see the negative side of putting your life online, and I can’t even imagine how much of the negative she sees every time she opens her inbox. It just makes me sad, because she gives so many of her readers like myself, so much to smile about. Yet - she struggles through these major events in her life and can’t reap the reward of having so many loyal fans out there. We all know that if 100 people told us we were awesome, but one person told us we sucked, that one person would essentially erase the previous 100 compliments. It’s just the way our minds work. The negative, although a minority, will always have the biggest impact on us. So - she may have 200 comments that are all positive and encouraging, but you know she’ll get that one nasty email that will make all of the kindness fade away. It just makes me sad for her, but more important, it makes me grateful for you all. I’m not sure why you come back here every day, or why you’re so nice to me, but I’m so glad you are. I’m also so glad my readership has plateaued at a place where I get the support I love with none of the negatives asshats to ruin it all.

Thank you. Seriously. I’m hugging you right now, can you feel it? Should I have put on deodorant first?

Remember how I’m letting Bob Harper and Ellen DeGeneres teach me to be healthy? Well - I have been cooking fantastically healthy meals every night this week. Last night, we were eating Orange Roughy, rice and steamed veggies and LilZ said, “Can we eat this EVERY night?” I informed him that I am trying to cook healthier meals, so we will eat healthier every night, but probably not that exact same meal over and over again.

“But we’ve eaten the same frozen casseroles that come in a box over and over and over again.”

Good point.

He also proceeded to get excited at the prospect of bragging about my cooking to his friends at school. He was all, “Now when so-in-so brags about her mom’s meals, I can join in!” I mean - this kid has obviously been devastatingly deprived with my cooking trends for the last 11 years. Not that I didn’t know this already, especially after that time he expressed concern watching someone make lasagna from scratch. “I thought we were having lasagna,” he whispered to me. I told them it was going to be lasagna, and that was what it looked like before it was frozen and boxed and bought by us at Target.

But Lord - I didn’t realize the playground was filled with kids bragging about home-cooked meals. What ever happened to sneaking smokes when the teacher was looking? And talking about drugs and sex and that Rock-N-Roll the kids are listening too. Nope - not these kids. They’re all comparing notes on the mother’s culinary talents (or lack thereof), and LilZ has been losing the battle for years. They probably all pity him and go home and tell their Moms about the kid at school who only eats food from the freezer.

But not anymore! LilZ is one of the cool kids with the cooking Moms now! I can steam rice, dammit. There’s no stopping me. Let’s see the other mothers try that little trick. And my baked fish? I put seasoning on it. Do you think they do that? No. Of course they don’t. He’s totally going to be the kid with the cooking-est mom EVER, dammit. Just wait until they hear about my fierce bean cooking skills. I do it in a crock pot. There will be not stopping his popularity surge then.

I have been fretting ever since I uploaded that video and podcast last night that now my true identity as a giant dorktastic goober will be revealed and no one will every read this site again for fear that it is contagious.

And couldn’t I have at least fixed my hair before taking my first video ever launched on this site? Or put on some lipstick or something? Or maybe done it in some other place but my car? Damn. Of course, I also know that I am so insecure that no matter how hard I tried to make myself look better, I would have still hated the final product. So, I simply treated it like I would if we were hanging out. Chances are if we were to hang out in real life, I wouldn’t wear makeup, or possibly shower. Or get out of my pajamas. So why fake it, right?

On the other hand - how fun was that? I am loving breaking through that barrier. I have no idea what a file like that will do to my bandwidth, but I really don’t think it will do much since it’s so tiny. I’m going to have fun tinkering around with that some more. Coming soon…way too much video of nonsense stuff in my life! Video of my dogs! And my steamer! And possibly my pen collection! Video Video Video!

And the podcasting thing? I’m going to research that a little more as well, but I think LilZ and I are going to do that regularly, at least for the shows we both watch. It was really fun and I can’t think of a better way to kill two birds with one stone: Spending quality goof-off time with my son and fulfilling my daily requirement of narcissism - all at the same time! It’s a parenting dream come true!

Look! LilZ and I did a podcast! It may suck in quality because I’m kinda new at this…I hope you like it! We’re just talking about TV because, well, it’s what we do. And I hope we do it well. (You probably won’t see the podcast tool if you viewing this entry in a feed reader - sorry! I don’t like to leave the comfort of my feed reader either!)

Bonus: Here is video of me goofing off. It’s tiny and boring, but it’s video of me trying to entertain myself while waiting on a restaurant to open. (It’s a quicktime format - sorry if that isn’t suitable for you.) But seriously - it is soooo lame. Seriously. So, if you can’t see it? You’re not missing much.