That last post was a little serious and I hate leaving that tone as the first entry on my blog so I thought I’d add this cute bathtime photo of AndyZ to lighten the mood a little. Because…Come On! How hysterically adorable is that smile? It almost makes me forget he woke up at 4:20am this morning. FOR THE DAY. And it almost makes me forget that, when I got him out of his crib, he was soaked indicating his diaper was beyond full. And it almost makes me forget that I was too tired to change him so I just put him on my lap (soaked in urine) and fed him his morning yogurt while I drank some coffee to wake up a bit. Evidently Exhausted Zoot does not mind the smell of urine as much as Well-Rested Zoot does.

Someone is 15 today. He is one of my best friends and he is hero-worshipped by my two youngest kids. He gives fantastic Christmas presents and he needs Diet Coke to wake up in the morning. He loves Converse and Wicked. He knows all of the words to the Wicked cast recording and doesn’t mind when his Mom sings along, even though she has a dreadful voice. He watches Friends and Buffy when he’s bored. He still goes to family dinner ever Sunday and doesn’t ever complain about it. He prefers cheesecake to any other food in the world and would like someone to hurry and make one that has zero calories and fat grams so that he could finally live his dream of eating it for every meal of every day FOREVER. He’s an avid reader, although his affection for cheesy fiction rivals my own. He doesn’t get too embarrassed by his Mom when she is caught squealing at a midnight Harry Potter book release. He actually enjoys chasing his brother and sister around the house. He gets good grades even with crazy rehearsal schedules. He tolerates having a Mom who sometimes can’t be trusted to pick him up after a party because she sometimes falls asleep at 8pm. And kids these days tend to make their parties last longer than that. He knows when his Mom has had a bad day and often offers to watch the kids so she can relax in the bath. He is truly, and amazing teenager who wows the people who love him every day with his humor, his maturity, his kindness, and his love of his brother and sister. He deserves the best birthday ever.

Happy Birthday, LilZ. I love you.

School is back in session for LilZ today. That means I have to get the smaller kids back on their early schedule in order to give me time to get NikkiZ to school before carpool for LilZ. If you recall, I got laid off the first day of school for LilZ this year and I’ve often wondered how I would have managed his schedule as an Office Mom. This half of the school year will be easier (should I be lucky enough to find a job) because he has to stay at school until 6pm every day except Wednesday and Friday. Wednesdays because that’s Church Day around here. Growing up Catholic I thought Wednesday church was VERY WEIRD. Catholic take official Church Days very seriously and consider it confession material if you miss. Hence the term, “Holy Days of Obligations.” Turns out most fundamentalist take a much more casual approach to church. Which I find comforting. So, not everyone goes to church on Wednesdays. But, most school organizations avoid Wednesdays if they can. And that’s fine with me because that gives our family one night to actually eat together for a change.

So…my point: School is back in session. Meaning I have to wake AndyZ up at 5:45am – which means he’ll actually sleep that late now. Whereas over break when he (and I) could sleep later? He woke up at 4am. NikkiZ gets woken up at 6am and we’re out the door by 6:20am. She prefers to eat breakfast at school so I give her extra sleeping time. She needs her beauty rest, you know. Then AndyZ and I shuffle back home in time to wake up LilZ. We fix his lunch for school (I’m still holding onto a few parental jobs that are unnecessary for MY sake. I feel much more needed that way.) and yell warnings until it’s time to leave. “15 minute warning!” “10 minute warning!” “Five minute warning!” (He loves that, you know.) Then we’re out the door with LilZ by 7:20 to pick up one other person for carpool and head to school.

It’s not a bad schedule, and I do like schedule, no matter how early they start. I feel like my day is a bit more organized on a schedule. So – no complaints from me. (For a change.) But I will miss seeing him at home every day. Even if it’s just for a few minutes between when he wakes up and when he showers to go hang out with his friends. He’s pretty good about scheduling Play Time with the kids…so I’m sure they’ll miss him too. So, bring on the second half of Freshmen year. We get our driving permit this term (AHHHH!) and we’ll have our first musical performance in the Spring. It’s going to be a big year for LilZ, I’m doing my best to keep up.

First Day of Kindergarten

I was rehashing Rick and my trip to Knoxville with a friend when I realized there was a whole section of the trip I forgot to mention yesterday. The part where I left a note with a $20 bill for housekeeping when I checked out of my hotel and how I lifted all cell phone curfews from LilZ’s phone as a payback for being the best son ever.

We only stayed in Knoxville two nights but my brother got us a hotel room adjoining his downtown so he could just get up and run in the morning and me and my kids would have plenty room to spread out. I learned the hard way on my trip to Slidell last month that my son does not seem to like the idea of sleeping in my Pack-n-play in the same room as I am. I slept about 8 hours over three nights on our trip to Louisiana and I knew after about an hour that Knoxville wasn’t going to be much better.

Then LilZ asked to give it a try.

NikkiZ and I stayed in my brother’s room while LilZ spent some time getting AndyZ to sleep. After about 20 minutes he came into the room we were in with a look of accomplishment on his face. He had gotten LilZ to sleep and put him back in the pack-n-play successfully…score 10 for the teenage baby whisperer!

After LilZ and NikkiZ and I went to bed that night, only an hour had passed when AndyZ woke up screaming again. As I spent a while struggling trying to get him back to sleep, LilZ kept offering his assistance. My high-school aged son stayed up just as late as I did trying to get my youngest child to sleep. Not because he couldn’t sleep due to the crying, but because he was helping? I am officially the luckiest parent alive.

I found the trick that worked for AndyZ (walking him up and down the hallway outside the room) and used that trick to get him back to sleep successfully twice that night. Allowing me (and LilZ) to get a decent night’s sleep when it was all said and done.

Fast-forward to the next night. AndyZ woke up about midnight and I was attempting the trick from the night before. I got back into bed with a slightly sleepy AndyZ and NikkiZ said, “I think I’m going to throw up.” I just blew her off because I wanted her to stay asleep so I offered her a drink of water. A few seconds later I hear the sound of her puking all over the bed. I panicked and woke up LilZ to take his brother and carried NikkiZ to the bathroom. Although it was too late…she had emptied the contents of her stomach all over the bed.

I felt AWFUL. What was I supposed to do? I made her a pallet on the floor with some spare blankets and I went downstairs with AndyZ and got some more blankets and a laundry bag. I came back up, stripped the bed, put the bedding in the bag and spent the next 3 hours with NikkiZ and AndyZ BOTH AWAKE. It was exhausting. NikkiZ finally crashed about 3:30am and AndyZ passed out about 5am. We left the hotel about 7:30 the next morning and I left a note apologizing profusely to housekeeping, explaining that everything in the laundry bag was contaminated, and left the $20 bill from my wallet as some sort of consolation prize. I would have loved to have left more…I hope the note, the money and the efforts I made to clean up – helped to make the situation not as horrible for them as it could have been. Because cleaning up someone else’s vomit on Christmas Eve? Has got to be the suckiest thing in the world.

So… moral of the story? When your child says they’re going to throw up? Believe them. And also? Reward an awesome teenager. I’ve always had a 10pm curfew on LilZ’s phone so he doesn’t text or talk all night. I took the curfew off until school starts back up because if the housekeeping deserved a note and $20? LilZ deserved a million dollars and a new car.

Feeling much better!

Today is LilZ’s first day of exams. EXAMS. Do you know the dark and dreary flashbacks the word EXAMS brings me? DARK AND DREARY.

I spent seven years in college, I studied for a lot of exams. Then, the four years in high school prior to that? ELEVEN YEARS OF EXAMS. Just watching him studying last night I broke out in cold sweats and felt the urge to make a pot of coffee and smoke a pack of cigarettes. How does he do it without caffeine or nicotine?

(Please don’t tell him I asked that question.)

LilZ and I have discussed what he is learning to be his best study methods. They seem to be completely opposite from mine. He reads a lot out loud, he says. Slowly and deliberately, like a script. He seems to respond to the audio and the vocal triggers in his memory. Me? I was a writer. I had to write and re-write things to allow them to solidify a spot in my brain. I would re-write my notes before tests…sometimes several times. MrZ, on the other hand, was one of those bastards who had photographic memory. He re-read everything once and it was solid. And while my memory was often short-term, his always stuck. Which is why when I scored higher than he did on any exams, I felt like a rockstar.

What about you? How did you study for exams?

Random Picture Of a Seriously Cute Couple For Your Enjoyment