Neverland Diaries

A voice message from the school nurse today went a little something like this " ...something something height, weight and age ... your child's BMI indicates they are overweight and do you need any counseling on making healthy food choices ... ". The tone of her voice gave me the impression that she didn't like making the call any more than I liked getting it. In retrospect, it's a good thing I didn't answer, because the snarky mother in me may have asked what her BMI was, and whether the school lunch menu's chocolate milk and honey buns constituted as a good food choice.  She wasn't telling us anything we didn't know already. In the grand tradition of kids his age, things have started to fill out around the middle. Historic photographic evidence from the Owen family archives indicate that this was a fate my siblings and I all befell from about 3rd to 6th grade. Chubby cheeks peeking out from under prescription eyeglasses, XL t-shirts and ...

When Luke was 2 or 3 years old, he climbed into our bed while we were asleep. That night, David had a nightmare that he was being stabbed in the back and woke up startled; he could feel the blood dripping from the knife wound. Turns out, Luke just peed on him.  This wasn't the worst thing that happened in the last 12 years of nighttime parenting mishaps. Somehow, David always felt the brunt of it. Toddler-sized heads turn into sledgehammers; size 1 club feet bicycle kick into your softest, most vulnerable spots. Your mattress is ruined.  You go into the whole bedtime routine with good intentions as a new parent. All of the experts and literature tell you they need to be in their own bed. You try; they cry. Your 5:00 a.m. alarm for work nags at you as you try to put them down again, and again and again. You give in and everyone is happier to just drift off to sleep, the baby nursing in the crook of your arm and you in your own damn bed. Many would say to let my...

"Hey mom, can I have $6?" "Uh sure ... what for?" There's a dance at school tomorrow. Valentine's Day dance. He needs two tickets. He says he'll pay me back. Must be important.  And so it begins. Girls. He gets his black button-down shirt ready for the next day; worried about wrinkles, he wets it and puts it in the dryer. It's hanging from his loft bed, ready to be worn.  "Can you give me a haircut?" He's not worried about how he looks, but he wants to be his best. I take a little off the sides and clean up the back. He's really starting to look and sound like his dad.  "I hate Valentine's Day! Can we just skip it?" his little brother feigns disgust at the holiday of love. I know he'll still be disappointed if I don't get him a giant Reese's chocolate heart. This may be the last Valentine's Day where Lucas cares to pick out his own store bought Valentine's to give ...

Pinning his arms to his side, he lets out a gutteral scream as his face turns an alarming shade of red. Squirming to be free, we ease the syringe of thick, chalky white fluid into his mouth. A gurgle. Another scream. And then ... PFFFFT. I now resemble a grape scented Jackson Pollock painting. So even after 12 years of parenting, getting a baby to take their medicine is hard. Some tricks work, once or twice, then the kid gets wise and you have to think of something else. We finally figured out how to get Max to take his medicine with a 10-15 minute process of sneaking it into spoonfuls of smoothie, 1/4 of a milliliter at a time.  Being sick seems to be an everyday event in our house. Someone is always fighting something off. Rarely is it me; as my own mother says "mom's can't get sick." We feel a tickle in our throat or a pressure in our sinuses and deny, deny, deny.  So far this year, we've had two bouts of ear infections, a sinus infection, a sinus surg...

I have been to the grocery store every day this week. I have purchased 4 gallons of milk, 2 gallons of apple juice, 3 pounds of coffee, 5 bunches of bananas, 5 dozen eggs, 5 loaves of bread and more snacks, sandwich fixin's, beverages and hygiene items than you can load into the back of an SUV. I give up.  Every day, the chorus of hunger grows louder. Inquiries of what's for dinner, declarations of near starvation and the chewing, chewing, chewing of snacks deafen me. The acquisition, creation and consumption of food is a near obsession and necessity in our home.  I've spent many, many hours researching, planning and trying to find ways to lower our grocery bill. Some days my pantry looks like we are ready for the apocalypse; other days there's cereal but no milk to go with it. Keeping up with the insatiable hunger of a house full of boys is a challenge, to say the least.  I know that on a global, and even national level, my boys are lucky to always have f...