Earth Day Our Way, or Carbon Footprint: We Has It.

Yeah, I know this is a day late for Earth Day. I was hoping my kids would do something heartwarming to celebrate Earth Day that I could report, some new way of showing concern for the environment, an Earth Awareness that would put me to shame, or hell, even something funny. They completely failed me though, thereby failing you, and the entire planet.

The only kid that did any observation of Earth Day was #3, who wore the Earth Day shirt she made at school last year. Being that she made it when she was twelve, and now she’s thirteen and a half, let’s just say she’s very impressed with. . . how differently it fits her this year. She wore the shirt while dutifully carrying out her chore of the day, which was cleaning all the bins and shelves from the refrigerator. With bleach.

I’m pretty sure all the other kids were chucking alkaline batteries down storm drains and melting water bottles with Zippo lighters.

My kids are obsessed with water bottles. The plastic, disposable, bad-for-the-entire-universe-not-just-our-planet kind. What can I say? Marketing works (hello, Aquapod people? Bite me). But there comes a time when even I can’t ignore something anymore, in this case the mind-boggling quantity of plastic bottles we were going through on a daily basis. Yes, we recycle them, but in New Jersey (a.k.a. The Soprano State), that doesn’t necessarily mean that they don’t end up in the same landfill as the trash. So a while back I spent a small fortune on stainless steel, eco-friendly water bottles. Everyone got their own in their favorite color. I got some extras. These were Their Water Bottles Forever. No more plastic.

They hated them. They fought me every step of the way. They would “forget” them, in school, in their lockers, in someone else’s car, under the bed, whatever. And hit me up for money for a bottle of water.

I actually suggested to #2 one day that she take a cup with her and fill it up at the water fountain at school since she didn’t know where her water bottle was. She went back upstairs and got her allowance money instead, and has had the decency not to remind me what an ass I am ever since. At least about that.

Over time, their feelings about reusable water bottles changed. Various incarnations are showing up now at the Dollar Store (and the Five Dollar Store– does anyone else have that? It’s new). They like the ones with the crazy designs on them.

The ones, which, when you put them in the dishwasher, start peeling paint. Rather than releasing BPA particles into the environment, they release little bits of toxic paint onto your lips, into your water. Awesome.

Don’t tell me they’re not supposed to go in the dishwasher. That’s the only chance in hell I have of killing the vomit bug that is always going around. Always. #4 is laying on the couch with a bucket as we speak.

Meanwhile, the four large, plain old stainless steel ones with no paint at all on them that I bought for CC and I? Have no idea what they did with those. I wouldn’t be surprised if #2 has them tucked away in a secret place and laughs maniacally every time I’m slamming around the kitchen because I can’t find a water bottle. That’s what I would do if I were her.

Happy Frickin’ Earth Day.

Bacon, eggs, and brains

#5’s birthday is just days after school starts. When he started kindergarten, he was still four years old for a few days. I know a lot of parents that would have waited to start him in school. Thankfully, they don’t live in our house.

His favorite thing in the world is bacon. This year his teacher celebrates birthdays by having every student write something nice about the birthday kid and draw a picture. Then she takes all these sheets and staples them together in a book for the birthday kid. #5’s book is full of variations on: he’s smart, he’s funny, he likes bacon.

Inexplicably, his second favorite thing in the world is zombies.

The other thing that happens right after school starts is school picture day. I don’t remember school pictures happening so quickly when I was in school. Probably my mom is just a better parent than me and was way more on top of this stuff than I am. But honestly, it’s the second or third day of school. I can never remember which.

All the kids get a billion pieces of paper on the first day of school, which I promptly put in The Pile, to sort through eventually (that’s a total of five billion pieces of paper, for those of you following along at home). Somewhere in there are the order forms for picture day. I never get through The Pile in time for picture day, because it’s like tomorrow, or the day after. Hell, who am I kidding? I never get through The Pile, period.

Luckily both the school and the kids know this. The school knows how to get my money for pictures, and the kids know to wear their favorite clothes on the right day.

They also know not to remind me it’s picture day if they think I may have something to say about their choice of clothing.

This is the t-shirt (yes, t-shirt) #5 wore for school pictures this year. Be sure to check out my mad ironing skills in these pictures.

This is the shirt he wore for school pictures last year.

This is the shirt I bought him for Christmas this year, which I have a
sneaking suspicion may end up in school pictures next year.

Have some standards, Easter Bunny.

When I was a kid, the Easter Bunny came to my house. He brought my sister and I Easter baskets with jelly beans, chocolate eggs, hollow chocolate bunnies, and small outdoor toys: wooden airplanes, bubbles, chalk, maybe a kite.

He also hid the eggs we had colored.

Apparently, the Easter Bunny doesn’t pull the same routine everywhere. This would have been good to know before I tried to make Easter happen the first year the kids were living with us.

Me: So what do you guys do for Easter?

CC: I dunno, that was their mom’s holiday. I did Christmas. She took care of Easter.

That first year we made a big effort and had the Easter baskets ready when they woke up in the morning.

#1: What’s all this?

Me: Easter baskets. From the Easter Bunny.

#1: Why did the “Easter Bunny” come so early?

Me: What do you mean?

#1: He usually doesn’t come until after church.

Me: {feelings of guilt for doing it wrong, followed by double feelings of guilt for not being a church-going parent} Oh. Well, we can’t go to church because we have to work. Maybe that’s why he came early?

#1: {with heavy note of sarcasm, not really interested in keeping the magic alive} Yeah, usually we would be in the car to go to church like waaay early, and my mom would suddenly remember that she forgot something in the house, and she’d go back inside for like fifteen minutes, and then when we got home from church the “Easter Bunny” would have miraculously delivered the Easter baskets.

Me: Easter is all about the miracles.

That whole forgetting something in the house thing sounded like a good plan. I wondered if I could try it next year. It would probably mean more sleep.

It was when I tried to orchestrate the egg hunt that everything truly fell apart.

Should we hide the eggs inside or outside? The house we were renting wasn’t very big. Also the thought of an indoor hunt terrified me because I’m not known for my housekeeping and it was highly possible that an egg would be hidden and never, ever found. This was before we had dogs. (In retrospect, this was a very valid concern, due to the things I did find when we finally moved, including more than one sandwich under a bed and a sticky rubber octopus in a light fixture that I couldn’t reach).

So we decided outside, which led to the next hard part: when to hide them. If you hide them outside too early, they’ll get eaten by things. If you do it too late, the kids will see you and the cover is blown.

What I didn’t count on is that if you’re not raised with the belief that the Easter Bunny hides the eggs, nothing will convince you otherwise.

For reasons I don’t fully comprehend, it’s much easier for them to adapt beliefs surrounding Christmas and Santa, but regarding the Easter Bunny, it truly is like converting to another religion. Santa at least carries on the spirit of “peace on earth, good will towards man.” The connection between Jesus and Santa is a stretch, but passable in the minds of most kids, especially because of the presents at the end.

The Easter Bunny is nebulous. He has neither sidekicks nor clearly delineated responsibilities. His connection to the tomb is nonexistent. It would be a far enough cry to connect the Easter Bunny with Ostara, but I get it, based on the abundant fertility of bunnies. But connecting the Easter Bunny with Jesus? It would make more sense to have an Easter Zombie. Which my kids would probably relate to better anyway.

Standards. The Easter Bunny needs some goddamn standards.

They’d never done an egg hunt at home. The only egg hunts they had done were at churches or parks with other large groups of kids and they were super-competitive. We tried to hide some easy ones and let them stagger the start youngest to oldest. That only made #1 head immediately to the front, where she found every single front-hidden egg while all her siblings were occupied in the back.

And? They were largely disappointed that only real eggs were hidden. There were supposed to be eggs filled with candy. There were supposed to be eggs filled with money.

Where’s the spec sheet for this holiday? None of this makes any sense.

In spite of me, my kids are good people. They’re forgiving and fun-loving enough that they don’t mind too much if a holiday is different, and they each have a spark of that weird, dark humor that their Dad and I find so endearing. Thankfully, there are a lot of good people looking out for them that not only will steer them away from the Easter Zombie, but who will still speak to me even though I brought it up.

They did get #1 back for finding all the eggs: