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Posts Tagged ‘sons’

Marvel’s The Avengers

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , , , , , , , on July 11, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Fine.  We may have come late to the party, but Marvel’s The Avengers was awesome.

Chris Hemsworth is simply beautiful and I love Thor.

The man knows how work a cape.  I have not been keeping up to date on my Marvel movies (still have yet to see either Iron Man or Captain America), but The Avengers was scripted so that it didn’t matter that I tend to be more of a DC gal.

There is nothing I could write about the movie that has not probably already been written.  Samuel L. Jackson-fabulous.  Robert Downey, Jr.-been a fan since 1985.  All of the heroes were phenomenal as they should be.  That was expected.  My favorite part was watching my sons.

Younger son was fighting sleep the whole time but never lost the look of awe that was on his face.  It was an experience of the magic of movies.  I watched as his eyes widened and he reacted with pure joy at so many moments.  He laughed, giggled, and said whoa almost as frequently as Joey Lawrence.

Older son was showing off how much he was in the know.  One of the heroes would do some amazing feat and he would quietly say “classic Hulk” or “classic Iron Man”.  His confidence in being familiar with these characters showed how much he has grown from the days of Nick Jr.

My sons have joined the ranks of millions who turn to these superheroes for continuity and symbolism in their lives.  Very patriotic as well, and not just Captain America.  All of the superheroes always bring out the feeling of Americana in me.  Stan Lee made his cameo, funny one-liners abounded, and all was right in the world.

While vengeance is a tricky line to walk in real life, in the movies, it’s simple.  You avenge a wrongdoing.  The Avengers sparked the imaginations of my sons.  Just as Superman did back in 1978 for me.

 

Hulk, smash.

 

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My Lunch with Superman

Posted in My lunch with..., tagged , , , on July 4, 2012| Leave a Comment »

I spent the day watching the Superman marathon on Encore Action.  Superman II is playing right now.  I love these movies.  Watching Superman earlier today I was sent back to my childhood and all the joys of super heroes.  It was neat to remember how much Superman meant to me.  It helps me to realize how important Spiderman and Thor and all the super heroes are to my sons right now.

I remembered how much I wished I could meet Superman.  I thought his planet was so cool and then the “home away from home” in the north was awesome.  Talk about a cool fort!  The crystals were so beautiful and seemed to possess such strength.  I don’t care that the movies today have CGI and better special effects.  These were groundbreaking when they came out.  The movies have great moments of humor.  I love in the first movie as Clark Kent is looking for a telephone booth and he comes upon one of those half-booths without a door.  The look on his face is classic.

To spend the day revisiting my childhood was a blast and to have my sons watching son of Jor-El with me made it a great way to celebrate the 4th.

We did take a break from Superman at one point because as you probably know there is a federal law that one must watch Jaws on the 4th of July.  In honor of that film I will quickly list some favorite lines:

You’re gonna need a bigger boat.

That’s some bad hat, Harry.

Blow up…blow up…blow up…smile you son of a bitch (BANG)!

As you know Amity means friendship.

I love that my sons sing along to “Show Me the Way to Go Home”.

There is a part of me that feels sad when watching Superman.  I miss Christopher Reeve.  If you haven’t seen Superman in a while, sit down and watch it again.  Watch Somewhere in Time, Deathtrap, and Noises Off and you’ll have a wonderful time courtesy of the amazing talents of Christopher Reeve.

Gene Hackman, Valerie Perrine, Margot Kidder and Christopher Reeve all have some great comedic moments.  The moments are so good because of the sincerity in the characters.  Reeve has some great looks he gives with some of the tongue in cheek moments.  Plus that piece of hair on his forehead with the cute little curl.  Younger son used to have curls and he usually had one just like Superman’s curl.  We’d call him son of Jor-El.

Superman…truth, justice, and the American way.

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My Own Mr. Holland’s Opus

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , , , , on July 1, 2012| Leave a Comment »

I am fortunate to have actual Mr. Holland moments through my work and my pirates always make me proud.  I do enjoy watching their growth and discoveries.  If I have even the tiniest bit to do with their successes, it makes me smile, a smile that goes all the way through my soul.

Still I came to realize that my opus needed to be told that they are my opus.  I sat down with each of my sons and told them that they are my opus.  They are the greatest part of my life.  I explained to them, explicitly, that my priorities go as follows:

My relationship with God.

My relationship with my hubby.

My relationship with my sons.

…my family.

…my friends.

…my job.

…my hobbies.

Granted, my job may read this (not my immediate boss, but the concept of employer) and think, why her priorities are not in the right order.

But they are.  If my relationship is not right with God, if I don’t maintain that one, I’m of little to no use to anyone else.   Particularly, I’m of little to no use to my hubby or sons.  Hubby and I have a type of short hand that we can use with each other, but we also know how important it is to nurture our relationship.  And even if all we get is 15 minutes to hold a conversation, because we share a brain, we are able to cover a lot of ground.  This was a banner month-two date nights in one month!

But I remembered that my sons are still young.  They won’t be for long, but at this moment I remembered, or realized, I needed to be EXPLICIT with them.  There are two lullabies I sing to them.  One I made up and the other is “Beautiful Boy” by John Lennon.  Mr. Holland (played beautifully by Richard “I did Jaws, I don’t need this” Dreyfuss)  sang this song to his son in the movie.  So I related the idea of the the boys’ importance in my life to the movie.  I told them they are my opus, the most wonderful piece of my life, my efforts,  my dreams and hopes.

While I am not perfect and never will be, I told them that everything I do and say and show to them is to help them when I’m not with them.  To help them make good choices and to know they are loved.  I said if we were independently wealthy, I would be at home waiting for them when they got home from school.  I also pointed out how lucky they are to come to their father.  Not a lot of boys get to spend so much time with their dads.

I love the subtle shifts I’ve seen in my sons.  They are talking more, sharing more about their fears, worries, hopes, and dreams.  They are slowing down their pace and taking the moments to explore what they are feeling.  Then they are trying to express it with more clarity.  I know this change  isn’t simply due to me telling them they are my opus.  This is because they are my opus and hubby and I have been working on this opus since the day we found out we were having babies.  It is so neat to see it starting to click for our sons.  It is so cool to watch them as they grow and develop, gain new confidences, and try new adventures.

My opus will not bring me fame and fortune, just as Mr. Holland’s didn’t bring those things to him.  But it’s not the fame and fortune.  It’s the moments.  It’s hearing “I love you , Mom.”  It’s the hugs.  The kisses.  The cuddles.  The wee bits of embarrassments that are starting to rear their ugly heads.  My opus is filled with cacophonous sounds and they are a beautiful noise.                                                                                                          

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The Peace in the Chaos

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , , , , on June 25, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Well, well, well, gentle readers.  I had a wonderful weekend.  We did so many things together yet nothing with a stringent schedule.  We just were together and doing things that made us happy.  Friday night Hubby and I went to a wedding and had good times, good times with family and friends.  The boys had their yard sale on Saturday morning.  Most of the money they made was because people thought it was sweet that young boys were having their own yard sale.  We put up the screen-gazebo and bought some new chairs for enjoying the outside with-happily they were even made in America.

We played air hockey, we went to church, we went to the baseball picnic.  We cuddled, we talked, we shared dreams.  The peace of the weekend was lovely.

Topic of the sermon on Sunday was about the idea of peace and being still.  As I wrote a few posts ago, peace comes in chaos.  Focus has been given to finding those moments of peace and it makes each day happier.  Humor also helps each day and this evening we were having fun with grammar.  My kind of fun!

I did throw my back out.  In my 41 and a half years I have never thrown my back out.  I attribute that to going to the chiropractor since I was 12.  Irony is oozing over this situation for me since I just celebrated ten years of marriage to my chiropractor.  Hubby was rubbing my feet last night and I fell asleep on the couch.  When I woke up at 5am to the joyful strains of the Brady Bunch, I got up to go to bed.  I grabbed the hand towels, the last bit of laundry in one of the baskets, and headed toward the bathroom.  I opened the door to the linen closet and bent slightly to place the towels on the shelf and out went my back.  The towels were the straw that threw out the camel’s back.

We had put up the gazebo, rearranged the family room, did multiple loads of laundry, and made several trips up and down the attic stairs.  My back said enough.  It hurt on the way to work, all day at work, and then on the ride home from work too.  Hubby worked on it and I’ll be taking some Advil PM.  I’ll stick some ice packs on it as I drift away to slumber land.

The moment of peace in this?  My sons making a date with me for tomorrow night to watch the newest Adventure Time on demand.  Youngest son asked me for the date and he acquiesced to letting oldest son join us.  Slumber land will be filled with sweet dreams of peaceful summer evenings.

                                                 

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My Lunch with Kenneth…yet another course

Posted in My lunch with..., tagged , , , , on June 17, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Well, I finally watched Thor.  Kenneth Branagh was a good choice for the director and is also not the right choice for future adventures of Thor.  Yes, I love my Kenneth and he was great for laying out the mythology behind this Norse god.  Now he has wisely stepped aside to let someone else handle the action franchise that I am sure will follow.  What a wonderful blend of the classical and modern language.  I particularly enjoyed “Is this your chamber?” or something like that.

The thing I loved best about this movie was the very obvious lesson of listening to your parents.  I didn’t even have to hit the boys over the head with a hammer to catch it.  I wonder if I get a hammer, one of the plastic Thor hammers, if the boys would actually listen to me.  I don’t know.  They are great boys.  They are really well behaved except for the parts we’ve messed up.  Hubby and I have spoiled them.  It’s been tricky lately to work on undoing this.  We’re having a yard sale next Saturday, per the boys’ request as they want to make some money.  But they don’t want to sell any of their toys.  We’ve been working on this for a couple of weeks and today there was a small breakthrough.   They started to realize that most of their toys were played with for a couple of weeks and then the novelty wore off.  I am hopeful that they will come around in the next few days and select some toys that might actually sell.

They each had to pick ten toys for the yard sale and put them on my bed yesterday.  Older son called out that he was done this chore.  I predicted he would have chosen a Nerf dart and counted that as a toy.  I was right.

They both really got into Thor.  We called out some other classic Kenneth lines as we watched it.  Their favorite worked into the film a couple of times- “The arthropods are back.”  Not sure why they love this line from Kenneth so much, but they do.  I am clearly somewhat obsessed with him since younger son asked if the movie was directed by Hamlet.

I think I’ll be picking up Thor’s hammer and see if it triggers a response.  No, I won’t use it on them (though they said I should get the one with the lightning bolts that shoot out).  I’ll use it for the symbolism.  They dig the Norse mythology.  I need to capitalize on these events when I can.  😉

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Game of Thrones

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , , on June 1, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Okay, I have never watched the show.  Yet it is part of the reason I have not blogged as much lately.  I’ve been indulging in another hobby I love.  My dear friend, Stephanie, is going to Comic Con tomorrow and wanted to go as the character Daenerys Targaryen from Game of Thrones.  We searched online for photographs of the costume she liked and then went to the fabric store.  I sat down and sketched out a pattern and set about to sew.

This is the costume she wanted to wear:

        

 

This is the costume she will wear tomorrow:

                                      

 

I think it came out pretty good.

I had so much fun making the costume.  I love to make my sons’ Halloween costumes, and this was like that.  It is something to do out of pure joy.  Stephanie seemed pleased with it.  Here are some other photos.

                                                       

Yep, she even has an accessory.  She can also summon the cats.

I enjoy sewing.  It’s neat to know that the piece starts as cut fabric, thread, and trim.  Then some hours later (a few hours here and there over the past few weeks) something exists that didn’t exist before.  I hope she has an awesome time tomorrow.

I had an awesome time today.  Field Day finally happened after two rainy days washed it off the schedule.  Sadly, older son has been sick with a fever and had to miss the festivities.  Younger son however was ready to go.

                       

He had a fun time but was a bit sad because I couldn’t stay the whole time.  I could have on Wednesday, even though they had pushed back the start time.  But on Friday work closes early and I had to tutor at 11:00.  He was very sad, cried a bit.  It was a very new experience-I couldn’t stay the whole time and his brother wasn’t there to cheer him on while he raced.  Hubby was able to run over for a bit in between patients.  I told Hubby that while younger son would seem fine when he got there, remember that in his sweet heart, he would be thrilled that Daddy had come for a bit.  Hubby went back after he was done with next patient, but by then it was over.

I went to work, tutored, went to get the milk, and then home to check on older son.  After picking up younger son from school, we got Slurpees and nachos.

This was a good day.

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I’ve been saving time in a bottle

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , on May 29, 2012| 1 Comment »

A picture is worth a thousand words…me and younger son at the zoo for his field trip.

                    

 

 

 

 

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Charlotte’s Web

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on May 18, 2012| Leave a Comment »

I’ve begun a work cycle that involves working 9am-9pm four days a week so I haven’t spent a ton of time with my sons this week.  It only lasts for five weeks and it happens maybe once a year so you do what you have to do.  They are with Daddy or someone who adores them so I don’t feel badly about that, but today was the first half-day Friday of the season and I wanted some cuddle time.  I reminded the boys that I don’t like being away from them and that I miss them.  I told them I do give them a kiss once I get home.  Older son started crying and I asked what was wrong.  He said it wasn’t because of me working (nice blow to the mommy ego…) but because he watched Charlotte’s Web today at school.

He was proud of himself because he kept it in at school.  He said he didn’t want to be embarrassed so he had held it in till he got home and just needed to let it out now.  I told him I was proud of him for two reasons.  First, he analyzed the situation, determined what outcome he wanted to achieve, and applied the behavior he needed to in order to achieve it.  Second, I was proud of him that he cried about Charlotte’s Web. 

I hope my sons never lose the ability to express and show their emotions, whether it be over a movie, song, book, or life event.  It’s not healthy to not cry when you feel the need to do it,  Some days I intentionally watch a cry-fest movie so I can have a good cry.  You know all the classics that work.  Toy Story 3 is the most recent addition for an immediate cry.  Actually, any Pixar movie gets me to cry. 

Here’s to crying over Charlotte’s Web.

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A breath of fresh simplicity

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , , , , , on May 9, 2012| Leave a Comment »

The schedule will become even tighter than usual over the next couple of weeks and will stay that way for about six weeks.  I’ll be working my regular job during the day and then teaching at night four nights a week.  With this upcoming restriction to my time with my family, the time with them this week has been all the sweeter.  It has forced simplicity to the foreground.  The five minutes alone with each son after work matters.  The ten minutes with my husband is sweet.  The quiet time once the boys are asleep is valuable.  I am multi-tasking quite wisely.  I’m not trying to over multi-task, but throwing in a load of laundry before dinner and then after dinner throwing it into the dryer.  I can fold it tomorrow.

Dinner was not rushed and the conversation with the family was fun and free-flowing.  The boys took their showers with minimal resistance because of the promise of Lego building once they were all squeaky clean.  They got to hear two pages of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (only two pages because they had to brush their teeth).  More pages tomorrow.

I watched Murder by Death this evening but also wrote three case studies for one of my classes.  I cleaned up the dining room table.

The odd thing is that even though the schedule is getting tighter, I’ve been accomplishing a lot in little bits and pieces.  Some folks say they work better under pressure.  I don’t always, but right now I am and that’s a lovely surprise.

And each day I’ve spent some time with God.  Praying about the boys and their days at school.  Praying for patience at work in each task I need to complete so I accomplish it as well as I can.  Praying for grace and patience with my sons before work in the brief time we share each morning.  And again at night in the hours we spend together before bedtime.  I want to let them stay up late each night but that’s not fair for them.  They truly need their rest since they are growing boys!  I need quiet time at night to take care of house work and my own thoughts.  I need to go to sleep by a reasonable hour as well.

Little changes in schedule and habits can release such energy.  I feel like I am accomplishing more in each day.  It’s powered by time with God and my family.  Try a little change in the schedule.  See what you can do when you shake things up a bit and add a dash of simplicity and grace.

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Simplicity, why do you run from me?

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , on May 6, 2012| Leave a Comment »

I am speaking of a very specific type of simplicity today.  Decluttering.  Why can I never finish this process?  I dread to think that I am simply that lazy.  I feel like every weekend I work on clearing a pile here or there or everywhere, but the next weekend, there always seemed to be a new pile in it’s place.

The piles create themselves as each day there are things I plan to sort through-they seem so important-so I set them in a pile.  By the time I actually get to it, they have become obsolete.  I am working on making it a habit to simply deal with whatever it is the first time it enters the house.  I am working on making it a habit to purge a pile a day until they are gone.

I look back over the week and I wonder why the piles are still here.  Part of it is laziness.  It seems overwhelming to try to add in decluttering at the end of the day.

But most days there just isn’t time for it at all.  One thing I made progress with is not berating myself over the clutter when I balance the existence of the clutter with what I did that day.  Today was a fun day.  I went solo to church and had a really fun, connection-filled Sunday school class.  (At least it seemed like the children made connections!)  Stopped by Dunkin’ Donuts on the way home to surprise the boys.  Mowed the lawn and then headed to swimming.  The boys had their last swim lesson and older son is swimming.  At yesterday’s penultimate lesson, the kickboard floated away from him and he swam over to get it.  I explained to him that if he can swim to get the kickboard, he doesn’t need the kickboard.  He made the connection.  🙂  Younger son can swim when he isn’t goofing off.  Once I pointed out to him that there were only a few minutes left, he focused and had a great lap.

Then we surprised my mom at work to wish her an early happy mother’s day.  It was Kite Day at her workplace but we got there after the bulk of the festivities were done so it wasn’t too crowded.  She was happy to see her grandsons and her daughter.  We met the two lab puppies and one really looked like Brigs when he was a pup.  And I didn’t even cry.  I actually smiled.  That’s a good thing.

When we got home, the boys tried out the kites their Nana gave them as I made crescent roll pizza  and mozzarella sticks.  We then settled in to watch a movie.  By the time they were in bed, snug as bugs in rugs, it was 10:00.

And the piles sit, staring at me.  Welp, they can watch me sleep.

As I reflect on the childhood we have been building for our sons, I smile.  I cry.  I laugh.  I pray each day that when they are all grown up, they look back and think of their childhoods with a big smile on their faces.  I hope they notice we tried to surround it with simplicity so they could nurture their imaginations.  Right now they just think we’re mean for not giving them a game system and unlimited time with the television.  They don’t think we’re mean when we tell them to read or play with their Legos or trains or dinosaurs, so I know it’s working on some levels.

Simplicity can be a clutter filled house.  The piles of boxes are not actually boxes.  Two of them are a music studio, some of them are part of an IFO (Identified Flying Object to the boys, a UFO to everybody else since they don’t know what it is).  Stacks of books sit in front of the book shelves because we have too many books.  Okay, I don’t think we have too many, but anyone who ever helped us move will say otherwise.  We just need more shelves.  There are booby traps on the bedroom closet doors and science experiments in the bathroom.  Baskets are filled with school work that is still too precious (according to me) or too important (according to the boys) to recycle.

Examining a quest with a different perspective can bring peace to it.  My quest for simplicity has been there all along.  Just because my simplicity is different doesn’t mean it isn’t simplicity.  As I have been coming to realize this glaringly obvious truth, I have found more time to work on the piles.  While those piles used to always get replaced with a new one, that’s not always happening now.

Simplicity has been running from me, alluding me for some time.  Either it’s getting tired and slowing down or I’m catching up to it.

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