Wednesday, June 12, 2013

When in Rome (or at BWW)...

My husband works at BWW so it feels like we are BWW royalty once a store knows "corporate" is present.  I never have found anything eatworthy on their menu and we hate chains, but....I took the advice of many (including BWW) and now stick with wings, sports, and beer.  Or is it beer, sports and wings?  Anyway...we leave a happy family.  Darnit.  BWW rocks!

But...my wonder is...why does being at BWW bring out the BWW in me? For example, I privately name called my husband (in his ear so our squeak couldn't hear) for not manning up and just finishing the last wing.  What a ___!  As he said, you wouldn't say that if we were at Cafe Latte.  Why is that?!  It probably wouldn't have even come to mind.

So, then, after a free tasting if a Blue Moon seasonal (roy-al-ty along with all the other patrons), we got a free tasting of mozzarella sticks and I recalled why my husband holds my heart.  I was pregnant with #2 or maybe #3 and had a hankering for mozzarella sticks but we were driving #1 around for his "nap."  My love had me covered and swung into Arby's for a side kicker order of mozzie sticks.   Who knew that Arby's had them and was on our nap route?!  Geez, I live mozzie sticks.  Are they gluten-free?  Hmmmm...

Now...time to get back to the task at hand: wings, sports and beer.

Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Tween to Teen

My oldest is amidst his final year as a tween.  While we have had some tween issues, most have been resolved with some good humor, open communications (even if a little later in the day or a day or so later), and non-tween times.  Lately, though, we have experienced a few things that make me fear the teen years....and how easy it is to fall into that parent-teen trap.  After a lost boot (not pair, just one), lost baseball glove (someone must have stolen it...after I left it on that shelf in that room at school for a couple of days), homework left at home (with calls to me at work asking if I could leave to go get it), projects that are suddenly due tomorrow (which he has been talking about for a month), soccer balls left at the field...will he (we) get through these years?  How hard is it to remember your soccer ball when you leave the field?  Or the flip flops you left in the parking lot when you were getting into the car and decided to flip them off (apparently onto the ground) as you got in?  I feel that angst of letting him learn on his own and wanting to keep my first born cocooned (and go back to hunt for the $30 flip flops he had to have last year).  We are close.  Will that change?  Will our eyes still meet with a click of understanding without words through these years?  Will we reconnect if we get lost?  Will I pause to take the time to think about how to be the best us we can be through these years?  I hope so.  I hope we can, most days, still laugh at ourselves, at whichever one was having the outburst.  I hope we know when to respond with the sparkling eyes, a bit of sarcasm, or a look of non-judgmental disgust to simply shape up but I still love you anyway.  I hope we go out for breakfast, too, before school once or twice again before he graduates (in six years) even though he doesn't like bacon so much.