Buh-Bye Summer 2012

Okay, so technically Summer is not really over yet, but it is almost back-to-school time, signalling the unofficial end. My son starts the 5th grade on Tuesday, which makes me a little sad. This is his final year in elementary school, and that plus the thought of him going to middle school in one short year equals....my baby is growing up too fast! At age 10-1/2, he is already 5'1" tall (only a couple inches shorter than his Mom, and he looooves to remind me of that!) and I am wondering who let that happen? I sure as hell didn't authorize that! :)

Where exactly did this Summer go, anyway? Seems like only a few days ago it was June 13 and "the boy" was saying good-bye to 4th grade! We did some fun things, but if I haven't scrapbooked them yet, did they REALLY happen? June and July we really didn't do anything special. Lots of long walks around the neighborhood, saw the new Spider-Man and Batman flicks (my son, the sophisticated movie critic, deemed both movies "freakin' awesome!!!!"), had some of the kid's friends over every so often or he went to their houses, kicked him off the video games when his hour of game time was up, nothing too special, just simple Summer fun.

August, however, we went into fun overdrive and seemed to cram a whole Summer's worth of "outings" into a month! Saw the new Diary of a Wimpy Kid movie (please don't tell anyone, but I laughed out loud a few times! Nothing like potty humor!), saw Paranorman, house-sat at my sister's house (2-1/2 hours away) for a week, went to a comedy club in CT to see one of my favorite comedians, Pablo Francisco (then drove right back the same night--4-1/2 hours. My husband's idea. Too cheap to get a room!), went out on a lobster boat with my uncle for the first time, went to my grandmother's cabin by the sea for a day of beach fun, enjoyed a couple lobster rolls here and there and one lobster dinner, and I am sure there is more stuff we did, but I am too tired to remember some of it! And not all of that stuff I listed is in chronological order. That's gonna be fun when it is time to scrapbook all of it! Oh, yes, we went to the fair one night also. I used to love the fair when I was a kid, but not so much now. My son, of course, couldn't get enough of it, so in a way enjoyed it through his eyes.

Last week, we went back to CT (did I mention I live in Maine?) because my husband got me Duran Duran tickets for my birthday. The show was at Foxwoods, and I really got my 80's on!! Well, I didn't dress like I did in the 80's, but you get the point. I last saw them in concert in 1984, and they sounded just as great now. We lucked out, too because, according to their website, they have had to cancel the rest of their North American tour (starting with the show right after the one I attended) due to the illness of their keyboardist, Nick Rhodes. Since I KNOW (she said tres sarcastically) Duran Duran reads my blog all the time, I will send out some get well wishes for Nick. I asked my son if I humiliated him too bad with my concert behavior (no, that was NOT me yelling lewd things to John Taylor, I swear! LOL), and he very nicely said "no". Either he is one hell of a cool kid, or just very polite. Anyhoo, here are a couple of pix we took at the show:

Kid Stuff

One of the "hazards" (or benefits, depending on how you look at it!) of parenting is the exposure to certain entertainment options one might not choose if not for the presence of children. We all know that there are some children's programs (Teletubbies, anyone? Barney, perhaps?) that are unbearable to anyone but their intended audience. If, however, like me you naturally lean toward the "dork" side, other programs quickly become favorites, or "guilty pleasures", if you will!

I bring this up, because I have recently been watching the Cartoon Network shows "Adventure Time" and "Regular Show" with my 10-year old son and, I admit, enjoying them! For those of you who have never seen "Adventure Time", it features Jake the dog and Finn the human (says so right in the theme song!) and their friends, like Marceline the vampire (who only eats the color red. Not blood, the actual color red!) and too many others to name here, and all of their assorted adventures. My favorite character is named Lumpy Space Princess (also known as "LSP"), shown here:

For some reason, I find this character hysterically funny! She (you can tell she is voiced by a man) has this valley girl accent, and thinks she is basically "all that and a bag of chips", and she is soooo quotable! There was a new episode last night, and I swear I have been quoting her all day, which entertains nobody but me (but boy does it make me laugh!), and yet, I can't stop! In fact, this blog post probably entertains nobody but me, but it does give you some insight into how my odd brain works!

Now that I have admitted that, I wonder how many other parents find themselves secretly loving programs (or music or movies) that we are supposed to be "too old" for? Then again, who determines what one is "too old" for, anyway?

In the words of Frank Barone (played brilliantly by the late, great Peter Boyle), Holy Crap!!! I knew I hadn't posted in awhile, but when I saw the actual date of my last post, I was a bit taken aback! I intended to take a short break from blogging because I didn't feel I had anything to say. After reading this, some may feel that I still don't, but I am charging ahead anyway...or typing, whichever you prefer.

As we all know, June is upon us. School is out for my son, and it is already Father's Day! As with every year at this time, I face the same challenge: how to entertain "the kid" for the next couple of months. Some have suggested I "just send him to camp", as if it were that simple. Have they seen the costs of most Summer camps nowadays? I'd love to be able to send him to camp, but I am just selfish enough to want to keep this roof over our heads, so I think I'll pay the mortgage instead. I do have some things planned that won't force us to eat Ramen noodles for the next few months. Of course, there are the local beaches. They do charge fees to get in, but the costs are very small, and if we go on the right day, it is two for the price of one. Then, there is the local nature preserve, with the totally free hiking trails, which we take advantage of on occasion. Despite being a lifelong New Englander, I'm not the most "outdoorsy" person. Let's just say that if I were on the show Survivor, I'd be the first to be voted off, if I didn't beg to be sent home before the tribal council!! However, becoming a mother has forced me to step waaaay out of my comfort zone on occasion, and get my ass outdoors for the sake of my son. We have been taking long walks around our town the past few days since school has ended, and they have been some of my favorite times with him. During these walks, we talk about everything (he is only 10, so he is still at the age where he doesn't mind talking to his Mom! I'm not a total embarassment..yet.) and we laugh alot. One day, we challenged each other to create funny song parodies about things we saw during the walk. He won, but I did get a few laughs out of him with my attempts at clever lyrics!
I DID have to go all "Mom" on him at one point, when I had to explain to him several times why we could not take home the nasty, stained fouton that someone had put at the end of their driveway with a "free" sign on it. His annoyance with me was short-lived however, and all was right with the world again! In other cheap entertainment news, I have in my possession 2 free tickets to see the new Spider-Man movie in 3D when it is released next month. Devin is practically jumping out of his skin with excitement over this film, and I was happy to find out a few months back that Kellogg's is including codes in some of their cereals that lead to rewards. 16 codes later....2 tickets to the movie. Devin is happy he gets to see the movie, Mom is happy she doesn't have to pay for it!

Tonight, I am looking forward to my Summer Sunday night obsession: True Blood. I LOVE that show so much, and it is back for another season! Woo-Hoo!! Gorgeous men in that cast, I'm just sayin'! On that note, I conclude this post on the grounds that I am too distracted to continue. Until next time......