A ROLEMODEL FIT FOR A TEEN

The word Fashionista doesn't come to mind if you have to describe me!

 However,  I will flick through magazines at the check-out; I know what is going on in trendy, fashion land! I am painfully aware about the few designers who dress the modern man in skirts or even worse, in tights!

So when our second teenager asked me
 "Do you know what Harem pants are?"

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I could answer him without hesitation
"Yes I do!"

"Do you like them?"

"Do I like them or would I wear them?
You wanna know the truth?  Harem pants are the most ridiculous, unflattering piece of clothes a man or woman can slip into. Harem pants are an insult to my eyes, they look ridiculous on most individuals, especially on men and women with short legs- they look to me you are wearing a grown-up diaper.
Why do you ask?"

As you can read, diplomacy is definitely not my personal strong point-
"So you think they look silly?"
" Yes!"
"Where can you buy them, at H&M?"
"Go and call them or look on eBay."
After some quick searches teenage boy informs me they are only about $ 15.00 on eBay.

"Mom,  I need to tell you something, you might hate me, but I want to buy a pair! of harem pants!"
Why would I hate my own son? Why would he think that? I don't hate, I fall over, laughing!
It took all my willpower to keep a straight face, not to laugh out loud!
"OK, cool
Where do you get the idea from anyway? Who of your friends is wearing nappy pants?

"None of my friends; actually, it's Justin Bieber!"

This boy is killing me! Justin Bieber?
But then, who am I?  I have never been a 13 year old boy
I am only his mother who had a crush on Rod Steward - never copied his hair style though.
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Does he know Justin loves running around shirtless, drives a Ferrari and wears golden necklaces?
Oh, the golden necklace! Don't get me started on that one....

.Please mothers of teenage sons, I need your help! Do you think I emotionally scar our teen by making fun of him?


In case you want to know what I prefer when it comes to teen fashion: Here is our oldest teenager in plain, simple, cool chic!

THIS BOY IS DIFFERENT

His alarm blasted me out of bed this morning.
 "Shit, I overslept! Darn, I forgot to turn my alarm clock on last night!"

Quickly I jumped out of bed. Waking up only 30 minutes later than usual disrupts my whole, well rehearsed early morning flow.
As soon as I opened our bedroom door I was blinded by our mega watt light bulbs in the hallway!

  Blinded by too many bright lights I stumbled down our wide stairs.

Down in our kitchen I saw him, our fourth son Gangyu (our Japanese exchange student):  His upper half hidden in the pantry, searching for his perfect breakfast cereal, a pan with scrambled eggs already on the stove.
My hastily spoken  "Good morning" remained unanswered.

 On my way to the coffee maker I opened up the dishwasher, cleared some dishes from our kitchen isle and proceeded to one of the cabinet doors. While I filled the coffee filter my eyes wandered down to the clock: 5.10am!
What is going on here?  Is this boy mad? What is he doing up so early?

   "I need to study", was his answer.

Of course he does- at 5.10 in the morning with a tummy full of freshly made scrambled eggs and choco pops!  The Japanese Education Department did a great job;  they installed a real sense of pride for learning into this young boy! At 5.10 am in the morning he is reading his school books!
 Let me get out of here and back into my bed!

What are my real kids doing at this moment? - I will bet my cereal boxes they are sound asleep in their beds!
 I don't even know if they study - they must study somewhere, some how, their report cards are very decent indeed!
What a delightful, studious young boy Gangyu is.  He  possesses a zest for his new life with us and is impressed by even the smallest things his host mother does. For example:

Currently I am getting ready to take another item of my self assigned 'no more excuses-list":
 I am about to sing karaoke! And not just at any odd karaoke bar. One of our Ridge neighbours suggested to join the happy people at Vancouver's most prestigious gay club.

 Watch out gentlemen, your "Dancing Queen"  is on her way to sing herself into your hearts. 

Currently I am practicing my version of  "I am What I am" to get me in the mood.
Please picture the following: It's a warm, sunny late summer afternoon, the windows are wide open, the woman of the house singing from the bottom of her heart, wrong tune, made up words, loud enough for all the neighbours to enjoy!

How do your kids react to your singing?
 My kids pleasantly ignore me, shut their ears close or leave the room. Gangyu? He interrupts his table tennis match, runs up from our men den and wants to know: "Christina, why are you so happy?"

Told you, he is different!

ANOTHER Immaculate CONCEPTION & DELIVERY

Don't we all love today's technology?

We are one click away to have Domino's Pizza deliver our dinner.
We order our clothes and flight tickets online.
With one click we can order a bride, a new book, shoes , theatre tickets.
 Thanks to online services we can also choose to have another child. If you click yes on the form, your son will be delivered to your front porch.
As I said, technology has its perks!
Without  random acts of hanky panky, no unnecessary weight gain or labour pain, nappy changes, painfully long sleepless nights, the fourth child arrives at your door step; all grown up, well groomed, well behaved! Most importantly, he can talk, walk, bicycle, ski and swim- or knows how to play hockey (or not!).

Before you get any second thoughts, I am talking about an exchange student here! For the second year in a row we opened our house and hearts to a student from a different mother and father. This year our 'son' arrived from Japan!

Last year we hosted our first ever Korean boy. After our initial excitement and novelty wore off our family wasn't sure if we should repeat the experience. Too many small things (read: annoying) piled up by the end of his stay:
He loved our computer more than us,

he preferred the great indoors to the adventurous outdoors,
 he beat us all in table tennis, he constantly slurped his dinners,
he tripled our electricity and food bill and  told Cruz to f...off.  The f-word is rude by all means, coming out of his mouth with his Korean accent sounded more like a declaration of love than war though.

Today, Ganggyu (read: Can you) is in our life. He is only 11 years of age and so far I am happy to report not much has changed on our home front.  He does his best to fit it.
Until now he only fooled us once; the first TV show he chose to watch was Sponge Bob! Both Dominic and I were so pleasantly surprised by his choice, we called him cute. In comparison, our  biological 10 year old prefers killing zombies on his xbox.
As I just mentioned. he fooled us alright; within a day Sponge Bob was replaced by the Terminator and worse, by Double Headed Shark Attack, a ridiculously, very bad, horror-soft-porn-flick.  How did he do it? How could he go from Innocent 11 year old to blood thirsty, horny mature 11 year old in less than 24 hours? He didn't flinch when the two half naked girls started kissing each other during their threesome; meanwhile the double headed shark got ready to attack!

As a mother to my own or 'borrowed 'children I draw the line at shark attacks - as soon as I see body parts floating off or too many boobies the TV needs to be turned off.

Where do you draw the line?

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TRUMPED BY MY 9 YEAR OLD NIECE

Before I get on with the story you need to know three things:

1.)  I have a nine year old niece, Lenne,  - the up and coming queen of gymnastics. According to my parents this girl is made of jello.  If you believe the proud grandparents this girl can put the most talented member of Cirque du Soleil to shame.

2.) We currently live 9ooo km apart from each other, my niece, my parents and I.
Thanks to modern communication we stay in touch with random phone calls full of sweet nothingness.
If my niece is the princess of gym apparatus, my mom is the undefeated queen of random jibber jabber!

3.) There are two items on my bucket list I am horrified to do! That's why they are on the list; I strategically postponed these two actions successfully for 40 years. One of them is to do a back dive into the pool!

 "What, that's it?"
Easy for you to say! We all have our own personal fears and shortcomings to overcome - and the back dive is mine!

 Last week, out of the blue, I decided to take the plunge- literally. Don't ask me why, I just wanted to do it ! Who am I to encourage, motivate and inspire to Just do it if I am not doing it myself?

A plain and simple, straight backwards back dive is all I ever wanted to complete and experience since I am about 8 years old!

Why haven't I done it?
 I am afraid! I am afraid to break my back and to hit my head somewhere. I am afraid of not being flexible enough. Letting go, falling backwards into the big unknown freaks me out! Until last Tuesday that is!

Here is the abbreviated version of how it went:  Y E S, I did it! HURRAH - I let myself go - and survived!

As you can read, this back dive is a pretty huge accomplishment in my life! For good measure I did the dive six times; to make sure I am not a one-hit-diver!


A few days later our long distance line was busy with my mom's desperate attempt to figure out her yearly pre- Christmas- dilemma:
 What can she send whom and how for the holy season? In between my non -helpful suggestions (just send some sweets, we have everything) my mother kept on asking:
 "So tell me, what is new?"

Regardless of how many times I answer this question in general, she keeps on asking the same thing, over and over again; as if she is hoping something spectacular is going to happen while she is on the line!

I don't know if my parents ever knew about this personal absession of mine. Regardless, I told them. I told them about my personal victory, about how I conquered my fear diving backwards into a pool!
After I finished with "I did it!" there was nothing, just (stunned????) silence on their end!

This was mom's reaction to one of my most courageous, personal challenges so far:
 "You should see what Lenne can do!  It is unbelievable how this girl can bend herself into a pretzel!"

Isn't it funny?
 Some things mean the world to you- but they mean little or nothing to others; personal or business accomplishments mean nothing if we brag about them to the wrong audience!

REAL SOCCER MOMS AROUND THE WORLD

 Once again, soccer season is upon us!
With a mixed bag of emotions I am greeting the new season; it's the time of the year again we  wave good-bye to our free evenings, a non existing dinner schedule, and our own evening appointments.
 From now onwards we are back on a schedule, we are back in the game! From now onwards there won't be any room for fancy self indulgences as a parent!
 Real Soccer Wives of the overpaid midfielders and strikers, you have no idea what's really going on!
Real Housewives of Vancouver? You must be joking, they have no clue what's going on either!

 I want to tell you about  the unsung supporters and heroes of the game.
 These amazing, loving, caring, always present individuals ; they deserve a hug and a big kiss from their sons and daughters for putting their own ideas of a fun Saturday aside! 
Whom do I want to praise and celebrate? Us mothers!  Always there for our kids, always scheduling, always driving, comforting, praising, encouraging, making sure the water bottles are filled, the snacks are packed!
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It is the end of August and we are getting ready to celebrate Labour day here in Canada! It is the last long weekend before we send our children back to school on Tuesday.
 The clever parents chose a weekend trip away with their kids.  The conscientious ones chose team over trip (like we did)!
Our own soccer club, West Coast Auto Group FC,  is hosting their annual grand Labour weekend soccer tournament. Their timing is impeccable because most of us soccer moms have gone into relaxation mode! Eight soccer free weeks are behind us, nine months are ahead of!
The tournament is a reminder of what is expected of us parents again:  Lots of driving around, lots of watching, cheering on, encouraging, mingling and comforting!


Without further ado, let me share with you 12 hours in the life of  one of these soccer moms:
Three boys, six matches, three different soccer fields!

 6.30 am: Everybody is still in bed, sleeping! Mom is off to do her share for the team

 

Right, just that, setting the good example!  For us it's not about the smoking, for us it is getting up at dawn, helping  to set up tents and chairs around the various fields!

 

 

8.30am: Tents are up! The first match starts at 11 am. Needed to pick up soccer shirts and some groceries first before heading home!

 

10.30: First son dropped off. A quick mingle, chat and "does my hair look good?" with Janet.

I watched the first 30 minutes, then I needed to be back to welcome our new exchange student.

 

 

 

1.15pm: Second son, second match!

 

1.45pm: Youngest  son, third match:

 

3.55pm: First son again, fourth match to watch:

 

4.30pm: Fifth match of third son:

 

5.45pm: Sixth and last match! Help, get me out of here!

 

What else is there to say? Tomorrow is another day - and we will do it all over again!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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