The Academy of Chaos

We just wrapped up an evening with most of our neighborhood friends. It's an annual thing where the kids light sparklers, the dads light fireworks, and the moms prepare footage for YouTube.

I wish I could say this was an anomaly; that the other 364 days of the year we mind our own business and go about our lives without intersecting. Because that would make moving away SO much easier. July 10th, all of our neighbors are throwing us a going away party. The upside is that it will bring the closure I so desperately need in every aspect of my world. But maybe, if we loaded the moving van and caught a typical neighborly wave or two as we pulled away from our home of 10 years it wouldn't feel like heartbreak.

But, we've had children alongside each other. We've watched the kids all grow up together. We've cried and laughed and celebrated together. In two days, we will decorate bikes and wagons and scooters, and then we will parade through the neighborhood ending at the park shelter for more fun.

All of this just one last time. The people who move into our house are moving into a family. The front yards are like one big amusement park. The backyards come in triplicate with trampolines and pools and tree swings. In the winter, you would never know who lived where based on where they shoveled. We watch each other's kids and homes. We've all lost dogs and didn't have to pretend it didn't hurt so bad. That kind of support is priceless.

In 13 days, I will leave this house and this neighborhood and this life. I'm headed to a whole new world, but I'm excited for it. It kind of feels like a stepping stone. Leaving here will never be easy, but I get the feeling it'll always feel like home.

So, to my neighbors/friends/family on Academy Drive, thank you. And next year, riding the ottoman down the middle of the street WHILE lighting fireworks may in fact cross 'the line'. But, send me the YouTube link anyway...

Ava, Birthday Princess Extra-Ordinaire

Things in the Hruby household are in full swing right now. We're all doing our assigned duty to prepare for Ava's upcoming birthday party. This particular birthday has had me thinking a lot. For whatever reason, turning six is a huge deal for Ava. She's been walking up to Jeff and me for at least a month now and saying, "You know, I'm 6 years old". We say "no, not yet" she disagrees, etc. She seems to think that we live in one of those societies where turning 6 means you can now be the leader of your own tribe...if there is one of those. Let's just say that if this is that society (God help us), I can predict a couple things:

1. The tribe would consist of Ava, Sophia, several Barbies, some My Little Ponies, and a smattering of Playmobil characters.

2. The tribe would have the shortest history of any across the globe past, present, or future. Here's why:

Ava and Sophia are very much like playing with an older kitten. Very cute and fuzzy, make adorable noises, play play play BITE! And now everyone is bleeding, a slap fight has broken out and the girls are screaming things like "Sophia! You just make me so ANGRY!! I am going to leave this room right now because I feel like screaming at you", or "Ava! You are the meanest girl ever! And you are NOT invited to my party!" Sometimes negotiations break down to hair pulling or colored picture ripping. They really know how to hit where it hurts.

I lost track there. So, Ava has chosen to break out the phrase, "It's MY birthday party". Yeah, neat-o. I have tried to go the ignore it and it'll stop route, but that did nothing. So, this weekend at Target, I laid down the law. I try not to do that, but if you read one of the previous blogs about me and cereal aisle lady, you need no more explanation. I was going to get more cups for Ava's school birthday party. The girls were supposed to stay with Jeff. Ava disagreed and tried to get out of the cart. We said stop...oh, about 36 times...and she didn't. The parental voices got terse and Ava shot back, "It's MY party!!". Ruh-roh. I stomped back over to her and said (please note the quotation marks), "I have had ENOUGH of that! It IS your party, but it is MY MONEY! And if I hear the phrase "it's my party" again, I WILL TAKE IT AWAY!! Now! What color cups do you want!!

I would be remiss not to point out the magical part of watching a child prepare for what is apparently the most important party of their very short life. I watch Ava talk about her party in a presidential inauguration kind of way. "Now, Mama. Did you get the puppy plates?" "Yes" "Did you get the kitty plates?" "Yes" "Were you able to find more gummy flip flops?" "No" "Well, why not?!" Now, this last question is asked in what I have to assume is exactly the same tone as a police officer interrogating someone about why they didn't go back to see if the Bengal Tiger had in fact eaten their friend. How do you answer that? Well, there is only one company that sells the gummy flip-flops and we already ordered from them (missing something in the fine print about how best to hold your own ankles when you bend over). We eventually came to an agreement about the party favors. She would leave the subject alone and I would let her live to see them.

All that said, I do remember the magic of being a kid and having birthday parties. I remember driving to the hotel for my swim party all the while keeping my eyes on the wrapped gifts in the back. I always thought I knew what I was getting, I was never right. I still remember the commercials for what was "Kirkwood Inn" and I remember thinking, "the kids in that commercial are the luckiest kids ever". Everything was all chlorine scented and you were guaranteed sausage pizza and orange pop. At the end of the day, your eyes burned from the prolonged exposure to chlorine they warned you about, there was water in your ears, and you felt like you were still swimming. It was the perfect kind of exhausted. Even better if you were the birthday boy or girl.

Ava turns 6 in 13 days. I can't believe it. Sometimes she seems so much older than 6, sometimes she seems younger. When she points something out with her hand next to mine, I can't believe how little time she has actually been on this earth. Just tiny. Inside Ava, there is the kind of spirit that will change this world. She is stronger and braver than I ever was, and so, so smart. She has this depth of feeling and emotion that seems endless. Sometimes I forget about the parts of her heart that are just like the parts of mine when I was a little girl. We've never gone to bed without talking things out and making it better. And for as crappy as I feel when I don't hear her out, I so love that she will still sit in my lap and let me hold her while she gives me another chance to LISTEN to her.

On May 29th, at 9:50AM Ava will officially be six. And I will officially be six years into the most important life lesson I've ever been part of.

Thank you God for my Ava Lili, thank you Buddha for helping me see the beauty in every single thing she touches (even if sometimes it's delayed), and thank you to all of you who have loved her and treated her like one of your own. Someday she'll get it too.

Isn't Nature Fascinating?!

We've been promising the girls a trip to Petsmart culminating in the purchase of frogs and fish. Frogs and fish to fill the aquarium previously inhabited by 2 tadpoles generously gifted to the girls for free. The tadpoles were VERY exciting. Then one died. Then the other one teased us by sprouting the tiniest little leg buds known to man...or frog. Then, as quickly as the girls named the one remaining tadpole "Skittles Sugar Diamond", it quit its leg-growing process and began the process of dying, swimming again, dying, swimming again, you get it.

Mother's Day: The kids in the neighborhood were playing together while the adults were drinking coffee, visiting, etc. I started talking with our neighbor whose kids also had boarded the tadpole roller coaster of emotion, and we realized that our tadpoles were existing in the same messed up frog purgatory. Their tadpole had been living/dying with leg buds for a full year. Okay. Knowing there was even a remote possibility that I might have to explain to the girls everyday for the next year that Skittles Sugar Diamond was "trying to become a frog but everyone grows at their own pace" as opposed to "I don't know what's wrong! It just won't die! Okay?!" pushed me from annoyed to just plain hateful. My neighbor and I began lamenting the fact that our tadpoles would neither become frogs nor JUST DIE already. We had a good humored conversation about wishing our baby mutant amphibians would just bite it, and then we all had places to be so off we went. That night, Skittles Sugar Diamond died. Yikes. Now, the weekdays get so busy for all of us around here, that the next time I had a chance to talk to my amphibian amiga was when we chose the same gas station Thursday morning. She started pumping gas, then came closer and said (as though we'd done something wrong...) "our tadpole died last night!". And now I'm panicking.

My God!! Our negative energy was so strong, it actually KILLED the tadpoles. Neither one of us is actually that certifiable, so we joked about using our power for good and not evil, blah blah blah. I left the gas station and went to help out in Ava's classroom for the morning. When I got home, I had a voicemail from the aforementioned neighbor that started out like this, "WTF, Ang. I came home to clean the tank and the tadpole started swimming around!" Could someone PLEASE diagram this life cycle for me???

Ok, so what is my point you ask? My point is this: My neighbor and I thought we could kill mutants with our brain power, but it turns out, only I can. Now I'M holding all the cards, bitches!!

(oh, and in case you were wondering, Ava named the red and orange fish "silver" and Sophia named the frog "hamster toe". Yup. They're mine.

EUREKA!!!

I've got it! The cure to what ails me! The buyers get to walk through my house, my personal space, and then leave comments about it all the while maintaining their anonymity.

Enter Brainchild.

I'm going to start a public message board whereby we, the homeowners, get to call out the "buyers" (yeah. right.) who entered our private space and then rejected it. Maybe it'll be one of those digital billboards on the Beltline. You would enter your address, the time of the showing, and then YOUR thoughts about THEM.

Mine would go something like this:

5214 Academy Drive
4:45 - 5:45 5/11/11
After scheduling an appointment so that you could displace my family in a thunderstorm which included small child-sized HAIL. You informed us that you had been "wowed" by another home. Really? Well after you left mine it smelled like farts for hours.

Good God I feel better.

Just some observations...

I was on my way to pick Sophia up from preschool and decided to do a little garage sale sweep. You never know where the best sales are going to be, so I was working my way through an unfamiliar neighborhood. I was driving along and saw a group of probably 6 or 7 guys, men, spanning a couple different ethnicities. Here's my observation and I really hope I don't offend anyone. I saw this group of guys and my first instinct was 'trouble'. I wasn't in my neighborhood, I don't know any of these people, and I saw them across 4 lanes of traffic. I have not had a negative experience that would lead me to make that jump. In fact, I've had some really great experiences with people of lots of different ethnicities. So, why? I am a nice person and there isn't anyone I won't talk too. I once stood in my driveway "conversing" with a woman visiting family from Syria for an hour. She was looking for the bus stop her grandchildren would be getting off at. And she knew NO English. The only reason I know she was from Syria was because I ran inside and got an almanac. We got it figured out and for the life of me I still don't know how. So, why when I saw this group of men did I immediately make the jump to 'dangerous situation'? Fairly quickly, I realized what I was doing and decided to blog about it. Why does this happen? Does it happen to anyone else? I'm aware that I do this from time to time and I think that's a good beginning.

Ok, another observation. I think if we're being honest with ourselves, we will admit getting a little dose of euphoria and adrenaline when we see someone else get pulled over. Especially when it's someone that passed you while driving like a total moron. But, if you've ever been in a car accident you know that it is all around crappy. And NOT something that witnessing will give you that little charge. After picking Sophia up from school, we were driving on a 3 lane road; left turn, straight, right turn. There was a big truck in the front, then a semi-expensive looking newish little hybrid kind of car, then me. While we were sitting there, the left turn signal turned green and the guy in the hybrid decided to take a left instead of staying in the straight lane. As he pulled out from behind the truck, he caught his passenger side front door on the bumper, but kept driving. I'm not sure if he didn't know it happened or if he was trying to pull a fast one, but had that left turn signal not turned red, I think he probably would have kept going. After he hit the truck and then pulled into the next lane, the truck driver turned around and looked at me and yelled "HEY!". I was a couple car lengths behind him so I was pretty sure he knew it wasn't me, but I was close enough that I got that horrible car accident pit in my stomach. The two drivers "interacted" a bit and then drove forward so they could pull over. I was sitting at the light watching these 2 guys get out of their trucks and it suddenly hit me; I LOVE seeing people get pulled over. But, I wouldn't wish even a tiny fender bender on anyone. The truck guy looked like Grizzly Adams, the hybrid car guy looked like he could be my dad. Poor guy. I'm pretty sure caving in the side of his car (no damage to Grizzly's truck)was not on his to do list this morning. I still have this sad feeling in my gut. Poo.

Also, at Target I heard a woman yelling at her kids in way that was ALMOST over the top. Then they came around the corner into my aisle and she could have been me, I HAVE BEEN her. Being a mom is tough. Especially in public when I shatter my OWN standard of being a calm, patient, 'let's talk it through' mom. I'm not her. I try, but the cereal aisle woman and I have a whole lot more in common. I love my girls and I'm not going to let them act like jungle animals.

That's good, right? I wish I could stop judging me.

These are my observations. I really hope no one is offended by any of this. I am NOT a judgy person. I AM, however, almost an adult kind of if you round up on the "maturity" scale. That means I can have cake for lunch. So I am.

Talk to ya later.

This might be profane...

We're trying to sell our house.

Those 6 words are enough to make me question EVERYTHING. I'm sorry, I really try hard not to swear, but the title should have clued you in. This process is sooo SHITTY. It makes me think really unkind things about my fellow humans. Why, I ask you, did you come to see my house if it is farther east than you want to live? Why did you need to make an appointment, BLOW IT OFF, then call to say you're coming just as I sit my girls down for a much needed snack only to give us feedback that the rooms are too small for you? The measurements are ON THE LISTING. Did you think that the room sizes might magically change? These aren't my only frustrations, not by far. For God's sake people, if I'm going to bust my ass to make my house look the way YOU want it and not the way my FAMILY wants it, get your shit together and don't waste my time. If you came to see my house and decided you didn't want to buy it, could you at the very least leave me some constructive feedback? Give me SOMETHING I can change? I can't do a whole lot about how far east my house is. And I'm really bad at changing room sizes THAT ARE ALREADY DOCUMENTED AND BUILT. How about something along the lines of repainting or refinishing or landscaping! This is one of those days I come home from somewhere and can form no other words until I get "I hate people" out of my mouth. Such bullshit. This process sucks in ways I never could have fathomed. I would rather pass kidney stones than do this. Oh wait, I get to do that at the same time.

Neat-o gang. I think I get now why you see so many listings of homes where they so clearly made no effort to 'make it pretty'. I may not even leave the house for the next showing. I'm just going to sit on the couch in my underwear eating chocolate and screaming at the TV. The TV I didn't turn on. Yeah. I'm crazy bitches. Buy my house or get the f*** out.

That said, anyone looking to move? It's a lovely neighborhood. School nearby. Lots of parks. And if you buy my house, I'll leave.

Only read if you're REALLY curious, cause this one I wrote for me...

It has been about 5 months since I posted a blog. Ava was just beginning kindergarten, Sophia was anxiously awaiting her preschool debut, and I was struggling with where the aforementioned left me. I kind of felt like I'd just been dropped from a full-time position as Mom to a part-time position as Mom. As it turns out though, I am still very much a full-time Mom. My position is shockingly secure.

There have been great times and rough times as well since then. I've made new friends that I feel I've known forever. I've grown as a person in even my own eyes. And, I've been tested, have stumbled, and have continued on. The last few months of my life have been something like the last chapter in a series of books that leaves you hanging. The kind of epilogue that answers some questions and at the same time makes you want to burn the book in front of the author.

This morning after dropping the girls off at their respective schools, I made one last trip to the other side of town, parked in the unsuspecting parking lot, and took the stairs to the second floor. One last time. I checked in and then waited. At 10:00, the door opened and I was greeted by a familiar face. One last time. She offered me something to drink and as always I passed. I lead the way into her office and took what I have come to feel is rightfully my spot on the black couch. I had one last chunk of time to sit across from this person who has watched me cry, yell, laugh, and 'get it' for the past 4 years. The list of previously, seemingly insurmountable things that she has walked me through and helped me to put away is both too long to go into and also insignificant. What is significant is the person I am today. I no longer starve myself, I don't feel hatred toward myself, I believe that my family is as fortunate to have me as I am to have them; I've found the balance in my world.

We talked for 50 minutes about nothing important alongside a conversation about guiding my girls through a life they will not only survive, but flourish in. She told me to acknowledge the scary things and then put them away. And where many times before it had felt as though someone had removed the batteries from the clock in order to keep me in that office for days at a time, this session felt like I blinked and it was over. Before I left, she hugged me and then just as my mom does when I cry while saying goodbye to her after a visit, she took my face in her hands and said, "I will always be here." And I know that she will. So, why is this so hard? Because, if I see her again, it means I've stumbled, or I've lost faith in my ability to do 'this'. If I don't see her again, it will be like meeting your guardian angel face to face and then walking away.

I am healthy because I busted my ass. I am alive because I discovered my own self-worth. I am part of my family because it's what I want. But, I was able to want, to survive, and to bust my ass because she showed me how.

I am going to live the next 60 years of my life as a healthy, crazy pain in all of your asses because of her! But, also because of cake...