Suburban mom attends first TECH N9NE concert

Thursday night my husband, Dan, came home, picked up the phone and called our babysitter to see if she was free the following night. He wanted to take me on a date. I was unbelievably excited about this because we have not spent much time together for the last couple weeks due to crazy schedules. Not to mention how cute it was on his part to initiate the whole deal.

Friday morning he called me when he got to work and told me he just remembered his client, TECH N9NE was playing in Kansas City on our date night. As I've written about before, my husband and two other guys own a production company. One of the things they do is make music videos and some of their clients are rappers. That is so very different than what I do on a daily basis.

When they play in town, Dan likes to go to the concerts to show his support. I stay at home with the kiddos on those nights and watch movies about Princesses. It is totally understandable that he wants to support them and he asked me if that would be okay to do on our date. Attending a rap concert is not exactly my idea of a romantic evening but we were going to go to dinner beforehand and he said we wouldn't have to stay all that long. Okay, fine he talked me into it.

Never mind that I rarely listen music with lyrics about anything other than letters of the alphabet or animal noises. I'm a mom with two kids 5 and under, what do you expect? Dan makes the kids listen to good music - he doesn't stand for the kid music and so they actually have pretty good taste - Spoon is a big favorite of theirs. But when they are with me I let them listen to whatever they want.

Anyway, Friday night came and we headed out for our date. BTW- what does mid thirties suburban mom of 2 wear to a rap concert??? I've got to be honest, I did go through a rap phase when I was 16 along with all of my friends - but I have not revisited it since then.

Dinner was lots of fun, afterward we went to a bar to grab a few drinks and then headed over to the concert. I so did not want our evening of quiet to come to an end but alas we had to go. My "not so sure about this whole deal" mood soured a bit more when we walked up to a long line outside the venue that wound around the block. Top that with the fact that it was 11 degrees and snowing - this was not starting off well.

After standing there for about 5 minutes, a guy with TECH N9NE and crew who knows Dan walked up, took us out of the line and brought us in a side door. Not bad.

Inside we got a drink and started pushing our way up toward the front. The place was packed! We came to a standstill in the dead middle right by a gated area that housed the lighting and sound for the concert. The guy running the sound said "hey Dan, come on in here." Score! We got to watch the entire concert in an area that, had it not been gated, would have housed about 25 people smashed into one another - but instead it was us and the sound/light guys. There were even stools to sit on. Things were getting better and better.

About thirty seconds into the concert I was hooked. The crowd was so excited and there was so much energy. Sadly I think the last concert I went to was Jim Cosgrove, Mr. Stinky Feet. It just did not have quite the same feel...

I do happen to know a lot of TECH N9NE's songs because I've seen the videos that my husband directs. About 2 minutes later I was on the stool rocking with the crowd (see I'm a total mom - what a dorky thing to say). It was so much fun! There is one song at the end where girls lift their tops - I was so into this whole deal, I think Dan was getting nervous. He said I was not allowed to do that because A) I have children and B) There were cameras filming everything. He's no fun!

After the concert was over we went backstage. It took all my willpower to not embarrass my husband thoroughly by asking for a photo with Tech and Krizz Kaliko. I had only met them before for about five seconds at the Strange Music Christmas party this past December but they all gave me hugs like they had known me forever. They could not have been nicer and actually spent a lot of time telling me that my husband is awesome and extremely creative. Coming from guys who just played to a sold out crowd who were dancing and singing every word to their songs, that is a pretty big compliment.

The evening was the best date ever. Suburban mom is now a rap fan.

My kids never cease to amaze me

I'm sure the two people who read this blog (thanks mom and dad!) know by now that Z man is a crazy child. I love him to pieces and adore the craziness that his small little body houses. He is so him and I would not want it any other way. His new obnoxious habit is guzzling a drink in the kitchen and then spiking the cup on the floor. Unfortunately it is hilarious and I have an extremely hard time disciplining him because I am laughing so hard. I mean where does he get this stuff? He is only 2!

Over the holiday break we moved Z to a big boy bed. Seeing him in his crib he just looked smooshed and he had been waking up ridiculously early for the past several weeks, figuring he was uncomfortable we thought it might be a good time.

I was a nervous wreck over this switch. Allowing the maniac that kind of freedom could not be a good thing. The things he does directly in front of my face are unbelievably dangerous/appalling/messy/bizarre/frightening/defiant/insane so I could only imagine what he would do when left to his own for hours and hours on end. And to make matters worse we got him a bunk bed. Not to worry, we aren't total morons, we do not allow the ladder on it unless a parent is in the bedroom. He sleeps on the bottom bunk which is a full size bed.

The first night he slept in his new bed I spent a good hour "Z proofing" his room and probably another two hours making sure the front door was locked, car keys were no where to be found, securing the baby gate by the stairs, ensuring all chemicals were under lock and key, leaving lights on in various places in our house so when he did escape he would not fall, etc. etc. In addition, I slept for about 30 seconds that night as I was convinced there was NO way we would get through the night without him roaming the house and finding every danger to be had.

Here we are close to 1 month since the switch happened and the kid has not attempted to get out of his room, sleeps in until about 9:00 every morning and goes to bed without a peep. When he wakes up in the morning he just yells for us to come get him and he doesn't even get out of his bed. Whaaaat? This is not the Z man I know. This is just not sitting right with me. He must be plotting something.

He put a candy cane where???

My friend Lindsey's son speaks exclusively in Dora the Explorer speak. It is hilarious and actually also very amazing. When driving down the road he comes up with these amazing scenarios of how we need to get to the place we are going.

"You need to go through the prickly forest, over the shaky bridge and past the winding river to get to my house!"

It is so cute and shows what an imagination he has. To be honest, I'm impressed with his dedication. He can go on with it for a long time - my kids get bored of just about everything, other than making a mess, in 1.7 seconds.

The other day my son transformed himself into Swiper the Fox, a character from Dora. I was very excited about this at first because I saw all sorts of potential for his creativity and imagination. Unfortunately Swiper the Fox is a thief. He steals things from Dora and her friend, Boots the Monkey, then hides the item so they can't find it. Really - should I have been surprised this is the character with which my child would most identify?

So Z spent several days taking things out of my hand/sister's hand/random strangers hands and throwing them across the room saying "Ha Ha Ha, you'll never find it now!!!" - a direct quote from Swiper. It was sort of cute and funny (well other than snatching the random stranger's wallet) for a little while - except for the things we still cannot find. That kid has an arm on him.

There was one incident in particular that really made me put the kibosh on our resident Swiper.

My daughter had received a green and red striped candy cane from a friend at school. She was very excited about it and talked about it the entire ride home. When we walked into the house we did our usual routine which involves she and I bending over the sink and washing her hands to eliminate the Pre-K germs she acquires in a day.

Since we were not paying attention, Z snuck the candy cane out of E's school bag then walked up behind me "Ha Ha Ha" - and before I knew it uses all his 2.5 year old brute and shoved the candy cane straight down my pants and inside my underwear. "You'll never find it now" Z yelled and ran off.

Um, no, actually that candy cane was pretty easy to find...

That's embarassing

On Christmas Eve my mom and I ran some errands to finish up those final little things. We were at the grocery store and I told her that I needed a new mop. I had mopped our floors that morning and so they were squeaky clean at this point but I was very excited to have a new mop because I just had never liked the one I had. We had some major discussion on mops pros and cons and picked one out that looked good. Christmas, New Years and other festivities ensued.

Fast forward to about 10 days later when my mother called me. She was at the grocery store and was in need of a new mop as well. She was calling to see how happy I was with my mop. I had two choices here, 1) lie and tell her that I loved the mop and it has changed my life or 2) tell her the truth and let her know that it was 10 days and probably 1,000 spills later and I still had not used it yet! I opted for option #2 embarrassing as it was.

I am now happy to report the mop is awesome but it does not compare to the mops I rely on daily - our dogs :)

I'm Stealing It #9

I was pretty excited for my kids to start school on Wednesday. After all it had been 16 days since they had been at school soaking up all the amazing things there are out there for them to learn from their wonderful teachers - oh yeah and I needed some peace and quiet.

Wednesday morning I woke up ready to cook them a hearty breakfast and send them on their way. Flipped on the TODAY show and in glaring letters right there, scrolling along the bottom, Shawnee Mission USD CLOSED. WHAT? It hadn't even started snowing yet, how can they close school? Granted there was snow on the ground but only because it had not been warmer than 2 degrees for like 12 days, that snow was old - left over since Christmas Eve. Admittedly it was supposed to dump like 6 inches of snow in like 3 hours but that wasn't going to start until like 3:00 PM - couldn't they just go to school for a few hours???? Apparently not. Laughingly, my husband headed out the door to work leaving me with these crazed banshees to handle on my own.

As I am writing this, it is now Thursday evening and we are about to close out day 17 of not being in school. So far we have survived although my best guess is that they will not have school tomorrow either. Check back with me tomorrow night.

Boy you have to get creative when you have two children under 6 cooped up in a 2,500 square foot house for 4 days straight. We tried all sorts of things.

*Baked about 19 dozen cookies and decorated them
*Played with every single toy Santa and family gave us (thank God for Christmas and new toys appearing recently!)
*Painted toe and finger nails and every other part of our bodies we could think of
*Watched every television show that ever was - twice
*Crawled up and down and down and up and up and down the bunk bed ladder which is not attached to the bed unless an adult is there to supervise
*Cleaned out closets
*Organized bookshelves (it is amazing what you can get your kids to do when they are bored)
*Ran 248 laps through the kitchen/dining room/living room area
*Punched, slapped, tickled and hugged each other to death

and so many more things that I cannot remember. Of course at this point I can barely remember my name.

I saw many other mothers on Facebook who were crazed as well and I was thrilled when people began giving each other suggestions for boredom busters. One stuck out to me as the perfect solution.

I have been feeling terrible that my kids could not go out and play in the snow when it was so fresh and pretty but with the meteorologists telling me that exposed skin would get frostbite within 20 minutes, that was not something I was going to risk!

I took a big empty bucket outside and filled it with snow three different times, dumped the snow in the bathtub, got the kids dressed in warm clothes and let them have at it.

We determined it was not enough snow to build a snowman but it was enough for little people to make snow angels, throw snowballs at one another and have good clean fun. Total, the gathering of the snow by mom as the kids watched in wonderment of what I was doing, the dressing them in their snow gear, playing in the snow and getting out of their snow gear ate up about 2 hours of my day. Not bad!

How cute is my dad?

My dad is awesome. He has been a very successful business man for many years and tried to retire at one point but drove my mom crazy within one day of being home (something about trying to reorganize how she has arranged items in the refrigerator for the past 40 years) and so now he "offices".

My husband finds it hilarious that my father has made the word "office" a verb, but based on all the friends I have whose fathers "office" I'm thinking it must be an Oklahoma thing. Until recently I wasn't sure what he did in that office other than forward along emails he found hilarious - but now I know. My father is plotting to take over Hollywood.

The man has always wanted to be on tv. There was about a 4 year period of my life where every 6 months or so a new package would arrive in the mail that housed his latest "Survivor" audition tape. He actually hired an ad agency to help him with these videos. Unfortunately Survivor never bit. So now he has moved on and is striving for much greater things. My dad recently finished his first acting course and he is not going to settle until he has been cast in a major Hollywood movie. He is even hoping an Oscar will be in his future.

Where he is right now in the process is that his head shots have been taken and I believe he is looking for an agent. You have to check out his blog which is chronicling the path to his fame. My dad is so adorable - which is probably not what he is wanting to hear. I think he hopes to liken himself to more of a Paul Newman type - but I can't help it, he is my dad after all.

Follow his journey and it will be fun for you to say you knew of him way back when....

Acting Your Age

Happy New Year

Our holiday break was great fun. Lots of nice family time. Santa was very nice to all of us and we had some great evenings with friends. Everything I could ask for.

However, I am pretty sure everyone is looking forward to school starting Wednesday. Well - I know I am. So much in fact that I got my children all dressed and bundled for the balmy 3 degrees it was outside today. Packed lunches, warmed up the car, packed backpacks and headed out to school which was not open. OOPS! I knew that, I really did. I think my subconscious mind wanted to believe so badly that they were going back to school on Monday because that is when I had to go back to work that I was trying to will it to be true. But the lack of vehicles in the school parking lot laughed in my face and told me it was not to be.

Good thing I work from home!