I Look Like Crap Today Because of my Kids

December 20, 2013 charleneaross2 Comments

I look like crap today. And I blame my kids.

I’m not talking about what they did to my poor body. I’ve forgiven them for that. (Mostly.)

Or the gray roots that are in desperate need of a touch up that I blame solely on them and not my genetic make-up even though the women in my family do tend to gray prematurely. (Gray hair at 48 is premature right?)

I don’t even mean the wrinkles that surely have more to do with the stern and sour looks that attach themselves to my face when I’m worrying about my kids, than the tanning I did in the 80’s (with Bain de Soleil SPF #4 that instantly turned your skin the most beautiful shade of orange that no self tanner today can even come close to competing with).

bain-de-soleil — In the 80’s my silly friends used baby oil, but I “protected” my skin with this.

No, I am specifically talking about today. I look like crap today. And it’s all Chandler and Marley’s fault.

I went to the gym this morning at 5:30 even though I woke up feeling like I was getting a cold. I refused to believe that the universe would give me a cold five days before Christmas and I convinced myself I was just tired like every morning when I get up at o’dark o’clock. But as soon as I did my first jumping jack in my boot camp class I knew that a dreaded winter cold was most definitely settling itself inside my head.

When I go to the gym I need to be a bit more organized than other days to get to work on time. I left my class before stretching (my favorite part) so I could get home a little early because I had told Chandler I would drive him to school today. That sets my dog walk back about five minutes. But I was prepared for it. (Shhh – don’t tell Dave I gave the dog a half-block shorter walk.)

After Chandler was deposited at school and the dog was walked I woke up Marley, made our breakfast and then started getting ready for work when Dave took her to school. Just as I got out of the shower the phone rang. It was Marley. She forgot the Christmas cookies we stayed up until 10:00 baking and wrapping in cute little bags for her teachers and her friends.

(I did not feel sick last night when I was baking cookies, but the virus must have been brewing inside me, so would the 350 degree temperature of the oven kill the virus or or excelerate its power into some nuclear strength super virus?

Just wondering.

If Marley offers you a cookie today you might want to decline.)

Where was I? Oh yeah, Marley forgot her cookies. Crap.

Dave took the dog when he took her to school so I was afraid he was going to go straight to the park and walk the dog without coming home. (Yes our very spoiled dog gets two morning walks a day – a short one with me and a long one with Dave.) He didn’t answer his cell so I quickly dressed and hopped in the car.

Luckily I only got about a half block away when I saw him coming down our street. I honked and got his attention and he offered to go back and drop off the cookies.

I went back home, used my Neti pot, which takes extra time I did not have, and decided to put on “weekend make-up” which means no eye shadow or lipstick to save time. And I very much regret not using concealer.

Just as I was plugging in my flat iron (thank god I didn’t wash my hair – I’d have been totally screwed), the phone rang again.

Chandler forgot his running bag. A bag he brings with him every single day to school.

I believe both my children have a serious case of winter break fever that has seriously affected their already sub-par organizational skills.

I made sure Chandler’s bag had everything he needed, found his practice running shoes, and drove to where he was waiting at the end of the street.

When I got home my hair did not cooperate with my flat iron. It’s casual Friday, but I don’t think my favorite hat would go over well in my office.

Bad hair day hat — Perfect for early morning Saturday soccer games – but the office? Not so much.

I really didn’t have time to spritz my hair with a little water and blow it out a little like I usually do when my flat iron can’t fix my two-day dirty hair.

So thanks to my forgetful daughter I have weekend make-up that doesn’t do much to mask my sallow virus-ridden skin and thanks to my forgetful son my hair looks like it belongs under a hat.

So if you see me today please forgive the way I look. I blame my kids.

How I Can Be a Good Mom and a Bad Mom at the Same Time

December 16, 2013December 16, 2013 charleneaross3 Comments

Last week I was offered two last minute tickets to KIIS FM’s Jingle Ball. Now most of the acts at Jingle Ball aren’t really my beatbox jam (that sounds way hipper than “cup of tea” right?) – Selena Gomez… Ariana Grande… Austin Mahone (who?)… Fifth Harmony (again, who?)… Miley Cyrus.

Actually most of the artists aren’t Marley’s beatbox jam either, but she likes Travie McCoy and Macklemore and Ryan Lewis and she looooves Miley Cyrus. (God help me.)

Oh what a mother will do to bring joy to her child.

(Plus Enrique Iglesias was going to be there. And he’s super-hot.)

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “That Charlene is such good mom to drive 90 minutes in traffic on a Friday night to go to downtown LA and sacrifice her poor eardrums to a nightful of banal pop music.”

And you’d be right.

Except you’re wrong. I am a bad mom. A very very bad mom.

Oh, don’t worry, I took her. But I probably shouldn’t have.

Marley had to be on the soccer field the next day at 7AM to play three (THREE!) soccer games at 8:00, 10:30 and 1:00 in her very first post-season championship soccer tournament.

Even with a full night’s sleep I was anticipating an “I’m too tired, I can’t run anymore” Marley meltdown around the third quarter of the second game. (She’s a rather lazy athlete.)

And all week long we’d been getting reminder emails from the (waaaay too enthusiastic) team mom and coach.

“Please make sure your girls are rested, fed and hydrated. They’ll need all their energy on Saturday!!!”

“For our Saturday games, we need to arrive no later than 7:00am in order to check in all the players. Please have an early night folks, and be sure to give the girls a good breakfast!”

(Like I, an adult woman, need to be reminded to put my kid to bed on time and feed her a proper breakfast before a very early morning three game soccer tournament.)

Well, apparently I do, because I’m sure that a good mother would have realized that as fun as the concert would be for her daughter, her daughter made a commitment to soccer and it was important that she get a good night’s rest before her tournament. She owed that to her teammates. Marley didn’t even have to know that we were offered the tickets, so she wouldn’t even have to be upset about it.

But I’m not a good mother. I’m a bad mother who wants my daughter to think I’m a good mother and love me for just five minutes of her miserable tortured angst-ridden hormonal teenage life.

(Plus did I mention that Enrique Iglesias was going to be there? And that he’s super hot?)

Enrique-Iglesias-concert — Look at that smile – so cute!

We had a talk. I told her that if I took her she would have to suck it up and over-perform on the soccer field no matter how tired she was. She nodded her head in agreement. She promised she would not complain and play her very very best.

And I was right. She was happy. And so sweet. And she loved me the most for five minutes. (Even though it was her father’s connection that got us the tickets.) She didn’t even complain when she ate dinner at home instead of paying double for the she-knows-how-bad-it-is-for-you-but-doesn’t-care-it’s-still-her-favorite-because-it’s-so-delicious McDonald’s at the Staples Center.

And we had a great time. I got through the lip syncing. And the bad music. The supposed war between Selena Gomez and Ariana Grande went right over my head. I very much enjoyed Macklemore and Ryan Lewis. (They rocked the house.) Enrique Iglesias did not disappoint. (I’m pretty sure he was singing only to me.) But I was not very impressed with Robin Thicke.

Neither was Marley.

thumbs down — Marley says Robin Thicke degrades women and she is not down with that!

I was incredibly impressed with New Politics. In fact, they were freaking amazing. (And super cute – Enrique who?) I’m definitely going to have to see them in concert for real. (Meaning where they play a full set instead of just two songs.) In the first place they are a real band who actually plays instruments and does not sing to track or pre-recorded music (a rarity in the Jingle Ball world). And secondly, the lead singer break dances! And is crazy good at it. Seriously, check this out (I promise it will put a smile on your face.)

Oh, and in case you haven’t heard, Miley did indeed twerk Santa Clause. (I love and want to keep my readers, so I will spare you a picture.)

We had a great time.

mom and daughter at concert — So much fun!

And got home at 12:45AM. I got to bed at 1:00. And got my ass out of bed four and a half hours later. I gave Marley an extra half hour. I’m sure that when the coach (and over enthusiastic team mom) said get “a good night’s sleep,” five hours wasn’t exactly what they had in mind.

But Marley got up without complaint. And totally stepped it up on the soccer field. (Even though the first game it was raining – hard. And the second and third games were just cold. Like 40 degree cold. And we’re from California so that’s like 20 degrees to us.)

She actually played better than she’s ever played before.

Maybe I’m not such a bad mom after all.

Oh… and one last thing. Can the owner of this camera get in touch with me immediately? (Please!)

Enrique Iglesias photos credit: Eva Rinaldi via Creative Commons.

Why I Let My Thirteen Year Old Daughter Watch The Walking Dead

December 2, 2013December 2, 2013 charleneaross7 Comments

Yep, that’s right. Alert the Mommy Police. I let my 13-year-old daughter watch The Walking Dead. Do I think she’s old enough? Hell no. I cringe as she’s watching it. But I’m not a lazy parent. (At least when it comes to “viewer discretion.”) She’s been begging to watch The Walking Dead for two years and I have held firm with my no. This year I caved. But it’s not for the reason you might think.

I didn’t watch the first season of The Walking Dead. Well, at least not the beginning of it. But Chandler and Dave did. I would occasionally pass by the TV and see some zombie getting its head shot off or bashed in, in a way more gruesome than the time before and ask Dave, “Do you think he’s old enough to be watching this?”

“It’s fine. He’s okay,” would be Dave’s response.

At some point during the first season I got pulled in. And by then it was too late. Chandler, who was in 8th grade at the time, was fully invested, and while it might have been a wise “tough” parenting choice to make him stop watching it, I didn’t.

I will admit that during the second season, when the depth of the darkness of humanity really began to be exposed, is when I started to worry about my son watching the show. The violence and extreme gore are bad enough, but what really bothers me is the means humans will go to, to survive. And on The Walking Dead if you want to survive you have to kill – and not just zombies, sometimes you have to kill other people.

In case you are not aware, The Walking Dead is an extremely dark show.

But for three seasons (well two-and-a-half for me) Dave, Chandler and I would watch The Walking Dead. At first while Marley slept. But as she became older and she started to stay up later, we would start to send her to our bedroom to watch TV in there.

Last year, when Marley was in 7th grade (which, you know, was actually earlier this year), she really started to amp up The Walking Dead campaign. “Everyone at my school watches The Walking Dead, Mom.”

I would immediately list three kids I knew for a fact were not watching The Walking Dead because I knew their mothers well enough to know that there was no way in hell they’d be watching that show. (You know, those super moms who really showcase how lacksidaisical my slightly-better-than-mediocre my parenting skills are.)

“You know we are not allowed to compare ourselves with those families,” she would tell me. (My children have tried to make it a rule that we not compare ourselves with the three super-families run by those three super-moms because they truly are superior in every way to ours -I mean their kids actually like each other and stuff- but I can’t help it, I do it all the time.)

“Different families have different rules,” I would tell her for the millionth time. She would roll her eyes at me and I would wonder what kind of mother would let her 7th grade child watch The Walking Dead. (Even though some of “those mothers” are my friends.)

But Marley is in eighth grade now. The same grade that Chandler was in when he started to watch. So when season four started this year and Chandler and Dave and I excitedly sat down to watch to see what would become of Rick and his crew after taking down Woodbury and Marley poked her head in the room and said in the perfect martyr-like tone of dejection and resignation, “Oh I guess you guys are going to start watch The Walking Dead without me,” I told Dave to pause the DVR.

I had visions of Marley remembering a childhood of being sent to the other room while the three of us watched TV. It’s one thing to send both kids out of the room while the grown-ups watch things that are “inappropriate,” but to send one kid out while the other kid stays in is something entirely different. Especially when done on a weekly basis.

“What grade were you in when you started watching this show?” I asked Chandler.

He thought about it. “Eighth, I guess.”

I looked at Dave.

“Okay Marley,” I said. “I have to be honest. I don’t even like that your brother watches this show. It’s very dark and it shows people doing very terrible things. But I think it’s only fair to let you watch too. Unless it starts to give you nightmares.”

“Oh don’t worry, Mom,” she told me. “Gross stuff like that doesn’t bother me.”

Fantastic.

So there you have it. That’s why I let my thirteen-year-old daughter watch The Walking Dead. I am most definitely not a super-mom. And we are definitely not a “Super Family.”

Proud Mamas and Amazing Kids

November 13, 2013November 14, 2013 charleneaross7 Comments

Last week I saw my son cross the finish line first in his cross country meet at the league finals. The second place runner was nine seconds behind him. It was beautiful.

XC runner — Yes, they did run up that hill before they ran down it! (Photo credit Debby Pattiz)

More importantly than being proud of him, I was happy for him. I knew how much it meant to him to do well and how hard he’s been working. He’s struggled a bit this season. There are seven runners who make the varsity team. He has had to fight for that 7th spot all season long. During the season the coaches would announce the team line-ups at the beginning of each week. Most races Chandler made varsity, but some races he made JV. For the league finals he made JV. At first I think he was a bit disappointed, but then he realized that if he ran JV he had a shot at winning and he became excited.

It was a hard race. He knows the course well, but there are a lot of elevation changes. (For those of you unfamiliar with cross country -or XC-, all courses are different, but they are all three miles in length.)

And it was hot – about 85 degrees. He doesn’t usually run well in the heat. (Of course who does? There were actually trash cans at the end of the race for kids to throw up in and I hear the heat from this race caused a huge puke-a-torium.)

The heat worried me and I think it worried him, so when he overcame it and not only won the race, but more importantly improved his time on the course by 57 seconds, I think he was pretty pleased. A PR (personal record) and a win made for one happy boy and one proud mom.

And then I saw something that made my heart swell up just as much (if not more) for a boy I didn’t even know.

In that same JV race, about twenty yards from the finish line, a boy from another team collapsed. He must have pushed himself too hard in the heat. One of his teammates was just a few steps behind him and instead of running past him and finishing his race with a good time, he stopped and pulled his teammate up. He put his shoulder under his friend’s arm and supported him so they could stumble towards the finish line together. After about ten or twelve steps the boy fell again and his friend tried to pull him up a second time, but the fallen boy wouldn’t let him. “Just go,” he said, waving his friend off. “Just go.” His friend reluctantly ran to the finish. He probably lost more than 30 seconds of his time. A few seconds later the boy who fell was able to get up and cross the finish line on his own. He too, was amazing. He was no quitter.

I don’t know what their coach had to say to the boy who stopped to help his friend. Perhaps he was angry that he sacrificed points for the team. But I hope instead he commended him for his kindness. For the goodness in his soul.

Watching that one boy help his teammate was truly one of the most beautiful things I have ever witnessed. It brought tears to my eyes as I watched it and it brings tears to my eyes every time I think of it. I hope that boy’s mother and father were there to see how selflessly their son acted.

I stayed after Chandler’s race to cheer on his teammates in the other races. And also I wanted to see Sarah Baxter run her last league race. Sarah Baxter is the #1 high school girls’ cross country runner in the nation. She is a running sensation who has never lost a high school race and smashes records at every course she runs. She’ll get a free ride to the college of her dreams and she will most likely make the Summer Olympic team in 2020 if not 2016.

Watching her run is a true joy – she looks like a gazelle. She makes running look effortless. (And I can attest that it is not!) When she runs by everyone from every school cheers. She finished her race 85 seconds ahead of the 2nd place runner. Incredible! And then instead of cooling off (or puking in a trash can) she stood at the finish line to cheer on her teammates. She may be a superstar, but she is no diva.

Sarah-Baxter-cross-country — All eyes are on Sarah Baxter’s time (She crossed at 16:25)

Watching your child -and other children- succeed truly is one of the greatest joys in life. It’s what it’s all about isn’t it?

I feel so lucky and so blessed that I got to witness my son run faster, a girl who is the best in the nation run the fastest, and a boy whose name I’ll probably never know slow down to help a friend.

What has you child -or any child- done lately that made you feel lucky? Made you feel blessed? Made you feel proud?

Boys Do Things Girls Would Never Do

October 29, 2013 charleneaross1 Comment

Boys don’t like to say goodbye. At least not like girls do. My husband always complains that it takes me forever to leave a family function because I have to tell everyone goodbye. Uh… isn’t that called being polite? Isn’t that what people do? Apparently not men.

Chandler just went to his first school dance. Homecoming. He went with a group of friends instead of going with a girl. (Thank god because it’s his junior year and the last thing he needs this year is the drama and the distraction of a first girlfriend.) The kids he went with are his core group – his band friends that he’s hung around with since 6th grade.

But he left the dance with his track and cross country friends.

“Did you tell your friends you were leaving?” I asked him.

He kind of shrugged and mumbled something. (I’ll take that as a no.)

Who does that? Apparently boys.

A girl would never do that. Now a girl ~~might~~ would definitely go somewhere with her girlfriends and leave with a guy. But she would never come with one group of friends and leave with another. And if she did – at least she’d say goodbye.

And men think women are difficult to understand.

Is this a universal thing or is it just the men in my life who don’t feel the need to say goodbye?

One of the 5,687 Reasons Why I’m A Terrible Mother

September 16, 2013 charleneaross9 Comments

I was deep cleaning the kitchen the other day. You know – the move the appliances and the knife rack off the counter and scrub the grout with a toothbrush kind of cleaning, instead of my daily wipe the bread crumbs off with a sponge type of cleaning. It’s amazing the amount of clutter that accumulates on the counter – things I don’t even “see” on a daily basis. The sea salt I cook with that I rarely bother to put back into the cupboard. Ditto for the honey used on peanut butter sandwiches. And for the box of dandelion tea. Behind the toaster I found a napkin holder that Chandler made for me when he was in elementary school. I don’t know if it was a class project or something from Indian Guides, but can I be honest? It’s ugly. I suppose it does have a bit of a Mondrian quality to it. (You know, if Mondrian were sloppy. And didn’t use yellow.)

ugly-child-craft — Proudly displayed on my kitchen table for years.

I used to proudly display it on our kitchen table, as good mothers of bad artists do, but we use cloth napkins now, so not only is it ugly, it’s useless. I can’t quite bring myself to throw it away, so I do what any bad mother would do – I chuck it into the back of the high pantry cupboard never to be found again. At least until the next deep cleaning. Chandler is 16 now. I’m 100% positive that if someone else made it he’d find it not only ugly, but offensive. I know that even though it sat on our kitchen table for years he’s forgotten all about it. And he’s certainly smart enough to know that we have no practical use for it. But I also know that if he found out I threw it away he’d never forgive me. So to the back of the pantry it goes. At least until I tackle that with a deep cleaning.

This is Not a Lay Low Weekend

September 7, 2013 charleneaross2 Comments

Chandler likes what he calls lay low weekends. Lay low weekends are do-nothing weekends. He’ll do his homework. Maybe play some video games. Revel in the luxury of boredom. This is not a lay low weekend. This is a sports weekend. Chandler had a Cross Country meet on Friday. He kicked butt and got a PR. (15:51 in case you’re curious. That’s right my son ran 3 miles in under 16 minutes. Sorry. Braggy mommy moment over.) After the meet he got off the team bus and met some friends at the high school football game and got home around 10:00. Marley skipped cheering her brother on at the XC meet and went to a friend’s house for the day. She and her friend went to the football game as well. Of course everyone knows that football games are more about socializing than sports. Especially for 8th grade girls. They’ve got to check out the social rituals of high schoolers to help lessen the culture shock they’ll be experiencing in one short year. Dave and I enjoyed an impromptu dinner at a cute Mexican place called El Rey a few miles from the meet in Ventura. I’m still eating clean and eating four meals a day. In all the excitement of the day I forgot to eat my third meal. Forgetting to eat is something that never happens to me. The food was amazing. And not just because I was so hungry. (As a bonus, the owner/manager was also ~~super hot~~ quite handsome.) We’ll be back for sure. Saturday morning everyone got up at 6:00. Chandler had a 15 mile run at 7:00 and Marley had to be on the soccer field at 7:30. After we got home we barely had time to catch our breath before Dave and Chandler ran out the door to volunteer at a triathlon in Malibu. (I told you it was a sports weekend.) Marley got a haircut. Then we ran errands. As I type this I’m daydreaming about the beer I’ll be enjoying tonight with the burgers I’ll be grilling. Tomorrow the kids have nothing going on but I have to go on a stupid sucktacular 2.5 mile run with the run club that I accidentally joined. I’m tempted to blow it off, but I signed up to bring pretzels and water. But afterwards I’m going to do a whole lot of nothing. I’m going to lay low.

Hormones Make Teenagers Insane

September 6, 2013 charlenearossLeave a comment

I am not a doctor (nor do I play one on the internet), but I’m pretty sure that hormones make teenagers mentally unstable.

For example, this happened: Two weeks ago my thirteen year old daughter and I were at the library to find her a book. She was ecstatic to find the books Everwild and Everfound by her favorite author, Neal Shusterman.

“I didn’t know this was a trilogy. I’m so excited. Everlost was one of my favorite books. This is so awesome!”

Everlost-Everwild-Everfound — The Skinjacker Trilogy

As I said, that was two weeks ago. She has yet to pick up book number two, much less move on to book number three. I guess even the second and third installments in a trilogy of “one of her favorite books” by her very favorite author pale in comparison to the wonders of YouTube and Instagram.

Today is a school holiday. She doesn’t have any homework except, you know, studying for Monday tests that she “already knows everything” about. I walked into her room this morning and handed her Everwild. “I’d like you to read two chapters of this today.”

She responded most sassily, “I can’t read that, Mom. I don’t remember what Everlost was even about. I’ll be too confused.”

“But you picked this book. You were excited to get it. And you need to read a book for school. You need 15 AR points by next month and this book is 16 points.”

“I know, but I already told you. I’ll be too confused. I can’t read it.”

Two weeks ago she was giddy leaving the library with those two books in her hands. Today they’ll only cause confusion. Please explain to me how this makes any sort of sense.

Start investing in California grapes people, because the amount of wine I’m sure to be ingesting while living with this hormonal bundle of contrariness for the next five years is likely to make me single-handedly bring up their stock prices tenfold. (At least.)

California-Wine — I’ll be drinking a lot of this over the next five years!

*For those of you who know I’m supposed to be writing Just One Paragraph every day in September, I apologize – it was driving me insane to look at all this dialog bunched together. I just had to hit my tab key. I’ll try harder tomorrow.

*Book image from st0rmtrooper via Tumblr

Shopping for School Clothes with a Teenager

September 2, 2013 charleneaross4 Comments

I took Marley shopping for school clothes this weekend. I was hoping to score some good deals from Labor Day sales. There weren’t as many deals as I had hoped. Probably because I’ve found so much joy in shopping at thrift stores and yard sales lately. It’s hard to wrap my head around a $13 Batman tee shirt as a bargain when I recently purchased three skirts, a sweater and a pair of pants for just two dollars more. (My new favorite game to play with myself is to calculate the cost of my outfit in my head…”Wow, this entire outfit only cost $12 including my shoes and purse. I am one hell of a savvy shopper!”) Marley enjoys my thrifty finds (favorite Vans hoodie for only $1.00 – you’re welcome), but does not enjoy thrift store shopping. Or yard sale shopping. Or, truth be told, shopping in general. But I digress… (which is really hard to do in just one paragraph)… shopping with her made me feel old. Like that mother who just doesn’t get it. We do not think the same things are cute. I really never thought I’d be that mother. I remember shopping with my own mother when I was 13 and the importance of having the right clothes. Cute clothes. Clothes that made me stand out in exactly the right way. (Wait, who am I kidding? I still feel that way.) So I bought her (mostly) what she wanted and was thankful that she becomes bored with shopping so quickly and didn’t really want much. I sent Dave a text from Hot Topic, “What’s worse? Dress code questionable clothing or a Black Veil Brides tee shirt?” His response: “Aaaahhhhhhh!” Aaaahhhhhh indeed.

Reagan Library: Exploring Air Force One, The Berlin Wall and The Lincoln Exhibit

August 26, 2013August 26, 2013 charleneaross6 Comments

Chandler is a quirky kid who loves history and had been begging me to take him to the Lincoln exhibit at the Ronald Reagan Library. (Well, maybe not begging. But asking insistently. And repeatedly.)

Marley and Dave were busy with other things, so I got the rare and wonderful opportunity to spend a Saturday afternoon with my 16-year-old son. Even though I had him trapped in a metal box with no escape for twenty minutes I was nice on the car ride over and didn’t ask him about girls.

We mostly chatted about his new classes at school and what we were looking forward to seeing at the museum. (And by chatted I mean I asked him questions and he gave me one – two word answers.) I told him I was most excited about seeing Air Force One. You can see the exhibit building from the freeway and it looks quite impressive.

The bulk of the museum of course is dedicated to Reagan’s presidency. There is a lot of memorabilia including many gifts given to Reagan, the outfits he and the first lady wore on the day of his inauguration, White House china, and even notes scrawled by Reagan when he was in the hospital after he was shot and instructed by his doctors not to speak.

The museum has a replica of the oval office complete with actual items that were on his desk and the small bronze statues he had displayed during his presidency.

There are also a lot of interactive activities including “acting” in a movie with Reagan, “delivering” his inaugural speech, and “setting” the White House table for dinner. Chandler of course could not be bothered with standing on the podium, but I look very presidential, don’t you think?

Air Force One was as cool as I had anticipated. Just the building itself is spectacular. And the plane inside the building is visually stunning. We were able to board the plane, but weren’t allowed to take photographs on board. But in case you were wondering, presidents fly a bit more comfortably than you and I do. (Even if you already fly first class.)

After exploring Air Force One and the other presidential vehicles we went on to the National Treasures Gallery where there is a steel beam from the World Trade Center. It’s amazing how moved you can be by a charred piece of metal.

Finally we got to what Chandler had been waiting for – the Lincoln Exhibit. A. Lincoln: From Railsplitter to Rushmore is a mash-up of over 250 original Abraham Lincoln artifacts and movie sets form Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln” Movie. Objects on display include President Lincoln’s famous stovepipe hat, a bloodied pillow from the night he died, Mary Todd Lincoln’s bible, and coolest of all a Lincoln-signed Emancipation Proclamation.

Lincoln-memorabilia — Actual Lincoln Stovepipe Hat and signed copy of Emancipation Proclamation – does it get any cooler than that? (Sorry for poor quality of no-flash-allowed photos.)

My little (or rather big) history buff thought the Lincoln exhibition was fantastic and I have to agree.

We then moved on to the outside to see a piece of the Berlin Wall and Ronald Reagan’s grave. The views are just gorgeous. And again, it’s pretty cool to look at history right up close.

If you are looking for a Los Angeles or Ventura County day trip and would like to experience some really cool history, I suggest getting yourself to the Reagan Museum before the Lincoln exhibit is gone. But you’d better get there quickly, because the exhibit only lasts through September 30th.

It’s a fantastic way to spend the day. And maybe you’ll even get lucky like me and convince your teenager to pose in a photo with you.

Disclosure: I was given two tickets to the Ronald Reagan Library to facilitate this post, however all opinions, geeking out over Air Force One, and the thrill of spending the day with just my son are completely my own.

Charlene Ross

Category: Motherhood