Ooh, goodie! A new month!

Happy August, everyone!  I’m already in love with this month, and it’s only 9 hours old.  For all general purposes, we can say that August is my new favorite month.  Well, at least this August is, anyway.  Why?  Well, for starters, I rang in the month by seeing The Dark Knight last night.  Amazing, spellbinding, captivating, fantastic… these words just don’t seem to do that movie much justice. Seriously, the movie ended, and I sat glued in my seat for a few minutes into the credits with my mouth agape in awe at the movie I’d just seen.  So, that was good… (Sorry, I just couldn’t come up with a way of ending that whole thought process.  “That was good…” seemed the only appropriate way.)

Tomorrow and Sunday are Liquid Church’s “Party on the Green” and “Gas Giveaway.”   So excited for it to get here!  I think that God is going to be showing up BIG TIME over the course of this weekend, and I’m planning to be right in the heart of it.  I really can’t wait to be able to listen to the band playing for so long. The music at Liquid is the first thing that drew me back to God after such a long hiatus from Him… I can only hope that there will be others who really need Him in their lives that will hear the music and have their eyes and hearts opened tomorrow.  As for my little part of the whole deal, I’ll be painting faces tomorrow, and serving up refreshments on Sunday.

I’m flying my mom out here to visit in about a week and a half.  Can’t wait to show her a few pieces of the life I’ve been building for myself out here over the course of the past two years.  That’s right, folks, I’ll be celebrating my second anniversary of being in Jersey on the 15th this month!  I can’t believe time has gone by so fast!  Anyway, I’ll be taking Mom to all sorts of places around here.  I think she’s most excited to be in the background at Rockefeller during the taping of the Today Show that Friday morning.  She told me that she’s telling all her friends to watch that morning, and she’ll wave to them.  Oy.

Now, I’m going to age myself just a little right now, and say that the best part of this month is the fact that the kids will be returning to school at the end of it.  I know, I know… not the coolest thing I could say, but I don’t care.  I love my job, I love these kids, and I love the ’80s (sorry, I just couldn’t think of another thing that I love that has to do with this job), but I have to say that I think it’s better for all parties involved when they are engrossed in school for 7 hours of the day, and I can get stuff done around the house, and then we can spend time together in the afternoons… when all other aspects of the day are under control.  I have spent the majority of this summer behind the wheel, driving kids here, there, and everywhere…  I greatly look forward to the day when I can have a little bit of regular scheduling in my day.

So, yeah.  Those are just a few of the reasons I’m happy that it’s August.  Now, in an effort to boost July’s self-esteem, here are a few of the things that were great about July:

• I learned how to make PDF and Zip files on my mac.  Don’t laugh!  This took some effort!
• My tattoo is healed, and I can proudly show it off in a tank top without worrying about it fading.
• I have a free massage coming to me, thanks to a wonderful and unexpected gift I received.
• I’m one more month closer to being debt-free!  December of next year can’t come soon enough!
• I’ve met some really great people this month, and love hanging out with them!
• I’ve been introduced to some amazing new music… love it when that happens!

There’s more, I’m sure, but it’s getting late, and I don’t want to bore you any longer with this passage.  So, until next time, folks, happy August!  Peace ya’ll!

To see or not to see

Last night it rained like crazy, so my twelve-year-old’s Little League game was postponed until tonight.  To keep him occupied, I pulled out my humongous binder of DVDs, and asked him to pick out a movie that he and I could watch.  After detouring him away from such classics as Donnie Darko and The Butterfly Effect (hey, I like a movie that makes me think…) he settled for Clue.  Now, for those of you who are not familiar with this comical film from the ’80s, it’s basically a film adaptation of the classic Parker Brothers board game.  It’s rated PG.  It has such amazing actors as Tim Curry, Martin Mull, and Christopher Lloyd playing the beloved characters from the board game.  Ok, so we start watching the movie, and as I’m making up some popcorn, my boss (the twelve-year-old’s dad) and my eldest charge (eighteen-years-old) come in, sit down and watch the movie with us.  

That sets the scene.  I go downstairs for some time to myself since the other adults were home to watch the movie with my charge.  From my room, I can hear them all upstairs laughing about the movie.  I went to bed thinking that I’ve just scored in the whole “Super Nanny” gig.

This morning I get a call from my boss while I’m waiting for my sixteen-year-old charge to finish her ice skating session.  Apparently, the twelve-year-old had some major issues with Clue, and was so scared by it that he couldn’t sleep, and when he did finally get to sleep, he had nightmares.  This is a PG movie from the ’80s, people.  Today, he’s in a foul mood from lack of sleep, and he refuses to go try to take a nap.  Hey, the kid’s gonna be thirteen next month, I can’t really force him to sleep.

Here’s the issue: he wants me to take him to see Dark Knight.  His dad is completely ok with letting me do this.  I’m not.  It’s not that I don’t want to see the movie (I really, really, really do….) it’s just that he had nightmares over a movie that was soooo not your typical nightmare-inducing movie.  He’s a bear today.  How in the world am I going to take him to see a movie that is dark and a bit twisted with a guy in smudged clown make-up?  (I have nothing against the late Heath Ledger… he still makes my heart go “pitter patter” even to this day.)  I know that the whole reason he wants to see it is because his older sisters and his soon-to-be older step-sister and same aged step-brother have all seen it and love it.  Kids all grow at different stages… I don’t know what to do here.  When is it okay for the nanny to put her foot down and say to the parent, “Hey, your kid shouldn’t do this.  It will really screw him up.”?