I bet the second you read that title you zoomed down to read this post with the lightning reflexes of a test pilot. We all love to read about someone else's weaknesses, right? It's so much more fun than dealing with our own.
So before I go airing my dirty laundry, I'll dish on a few other people first, just to gird up my loins, so to speak.
My daughter loves sports, as long as she doesn't have to run. That kinda knocks out...everything. Well, OK, there are a few things left, but not much. When she was five she showed an interest in soccer, so I found a kids' league and signed her up. She had fun at the first practice, mainly because no one knew what they were doing and she was firmly in the 100th percentile with that. It all fell apart on the second practice. Some morons on the team had...*snicker* PRACTICED in the week between meetings and scared the living daylights out of her. Much like how we played fetch with our dog, the coach kicked a soccer ball down the field, pointed at it, and yelled, "GO GET IT" to the team. They took off like the ball was coated in chocolate pop-tart crumbs. Sophie ran a few yards, and a dandelion caught her attention. So she stopped to pick it, blow the fuzz off, look up and admire the clouds in the pretty sky, and then looked around to see her team coming at her like a herd of elephants on the rampage. She dropped the flower and ran for her life (much like that scene from Bedknobs and Broomsticks). With every step I could hear money being ripped to shreds. Run [rip, there goes the registration fee], run [rip, there go the cleats], run [rip, soccer ball], run [rip, shin guards], and so forth. Ever since then she has shown a decided disinclination for running sports, because she was terrified by a team of kindergartners.
Sam doesn't have any dirty little secrets. He pretty much throws it all out there and laughs at himself. I suppose that means he has a healthy self-image. I think it's just because he's a boy. The closest I could get would be that he talks in his sleep, and that ought to provide good material for years. So far, though, the only thing I've gotten, besides singing, is him thrashing in his sleep and mumbling, "It wasn't me, I didn't do it" and "I don't wanna spanking." Figures, eh?
I've thought better of airing SM's dirty little secrets. I have to live with him, after all. And I'm sure he would be only too happy to return the favor.
OK, so here it is, my secret: *sigh* This is so humbling.
I love - LOVE, as in with a passion - B movie disaster flicks. I think they're some of the funniest things ever written. I don't mean the award-winning things, like Titanic or The Towering Inferno, and I don't mean horror movies. No, I mean movies like Dinocroc, Supergator, Dinocroc Meets Supergator, Asteroid, Atomic Tornadoes, and the like. I love these movies! First of all, they're so bad they're funny. Second, sometimes they have great special effects, and if not, well, then those are funny, too. Third, so many of the things that happen are so far out of the realm of possibility as to be absurd. They're just so bad. And pardon me, but that makes them funny. I have always appreciated the theraputic effects of enjoying the absurd.
So what are some of the elements you can expect to find in these truly awful sci fi bombs? I've listed some of them below.
1. It doesn't matter whether the villain is a guppy or a great white. It's amazing what a little nuclear pollution or genetic mutation will do for a creature. Anything has the power to destroy New York or Los Angeles, because I guarantee one of those two cities will be in danger of total annihilation. It will NEVER be El Paso or Indianapolis.
2. The human body will hold gallons more blood in these movies than in reality. Every time a four-story octopus rips off a person's arm, more blood will pour out than would fit in an SUV's gas tank. OK, so that's kinda nasty. Next!
3. If a pretty girl is running from the disaster, she will always be wearing a bikini and look hot doing so. Unless she is the pretty scientist saving the world, in which case she will always be wearing glasses and will usually be a brunette (but not always - case in point, Mega Shark).
4. People will die left and right with the regularity of a ticking clock. There is little mercy or sensitivity in these movies. Except in the case of...
5. ...a couple on the verge of fooling around, unfortunately a little too close to giant sea snakes snatched by the US military for a secret experiment gone horribly awry. The couple will usually die together, which is touching, in a sick kind of way.
6. There is always an out planned for a sequel. If it's an animal flick, then it laid eggs. Bet your bottom dollar, the gene pool has not dried up. If it's storms brought about by human greed and over-development, then there's always some dodo head who doesn't learn his lesson, and you just know he's going to make the same mistakes as in the past (and he will usually be Republican, pro-military, and have a crew cut - thanks a lot, Hollywood).
7. Usually some innocent animal will die, just to secure your sympathy and make you not channel-surf anymore. However, you will rarely, if ever, see a child die. Good to see they draw the line somewhere.
8. Trust the music. B sci flicks always toe the line and let you know when something really bad's about to happen. They probably got it from Jaws or Psycho.
9. An amazing number of people will have a direct line to the President of the United States. Some low-level geologist in Iceland will notice a disturbing blip on his computer screen, frown, and say, in all seriousness, "I'd better notify the President."
10. The animals that run amuck are usually a) locked in a block of ice in the Artic or b) buried in the sea floor. They will be let loose on humanity when a) a very young blond hot female scientist drives her submarine into the ice block [women drivers, right?] or b) an earthquake triggered by human greed and overdevelopment breaks up the sea floor. Sometimes the animals show up on asteroids falling to earth (killer bacteria); sometimes they've been there all along and were just tired of being left out of things. Sometimes human greed and overdevelopment create a disaster that turn a perfectly normal dog into a horribly misshapen poodle of terror with an appetite for human flesh. I mean, this stuff is great.
11. There will always, and I mean always, be a problem with human greed and overdevelopment.
12. The actors will be extraordinarily skilled at keeping straight faces when they deliver ridiculous lines. Likes when the planet's best and brightest minds just can't figure out how to catch that pesky 400-foot mutated killer whale that's messing with the shipping lanes, and Dr. Perky Breasts in all her 29-year-old glory steps forward with a solution that has a 3% chance of success, and these scientists look at her and say, "That just might work!" They take her seriously, of course, because she's wearing glasses. That makes all the difference, you know. Oh, and the heroine will be able to do anything. I mean anything. Does she need to pilot a helicopter to get off an erupting volcano? Done. She'll say that she learned it in the Peace Corps. Does she need to make a field dressing for someone whose arm is nearly amputated, or intubate someone who's stopped breathing? No prob. She learned it while on internship at Johns Hopkins, in the 10th grade, in between beauty pageants and SATs. Does she need to keep the International Space Station from crashing into Earth? Well, it's a darn good thing she went to Space Camp! And what's even crazier is that no one will think it's weird. They will accept it and be grateful that Barbie is in control.
13. Someone will be snatched from the brink of death. You'll think they're inches from death and they will miraculously up and recover, usually making a joke minutes later. Or proposing marriage. Something like that.
14. Something will blow up. Tornadoes will threaten a nuclear power plant. Sea snakes will bite everyone in sight, causing a submarine to go kaflooey. Dinocroc will knock over a gas station or cause a train to derail and blow up. You can count on it.
15. The entire movie will be conducted as seriously as a heart attack. It will be as though the director really thinks this is all entirely possible and should be taken as such, and the viewer would be a short-sighted ignorant fool not to do so. At no time do you get the impression that the crew is about to bust out laughing.
Right now I'm watching a movie about killer asteroids, and Sophie just walked in the room in time to see a huge fireball explosion as one of the rocks hit the earth. She studied the screen for a moment, and said, "Bombs?" and I said, "No, killer asteroids." She said, "Oh, hmm. Asteroids." It was just the way she said it. She knows my predilection for these disaster movies and has been desensitized to it. So, "Oh, hmmm. Asteroids." Total unconcern. Guess you had to be there. I laughed my behind off.
So that's my dirty little secret. I suppose it could be worse, but there's little self-respect in being such an afficionado that I have this little list in the first place. What's hiding in your closet?
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
How Solitaire Disproves Evolution
Maybe it's just me, but I think the Solitaire game on my computer really, really hates me. It led me on a merry dance when we first bought this computer, letting me win time and time again. And just when I thought I was really hot snot, I hit the brick wall. It won't let me get past a winning percentage of 14%. Occasionally, when I lose too many times in a row, it dangles a few winning games in front of me so that I never actually drop to 13%, but as soon as I try to smash through the glass ceiling, WHAP goes the Solitaire god and smacks me firmly in the 14% range. I have spoken with a few people and found that they, too, hit the 14% limit and are stopped cold.
Why would Windows do this? What did I ever do to it?
At first I thought I was just missing some important factor in the game, until I played a few games where there was literally no chance to win. I mean NO chance. I ran through the entire deck on the first run and there was nothing to play. I got a zero score. It's happened now about 4 times or so.
So this ticks me off for a couple of reasons. First, if we paid this amount of money for a new computer, by golly there ought to be a way to win the game. I might lose due to head-thumping stupidity, but there should always - ALWAYS - be a way to win, no matter how hard. Those zero-score games were a real eye opener. Second, it tells me that some manipulative, power-hungry computer geek is getting back at the world for never asking him to the prom by creating a tiny cube in which Solitaire players exist like blind mice, bumping into the walls. And that's just mean. My family has gotten used to me sitting at the desk, playing a few games, and muttering every few minutes, "This game hates me." SM tries to lure me to play another game, but now it's personal. I refuse to give up. Especially since once I played a game that the computer said I lost, but if I didn't believe it I was more than welcome to go back and try to win anyway, SUCKER (okay, so I made up the terminology - the sentiment was the same). I was so mad at losing what appeared to be a promising game that I didn't take the computer's word for it, and I kept playing. I WON. HA!!! Take that, you plastic pile of junk.
So, let's go back to this idea that it is literally impossible to push past a 14% win ratio. I've got this feeling that if I were on a deserted island (that miraculously had electricity - just go with the flow here) and I had 30 or so years to play Solitaire, there would be no "Aha!" moment when I would discover the magic secrets and win 100% of the time. I would just sit there like a bump on a log, playing the same stupid game a million times in a row. I would never, ever evolve into a higher being. (Of course, if I had electricity and chose to fritter it away on Solitaire, then I suppose I deserved whatever amoeba-like classification I got, huh?)
Why would Windows do this? What did I ever do to it?
At first I thought I was just missing some important factor in the game, until I played a few games where there was literally no chance to win. I mean NO chance. I ran through the entire deck on the first run and there was nothing to play. I got a zero score. It's happened now about 4 times or so.
So this ticks me off for a couple of reasons. First, if we paid this amount of money for a new computer, by golly there ought to be a way to win the game. I might lose due to head-thumping stupidity, but there should always - ALWAYS - be a way to win, no matter how hard. Those zero-score games were a real eye opener. Second, it tells me that some manipulative, power-hungry computer geek is getting back at the world for never asking him to the prom by creating a tiny cube in which Solitaire players exist like blind mice, bumping into the walls. And that's just mean. My family has gotten used to me sitting at the desk, playing a few games, and muttering every few minutes, "This game hates me." SM tries to lure me to play another game, but now it's personal. I refuse to give up. Especially since once I played a game that the computer said I lost, but if I didn't believe it I was more than welcome to go back and try to win anyway, SUCKER (okay, so I made up the terminology - the sentiment was the same). I was so mad at losing what appeared to be a promising game that I didn't take the computer's word for it, and I kept playing. I WON. HA!!! Take that, you plastic pile of junk.
So, let's go back to this idea that it is literally impossible to push past a 14% win ratio. I've got this feeling that if I were on a deserted island (that miraculously had electricity - just go with the flow here) and I had 30 or so years to play Solitaire, there would be no "Aha!" moment when I would discover the magic secrets and win 100% of the time. I would just sit there like a bump on a log, playing the same stupid game a million times in a row. I would never, ever evolve into a higher being. (Of course, if I had electricity and chose to fritter it away on Solitaire, then I suppose I deserved whatever amoeba-like classification I got, huh?)
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Beach Day #3
I have just a small update today. Yesterday at the beach tired us all out so much we decided to take a break and explore the town some. We figured we'd take the kids to a park, let them play on playground equipment, maybe take a walk alongside the pretty marsh next door afterwards. Depending on how the kids felt after that, we thought we might possibly see a local serpentarium that we'd heard a lot of good things about. So we went to the park, walked up to the playground, and were stopped by a couple who had just left because, they said, there was a wild raccoon on the grounds. Well. That stopped me cold. Cute though they may be on television, in real life I will not come near a raccoon, nor let my family get near one. Just too many risks, what with that pesky rabies thing, know what I mean? And even if they're not rabid they can still shred you to pieces if they don't take a shine to you. So we searched high and low all around the playground area - didn't see anything - and then SM walked a few yards up a bike path, and there it was. The bandit himself. I shoo'd both kids as far away as we could get without actually falling into the road, and SM tried scaring the thing away. Well, now we both know, although we didn't at the time, that that's just a dumb idea. This raccoon got within four feet of SM before they both realized that that's not really what either one of them wanted, and they went to their separate corners. Luckily, it was not rabid, just hungry and way too used to people for anyone's own good, but it's just not something you want confirmed the hard way. So - get this, I actually said this, didn't realize how funny it sounded - "This is dangerous, let's just go to the Serpentarium instead." SM gave me this double glance, like, "You're weird sometimes." So we went.
Another way I'm weird: I don't mind snakes. I mean, I wouldn't want to sit in a bathtub full of them or anything, but generally speaking, I'm okay as long as we each keep a respectful distance from each other. Non-venomous snakes that are very used to people, like those at a zoo class or a talk at this Serpentarium, I don't even mind touching. Now, spiders are a whole 'nuther story. I don't do spiders, no siree, not one bit. But I'm okay with snakes. So we went in this place. I'm not going to keep calling it the Serpentarium because that's hard to type, so let's just use a nickname. The S. How about that? So we went to the S. They were doing a live demonstration, led by a very knowlegable and personable herpetologist. Another big word. The H lady. She discussed various venomous and non-venomous snakes, with live examples. One corn snake with a sense of humor wound himself around her ponytail, through the back vents on her safari vest (hanging down directly over her butt crack and then from side to side, poking out by her elbow), and generally making a nuisance of himself. After the talk was over, the H lady pulled out a rat snake (highly prized by farmers, we were told) and let us touch him. His name was Buster. The H lady showed us how he likes to have his throat scratched and rubbed, just like a cat. You could actually see Buster turning this way and that - "a little more to the right, please" - and it gave him personality. We liked Buster. After the demonstration, we went to see the other residents of the S place. We saw some juvenile alligators getting fed - not very exciting, but cute - and then we saw their parents. Holy cow. This were big freaking creatures. The alligator at the zoo back home never, ever moves. I don't think I've even seen him blink. Well, these guys move. One bumped into another one, causing the bumpee to give this almighty cough/growl/woof that made me and Sophie jump out of our skins. It was a gutteral, primal sound and it made us oh, so glad for the nice big fence between them and us. I think another alligator further down sneezed, if alligators do such things, but Sophie said it was something else, like a yawn that ended with a big impressive jaw snap. We didn't see it so we don't know for sure. But it made us jumpy as cats in a room full of rocking chairs, so we moved on. There were a couple of islands surrounded by big walls, and inside were trees just dripping with snakes. I know a few of you probably have to leave the room to throw up, so I'll just hang out here and wait for you to come back. IF you come back.
*****
Back now? Good? Everybody still here? Okay. No more snakes. There were a couple of giant alligator snapping turtles and an iguana, and a kick-butt gift shop. There were indoor exhibits of venomous non-legged creaturs (I said I wouldn't talk about them again) and a fossil room showing giant shark teeth from way before Nixon. A good time was had by all. Thus endeth the day.
Another way I'm weird: I don't mind snakes. I mean, I wouldn't want to sit in a bathtub full of them or anything, but generally speaking, I'm okay as long as we each keep a respectful distance from each other. Non-venomous snakes that are very used to people, like those at a zoo class or a talk at this Serpentarium, I don't even mind touching. Now, spiders are a whole 'nuther story. I don't do spiders, no siree, not one bit. But I'm okay with snakes. So we went in this place. I'm not going to keep calling it the Serpentarium because that's hard to type, so let's just use a nickname. The S. How about that? So we went to the S. They were doing a live demonstration, led by a very knowlegable and personable herpetologist. Another big word. The H lady. She discussed various venomous and non-venomous snakes, with live examples. One corn snake with a sense of humor wound himself around her ponytail, through the back vents on her safari vest (hanging down directly over her butt crack and then from side to side, poking out by her elbow), and generally making a nuisance of himself. After the talk was over, the H lady pulled out a rat snake (highly prized by farmers, we were told) and let us touch him. His name was Buster. The H lady showed us how he likes to have his throat scratched and rubbed, just like a cat. You could actually see Buster turning this way and that - "a little more to the right, please" - and it gave him personality. We liked Buster. After the demonstration, we went to see the other residents of the S place. We saw some juvenile alligators getting fed - not very exciting, but cute - and then we saw their parents. Holy cow. This were big freaking creatures. The alligator at the zoo back home never, ever moves. I don't think I've even seen him blink. Well, these guys move. One bumped into another one, causing the bumpee to give this almighty cough/growl/woof that made me and Sophie jump out of our skins. It was a gutteral, primal sound and it made us oh, so glad for the nice big fence between them and us. I think another alligator further down sneezed, if alligators do such things, but Sophie said it was something else, like a yawn that ended with a big impressive jaw snap. We didn't see it so we don't know for sure. But it made us jumpy as cats in a room full of rocking chairs, so we moved on. There were a couple of islands surrounded by big walls, and inside were trees just dripping with snakes. I know a few of you probably have to leave the room to throw up, so I'll just hang out here and wait for you to come back. IF you come back.
*****
Back now? Good? Everybody still here? Okay. No more snakes. There were a couple of giant alligator snapping turtles and an iguana, and a kick-butt gift shop. There were indoor exhibits of venomous non-legged creaturs (I said I wouldn't talk about them again) and a fossil room showing giant shark teeth from way before Nixon. A good time was had by all. Thus endeth the day.
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Welcome To The Beach
We are finally taking the first week-long family vacation in 13 years. We are going to the beach. Now I can make that bathing suit character-building experience worthwhile.
We got here around 6 pm. From 5 pm onwards, every 2 miles, Sam said, "Are we at the beach yet? I love the beach, I can't wait to get to the beach, IS THAT THE BEACH??????" (pointing to a lake/creek/retention pond). We got to the causeway, the lone sign of civilization in a very flat, plain marsh, and excitedly told Sam, "Look! Just on the other side of those trees is the beach!" We didn't realize it was another 20 miles. So we shot ourselves in the foot. And then the storm broke over us. It was like a tropical depression just *whap* landed on us, with high winds, horizontal rain, and so forth. We started to wonder a) if we'd ever get there and b) if we did, would the beach be completely gone when we did. So we finally pulled up to the beach house. I got out, opened my umbrella, and watched it instantly turn inside out in the gale force winds. I grabbed a kid and hustled whoever it was up the steps and on the porch, trusting that SM would get the other child. And we entered nirvana.
You're hot and sticky and your bum is numb from a 3-hour drive (complete with two wrong turns that take you into Neverland). You are tired, your eyes itch, it's 96 degrees outside, you have a 3-yak train worth of stuff in the car trunk that needs to be hauled up 48 steps, and the second you get out of the car both kids start jumping up and down and begging to leave everything in the car and go out onto the beach RIGHT NOW. Your glasses fogged up a long time ago and you realize that whimpering sound you hear is coming from you. So you haul your tired, self-pitying self up the stairs and walk into...AIR CONDITIONING. That's the first glorious surprise. We're staying with my sister and her family, as well as my parents. They'd gotten here ahead of us and not only turned on the air, but also gotten dinner started and put out the toilet paper. What else could a vacationer want? So we stumbled into the lovely, spacious, cool house almost weeping with gratitude.
The wind and rain continued to howl and beat the house outside, but inside we were cozy and dehumidifying with ease, putting our clothes and toiletries away, making up the beds, and helping with dinner. After we ate and cleaned up, the kids could take it no longer and threatened to self-destruct if we did not take them out onto a beach, any beach, this second. So out came the watershoes, and off we went. Sam skipped joyfully ahead, unable to contain his excitement. Sophie was long gone with her cousins and my parents. Sam's been to the beach only once before, last year, so he had quite a treat coming, and he knew it. This was like Christmas for him. We crested the dune's boardwalk and beheld Sam streaking towards the water like a roadrunner, screaming his fool head off and laughing maniacally. Showing no fear, he flung himself into the water, lost his footing, and went face down. He bounced up, shook himself like a dog, ran from the waves, turned around, and went straight back in again. He did this for about an hour without stopping, and we kept having to stop him from going out too far. Seems we have a surfer dude in the family! Sophie skipped around the waves and went hunting for seashells with her cousins. The boardwalk we used comes out between two jetties that are pretty close together, so we went trooping over the rocks looking for sealife in the pools. By this time the sun was setting, so we turned to watch it. The sky held that incredible combination of colors of gold and pink and a flaming salmon rose, which were reflected on the wet sand, making it look iridescent. Seagulls were crossing the sky and the wind was whipping our hair against our faces. The crashing waves felt like my very lifeblood in my veins. I felt I could stay there forever. When we came back, it was dusk, and I sat on an Adirondack chair on the screen porch, feeling a sea wind that no ceiling fan could duplicate. I'm going to go back out when it gets dark. (No, I won't go swimming. I've seen Jaws. I am a believer.) I've seen the beach at night only once and it was one of those rare moments in my life where I felt like I could really touch God, it was that beautiful, that awesome, that profound. It's where I feel at peace. For some people, it's the mountains. For others, say, out West. For me, it's the beach. And it doesn't even matter what season it is or what time of day it is. I even love the beach in the rain. It's inspiring no matter what. (Well, except for that whole hurricane season thing. I could do without that.) So anyway, this is my first day of vacation, and I have to say it's pretty satisfying so far. More later.
We got here around 6 pm. From 5 pm onwards, every 2 miles, Sam said, "Are we at the beach yet? I love the beach, I can't wait to get to the beach, IS THAT THE BEACH??????" (pointing to a lake/creek/retention pond). We got to the causeway, the lone sign of civilization in a very flat, plain marsh, and excitedly told Sam, "Look! Just on the other side of those trees is the beach!" We didn't realize it was another 20 miles. So we shot ourselves in the foot. And then the storm broke over us. It was like a tropical depression just *whap* landed on us, with high winds, horizontal rain, and so forth. We started to wonder a) if we'd ever get there and b) if we did, would the beach be completely gone when we did. So we finally pulled up to the beach house. I got out, opened my umbrella, and watched it instantly turn inside out in the gale force winds. I grabbed a kid and hustled whoever it was up the steps and on the porch, trusting that SM would get the other child. And we entered nirvana.
You're hot and sticky and your bum is numb from a 3-hour drive (complete with two wrong turns that take you into Neverland). You are tired, your eyes itch, it's 96 degrees outside, you have a 3-yak train worth of stuff in the car trunk that needs to be hauled up 48 steps, and the second you get out of the car both kids start jumping up and down and begging to leave everything in the car and go out onto the beach RIGHT NOW. Your glasses fogged up a long time ago and you realize that whimpering sound you hear is coming from you. So you haul your tired, self-pitying self up the stairs and walk into...AIR CONDITIONING. That's the first glorious surprise. We're staying with my sister and her family, as well as my parents. They'd gotten here ahead of us and not only turned on the air, but also gotten dinner started and put out the toilet paper. What else could a vacationer want? So we stumbled into the lovely, spacious, cool house almost weeping with gratitude.
The wind and rain continued to howl and beat the house outside, but inside we were cozy and dehumidifying with ease, putting our clothes and toiletries away, making up the beds, and helping with dinner. After we ate and cleaned up, the kids could take it no longer and threatened to self-destruct if we did not take them out onto a beach, any beach, this second. So out came the watershoes, and off we went. Sam skipped joyfully ahead, unable to contain his excitement. Sophie was long gone with her cousins and my parents. Sam's been to the beach only once before, last year, so he had quite a treat coming, and he knew it. This was like Christmas for him. We crested the dune's boardwalk and beheld Sam streaking towards the water like a roadrunner, screaming his fool head off and laughing maniacally. Showing no fear, he flung himself into the water, lost his footing, and went face down. He bounced up, shook himself like a dog, ran from the waves, turned around, and went straight back in again. He did this for about an hour without stopping, and we kept having to stop him from going out too far. Seems we have a surfer dude in the family! Sophie skipped around the waves and went hunting for seashells with her cousins. The boardwalk we used comes out between two jetties that are pretty close together, so we went trooping over the rocks looking for sealife in the pools. By this time the sun was setting, so we turned to watch it. The sky held that incredible combination of colors of gold and pink and a flaming salmon rose, which were reflected on the wet sand, making it look iridescent. Seagulls were crossing the sky and the wind was whipping our hair against our faces. The crashing waves felt like my very lifeblood in my veins. I felt I could stay there forever. When we came back, it was dusk, and I sat on an Adirondack chair on the screen porch, feeling a sea wind that no ceiling fan could duplicate. I'm going to go back out when it gets dark. (No, I won't go swimming. I've seen Jaws. I am a believer.) I've seen the beach at night only once and it was one of those rare moments in my life where I felt like I could really touch God, it was that beautiful, that awesome, that profound. It's where I feel at peace. For some people, it's the mountains. For others, say, out West. For me, it's the beach. And it doesn't even matter what season it is or what time of day it is. I even love the beach in the rain. It's inspiring no matter what. (Well, except for that whole hurricane season thing. I could do without that.) So anyway, this is my first day of vacation, and I have to say it's pretty satisfying so far. More later.
Friday, June 4, 2010
Bathing Suit Tragedies Part II
This is an update to yesterday's blog, which ended with the desperate search for the meaning of life - or at least for my two girls rattling around in a bathing suit bust the size of Arkansas. I took the kids to Target to hunt down a decent bathing suit. I'll tell ya right now, it didn't happen in Target. You'd think after forty-some odd years I'd know this by now, but it seems that when bathing suits first hit the stores EVERYONE takes a day or two off work and trolls through the racks, looking for the Right Suit, much the same way a plague of locusts shear down fields of grain, leaving a sad stalk or two swinging brokenly in the wind . Every place I tried for bathing suits, the sales ladies said the same thing: "What we have left is on that tiny rack there in the corner." Well. Thanks for nothing. So we're at Target, right? Right. And I looked through the pitiful stock that was left. There was only one suit that came even close to my size, and it was completely black. There was also only one coverup in my size, and it was also all black. Yuck, yuck, and double yuck. But, I thought, "What the heck, let's try it" and took them into the fitting room. (What an ironic name for a room that shows 360 degrees of something NOT fitting....) The kids fought over who got to sit on the one little stool in the corner while I huffed and puffed and stretched the suit over me. As various parts of my body began to lose circulation, I realized that this was one of those control-type suits. The black is meant to complement the red body parts that contain all your blood, while covering up your trunk that is now dead white from lack of blood. So I'm standing there, starting to feel woozy, and I pull on the coverup. "Dadgum, I look like Nanny McPhee," I thought. No way can I wear this in front of my whole family for an entire week. I couldn't even wear it for five minutes without seeing little bursts of light in front of my eyes. I extricated myself from the suit like a snake trying to shed its skin - it wasn't pretty - breathed for a few minutes, re-dressed, and left Target (but not before Sam managed to lose his blankie SOMEWHERE, making us do two laps around Target looking for it - it was in the pharmacy department).
So, that brings us to last night. I decided to try Kohl's, on a friend's suggestion. I walked in and was cheered by the sight of umpteen racks just full of bathing suits. I asked where the plus-sized suits were and was told (say it with me, now): "What we have left is on that tiny rack in the corner." No way. I roamed around, searching for misplaced suits, and came to the sick realization that there were, in fact, only a handful left that might - MIGHT - work. SM and the kids came in to offer moral support. It did lift my spirits briefly, seeing Sam put bikini bottoms upside down on his head so that he could look through the leg holes, but the great problem of the universe was still upon me: finding a decent suit. Lord, help. There were no one-piece suits that worked, so I rummaged until I found a mini-skirt bottom and a tank top. There was also one cover-up left that I thought might do the trick, and it even matched the bathing suit pieces, so I pulled it out, too. I went to the dressing room, offering a prayer to the patron saint of bathing suit shoppers, whoever that might be, telling God the whole time that if He'd just let this one suit fit all right I'd swear off ice cream mules and Cheetos for life. I pulled on the skirt - it fit. Holy flippin' cow. It fit. Trembling, I pulled on the tank top. IT FIT. I lifted my eyes to look in the mirror. Oh. My. Goodness. It looked cute!!!!! And the bust wasn't 14 sizes too big!!! Now to complete the trifecta. I put on the coverup, a cute little shift with bronze rings attaching from the straps to the bodice. It slid right over me, right to the bottom of the mini-skirt. Thank you, thank you, thank you. SM and the kids were too far away for me to holler and get them to come look, so with shaking hands and glad heart I stripped, re-dressed, and emerged from the dressing room with a triumphant smile. I'm not sure, but there may have been angels blowing trumpets over my head as I walked out. You know that thought you have when you get a boyfriend? "There. Now I'm like other girls. I belong to The Club." And when you get married? "There. Now I belong to The Club." And when you have kids: "HOW DO I GET OUT OF THE CLUB???" No, no, just kidding. It's The Club, all over again, isn't it? And then the true cherry on top of it all: "I HAVE A NEW BATHING SUIT, IT FITS, AND IT'S PRETTY. I BELONG TO THE CLUB!"
So, that brings us to last night. I decided to try Kohl's, on a friend's suggestion. I walked in and was cheered by the sight of umpteen racks just full of bathing suits. I asked where the plus-sized suits were and was told (say it with me, now): "What we have left is on that tiny rack in the corner." No way. I roamed around, searching for misplaced suits, and came to the sick realization that there were, in fact, only a handful left that might - MIGHT - work. SM and the kids came in to offer moral support. It did lift my spirits briefly, seeing Sam put bikini bottoms upside down on his head so that he could look through the leg holes, but the great problem of the universe was still upon me: finding a decent suit. Lord, help. There were no one-piece suits that worked, so I rummaged until I found a mini-skirt bottom and a tank top. There was also one cover-up left that I thought might do the trick, and it even matched the bathing suit pieces, so I pulled it out, too. I went to the dressing room, offering a prayer to the patron saint of bathing suit shoppers, whoever that might be, telling God the whole time that if He'd just let this one suit fit all right I'd swear off ice cream mules and Cheetos for life. I pulled on the skirt - it fit. Holy flippin' cow. It fit. Trembling, I pulled on the tank top. IT FIT. I lifted my eyes to look in the mirror. Oh. My. Goodness. It looked cute!!!!! And the bust wasn't 14 sizes too big!!! Now to complete the trifecta. I put on the coverup, a cute little shift with bronze rings attaching from the straps to the bodice. It slid right over me, right to the bottom of the mini-skirt. Thank you, thank you, thank you. SM and the kids were too far away for me to holler and get them to come look, so with shaking hands and glad heart I stripped, re-dressed, and emerged from the dressing room with a triumphant smile. I'm not sure, but there may have been angels blowing trumpets over my head as I walked out. You know that thought you have when you get a boyfriend? "There. Now I'm like other girls. I belong to The Club." And when you get married? "There. Now I belong to The Club." And when you have kids: "HOW DO I GET OUT OF THE CLUB???" No, no, just kidding. It's The Club, all over again, isn't it? And then the true cherry on top of it all: "I HAVE A NEW BATHING SUIT, IT FITS, AND IT'S PRETTY. I BELONG TO THE CLUB!"
Thursday, June 3, 2010
How Much Can You Get In YOUR Bra?
Oh, where to start, where to start. I haven't written in a while because I was waiting for a good subject to sink my teeth into. Yes, I just ended a sentence with a preposition. I pay taxes, I'll end any sentence I want with a preposition. Deal with it. So anyway, I had a couple of potential candidates. First, I was reading the Sunday paper recently and had a howling good time over the "Weddings and Engagements" section. SM watched in fascination as I counted bridesmaids and compared honeymoon destinations to home locations. "Fourteen!" I crowed, after reviewing all the bridal entries. "This chick had fourteen female attendants!! Who does that??? How did they all fit on the stage?" Because of course for nearly every female attendant, there is a male attendant. Throw in the officiant and the bridal couple, and the stage qualifies for its own zip code. My other favorite is checking out the honeymoon destination. Mr. and Mrs. Buck Backwoods go to Myrtle Beach or Gatlinburg. Dr. and Mrs. Arthur "Pinky" Wilberforce-Middleton IV go to South Africa and swing by Mozambique on the way home. And yes, they are usually the ones who have so many attendants. And yes, most of the attendants have double-barrelled names like Carnegie-DeBeers, Beamer-Waterford, Muffington-Uppington, and so forth. It's really very entertaining to read. Then there is occasionally the couple who SHOULD have gone to Myrtle Beach or Gatlinburg but blew most of their budget on a really big trip. "The couple will go to Buckingham Palace for their honeymoon and will reside in Podunkville, USA." What a come-down. OK, so all of this is good fun, but really, is there anything more to say about it? So I didn't write the blog about it.
Then there was T-ball practice the other night. We signed Sam up for his first ever T-ball league, which started this past Tuesday night. I wanted to be sure that Sam's team was the one for ankle-biters who'd never held a baseball in their lives, so I was relieved so see the average height of his teammates was about halfway up to my hips. These were little kids. Good. This would be a great experience for him. Since it was raining, we held an informational meeting under the picnic shelter and got to review the lineup before leaving for the night. First question from the coach was whether we wanted the kids to play in shorts or baseball pants. Well, it was morbidly hot and humid, what with the rain, and summer was only going to get hotter, so SM and I piped up, "SHORTS!" All the other parents turned and looked at us, and in the nicest way possible, overrode us with 1001 reasons why the boys should wear baseball pants. One couple even held up their little boy like a pageant queen for all of us newbies to observe the correct T-ball attire. Oops. Didn't think about that whole "sliding" thing. Then there was the glove. We'd been told that each boy needed to bring his own glove. I thought it was called a mitt. I'd always heard about "baseball mitts", so SM and I both went around calling it a mitt. We were stiffly informed that "it's a glove, not a mitt." Well. We're not doing very well, are we? The final straw came when we perused the lineup. Most of the kids looked like Sam: little boys in T-shirts, shorts, cute tennis shoes, wearing slightly confused expression as they milled around, holding their gloves up in the air because they didn't know what else to do with them. Then there were the ringers. They came with their own bat bags. They looked serious. I felt certain they were really short 15-year olds and they would cream all the kindergarteners. So basically we failed the first night and in a few weeks Sam will walk 12 feet in front of us and refuse to acknowlege us until we all get in the car for the ride home. Again, not much to write about, right? Right.
So now we come to today.
God spoke to me today. And I covered my ears and said, "LALALALALALA" trying to tune Him out, because I didn't like what he was saying.
We're going to the beach next week. I haven't bought a new bathing suit since my honeymoon (Cocoa Beach, 7 attendants including flower girl, thank you very much) so I went online and ordered one from Lands' End. It arrived and I tried it on this morning. Bottom fit. Stomach fit. Straps fit. Bust...oh, my.
If you don't want TMI, turn your computer off right now. Otherwise, keep reading.
The bottom of the bust line came halfway down my stomach. The bust itself billowed 'round the girls. I stared in the mirror. It was like a car wreck - I was horrified but I couldn't take my eyes off it. Sophie wandered in and stopped, mesmerized. I turned to her and we just looked at each other. I don't know why, but most designers assume that if you're a big woman, you also have a big bust. NOT TRUE. My girls are little. They are completely disproportionate to the rest of me. Well, OK, they fit my ears - I have little ears -, but they're way out of proportion to everything else on me. They could have wandered around in this bathing suit like camels in the desert. This bathing suit was meant to fit a triple D, easily. I looked down in the bust, which was kind of folding in pessimistically, and was seized by a wild desire to figure out just how much could get in there, what it would take to fill this puppy up. Sophie helped me, grabbing items off my vanity and helping me stuff them in there. I got in two big prescription bottles, my cosmetic bag, and a book before I stopped. If I'd rearranged things I could have also gotten in a small silver picture frame, but I didn't want to get poked. Plus I had to stop so that I could slap Sophie on the back and get her breathing again. She was laughing that hard. She hadn't had that much fun in ages. Needless to say, I will be returning the suit. This is when God spoke to me: "My child, if thou would loseth a hundred pounds, thy boobs would fit thy body."
So now, on the first day of school's summer vacation, when everybody will be out getting vacation stuff, I will take two children and go shopping for a new bathing suit. Oh. Joy.
Now THAT'S worth writing about.
Then there was T-ball practice the other night. We signed Sam up for his first ever T-ball league, which started this past Tuesday night. I wanted to be sure that Sam's team was the one for ankle-biters who'd never held a baseball in their lives, so I was relieved so see the average height of his teammates was about halfway up to my hips. These were little kids. Good. This would be a great experience for him. Since it was raining, we held an informational meeting under the picnic shelter and got to review the lineup before leaving for the night. First question from the coach was whether we wanted the kids to play in shorts or baseball pants. Well, it was morbidly hot and humid, what with the rain, and summer was only going to get hotter, so SM and I piped up, "SHORTS!" All the other parents turned and looked at us, and in the nicest way possible, overrode us with 1001 reasons why the boys should wear baseball pants. One couple even held up their little boy like a pageant queen for all of us newbies to observe the correct T-ball attire. Oops. Didn't think about that whole "sliding" thing. Then there was the glove. We'd been told that each boy needed to bring his own glove. I thought it was called a mitt. I'd always heard about "baseball mitts", so SM and I both went around calling it a mitt. We were stiffly informed that "it's a glove, not a mitt." Well. We're not doing very well, are we? The final straw came when we perused the lineup. Most of the kids looked like Sam: little boys in T-shirts, shorts, cute tennis shoes, wearing slightly confused expression as they milled around, holding their gloves up in the air because they didn't know what else to do with them. Then there were the ringers. They came with their own bat bags. They looked serious. I felt certain they were really short 15-year olds and they would cream all the kindergarteners. So basically we failed the first night and in a few weeks Sam will walk 12 feet in front of us and refuse to acknowlege us until we all get in the car for the ride home. Again, not much to write about, right? Right.
So now we come to today.
God spoke to me today. And I covered my ears and said, "LALALALALALA" trying to tune Him out, because I didn't like what he was saying.
We're going to the beach next week. I haven't bought a new bathing suit since my honeymoon (Cocoa Beach, 7 attendants including flower girl, thank you very much) so I went online and ordered one from Lands' End. It arrived and I tried it on this morning. Bottom fit. Stomach fit. Straps fit. Bust...oh, my.
If you don't want TMI, turn your computer off right now. Otherwise, keep reading.
The bottom of the bust line came halfway down my stomach. The bust itself billowed 'round the girls. I stared in the mirror. It was like a car wreck - I was horrified but I couldn't take my eyes off it. Sophie wandered in and stopped, mesmerized. I turned to her and we just looked at each other. I don't know why, but most designers assume that if you're a big woman, you also have a big bust. NOT TRUE. My girls are little. They are completely disproportionate to the rest of me. Well, OK, they fit my ears - I have little ears -, but they're way out of proportion to everything else on me. They could have wandered around in this bathing suit like camels in the desert. This bathing suit was meant to fit a triple D, easily. I looked down in the bust, which was kind of folding in pessimistically, and was seized by a wild desire to figure out just how much could get in there, what it would take to fill this puppy up. Sophie helped me, grabbing items off my vanity and helping me stuff them in there. I got in two big prescription bottles, my cosmetic bag, and a book before I stopped. If I'd rearranged things I could have also gotten in a small silver picture frame, but I didn't want to get poked. Plus I had to stop so that I could slap Sophie on the back and get her breathing again. She was laughing that hard. She hadn't had that much fun in ages. Needless to say, I will be returning the suit. This is when God spoke to me: "My child, if thou would loseth a hundred pounds, thy boobs would fit thy body."
So now, on the first day of school's summer vacation, when everybody will be out getting vacation stuff, I will take two children and go shopping for a new bathing suit. Oh. Joy.
Now THAT'S worth writing about.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
This Place Is Going To The Birds
This is just a tee-niney post this morning, but noteworthy, in my humble opinion.
First, I have definitely found the robins' nest! As I pulled into the driveway this morning after taking Sam to preschool I glanced up in that part of the dogwood where the pair keep congregating, and I saw a messy clump of something, a robin's head, and a beady eye making sure I didn't stray off the driveway and come up in the tree. Eureka! Mama's on the nest. I have to say, it wasn't a very pretty-looking nest...but it was a nest. Awesome. We have been graced by robins.
Second, as I was eating breakfast this morning, I looked out the window and there was a sparrow perched on the deck rail, looking in at me. This cheeky little thing stared boldly at me, as if to say, "What on earth are you doing? Don't you know all the good bugs are out here?" And then it flew away, apparently disgusted by my lack of good sense.
Have birds always been like this, and I've just been too busy to notice? They are such fun to watch. I'm getting involved in the lives of little no-account birds, and I love it. Now you all can say that I am officially a bird-brain, I guess. Have at it! Enjoy. : )
First, I have definitely found the robins' nest! As I pulled into the driveway this morning after taking Sam to preschool I glanced up in that part of the dogwood where the pair keep congregating, and I saw a messy clump of something, a robin's head, and a beady eye making sure I didn't stray off the driveway and come up in the tree. Eureka! Mama's on the nest. I have to say, it wasn't a very pretty-looking nest...but it was a nest. Awesome. We have been graced by robins.
Second, as I was eating breakfast this morning, I looked out the window and there was a sparrow perched on the deck rail, looking in at me. This cheeky little thing stared boldly at me, as if to say, "What on earth are you doing? Don't you know all the good bugs are out here?" And then it flew away, apparently disgusted by my lack of good sense.
Have birds always been like this, and I've just been too busy to notice? They are such fun to watch. I'm getting involved in the lives of little no-account birds, and I love it. Now you all can say that I am officially a bird-brain, I guess. Have at it! Enjoy. : )
Monday, May 17, 2010
A Morning At My Window
I've been up since about 4:45 this morning; I don't know why I'm always waking up just before everyone's alarm clocks start going off. It's like I'm a masochist or something. Let's shorten a perfectly good night's sleep even more! Woo-hoo!
Well, instead of fighting it this morning I got up, read a little, surprised the heck out of SM and Sophie when they got up, had a bagel and some juice, and settled down by my bedroom's alcove window to watch Sophie go to her bus stop.
It's been raining through the night. Not a long, hard slog, no giant storms...just a few minutes of rain here and there that make you wonder, "Is that it? Any more coming?" So when I looked out the window this morning everything was soft, wet, and green. It was like that on my wedding day. If you can imagine such a thing, it was a beautiful rain that day. When we left the reception the rain was coming down so gently and prettily, and I don't think I've ever seen green look more green in my life. Birds looked silver in the sky and the clouds were like something Rembrandt might have painted. It was impossibly beautiful. That's the way it is this morning.
I've mentioned before that there are two trees just outside my window: a dogwood and something as yet unidentified, but bigger than the dogwood. Also, there are two robins that, I am convinced, have a nest somewhere in our yard, but I can't find it yet. As I settled in my chair and looked out the window to see what the morning looked like, I saw the robins, hard at it, pecking at the yard. Actually, there were birds all over the place, but the little sparrows and wrens blend in so beautifully with our dead grass that you can't see them until they move. Our lawn looks like living art, it's moving in little hops and short flights.
It started raining again for a few minutes; most of the birds flew for shelter in our two trees, which have such leafy canopies that surely any bird hiding in there will stay bone-dry. But the robins never slowed down and never flew for cover. They kept pecking and scratching, holding their heads to one side as though listening for noisy worms to announce their presence. A little rain won't stop them.
They keep flying back to that one spot in the dogwood but every day I look, and there's nothing there.
We've been hard at work lately, trying to improve the house and yard. We discovered our property has an irrigation system and we tested it last night (just in time for the rain). We've chiseled tile off a kitchen table, put up wallpaper borders, installed curtain rods, painted, and a host of other back-breaking tasks. We kind of miss renting right about now. But the house is coming together and getting a look, if you know what I mean, even if it is wearing us out. So yesterday when SM and I heard that a rainstorm was forecasted that afternoon, we thankfully sank into our Sunday naps, because nothing is better than a stormy Sunday afternoon nap. I mean nothing. Unless, of course, it's a stormy Sunday afternoon nap under a metal roof. That's the ultimate. The rain brought some peace to the house. The drumming on the roof seemed to drug us, kind of like those jails that are painted pink so the inmates calm down. Our sleep last night was deep, hard, and peaceful. So you understand now the state of mind I was in this morning when I looked out on my front yard, wet and green and alive with busy, chirping birds. I watched Sophie walk to the end of the driveway, wearing her turquoise raincoat and holding her umbrella, and she turned around, waved, and blew me a kiss before looking both ways and crossing the road. That's our morning ritual. I waved back, blew a kiss, and settled in the chair to watch the morning wake up.
Now I know why I haven't found the robins' nest yet. They're still building it. Something large and white just fluttered to the ground under the dogwood, and one of the robins just swooped down after it, picked it up in its beak, and flew back to the same spot in the tree as before. I watch for a moment, and down it flutters again, robin in hot pursuit. Four times that white something falls, and four times it is retrieved by a robin and stuffed in the same spot in the tree. It must be a really important part of the nest for them to feel that strongly about it. I looked up in there the other day and saw our guinea pigs' bedding all over the tree. We don't just throw the stuff in the back yard when we clean the cage, but we do hose down the cage out there, and some bits and pieces of bedding have obviously landed in the yard and been found by these robins. Now the bedding decorates our dogwood. I don't know whether or not they have finalized on a decision about it, though. It's like when we come home from Lowe's and tape paint chips all over a wall, trying to decide which color works best. That's what they've done to the dogwood: hung various nesting materials everywhere, possibly in an effort to rate them and make the most informed choice. Smart birds, these robins. Messy, but smart.
I swear I can smell my lawn. The smell of rain coupled with the smell of clean dirt and opening flowers. The humid air easily carries the sounds of flapping birds' wings as they sail past my window. One branch is less than 10 feet from me, and if I sit still and make no sound, birds sit up in there all the time, doing whatever it is birds do, completely unaware of me. I feel like I'm looking through a periscope onto what the Garden of Eden must have looked like (except for the dying grass). It's just so precious and peaceful and I feel privileged.
I know I'm rambling but it's magical to me and I wanted to share it with you.
Well, instead of fighting it this morning I got up, read a little, surprised the heck out of SM and Sophie when they got up, had a bagel and some juice, and settled down by my bedroom's alcove window to watch Sophie go to her bus stop.
It's been raining through the night. Not a long, hard slog, no giant storms...just a few minutes of rain here and there that make you wonder, "Is that it? Any more coming?" So when I looked out the window this morning everything was soft, wet, and green. It was like that on my wedding day. If you can imagine such a thing, it was a beautiful rain that day. When we left the reception the rain was coming down so gently and prettily, and I don't think I've ever seen green look more green in my life. Birds looked silver in the sky and the clouds were like something Rembrandt might have painted. It was impossibly beautiful. That's the way it is this morning.
I've mentioned before that there are two trees just outside my window: a dogwood and something as yet unidentified, but bigger than the dogwood. Also, there are two robins that, I am convinced, have a nest somewhere in our yard, but I can't find it yet. As I settled in my chair and looked out the window to see what the morning looked like, I saw the robins, hard at it, pecking at the yard. Actually, there were birds all over the place, but the little sparrows and wrens blend in so beautifully with our dead grass that you can't see them until they move. Our lawn looks like living art, it's moving in little hops and short flights.
It started raining again for a few minutes; most of the birds flew for shelter in our two trees, which have such leafy canopies that surely any bird hiding in there will stay bone-dry. But the robins never slowed down and never flew for cover. They kept pecking and scratching, holding their heads to one side as though listening for noisy worms to announce their presence. A little rain won't stop them.
They keep flying back to that one spot in the dogwood but every day I look, and there's nothing there.
We've been hard at work lately, trying to improve the house and yard. We discovered our property has an irrigation system and we tested it last night (just in time for the rain). We've chiseled tile off a kitchen table, put up wallpaper borders, installed curtain rods, painted, and a host of other back-breaking tasks. We kind of miss renting right about now. But the house is coming together and getting a look, if you know what I mean, even if it is wearing us out. So yesterday when SM and I heard that a rainstorm was forecasted that afternoon, we thankfully sank into our Sunday naps, because nothing is better than a stormy Sunday afternoon nap. I mean nothing. Unless, of course, it's a stormy Sunday afternoon nap under a metal roof. That's the ultimate. The rain brought some peace to the house. The drumming on the roof seemed to drug us, kind of like those jails that are painted pink so the inmates calm down. Our sleep last night was deep, hard, and peaceful. So you understand now the state of mind I was in this morning when I looked out on my front yard, wet and green and alive with busy, chirping birds. I watched Sophie walk to the end of the driveway, wearing her turquoise raincoat and holding her umbrella, and she turned around, waved, and blew me a kiss before looking both ways and crossing the road. That's our morning ritual. I waved back, blew a kiss, and settled in the chair to watch the morning wake up.
Now I know why I haven't found the robins' nest yet. They're still building it. Something large and white just fluttered to the ground under the dogwood, and one of the robins just swooped down after it, picked it up in its beak, and flew back to the same spot in the tree as before. I watch for a moment, and down it flutters again, robin in hot pursuit. Four times that white something falls, and four times it is retrieved by a robin and stuffed in the same spot in the tree. It must be a really important part of the nest for them to feel that strongly about it. I looked up in there the other day and saw our guinea pigs' bedding all over the tree. We don't just throw the stuff in the back yard when we clean the cage, but we do hose down the cage out there, and some bits and pieces of bedding have obviously landed in the yard and been found by these robins. Now the bedding decorates our dogwood. I don't know whether or not they have finalized on a decision about it, though. It's like when we come home from Lowe's and tape paint chips all over a wall, trying to decide which color works best. That's what they've done to the dogwood: hung various nesting materials everywhere, possibly in an effort to rate them and make the most informed choice. Smart birds, these robins. Messy, but smart.
I swear I can smell my lawn. The smell of rain coupled with the smell of clean dirt and opening flowers. The humid air easily carries the sounds of flapping birds' wings as they sail past my window. One branch is less than 10 feet from me, and if I sit still and make no sound, birds sit up in there all the time, doing whatever it is birds do, completely unaware of me. I feel like I'm looking through a periscope onto what the Garden of Eden must have looked like (except for the dying grass). It's just so precious and peaceful and I feel privileged.
I know I'm rambling but it's magical to me and I wanted to share it with you.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
One Flew Over...Something...Somewhere
As many of you know, Sophie went from homeschooling to public school this year, back in February. That was a very gut-wrenching decision for us. Well, OK, for me. She was thrilled to be trying something new. I, on the other hand, have not handled it so well. I've tried. Lord knows I've tried. I am happy for her, supportive of her, attentive to her change in circumstances, and always rooting for her. (I am also doing Lamaze when no one's looking to keep the pain at bay, but that's another story.) One of the things Sophie was desperate to try was riding the school bus. Heaven only knows what she finds so glamorous about riding a school bus, but she does. Bottom line. So I found out that her bus stop is a few houses away, barely visible from my vantage point. Speaking of vantage points: I knew good and well that accompanying her to the bus stop was strictly out of the question. That falls under over-protective to an embarrassing degree, and I knew better than to suggest it. I held firm to standing on the front steps, however, and I wouldn't go back inside until the bus came, the kids loaded on, and the bus drove away. In February, as we all know, it's pitch black at 6:25 a.m. and I felt perfectly justified in letting my presence be known, in all my turquoise-terry-robe-covered glory. I wanted passersby to see that I meant business, no one was going to mess with my kid at the bus stop. I was a safe, responsible parent. Then it got lighter and lighter in the mornings and I started to feel a little silly. Responsible is one things. Showing people exactly what I look like in the light at 6:25 a.m. is another. So I began watching Sophie from my bedroom window. We have a little alcove off our room, just above the front door, and I could see her beautifully almost all the way to the bus stop. There are three other kids with her in the mornings, all boys, and although I knew two of them pretty well and they think of her as a sister, still....
Well, then the time change happened. Back in darkness. I stayed in my little alcove, though. I guess the bus driver thought I'd finally given up and joined the ranks of millions of parents who stay in bed while their precious first-born wanders into the darkness alone, surrounded by God only knows what dangers. (Whoa, steady...steady...) Trying not to hyperventilate. So I still kept watch over her. And then spring came.
We have two trees in our front yard, a dogwood and a huge Bradford pear. Vile smelling thing it is, too, that Bradford. Anyway, when that thing bloomed it completely blocked my view of Sophie as she crossed the street and ventured out into the world. Now, this was not something I'd reckoned on. I'd sort of forgotten about that whole blooming-in-the-spring thing. All I could see of Sophie now was her crossing the lawn and stopping at the edge of the road to look both ways. From there she vanished behind a *&^%$ green curtain. I would stay at the window, opened wide and my face pressed against the screen, listening for any possible sounds of trouble from, oh, say, 50 yards [pointing] thataway.
It's weary work, being this vigilant. Or maybe anal is a better word for it. Over-protective, paranoid, anal worrier are other good words. And then when the bus pulls away with my heart riding somewhere on it, I say a deeply-felt prayer for her protection and success in the day. And THEN I go back to bed. Not surprisingly, it's hard to go back to sleep.
The last couple of mornings while I waited for Sophie's bus to arrive I've noticed what I think are the same two birds on our lawn. They are robins, and we must have some pretty tasty worms in our yard because those birds get BUSY. And they always fly up into the dogwood. I think they must be setting up a nest in there somewhere. They wander into other yards occasionally but they always come back, pick a few bugs here and there, and then back they go into the dogwood. I looked up in there today and saw a few places where they'd obviously tested the engineering soundness and feasibility and found them lacking. Bits of fuzz, string, and other assortments hung here and there like a poor man's Christmas tree. Maybe they're newlyweds and don't know any better. (Been there, done that.) Hopefully they will keep at it until some nice branch meets their standards. As I watched these birds work themselves into an early grave, I thought about their chicks that would surely come sooner or later, and how they would learn to fly. I thought about Sophie flying this year as she's met a whole bucketful of new challenges. Granted, it's not like I threw her out on the streets, but you have to admit, her little world has turned upside down in the last few months. We've moved, she left me and went into a school where I figure very little, she has different teachers, a different schedule, different friends, etc. She's learning new things, and she jumped a whole year ahead in math. And she made the B Honor Roll this past quarter. I think it's pretty clear that she is flying. I know this would have happened sooner or later, but I just didn't think it would be this soon. What makes it worthwhile, what keeps me from thinking this has all been a horrible mistake, is the look on her face. She is happy. She is proud of herself. She is productive and learning independence. She's doing exactly what she was meant to do. And I guess that's what makes birds fly.
Well, then the time change happened. Back in darkness. I stayed in my little alcove, though. I guess the bus driver thought I'd finally given up and joined the ranks of millions of parents who stay in bed while their precious first-born wanders into the darkness alone, surrounded by God only knows what dangers. (Whoa, steady...steady...) Trying not to hyperventilate. So I still kept watch over her. And then spring came.
We have two trees in our front yard, a dogwood and a huge Bradford pear. Vile smelling thing it is, too, that Bradford. Anyway, when that thing bloomed it completely blocked my view of Sophie as she crossed the street and ventured out into the world. Now, this was not something I'd reckoned on. I'd sort of forgotten about that whole blooming-in-the-spring thing. All I could see of Sophie now was her crossing the lawn and stopping at the edge of the road to look both ways. From there she vanished behind a *&^%$ green curtain. I would stay at the window, opened wide and my face pressed against the screen, listening for any possible sounds of trouble from, oh, say, 50 yards [pointing] thataway.
It's weary work, being this vigilant. Or maybe anal is a better word for it. Over-protective, paranoid, anal worrier are other good words. And then when the bus pulls away with my heart riding somewhere on it, I say a deeply-felt prayer for her protection and success in the day. And THEN I go back to bed. Not surprisingly, it's hard to go back to sleep.
The last couple of mornings while I waited for Sophie's bus to arrive I've noticed what I think are the same two birds on our lawn. They are robins, and we must have some pretty tasty worms in our yard because those birds get BUSY. And they always fly up into the dogwood. I think they must be setting up a nest in there somewhere. They wander into other yards occasionally but they always come back, pick a few bugs here and there, and then back they go into the dogwood. I looked up in there today and saw a few places where they'd obviously tested the engineering soundness and feasibility and found them lacking. Bits of fuzz, string, and other assortments hung here and there like a poor man's Christmas tree. Maybe they're newlyweds and don't know any better. (Been there, done that.) Hopefully they will keep at it until some nice branch meets their standards. As I watched these birds work themselves into an early grave, I thought about their chicks that would surely come sooner or later, and how they would learn to fly. I thought about Sophie flying this year as she's met a whole bucketful of new challenges. Granted, it's not like I threw her out on the streets, but you have to admit, her little world has turned upside down in the last few months. We've moved, she left me and went into a school where I figure very little, she has different teachers, a different schedule, different friends, etc. She's learning new things, and she jumped a whole year ahead in math. And she made the B Honor Roll this past quarter. I think it's pretty clear that she is flying. I know this would have happened sooner or later, but I just didn't think it would be this soon. What makes it worthwhile, what keeps me from thinking this has all been a horrible mistake, is the look on her face. She is happy. She is proud of herself. She is productive and learning independence. She's doing exactly what she was meant to do. And I guess that's what makes birds fly.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
There It Goes, I've Lost It Again
Name me one other person you know who's lost an iron. Can't think of one? Well, I've done it.
In my lifetime, I've lost an iron, a makeup brush, two bras, two plates, a baby book (mine), and a set of drapes.
Not once have I ever lost my keys or my cell phone. Of course, now that I've jinxed myself...
Perhaps it started early, when I was little. I remember Mom searching the house high and low for her good spoons, which I had thoughtfully buried in the back yard, for reasons I can no longer remember. I do remember, though, that they made terrific little shovels for tiny toddler hands.
I don't lose the normal things. I lose weird things. I once lost about 6 pair of underwear that were misfiled in the wrong drawer under some nightgowns. I wondered why I was washing my underclothes so much more frequently. Took me a month before I found them.
I think I know what happened to the two missing plates (Sam got used to the idea of throwing away his paper plates after meals, and we messed up by giving him REAL plates, so...draw your own conclusion. I am sure that somewhere up in Heaven Mom is laughing her butt off - "Serves you right!"). However, I have absolutely no idea, no clue at all, what ever happened to my iron. Note that I did not lose my ironing board...just the iron. Go figure.
Since we've moved we've lost a bunch of DVD's. Not the plastic jackets. Just the DVD's.
Maybe I just have the "Lose Me" aura, because the night before our wedding SM lost my wedding ring. I held off killing him because I wasn't yet his benficiary. Luckily, before a legal ruling was required, he found the ring. All was well. In hindsight, it was probably a providential blessing that he learned so early how much attention a wife pays to her husband's life insurance.
On the flip side, I come across little treasures occasionally that I never even realized I had. When Dad moved from Summerville to NC he invited me to go through some thing that he thought belonged to me, in case I wanted to move them to my house. I took some boxes and went through them only after he moved (a clever strategy, in case he had something really good stashed in there). I found a huge number of old pictures. I found my mother's high school graduation photo. Ah, the days when the only things pierced were ears...kids then looked like adults by the time they were 14. I was struck by how much Sophie looked like Mom. Then I found a picture of Mom when she was just a toddler. She was holding a silver ball, and she wore a small heart locket necklace and a silver bracelet. With a start, I realized that Katherine and I still have that necklace and bracelet. I rifled through some more pictures. There was a small picture of my mom and her twin, Aunt Nancy, in a pram. And then, wonder of wonders, I found a picture of Grandma when she was maybe 8 or 9 years old. I found a picture of what I think was a favorite teacher. It was an old-fashioned sepia print, and the teacher wore her hair high in a bun, with a high-necked blouse and a small round watch pinned to it. The image was a soft oval that faded to nothing towards the edges. It looked like something straight out of "Little House On the Prairie". This teacher would have taught out of a primer. She probably taught more than one grade in a class. America - the world - was a completely different place then.
Then I came across a wedding portrait of people I'd never seen before. I don't have the foggiest idea who they are - there is no note on the back - but this has to be the unhappiest couple I've ever seen. I guess "smile for the birdie" hadn't been invented yet. The bride was, I'm sorry to say, the ugliest thing on two legs (which accounts for the groom's expression) and she looked deeply disapproving of the whole notion of weddings or photographs, maybe both. Bet that honeymoon was a barrel of laughs.
The other day I found some sliced ham in the freezer that I'd forgotten about. When I was sick several weeks ago I found the remote in the pantry. I thought I was hallucinating, but it was real. So I guess for every weird thing I lose, I find something weird, too. It is our Yin and Yang. hahahahaha!
In my lifetime, I've lost an iron, a makeup brush, two bras, two plates, a baby book (mine), and a set of drapes.
Not once have I ever lost my keys or my cell phone. Of course, now that I've jinxed myself...
Perhaps it started early, when I was little. I remember Mom searching the house high and low for her good spoons, which I had thoughtfully buried in the back yard, for reasons I can no longer remember. I do remember, though, that they made terrific little shovels for tiny toddler hands.
I don't lose the normal things. I lose weird things. I once lost about 6 pair of underwear that were misfiled in the wrong drawer under some nightgowns. I wondered why I was washing my underclothes so much more frequently. Took me a month before I found them.
I think I know what happened to the two missing plates (Sam got used to the idea of throwing away his paper plates after meals, and we messed up by giving him REAL plates, so...draw your own conclusion. I am sure that somewhere up in Heaven Mom is laughing her butt off - "Serves you right!"). However, I have absolutely no idea, no clue at all, what ever happened to my iron. Note that I did not lose my ironing board...just the iron. Go figure.
Since we've moved we've lost a bunch of DVD's. Not the plastic jackets. Just the DVD's.
Maybe I just have the "Lose Me" aura, because the night before our wedding SM lost my wedding ring. I held off killing him because I wasn't yet his benficiary. Luckily, before a legal ruling was required, he found the ring. All was well. In hindsight, it was probably a providential blessing that he learned so early how much attention a wife pays to her husband's life insurance.
On the flip side, I come across little treasures occasionally that I never even realized I had. When Dad moved from Summerville to NC he invited me to go through some thing that he thought belonged to me, in case I wanted to move them to my house. I took some boxes and went through them only after he moved (a clever strategy, in case he had something really good stashed in there). I found a huge number of old pictures. I found my mother's high school graduation photo. Ah, the days when the only things pierced were ears...kids then looked like adults by the time they were 14. I was struck by how much Sophie looked like Mom. Then I found a picture of Mom when she was just a toddler. She was holding a silver ball, and she wore a small heart locket necklace and a silver bracelet. With a start, I realized that Katherine and I still have that necklace and bracelet. I rifled through some more pictures. There was a small picture of my mom and her twin, Aunt Nancy, in a pram. And then, wonder of wonders, I found a picture of Grandma when she was maybe 8 or 9 years old. I found a picture of what I think was a favorite teacher. It was an old-fashioned sepia print, and the teacher wore her hair high in a bun, with a high-necked blouse and a small round watch pinned to it. The image was a soft oval that faded to nothing towards the edges. It looked like something straight out of "Little House On the Prairie". This teacher would have taught out of a primer. She probably taught more than one grade in a class. America - the world - was a completely different place then.
Then I came across a wedding portrait of people I'd never seen before. I don't have the foggiest idea who they are - there is no note on the back - but this has to be the unhappiest couple I've ever seen. I guess "smile for the birdie" hadn't been invented yet. The bride was, I'm sorry to say, the ugliest thing on two legs (which accounts for the groom's expression) and she looked deeply disapproving of the whole notion of weddings or photographs, maybe both. Bet that honeymoon was a barrel of laughs.
The other day I found some sliced ham in the freezer that I'd forgotten about. When I was sick several weeks ago I found the remote in the pantry. I thought I was hallucinating, but it was real. So I guess for every weird thing I lose, I find something weird, too. It is our Yin and Yang. hahahahaha!
Thursday, April 29, 2010
There's More Similarity Between a Wafflemaker and Dating Than You'd Think
Well, that was an intriguing title. I realized yesterday, as I was plugging in my new wafflemaker and wondering how it would work, that there are a lot of similarities between appliances and dating someone new. A stretch? you may ask. Well, let's see.
Both look good on the outside. A lot of marketing goes into the packaging. They both have a vested interest in convincing you to take the bait.
With both of them, you're never really sure what's going to happen the first time you turn them on. My wafflemaker instructions said to expect some smoke and a funny smell the first time.
Whatever instructions you received will be missing something vital to the proper operation of this particular model - whether a guy or a wafflemaker. My spanking-brand-new appliance said it would beep 6 times when preheated and would beep 3 times when a waffle was done, neither of which happened. I guess that's kind of like, "I'll call you later." Something does not operate as expected and there are no apologies and no explanations. You just have to figure it out yourself and deal with the consequences.
If the first operation goes well, you feel slightly more sure that this new venture will not blow up in your face. You just might make more waffles. You just might go out with ol' what's-his-face again. He wasn't a chainsaw killer, at least on first sight, so hey, dinner and a movie might be fun. I didn't burn the waffles and none of us were poisoned, so hey, I might do this again, if I can figure out how to clean the thing. (Hey, that's like a guy, too, come to think about it...)
If continued operation proves successful, you might dare, at some point, to use it without consulting the instructions or a recipe. You wild, impulsive thing, you! Go crazy. Make waffles and feel free as a bird. And when you do, and things still work out they way they should, you know that you are officially in a working relationship with a small kitchen appliance. It's a beautiful thing. Just brings tears to my eyes.
As it turns out, my wafflemaker did poorly and took a nosedive in the Mayo rating system almost immediately. It took about 10 minutes to make one waffle, which, according to my precise, scientific calculations, makes dinner so not worth it. I do not wish to stand in front of a wafflemaker for 40 minutes while my family chows down. I can make, like, 80 pancakes in 40 minutes. Why ask why? Anyway, it made one waffle. By the way, it never beeped after preheating and it never beeped when Waffle #1 was done. I just got tired of waiting and flipped the thing over to check on it. It was done enough for 4 starving people to split so I took it out and poured the batter for another one. And I waited. And waited. And waited some more. I checked it (against the rules, according to the directions; it offsets the timing) and saw that it was a very undone, gooey mess. So I announced that we would divy up Waffle #1 and eat dinner while #2 cooked. I gave #2 about 25 more minutes and was not happy to see that not only was the wafflemaker cooling off inexplicably, but #2 was as gooey and uncooked as ever. Luckily, I'd made some other things to go with dinner, because 1/4 of Waffle #1 was about 5 bites. Have you ever tried explaining to your husband how you paid $79 for a wafflemaker that made exactly one waffle before breaking? Have you ever seen the looks on your kids' faces when you explained that gee, this was fun, eat up because IT'S ALL YOU'RE GETTING? Talk about dashed hopes...disillusionment...unmet expectations...and again, it's like dating!!! Only I still have my receipt. HA! Can you just see it? "Hi, [insert guy's name]'s Mom? Yes, I just recently went out with your son and I'm sorry to say, he's broken! Yes, he doesn't work at all! And frankly, I'd like my time and money back, please. Or, if you have another model that works, I'd be happy to try him. Thank you!" And you walk away, muttering to yourself, "Taiwanese piece of crap..."
I recently got a new washer and dryer. They're the front loader models. They're kind of fancy, as compared to my old system of slap-clothes-against-rock-and-hang-to-dry, but they do work. There's buttons and knobs and little electronic displays. It was all a little intimidating at first. Kind of like dating a senator's son or something. You fret some about the ostentatiousness of it all. Is it too much? I mean, everyone's looking at me. I don't know if I'll fit in. Does this fabric softener make my butt look big? And so on. They even sing to me to let me know a cycle's done. The first time the washer sang to me, the kids, the cat, and I all looked up at each other: "What was that?" The musical ditty sounds a lot like a song from the Winnie-the-Pooh Heffalump movie. In fact, I thought that's what it was at first. On subsequent loads I got closer to the source of the sound until I figured it out. Well, dang! Ma, Pa, come lookey-here! This warsher SANG to me! (And the senator's son hesitates a step, smiles uncertainly, but mans up and takes it for the compliment it probably is.) As I spent more time with my new beau - I mean laundry appliances - I came to accept and then expect the charm of the musical cycles. As fancy as laundry had become, it worked, and it worked well, consistently. And after all, isn't that what true love's all about?
Both look good on the outside. A lot of marketing goes into the packaging. They both have a vested interest in convincing you to take the bait.
With both of them, you're never really sure what's going to happen the first time you turn them on. My wafflemaker instructions said to expect some smoke and a funny smell the first time.
Whatever instructions you received will be missing something vital to the proper operation of this particular model - whether a guy or a wafflemaker. My spanking-brand-new appliance said it would beep 6 times when preheated and would beep 3 times when a waffle was done, neither of which happened. I guess that's kind of like, "I'll call you later." Something does not operate as expected and there are no apologies and no explanations. You just have to figure it out yourself and deal with the consequences.
If the first operation goes well, you feel slightly more sure that this new venture will not blow up in your face. You just might make more waffles. You just might go out with ol' what's-his-face again. He wasn't a chainsaw killer, at least on first sight, so hey, dinner and a movie might be fun. I didn't burn the waffles and none of us were poisoned, so hey, I might do this again, if I can figure out how to clean the thing. (Hey, that's like a guy, too, come to think about it...)
If continued operation proves successful, you might dare, at some point, to use it without consulting the instructions or a recipe. You wild, impulsive thing, you! Go crazy. Make waffles and feel free as a bird. And when you do, and things still work out they way they should, you know that you are officially in a working relationship with a small kitchen appliance. It's a beautiful thing. Just brings tears to my eyes.
As it turns out, my wafflemaker did poorly and took a nosedive in the Mayo rating system almost immediately. It took about 10 minutes to make one waffle, which, according to my precise, scientific calculations, makes dinner so not worth it. I do not wish to stand in front of a wafflemaker for 40 minutes while my family chows down. I can make, like, 80 pancakes in 40 minutes. Why ask why? Anyway, it made one waffle. By the way, it never beeped after preheating and it never beeped when Waffle #1 was done. I just got tired of waiting and flipped the thing over to check on it. It was done enough for 4 starving people to split so I took it out and poured the batter for another one. And I waited. And waited. And waited some more. I checked it (against the rules, according to the directions; it offsets the timing) and saw that it was a very undone, gooey mess. So I announced that we would divy up Waffle #1 and eat dinner while #2 cooked. I gave #2 about 25 more minutes and was not happy to see that not only was the wafflemaker cooling off inexplicably, but #2 was as gooey and uncooked as ever. Luckily, I'd made some other things to go with dinner, because 1/4 of Waffle #1 was about 5 bites. Have you ever tried explaining to your husband how you paid $79 for a wafflemaker that made exactly one waffle before breaking? Have you ever seen the looks on your kids' faces when you explained that gee, this was fun, eat up because IT'S ALL YOU'RE GETTING? Talk about dashed hopes...disillusionment...unmet expectations...and again, it's like dating!!! Only I still have my receipt. HA! Can you just see it? "Hi, [insert guy's name]'s Mom? Yes, I just recently went out with your son and I'm sorry to say, he's broken! Yes, he doesn't work at all! And frankly, I'd like my time and money back, please. Or, if you have another model that works, I'd be happy to try him. Thank you!" And you walk away, muttering to yourself, "Taiwanese piece of crap..."
I recently got a new washer and dryer. They're the front loader models. They're kind of fancy, as compared to my old system of slap-clothes-against-rock-and-hang-to-dry, but they do work. There's buttons and knobs and little electronic displays. It was all a little intimidating at first. Kind of like dating a senator's son or something. You fret some about the ostentatiousness of it all. Is it too much? I mean, everyone's looking at me. I don't know if I'll fit in. Does this fabric softener make my butt look big? And so on. They even sing to me to let me know a cycle's done. The first time the washer sang to me, the kids, the cat, and I all looked up at each other: "What was that?" The musical ditty sounds a lot like a song from the Winnie-the-Pooh Heffalump movie. In fact, I thought that's what it was at first. On subsequent loads I got closer to the source of the sound until I figured it out. Well, dang! Ma, Pa, come lookey-here! This warsher SANG to me! (And the senator's son hesitates a step, smiles uncertainly, but mans up and takes it for the compliment it probably is.) As I spent more time with my new beau - I mean laundry appliances - I came to accept and then expect the charm of the musical cycles. As fancy as laundry had become, it worked, and it worked well, consistently. And after all, isn't that what true love's all about?
Monday, April 5, 2010
Friends Don't Let Friends Buy Guinea Pigs
I wrote this last summer, shortly after the movie release of G Force. It's pretty self-explanatory.
Usually I am not the type to follow the crowd. In fact, the fastest way to make me not do something is to tell me, “Everyone’s doing it.” It’s not that I strive to be a rebel but I find a certain charm and class to achieving a dynamic and pleasing result that is also unique. That being said, when I told SM that Sophie and I were going to see the new Disney movie “G-Force”, he simply had no idea we would detour on the way home and spend over $80 in guinea pig paraphernalia, complete with guinea pig. He had no warning. Poor guy. In my defense, I really had been thinking about getting a hamster, gerbil, guinea pig, or some other such small and minimally invasive animal in our lives. After all, with two children, a cat, and a dog we were practically starved for things to do, right? Right.
Our tour of duty in the pet store reminded me of that scene from “Turner and Hooch” where Tom Hanks’ character gets hoodwinked by the store manager into spending a small fortune for a temporary canine guest with terrible manners. You could practically see the stars in our salesman’s eyes. “Ah!” he clearly thought, rubbing his hands together and chuckling evilly. “Amateurs!” It didn’t help that Sophie was hopping up and down and squealing wildly because she was there to take advantage of Mommy’s temporary insanity. (By the way, guinea pigs exhibit this same behavior. It’s called “popcorning” and it means they’re really, really happy. No duh, Buckwheat.) While we were there, no fewer than two salespeople asked if we’d seen “G-Force.“ I tried to defend myself by repeating that I’d actually been thinking of doing this for a while, but clearly I did not convince them, as their knowing grins testified. So, anyway, trying to be a responsible and sensitive pet owner starting from scratch, I quizzed the salesman. “So do guinea pigs need certain toys to keep them challenged and mentally stimulated?” I braced myself for a dissertation on the 1001 ways to keep a guinea pig happy and productive. The salesman said, “Nope.” Huh. OK. Next question: “Would getting one be all right, or do they really crave companionship?” The salesman said, “No, not really, one‘s OK.” Interesting. I said, “So what, then, exactly do they do?” and the salesman gave me the guinea pig creed: “Eat, poop, and sleep.” I couldn’t believe it. I had finally found the furry equivalent of a Pet Rock. So you’d THINK that I wouldn’t have to spend a fortune to keep a pet rock happy, right? NOT. Ch-ching, ch-ching. And so we drove home with a loaded trunk and a freaked-out guinea pig scrambling in circles in his little cardboard box on Sophie's lap.
When we got home SM opened the door and just stared. Sophie was absolutely convinced that he would share her joy at a new pet. I wasn’t nearly as certain. I had done something fairly unforgivable. I had brought home a new pet without consulting the other Parental Unit. That’s bad. I was a bad girl. Shame on me. So when SM asked how much it all cost, I snuggled up to him and whispered sweet nothings in his ear. He wasn’t fooled for one second but Sam and Sophie began jumping up and down shrieking, “Let him out, Daddy, let him out!” I’m sure this contributed beautifully to our poor new guy’s state of mind, as the cardboard box began vibrating like a washing machine on the spin cycle. I thought he was about to bust out and fly to the Mother Ship. So we quickly got his new cage in tip-top shape. He had fresh bedding, clean water, pellets, timothy hay, and these wooden shapes that were flavor-infused with fruit. What more could a Pet Rock ask for? So once Smudge (his new name, as his coloring suggested he’d sat in poop) was settled in his new home, I began trawling the Internet for “How to keep a guinea pig happy and healthy.” After about a half-hour I’d discovered some essential facts, most of which indicated that the salesman had either lied through his teeth or didn’t know what he was talking about. Nice. So I researched to find a good guide to guinea pigs and ordered it via expedited shipping, just because I’m anal that way, and found out what food I SHOULD be using, what bedding I SHOULD have bought, and began putting serious thought into the other guinea pig I SHOULD have brought home with Smudge. So the next day Sophie and I went back to the pet store. I was determined to take everything that place told me with a grain of salt…or maybe a whole shaker’s worth…and try to be a more savvy buyer.
You know, sometimes I think the most admirable trait I have is that I wake up every day with the same amount of boundless optimism, regardless of how badly I failed by bedtime the night before.
So back we went to the pet store. I found another cage, as the one we’d gotten was really only big enough for one piggy. SM said he could hook two together and make a nice enclosure for both piggies. (Yes, I’d warned him this time that I was getting another one. I may be crazy but I ain’t stupid.) So the first thing I looked for was a vitamin C supplement. I’d read that it’s really not good to put it in the water, as the pet store had suggested, but rather get a vitamin C-enriched food or a tablet to crush in their food. But I couldn’t find the tablets. A different salesman approached and when I asked about the vitamin supplement, he suggested the water-based one. “But the literature I’ve been reading doesn’t recommend that,” I said. He stated that that’s what they used on their guinea pigs, or at least what they used to use. Now they used the crushed tablets. “Great!” I said. “That’s what I want! Where is it?” “We don’t sell it,” he replied. (OK, Steph, just breathe deeply and count to 10.) About then the previous day’s saboteur - I mean salesman - approached and smiled brightly, as well he might. It’s not often a gold mine walks into your store two days in a row. So we told him we were going to get another guinea pig and he nodded solemnly, exuding wisdom and the master’s approval for a student doing the right thing, as if he had not pooh-poohed this very idea only 24 hours ago. “Good idea,” the Evil One said. We already knew which one we wanted, and when we pointed it out, the Master of Lies handed me another whopper, and I’m sorry to say I swallowed it hook, line, and sinker. (I’m not usually this stupid. I must be getting ready to start or something.) He said, “I’m glad you picked this one out, because he’s a littermate of the one you bought yesterday.” I was so relieved I didn’t stop to consider the source, and we trundled away with Life Mistake #2. (One day I hope to hear statistics on guinea pig sales before and after the release of “G-Force.”)
So when we got home SM put the two cages together for a nice, clear passage and we let Skittles (his new name, as he was very skittish) go. It’s like Smudge suddenly woke up. He’d been fairly sweet and sociable with us but he epitomized the Pet Rock: he just sat there. When Skittles entered the cage, though, all that changed. It was as though Smudge was electrified. I was not surprised because not only did he now have a fellow piggy, but it was one he knew (and was supposedly related to). Hot dog! Life’s good in the cage, right? So SM, Sam, Sophie, and I were all standing there, watching this joyful reunion. My children were eye-level with the cage and were soaking it in. Then Smudge began chasing Skittles all over the cage. We laughed appreciably. Smudge sniffed Skittles’ butt vigorously. We all said, “Ewwwwwww!” and then…it happened. How do I put this delicately? Hmmm. Let’s just say that Skittles was subjected to an indignity that no male guinea pig should have to endure. Repeatedly. Energetically. About 12 inches from my children’s faces. SM and I looked at each other in horror. Had we gotten a female by mistake? Were we about to usher in an entire generation of guinea pigs? Was there any way to convince our insurance company to pay for the births and maternity care? We were in shock. We shoo’d the kids away from the Cage of Fornication and told them to go burn out their retinas on something else. I called a friend, who laughed so hard I thought she was going to hurt herself. Thanks a lot, I thought grimly. The pet store was closed. So how, I thought frantically, does one sex a guinea pig? Well, I found out: the same way you sex any other animal. With good eyesight and a sense of humor. I did a search on the Internet (as my handy-dandy guide was still on order) for the phrase, “How to tell a male guinea pig from a female” and came up with what has to be the only piggy porn site on earth. There was absolutely no holding back, no delicacy on this web site. Perhaps it was a medical site. I’m not sure. I was so overwhelmed by the absurdity of what we were doing, the surreal quality of staring at piggy butts, and just how much hinged on getting it right. I’d told Sophie that if Skittles was a girl, we were going to take her back and let her have her babies with another really nice family who’d keep every single blessed baby and treat them like gods. While SM and I did our “research” she was standing by the cage, staring mournfully at Skittles and willing him/her to have boy parts. So we really had to get this right. Guess what? Adult guinea pigs…at least, OUR adult guinea pigs…were powerfully, vibrantly, and proudly able to show their true colors. We did indeed have two males. And the guide assured us that this was just a pecking-order thing (no pun intended) and not to worry.
This wasn't really how I'd intended to spend my Sunday night. I guess it serves me right for impulse-buying.
Usually I am not the type to follow the crowd. In fact, the fastest way to make me not do something is to tell me, “Everyone’s doing it.” It’s not that I strive to be a rebel but I find a certain charm and class to achieving a dynamic and pleasing result that is also unique. That being said, when I told SM that Sophie and I were going to see the new Disney movie “G-Force”, he simply had no idea we would detour on the way home and spend over $80 in guinea pig paraphernalia, complete with guinea pig. He had no warning. Poor guy. In my defense, I really had been thinking about getting a hamster, gerbil, guinea pig, or some other such small and minimally invasive animal in our lives. After all, with two children, a cat, and a dog we were practically starved for things to do, right? Right.
Our tour of duty in the pet store reminded me of that scene from “Turner and Hooch” where Tom Hanks’ character gets hoodwinked by the store manager into spending a small fortune for a temporary canine guest with terrible manners. You could practically see the stars in our salesman’s eyes. “Ah!” he clearly thought, rubbing his hands together and chuckling evilly. “Amateurs!” It didn’t help that Sophie was hopping up and down and squealing wildly because she was there to take advantage of Mommy’s temporary insanity. (By the way, guinea pigs exhibit this same behavior. It’s called “popcorning” and it means they’re really, really happy. No duh, Buckwheat.) While we were there, no fewer than two salespeople asked if we’d seen “G-Force.“ I tried to defend myself by repeating that I’d actually been thinking of doing this for a while, but clearly I did not convince them, as their knowing grins testified. So, anyway, trying to be a responsible and sensitive pet owner starting from scratch, I quizzed the salesman. “So do guinea pigs need certain toys to keep them challenged and mentally stimulated?” I braced myself for a dissertation on the 1001 ways to keep a guinea pig happy and productive. The salesman said, “Nope.” Huh. OK. Next question: “Would getting one be all right, or do they really crave companionship?” The salesman said, “No, not really, one‘s OK.” Interesting. I said, “So what, then, exactly do they do?” and the salesman gave me the guinea pig creed: “Eat, poop, and sleep.” I couldn’t believe it. I had finally found the furry equivalent of a Pet Rock. So you’d THINK that I wouldn’t have to spend a fortune to keep a pet rock happy, right? NOT. Ch-ching, ch-ching. And so we drove home with a loaded trunk and a freaked-out guinea pig scrambling in circles in his little cardboard box on Sophie's lap.
When we got home SM opened the door and just stared. Sophie was absolutely convinced that he would share her joy at a new pet. I wasn’t nearly as certain. I had done something fairly unforgivable. I had brought home a new pet without consulting the other Parental Unit. That’s bad. I was a bad girl. Shame on me. So when SM asked how much it all cost, I snuggled up to him and whispered sweet nothings in his ear. He wasn’t fooled for one second but Sam and Sophie began jumping up and down shrieking, “Let him out, Daddy, let him out!” I’m sure this contributed beautifully to our poor new guy’s state of mind, as the cardboard box began vibrating like a washing machine on the spin cycle. I thought he was about to bust out and fly to the Mother Ship. So we quickly got his new cage in tip-top shape. He had fresh bedding, clean water, pellets, timothy hay, and these wooden shapes that were flavor-infused with fruit. What more could a Pet Rock ask for? So once Smudge (his new name, as his coloring suggested he’d sat in poop) was settled in his new home, I began trawling the Internet for “How to keep a guinea pig happy and healthy.” After about a half-hour I’d discovered some essential facts, most of which indicated that the salesman had either lied through his teeth or didn’t know what he was talking about. Nice. So I researched to find a good guide to guinea pigs and ordered it via expedited shipping, just because I’m anal that way, and found out what food I SHOULD be using, what bedding I SHOULD have bought, and began putting serious thought into the other guinea pig I SHOULD have brought home with Smudge. So the next day Sophie and I went back to the pet store. I was determined to take everything that place told me with a grain of salt…or maybe a whole shaker’s worth…and try to be a more savvy buyer.
You know, sometimes I think the most admirable trait I have is that I wake up every day with the same amount of boundless optimism, regardless of how badly I failed by bedtime the night before.
So back we went to the pet store. I found another cage, as the one we’d gotten was really only big enough for one piggy. SM said he could hook two together and make a nice enclosure for both piggies. (Yes, I’d warned him this time that I was getting another one. I may be crazy but I ain’t stupid.) So the first thing I looked for was a vitamin C supplement. I’d read that it’s really not good to put it in the water, as the pet store had suggested, but rather get a vitamin C-enriched food or a tablet to crush in their food. But I couldn’t find the tablets. A different salesman approached and when I asked about the vitamin supplement, he suggested the water-based one. “But the literature I’ve been reading doesn’t recommend that,” I said. He stated that that’s what they used on their guinea pigs, or at least what they used to use. Now they used the crushed tablets. “Great!” I said. “That’s what I want! Where is it?” “We don’t sell it,” he replied. (OK, Steph, just breathe deeply and count to 10.) About then the previous day’s saboteur - I mean salesman - approached and smiled brightly, as well he might. It’s not often a gold mine walks into your store two days in a row. So we told him we were going to get another guinea pig and he nodded solemnly, exuding wisdom and the master’s approval for a student doing the right thing, as if he had not pooh-poohed this very idea only 24 hours ago. “Good idea,” the Evil One said. We already knew which one we wanted, and when we pointed it out, the Master of Lies handed me another whopper, and I’m sorry to say I swallowed it hook, line, and sinker. (I’m not usually this stupid. I must be getting ready to start or something.) He said, “I’m glad you picked this one out, because he’s a littermate of the one you bought yesterday.” I was so relieved I didn’t stop to consider the source, and we trundled away with Life Mistake #2. (One day I hope to hear statistics on guinea pig sales before and after the release of “G-Force.”)
So when we got home SM put the two cages together for a nice, clear passage and we let Skittles (his new name, as he was very skittish) go. It’s like Smudge suddenly woke up. He’d been fairly sweet and sociable with us but he epitomized the Pet Rock: he just sat there. When Skittles entered the cage, though, all that changed. It was as though Smudge was electrified. I was not surprised because not only did he now have a fellow piggy, but it was one he knew (and was supposedly related to). Hot dog! Life’s good in the cage, right? So SM, Sam, Sophie, and I were all standing there, watching this joyful reunion. My children were eye-level with the cage and were soaking it in. Then Smudge began chasing Skittles all over the cage. We laughed appreciably. Smudge sniffed Skittles’ butt vigorously. We all said, “Ewwwwwww!” and then…it happened. How do I put this delicately? Hmmm. Let’s just say that Skittles was subjected to an indignity that no male guinea pig should have to endure. Repeatedly. Energetically. About 12 inches from my children’s faces. SM and I looked at each other in horror. Had we gotten a female by mistake? Were we about to usher in an entire generation of guinea pigs? Was there any way to convince our insurance company to pay for the births and maternity care? We were in shock. We shoo’d the kids away from the Cage of Fornication and told them to go burn out their retinas on something else. I called a friend, who laughed so hard I thought she was going to hurt herself. Thanks a lot, I thought grimly. The pet store was closed. So how, I thought frantically, does one sex a guinea pig? Well, I found out: the same way you sex any other animal. With good eyesight and a sense of humor. I did a search on the Internet (as my handy-dandy guide was still on order) for the phrase, “How to tell a male guinea pig from a female” and came up with what has to be the only piggy porn site on earth. There was absolutely no holding back, no delicacy on this web site. Perhaps it was a medical site. I’m not sure. I was so overwhelmed by the absurdity of what we were doing, the surreal quality of staring at piggy butts, and just how much hinged on getting it right. I’d told Sophie that if Skittles was a girl, we were going to take her back and let her have her babies with another really nice family who’d keep every single blessed baby and treat them like gods. While SM and I did our “research” she was standing by the cage, staring mournfully at Skittles and willing him/her to have boy parts. So we really had to get this right. Guess what? Adult guinea pigs…at least, OUR adult guinea pigs…were powerfully, vibrantly, and proudly able to show their true colors. We did indeed have two males. And the guide assured us that this was just a pecking-order thing (no pun intended) and not to worry.
This wasn't really how I'd intended to spend my Sunday night. I guess it serves me right for impulse-buying.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Sunday's Coming
As I type, it is 10:27 at night. (The blog clock is off.) SM and the kids are gathered around the kitchen table, dying eggs. Some of the eggs are cracked; the only cups we could find are narrow and the eggs keep dropping back in the dye when someone tries to lift them out. No one's quite sure what color the dye is because the cups are dark plastic and are masking the true colors. And yet my three fuzzheads are having a ball. Cracked eggs? Who cares? Not sure what color you're about to use? Life's an adventure; dive in. And so forth. I've been up in the bedroom on the massage mat because my back feels like I've been dragged behind a team of wild horses. I also missed the egg hunt this morning. I've done so much to get everyone ready for Easter and, dadgummit, I'm missing it! But now I'm downstairs and I've at least heard the laughter and the fun. They have also promised to leave me one egg to dye for my very own, and while I appreciate the offer I'm pretty sure they're going to forget me in the excitement (eggcitement?). : ) That's OK. As long as I get to listen in.
We have gone to the mall and walked the length of it twice in 24 hours; I've shopped for everything from ham to curtain rods, and yes, I've been to the dreaded Wal-Mart on a holiday weekend. I've cooked; I've delivered stuff to a family; I've vacuumed the first floor of the house to within an inch of my life; I've shopped for Easter outfits and tried on 1, 435 outfits and shoes. I am pooped. This is why my back hurts so much.
The kids just told me that there's one egg left and it's all mine. How sweet. They did remember. I will dye it a brilliant deep teal green.
Something really thrilling happened this past week. Sam accepted Christ. He's been asking questions lately about Jesus, Heaven, etc., and while I answered them I thought, "Gee, what a perfect opening to share the Gospel with Sam" but come on, the kid's only 4. Almost 5. That's just so young. How can such a little kid understand that kind of a decision? Well, the same way all of us understand it: to the best of our abilities, and of our own free will. I didn't lead Sam so much as showed him how to do it when he said he wanted to. We were coming back from preschool, and he asked some more questions about Jesus. Mainly, he wanted to know where Jesus was, and why he couldn't see Him. So we talked about that for a few minutes. I've always heard that your kids will let you know when they want to accept Jesus, and not to try to push it before that time comes. So I answer his questions when he asks them, and that's it. But today he took it further. After we talked, he was quiet for a moment. And then I heard this sad, quiet little voice from the back seat: "Mom, I miss Jesus. I want Him in my heart."
Well. What could I do? I pulled over into a parking lot and led Sam in the prayer of salvation. I reworded it down to his level, but for once in his life he didn't fidget, fuss, giggle, or lose focus. I was really amazed at how serious he was about it. He meant every word of it. His world is so little, but what's there, he gave completely up to Jesus and it was very sweet. I tried not to cry because, you know, he IS a boy and mushy stuff just irritates him, but when he burst into "Jesus Loves Me" I cracked a little. Then he sang, "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" but with the words "poop" and "pee" sprinkled liberally throughout. While I was still laughing at that he suddenly stopped and said, "Thanks, Mom." And that's when I really lost it.
SM and I were talking this weekend about how this Easter weekend is so different from the first one, when Jesus died and rose again. Friday night, after Jesus died, his disciples would have scattered and gone into hiding. There would be horror, shock, grief, terror after the crucifixion. Are the Romans going to come get us? Are the Jewish leaders going to come get us? Should we leave town? Are our families in danger? How will we live? Were Jesus' words just metaphors or is all that stuff really going to come true? How can it possibly come true? In contrast, our Friday night was spent buying a new washer and dryer and looking at dresses in the mall. My biggest concern this weekend was not for my life but for the last pair of 9 1/2 wide shoes in Columbia that would match whatever Easter outfit I picked out. I guess it's the same sense of commercialism that plagues most holidays. Do I have enough Easter grass? Enough candy? We didn't have vinegar for the egg dye and SM had to run out late tonight to get some. Are we ready for Sunday? Well, I guess it depends on your perspective. The baskets are ready. The outfits are ready. Baths and showers have been taken, and little munchkins are in bed. The ham's already been cooked. OK, we broke into the Easter cake tonight. It was really good, and we didn't feel guilty about it for one second. So in that respect, yes, we're ready. But as for the other perspective...are we really ready for Sunday? For the surprise the women at the tomb received? I guarantee they weren't ready for that. Are we ready to be shaken to the core to realize that the resurrection was not a metaphor and that the impossible had been made possible? I for one am ready to give thanks that of all the people for whom this is good news, my son is now one of them. He was the last of my family whose future was uncertain; we've all accepted Christ. Granted, as a little kid, if he had died he would still go to heaven, but when he grew up and was fully accountable, what would he choose? I've prayed since he was born, "God, please save my son." And God touched Sam's heart so that he answered that call. Sam was born at Easter, and now he's been saved at Easter. He is safe. I am so thankful. So thankful. I have no fear of death now, not for me nor any of my family. I am ready for Easter.
We have gone to the mall and walked the length of it twice in 24 hours; I've shopped for everything from ham to curtain rods, and yes, I've been to the dreaded Wal-Mart on a holiday weekend. I've cooked; I've delivered stuff to a family; I've vacuumed the first floor of the house to within an inch of my life; I've shopped for Easter outfits and tried on 1, 435 outfits and shoes. I am pooped. This is why my back hurts so much.
The kids just told me that there's one egg left and it's all mine. How sweet. They did remember. I will dye it a brilliant deep teal green.
Something really thrilling happened this past week. Sam accepted Christ. He's been asking questions lately about Jesus, Heaven, etc., and while I answered them I thought, "Gee, what a perfect opening to share the Gospel with Sam" but come on, the kid's only 4. Almost 5. That's just so young. How can such a little kid understand that kind of a decision? Well, the same way all of us understand it: to the best of our abilities, and of our own free will. I didn't lead Sam so much as showed him how to do it when he said he wanted to. We were coming back from preschool, and he asked some more questions about Jesus. Mainly, he wanted to know where Jesus was, and why he couldn't see Him. So we talked about that for a few minutes. I've always heard that your kids will let you know when they want to accept Jesus, and not to try to push it before that time comes. So I answer his questions when he asks them, and that's it. But today he took it further. After we talked, he was quiet for a moment. And then I heard this sad, quiet little voice from the back seat: "Mom, I miss Jesus. I want Him in my heart."
Well. What could I do? I pulled over into a parking lot and led Sam in the prayer of salvation. I reworded it down to his level, but for once in his life he didn't fidget, fuss, giggle, or lose focus. I was really amazed at how serious he was about it. He meant every word of it. His world is so little, but what's there, he gave completely up to Jesus and it was very sweet. I tried not to cry because, you know, he IS a boy and mushy stuff just irritates him, but when he burst into "Jesus Loves Me" I cracked a little. Then he sang, "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" but with the words "poop" and "pee" sprinkled liberally throughout. While I was still laughing at that he suddenly stopped and said, "Thanks, Mom." And that's when I really lost it.
SM and I were talking this weekend about how this Easter weekend is so different from the first one, when Jesus died and rose again. Friday night, after Jesus died, his disciples would have scattered and gone into hiding. There would be horror, shock, grief, terror after the crucifixion. Are the Romans going to come get us? Are the Jewish leaders going to come get us? Should we leave town? Are our families in danger? How will we live? Were Jesus' words just metaphors or is all that stuff really going to come true? How can it possibly come true? In contrast, our Friday night was spent buying a new washer and dryer and looking at dresses in the mall. My biggest concern this weekend was not for my life but for the last pair of 9 1/2 wide shoes in Columbia that would match whatever Easter outfit I picked out. I guess it's the same sense of commercialism that plagues most holidays. Do I have enough Easter grass? Enough candy? We didn't have vinegar for the egg dye and SM had to run out late tonight to get some. Are we ready for Sunday? Well, I guess it depends on your perspective. The baskets are ready. The outfits are ready. Baths and showers have been taken, and little munchkins are in bed. The ham's already been cooked. OK, we broke into the Easter cake tonight. It was really good, and we didn't feel guilty about it for one second. So in that respect, yes, we're ready. But as for the other perspective...are we really ready for Sunday? For the surprise the women at the tomb received? I guarantee they weren't ready for that. Are we ready to be shaken to the core to realize that the resurrection was not a metaphor and that the impossible had been made possible? I for one am ready to give thanks that of all the people for whom this is good news, my son is now one of them. He was the last of my family whose future was uncertain; we've all accepted Christ. Granted, as a little kid, if he had died he would still go to heaven, but when he grew up and was fully accountable, what would he choose? I've prayed since he was born, "God, please save my son." And God touched Sam's heart so that he answered that call. Sam was born at Easter, and now he's been saved at Easter. He is safe. I am so thankful. So thankful. I have no fear of death now, not for me nor any of my family. I am ready for Easter.
Monday, March 29, 2010
I'll Take a C-section and 2 Chicken Soft Tacos To Go, Please
Recently I was watching a reality show with SM. It was about a highly pregnant celebrity preparing to give birth by C-section. We watched in silence as the mother-to-be tried to come to terms with the impending surgery and birth and deal with her fears and anxieties. Since I've had 2 C-sections of my own, I nodded in sympathy as the lady sobbed on her husband's shoulder while he did his best to talk her off the ledge, in soothing, loving tones. Memories began parading through my mind, and I wound up railing at SM in that You-Know-What's-Wrong-With-This-World direction which always terminates in And-It's-All-Your-Fault.
"You just can't understand what's so surreal with the whole C-section experience," I said. "It's different from other surgeries. When you have your other body parts operated on, your entire responsibility in the operation ends when you hear, 'Now count backwards from 100, dearie', but in a C-section, you're there for the whole kit 'n' caboodle. First of all, you have to walk yourself to the operating room. That's like being a kid in trouble and your mom or dad telling you to go outside and pick your own switch. Then there's the whole epidural-trust issue. They tell you you won't feel a thing, but there's no perceptible change to let you know it's kicked in. You lay there like a trussed-up deer carcass wondering if the darn thing will really work. You're completely strapped down, and the only thing you can do is move your head from side to side. You can't see a thing because there's a surgical drape 5 inches from your nose, blocking your view. You imagine the doctor making the first slice and you levitating straight up like the Starship Enterprise. You watch your blood pressure on the monitor rise like Krakatoa getting ready to blow and wonder irritably why people keep telling you to calm down. Then you suddenly realize that the doctor's been in your abdomen for the last ten minutes. Hey, it really did work! No pain. Sweet hallelujah. (Although soon the uterus realizes what's happening and fights back. You DO get contractions. Crap.) And if that's not surreal enough for you, this terrifying, exciting, momentous, life-altering, thrilling milestone in your life is simply something to fill in the time between breakfast and lunch for the surgical staff. It's the biggest brick wall of your life, and for the staff it's another day, another dollar. You are among strangers, and unless your husband allows you to reach through his nose down to his kidney and yank it out, all that I'm-right-here-with-you crap is just going to make you mad. You are told by calm, professional people, in all seriousness, that you must walk through this brick wall in your life, and they see nothing strange about it. They've probably done it 6 times already that day, and the brick wall is very transparent to them. So you, laying spread-eagled and utterly helpless, are looking at them in bewildered disbelief, and they're talking about what to get for lunch. 'So I hear they opened up a new Taco Bell down the street. Wanna go after we wrap this lady up? Whoa, buddy, watch out for that liver! She's only got one. Hey, check this out - I can make her belly button poke in, poke out, poke in, poke out' (appreciative laughter from staff).
So then, after interminable minutes of sweating it out and mentally cursing, you hear your child's cry. It's the one thing that's kept you going, the light at the end of the tunnel. And you made it! You lived! And the epidural's still going! Yay! You're a mother! So you do what any sensible woman does, and you burst into tears. Your baby in all her wrinkled glory is brought to you and she glares at you for interrupting her in-utero naptime and plunging her into blinding daylight. You cry some more, because now you feel guilty right out of the gates, you're already a failure, and this is when your husband tells you he's so proud and that you will be a great mom. You want desperately to hit him, but he's holding the baby and has moved out of reach. You're wheeled to recovery, and for the next three days any attempt to get out of bed will, you are convinced, make all your intestines fall out. You devise clever ways of maneuvering in and out of bed when you go to the bathroom, and countless people show abnormal and unembarrassed interest in how long it takes you to poop and fart. All throughout pregnancy and delivery you've nursed the theory that this is all your husband's fault, and by this time you are well and truly convinced you are right, it is all his fault. However, you're in no position to chase him down and pound him for it. Once you have begun to deal with that disappointment, the baby blues slam into your psyche with all the fury of a hurricane. No one remembers anything about your C-section by now, except you. You, of course, will carry these memories to the grave, but to everyone else you were just one of many in the procession. You feel wretched. You have done the equivalent of crossing the Alps on an elephant, or at least looking like an elephant crossing the Alps. You want to relive the highs, the lows, and fully savor the victory, but no dice. It's over. Next chapter: how to stop your boobs from feeling like red-hot bricks hanging from your body, how to exist on 3 minutes of sleep a day, and how to get breastmilk stains out of everything you own."
And that, I told SM coldly, is why..."IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT."
"You just can't understand what's so surreal with the whole C-section experience," I said. "It's different from other surgeries. When you have your other body parts operated on, your entire responsibility in the operation ends when you hear, 'Now count backwards from 100, dearie', but in a C-section, you're there for the whole kit 'n' caboodle. First of all, you have to walk yourself to the operating room. That's like being a kid in trouble and your mom or dad telling you to go outside and pick your own switch. Then there's the whole epidural-trust issue. They tell you you won't feel a thing, but there's no perceptible change to let you know it's kicked in. You lay there like a trussed-up deer carcass wondering if the darn thing will really work. You're completely strapped down, and the only thing you can do is move your head from side to side. You can't see a thing because there's a surgical drape 5 inches from your nose, blocking your view. You imagine the doctor making the first slice and you levitating straight up like the Starship Enterprise. You watch your blood pressure on the monitor rise like Krakatoa getting ready to blow and wonder irritably why people keep telling you to calm down. Then you suddenly realize that the doctor's been in your abdomen for the last ten minutes. Hey, it really did work! No pain. Sweet hallelujah. (Although soon the uterus realizes what's happening and fights back. You DO get contractions. Crap.) And if that's not surreal enough for you, this terrifying, exciting, momentous, life-altering, thrilling milestone in your life is simply something to fill in the time between breakfast and lunch for the surgical staff. It's the biggest brick wall of your life, and for the staff it's another day, another dollar. You are among strangers, and unless your husband allows you to reach through his nose down to his kidney and yank it out, all that I'm-right-here-with-you crap is just going to make you mad. You are told by calm, professional people, in all seriousness, that you must walk through this brick wall in your life, and they see nothing strange about it. They've probably done it 6 times already that day, and the brick wall is very transparent to them. So you, laying spread-eagled and utterly helpless, are looking at them in bewildered disbelief, and they're talking about what to get for lunch. 'So I hear they opened up a new Taco Bell down the street. Wanna go after we wrap this lady up? Whoa, buddy, watch out for that liver! She's only got one. Hey, check this out - I can make her belly button poke in, poke out, poke in, poke out' (appreciative laughter from staff).
So then, after interminable minutes of sweating it out and mentally cursing, you hear your child's cry. It's the one thing that's kept you going, the light at the end of the tunnel. And you made it! You lived! And the epidural's still going! Yay! You're a mother! So you do what any sensible woman does, and you burst into tears. Your baby in all her wrinkled glory is brought to you and she glares at you for interrupting her in-utero naptime and plunging her into blinding daylight. You cry some more, because now you feel guilty right out of the gates, you're already a failure, and this is when your husband tells you he's so proud and that you will be a great mom. You want desperately to hit him, but he's holding the baby and has moved out of reach. You're wheeled to recovery, and for the next three days any attempt to get out of bed will, you are convinced, make all your intestines fall out. You devise clever ways of maneuvering in and out of bed when you go to the bathroom, and countless people show abnormal and unembarrassed interest in how long it takes you to poop and fart. All throughout pregnancy and delivery you've nursed the theory that this is all your husband's fault, and by this time you are well and truly convinced you are right, it is all his fault. However, you're in no position to chase him down and pound him for it. Once you have begun to deal with that disappointment, the baby blues slam into your psyche with all the fury of a hurricane. No one remembers anything about your C-section by now, except you. You, of course, will carry these memories to the grave, but to everyone else you were just one of many in the procession. You feel wretched. You have done the equivalent of crossing the Alps on an elephant, or at least looking like an elephant crossing the Alps. You want to relive the highs, the lows, and fully savor the victory, but no dice. It's over. Next chapter: how to stop your boobs from feeling like red-hot bricks hanging from your body, how to exist on 3 minutes of sleep a day, and how to get breastmilk stains out of everything you own."
And that, I told SM coldly, is why..."IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT."
Sunday, March 28, 2010
You'd Think I'd Be Over This By Now
I haven't written a post in a few days because nothing has really happened that seemed noteworthy. But Sophie, in a burst of support and inspiration, delivered with the goods and now I have LOTS to write about.
I get my best writing ideas when I'm sick, tired, hurt, or taking care of someone who's sick, tired, or hurt. Sophie got sinusitis late last week, and while technically she was sick, it wasn't enough to write about. Not here in the South, where everybody and their brother get sinusitis. But then, today, after church when the kids were upstairs changing clothes and SM and I were downstairs getting dinner ready, Sophie changed everything. She came downstairs, tripped on her jean cuffs, and fell down the last three steps, hitting her nose, biting her lip, and spouting blood like there's no tomorrow. SM and I took about a fraction of a second to try to interpret the thuds and slamming sounds before leaving skid marks to see who just broke their neck. Rounding the corner, we saw Sophie throw back her head and howl and scream as red went everywhere. SM and I leaped into action, getting wet paper towels and checking to make sure bones or teeth weren't broken. It was one of those Laurel-and-Hardy moments when we were bumping into each other in the foyer. Every time he'd have a bright idea of something to get, I'd say "No, we don't need that" and every time I'd think of something to get, he'd already be coming down the hall with it. Just imagine two bulls in a very small china shop. We were trying so hard not to panic but the sheer amount of blood pouring out of Sophie's face was pretty frightening. We ran back and forth for a few minutes, getting one wet paper towel after another to sop it all up, before it finally occured to us to simply sacrifice a big, clean kitchen towel and put it up to Sophie's face, allowing us time to get her into a chair so that we could fully see the damage.
**deep breath**
You know, I've used Lamaze so much more after delivery than during...it's really very helpful...
So things gradually start to calm down. As dinner was about to boil over on the stove, I sent SM to deal with it while I examined Sophie. The blood flow began to slow down. I gently cleaned her face and hands and was able to see that no teeth were loose and her nose wasn't broken. I had Sophie count slowly and take some deep breaths. I even made a little joke or two that made her laugh and relax. And then it happened. Oh, yes. It came on like a runaway semi. I felt my head start to swim and my stomach start to rise. I handed Sophie the wet rag and casually went upstairs where I stripped off my Sunday clothes at lightning speed, asked SM for a can of ginger ale, and sat down with my head between my knees.
Why is it I can handle a dire emergency but fall apart like a weak kitten when things are actually improving? What's that all about?
When I was in college I was a flag instructor at band camp for a local high school. During the camp a student fell down the dorm stairs and hurt her knee. Since I was an instructor and a female, that qualified me as a responsible adult (HA!) and I rode with her in the ambulance. At the hospital I paced up and down the hallway while the student waited in an exam room. Over the loudspeaker I heard that another ambulance was coming in with a chainsaw accident victim. *Yuk* Before I could move out of the way, they rolled the guy in and I saw exactly what a chainsaw accident injury looks like, complete with orderly mopping up the blood behind the gurney as it rolls down the hall. (I wouldn't recommend it, in case you're wondering.) So I got a full-frontal view of a very horrible sight, but I was perfectly fine. No faintness, no queasiness...nothing. I was just fine. Then I wandered in to check on the student again, took one look at her swollen knee, and just about tossed my cookies and passed out.
So no wonder that I had to get away from Sophie and her bloody nose. I couldn't even eat dinner with her at the same table. It was too much. Every time I walked near her I felt my brain begin to slide right out of my body, and I'd have to go sit down again. To keep her from taking it personally I said, "Do me a favor...don't do that to Mommy again, ok?" and she laughed. She knows me so well. While I appreciate her sacrifice so that I would have a blog entry today, I told her it's really not necessary to try quite so hard. She could take the rest of the day off. Now I just have to pray she doesn't get a black eye. Try explaining THAT to her school tomorrow. Especially when she says she got it "falling down the stairs". That's like "I walked into a door." I don't think it's going to go over well. Wish me luck.
I get my best writing ideas when I'm sick, tired, hurt, or taking care of someone who's sick, tired, or hurt. Sophie got sinusitis late last week, and while technically she was sick, it wasn't enough to write about. Not here in the South, where everybody and their brother get sinusitis. But then, today, after church when the kids were upstairs changing clothes and SM and I were downstairs getting dinner ready, Sophie changed everything. She came downstairs, tripped on her jean cuffs, and fell down the last three steps, hitting her nose, biting her lip, and spouting blood like there's no tomorrow. SM and I took about a fraction of a second to try to interpret the thuds and slamming sounds before leaving skid marks to see who just broke their neck. Rounding the corner, we saw Sophie throw back her head and howl and scream as red went everywhere. SM and I leaped into action, getting wet paper towels and checking to make sure bones or teeth weren't broken. It was one of those Laurel-and-Hardy moments when we were bumping into each other in the foyer. Every time he'd have a bright idea of something to get, I'd say "No, we don't need that" and every time I'd think of something to get, he'd already be coming down the hall with it. Just imagine two bulls in a very small china shop. We were trying so hard not to panic but the sheer amount of blood pouring out of Sophie's face was pretty frightening. We ran back and forth for a few minutes, getting one wet paper towel after another to sop it all up, before it finally occured to us to simply sacrifice a big, clean kitchen towel and put it up to Sophie's face, allowing us time to get her into a chair so that we could fully see the damage.
**deep breath**
You know, I've used Lamaze so much more after delivery than during...it's really very helpful...
So things gradually start to calm down. As dinner was about to boil over on the stove, I sent SM to deal with it while I examined Sophie. The blood flow began to slow down. I gently cleaned her face and hands and was able to see that no teeth were loose and her nose wasn't broken. I had Sophie count slowly and take some deep breaths. I even made a little joke or two that made her laugh and relax. And then it happened. Oh, yes. It came on like a runaway semi. I felt my head start to swim and my stomach start to rise. I handed Sophie the wet rag and casually went upstairs where I stripped off my Sunday clothes at lightning speed, asked SM for a can of ginger ale, and sat down with my head between my knees.
Why is it I can handle a dire emergency but fall apart like a weak kitten when things are actually improving? What's that all about?
When I was in college I was a flag instructor at band camp for a local high school. During the camp a student fell down the dorm stairs and hurt her knee. Since I was an instructor and a female, that qualified me as a responsible adult (HA!) and I rode with her in the ambulance. At the hospital I paced up and down the hallway while the student waited in an exam room. Over the loudspeaker I heard that another ambulance was coming in with a chainsaw accident victim. *Yuk* Before I could move out of the way, they rolled the guy in and I saw exactly what a chainsaw accident injury looks like, complete with orderly mopping up the blood behind the gurney as it rolls down the hall. (I wouldn't recommend it, in case you're wondering.) So I got a full-frontal view of a very horrible sight, but I was perfectly fine. No faintness, no queasiness...nothing. I was just fine. Then I wandered in to check on the student again, took one look at her swollen knee, and just about tossed my cookies and passed out.
So no wonder that I had to get away from Sophie and her bloody nose. I couldn't even eat dinner with her at the same table. It was too much. Every time I walked near her I felt my brain begin to slide right out of my body, and I'd have to go sit down again. To keep her from taking it personally I said, "Do me a favor...don't do that to Mommy again, ok?" and she laughed. She knows me so well. While I appreciate her sacrifice so that I would have a blog entry today, I told her it's really not necessary to try quite so hard. She could take the rest of the day off. Now I just have to pray she doesn't get a black eye. Try explaining THAT to her school tomorrow. Especially when she says she got it "falling down the stairs". That's like "I walked into a door." I don't think it's going to go over well. Wish me luck.
Monday, March 22, 2010
There's Just Not A Title Weird Enough For This
I'm not into conspiracy theories but if I were, I'd say there's a conspiracy afoot that's bigger than Area 51. I am, of course, talking about the superbly organized secret society of kids. Specifically, Weird Things Kids Do and Say That Make You Go, "Huh?"
Why do little boys have this terrible fascination with poop and pee? Sam's latest thing is singing every preschool song he knows, but using the words "poop" and "pee" instead of the normal lyrics. Why is this? Now, I would imagine that it's the shock factor. He likes getting a rise out of me. But he does it even when I'm not paying attention, and he tickles himself to pieces doing it. He just likes saying "poop" and "pee". What is that about?
Tonight Sophie asked me, out of the blue, if God ever gets the hiccups. ???? How would I know? I just looked at her in consternation. And of course it made me wonder, does He burp? Does He trip over things? Does He forget where He put His chariot keys? When He calls for one of the angels, does He go through every name in the book until He finally gets to the one He wants? Can you just imagine? "Mich-Gabr-HEY YOU!" Wonder if God does that. So now I've got this whole line of thought that I can't get rid of, while Sophie, having delivered her payload of confusion, happily goes to bed and forgets she ever asked me a question. Doesn't that just smack of conspiracy to you? I tell you, the CIA has NOTHING on kids and their left-field maneuvers. And don't think, just because these are the only two examples I've got tonight, that this is it. Oh, no. These kids have confounded me lots of times, and they specialize in tag-teaming each other. Just when I come down from one messy thing with one kid, the other one leaps in and takes over. It's wrestling at its finest, and I'm sorry to say I'm losing.
Well, this is a short one tonight but it's the best I could do. They have their little club and I'd love to know the secret handshake.
Why do little boys have this terrible fascination with poop and pee? Sam's latest thing is singing every preschool song he knows, but using the words "poop" and "pee" instead of the normal lyrics. Why is this? Now, I would imagine that it's the shock factor. He likes getting a rise out of me. But he does it even when I'm not paying attention, and he tickles himself to pieces doing it. He just likes saying "poop" and "pee". What is that about?
Tonight Sophie asked me, out of the blue, if God ever gets the hiccups. ???? How would I know? I just looked at her in consternation. And of course it made me wonder, does He burp? Does He trip over things? Does He forget where He put His chariot keys? When He calls for one of the angels, does He go through every name in the book until He finally gets to the one He wants? Can you just imagine? "Mich-Gabr-HEY YOU!" Wonder if God does that. So now I've got this whole line of thought that I can't get rid of, while Sophie, having delivered her payload of confusion, happily goes to bed and forgets she ever asked me a question. Doesn't that just smack of conspiracy to you? I tell you, the CIA has NOTHING on kids and their left-field maneuvers. And don't think, just because these are the only two examples I've got tonight, that this is it. Oh, no. These kids have confounded me lots of times, and they specialize in tag-teaming each other. Just when I come down from one messy thing with one kid, the other one leaps in and takes over. It's wrestling at its finest, and I'm sorry to say I'm losing.
Well, this is a short one tonight but it's the best I could do. They have their little club and I'd love to know the secret handshake.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Sambo
I wrote this in 2007. After coming home full-time, I was amazed and deeply moved at how much the relationship between me and Sam (then two years old) had improved beyond all measure. The bonding that you would expect between a mother and her baby took a little longer with us, and when it finally happened it took my breath away. I've been in love with my little Sambo ever since, if you can't tell from the poem! : )
Sambo
There is a peculiar creature
Who lives in my own house.
A quixotic imp with such a zest
Many rivers cannot douse.
This wonder of mine,
This tale of mine,
Is my special secret,
This secret of all time.
You see, I have a Sambo,
As marvelous as can be,
Like the legends told by Scheherezade,
A Sambo is a sight to see.
What? You know not a Sambo?
You know a Sam, a Sammy, and a Samuel, too,
But not the legendary Sambo?
Then come close and let me tell you.
A Sambo, you must know first,
Has a spirit, flaming tall
You’d think he was a giant,
Standing astride the general sprawl.
He is brave, oh fearsomely brave,
And his wrath is awful to behold,
His eyes narrowed in righteous fury,
The king’s right makes him bold.
This giant among men is not all war,
He is a music Muse, too.
Wooing hearts with dance and song
And laughter, ‘til you’re blue.
And just when you think you’ve got the measure
Of this extraordinary giant of mine,
I must mold this image even further,
And force you to redesign.
You see, this worthy, high-sounding giant,
He loves to play and tease,
He tickles, squeals, runs and hides,
And looks behind to see if he pleased.
I can’t forget to tell you,
He’s inquisitive, canny, and swift.
His mind will untie any knot you bind,
And he’ll do it in very short shrift.
So what think you now
Of this secret of mine,
This Sambo in my house,
This wonder of body and mind?
Think you a fantasy,
A figment in my brain?
An impossible glue of elements,
Not practically explained?
Let me tell you, then,
You know not what you say.
For my Sambo is real,
And I can prove it. Listen, I pray:
For my Sambo is a little boy,
Tall in heart and mind,
But small in fingers and nose,
And tiny in feet and behind.
He is a man in the making,
A king for miles around.
But tonight he’ll sleep in my arms,
My Sambo, a wonder unbound.
Sambo
There is a peculiar creature
Who lives in my own house.
A quixotic imp with such a zest
Many rivers cannot douse.
This wonder of mine,
This tale of mine,
Is my special secret,
This secret of all time.
You see, I have a Sambo,
As marvelous as can be,
Like the legends told by Scheherezade,
A Sambo is a sight to see.
What? You know not a Sambo?
You know a Sam, a Sammy, and a Samuel, too,
But not the legendary Sambo?
Then come close and let me tell you.
A Sambo, you must know first,
Has a spirit, flaming tall
You’d think he was a giant,
Standing astride the general sprawl.
He is brave, oh fearsomely brave,
And his wrath is awful to behold,
His eyes narrowed in righteous fury,
The king’s right makes him bold.
This giant among men is not all war,
He is a music Muse, too.
Wooing hearts with dance and song
And laughter, ‘til you’re blue.
And just when you think you’ve got the measure
Of this extraordinary giant of mine,
I must mold this image even further,
And force you to redesign.
You see, this worthy, high-sounding giant,
He loves to play and tease,
He tickles, squeals, runs and hides,
And looks behind to see if he pleased.
I can’t forget to tell you,
He’s inquisitive, canny, and swift.
His mind will untie any knot you bind,
And he’ll do it in very short shrift.
So what think you now
Of this secret of mine,
This Sambo in my house,
This wonder of body and mind?
Think you a fantasy,
A figment in my brain?
An impossible glue of elements,
Not practically explained?
Let me tell you, then,
You know not what you say.
For my Sambo is real,
And I can prove it. Listen, I pray:
For my Sambo is a little boy,
Tall in heart and mind,
But small in fingers and nose,
And tiny in feet and behind.
He is a man in the making,
A king for miles around.
But tonight he’ll sleep in my arms,
My Sambo, a wonder unbound.
Now Where Did I Leave That House…
I wrote this over three years ago when we first moved to a new city, so the age references are a bit off. Use your imagination.
Now Where Did I Leave That House…
We moved a few months ago, and I swear: ever since then it’s been like living in the Twilight Zone. I mean, more so than usual. We moved only an hour and a half from our old home, but it feels like Mars sometimes. What makes it really confusing is that I used to live here, back before fire was discovered. So, some things I remember and other things are brand new. Very surreal, if you know what I mean. One minute I’m cruising along a familiar road, then I make a left and spend the next three hours wandering in confusion and figuring out how long the juice box and graham crackers in Sam’s diaper bag can last three people.
We moved into a rental house on a Friday in January. Three days later, Sam exhibited moving-day blues in a really spectacular way, by spiking a 105 degree fever and earning himself a trip to the local ER. This child, who never a day in his life was affected by Tylenol, was given said drug by the ER nurses over my protests that it was useless. The nurses smiled just a little condescendingly at me while they coo’d at Sam and coaxed him to sip the medicine. He, in turn, groaned pitifully and looked at them as if to say, “I…[gasp]…asked her to…[gasp]…give it to me, but…[groooooaaaaannnn]…she wouldn’t do it…” and then in one hour flat his fever broke. Now, I ask you: what self-respecting mother wouldn’t feel like scum incarnate if all she’d had to do was give Tylenol instead of GOING TO THE EMERGENCY ROOM??? I could NOT believe it. I just kept repeating, “It’s never worked before…I promise, it has never, ever, in his whole life, ever worked before…what did you give him? Was it special NASA Tylenol or something?” One nurse, trying to make me feel better, said that they’d probably given him more than I normally did, because of the extreme situation. Uh-huh. Right.
So that was the first weekend.
The following weekend we were scheduled to get satellite TV installed. This was serious cause for celebration; the house was wired for cable (which was disconnected after the last tenant left), and so regular network TV didn’t work. We couldn’t find the box with all the DVD’s and videos, so all I and both children had to watch for one week straight were two DVD’s we got from Walmart. It was incredibly cold that week, so we had to stay indoors, and with Sam still sick, we were homebound.
We got really, really sick of those two DVD’s.
By Thursday Sam was well enough that we risked a little trip to the zoo. I bought a poster for Sophie so that she could start decorating her room. Of all the available posters at the zoo, showing pretty parrots, stately giraffes, cuddly koalas, etc., the poster she wanted most was of a deep black, menacing panther staring hungrily at the camera. Well…OK. If she can sleep with that thing staring at her, so be it. So we got home and I mounted the poster on her wall.
Friday came, and with it, the satellite installation guy. Remember, we were three people on a serious cabin fever trip. We were desperate for any deviation from these two DVD’s. The installation guy came in the house; Sam took one look at him and, throwing his arms open wide, flung himself at the guy’s knees and hung on for dear life. Sophie began bouncing up and down like a kangaroo wired to a generator, and shrieked, “WOULD YOU LIKE TO COME UP TO MY ROOM AND SEE MY BLACK PANTHER POSTER?”
Did I mention that the gentleman in question was black?
I’ve never seen a serviceman work so quickly…and peel out so quickly, too, for that matter.
That was the second weekend.
By the end of January, each child had been sick two times and I had been sick one time. Thank heavens, SM, who was now the only breadwinner in the family, stayed relatively healthy. He kept looking at us strangely and shaking his head slowly. I don’t think he’d ever seen such pestilence so up close in his life. We learned monk-like patience and endurance from that first month.
Then my son decided he would stop eating. Forever.
Now, let me back up just a moment and give some details here. Before we moved, I worked outside the home. SM got a job opportunity in this new city that enabled me to not only come home, but also to homeschool our daughter. I was really looking forward to both these changes. Sam had had more babysitters in his short little life than a whole daycare, and he had always had problems with his feedings as a result. It was just a matter of inconsistency, I told myself. Get him with one person long enough and things will smooth out. Yes, I discovered later, that one person is me and my brain waves are now so smooth they are flat lines. You see, while inconsistency between babysitters was an issue, it was not the primary issue. HIS MOUNT EVEREST OF STUBBORNESS was the primary issue. Oh, yes. Sam is stubborn. He is the epitome of “cut off your own nose to spite your face”. My lovely, sweet little boy is the most stubborn thing on two legs. He drove off one babysitter (an experienced mother of two) after only three days because he would not eat the entire time she watched him and it unnerved her to the point of hysteria. I’m a highly stubborn person, and this child who isn’t even two years old yet was beating me into the ground. Sam is normally an easy-going fellow, but when it comes to eating, he’s Attilla the Hun. It’s a game, and he is the umpire. I thought that was supposed to be my job, but I have been assured that the dinner table is the number one battleground between toddlers and parents, and we parents really don’t ever win. After three months of intensive head-butting togetherness (along with many tears and one hysterical conference with the new pediatrician) I figured out just a few rules of the Eating Game:
1. Do not feed the child unless he is bawling and hugging the refrigerator. Cruel, you may say, but if I give him food one second before that, it will absolutely be rejected. And as we all know, a toddler’s style of rejection usually means food getting smeared on something important, expensive, and uncleanable.
2. Do not simply assign a food by plunking it down on a plate and walking off (always a dicey proposition in any case). Offer a choice between two foods. I don’t care if you assign roast chicken, herbed vegetables, and Baked Alaska: it will be rejected, period, to the tune of outraged howling. On the other hand, if I offer a choice between two foods, no matter how nasty, it will light up Sam's life because HE gets to decide something about his future, and that’s a Big Deal. I could offer a choice between mud and spackling, and it would still make him happy. Go figure.
3. DO NOT LOOK AT THE CHILD WHEN HE IS EATING. This acknowledges that he has temporarily capitulated, or at least come to a mutual understanding with you, and that is too much for his fragile ego to handle. If our eyes meet while he is in the act of eating, he will hurl the food down, gag on whatever’s in his mouth, lay his head on the table, and sob for all he’s worth. It just doesn’t pay to look at him.
Throughout this ordeal, everyone assured me that “when he’s hungry, he’ll eat.” Well, maybe that works on Planet Earth, but Sam obviously flew in from somewhere else. No one would believe me when I said, “No, he won’t, because he’s gone days existing on nothing but juice and milk.” See, this is what confused me: I have to give him liquid to keep him hydrated, but this same liquid would keep him full and ultimately sabotage my feeding efforts. It was a Catch-22. I went to the pediatrician and begged for enlightenment. He said that while it was theoretically POSSIBLE that my son had some sort of physical issue that prevented him from wanting to eat, he thought it was just…STUBBORNESS. And, oh, yeah, “he’ll eat when he’s hungry.” That’ll be $25, ch-ching!
I tried everything. I tried being mean. I tried being sweet. I tried being tough. I tried nonchalance. I tried schedules. I tried spontaneity. I tried pretty-colored food. I tried bribery. I tried everything in a loving parent’s arsenal, and nothing worked. One day, after a particularly bad morning’s attempt to get him to eat breakfast, I dropped Sam off at Mommy’s Morning Out and sobbed on the shoulders of the preschool director and Sam's teacher. I was flat out of ideas, and I was being beaten by a one-year old. The only foods he would reliably eat every time were yogurt and cheese puffs, neither of which constitute a complete diet. I was convinced he would be 18 and still eating yogurt and cheese puffs. I poured out my sorrows to the ladies in the preschool, and they listened, patted my shoulder, and comforted me. One of them mentioned the “give him a choice” method. That sounded interesting. That was the day of the pediatrician’s appointment. After the appointment we stopped by Burger King, where, inexplicably, Sam ATE TWO WHOLE CHICKEN FRIES. I was stunned. He looked at me as if to say, “What?”
The next morning I offered him a choice between a breakfast bar and a pop tart. He goggled at his choices, and leaped for the pop tart. A moment later he had eaten 2/3 of it. I stood in amazement, truly thunderstruck. It was like being given the key to a locked door.
So those were the first three months.
Meanwhile, as a sort of segue between acts, Sophie was doing her part to keep things interesting. Occasionally she would say something entertaining, shocking, and/or barbarically humiliating. One day, out of the blue, she asked me, “Mommy, which of these is OK to say: damn, darn, or rats?” I was silent, kind of shattered by this, and thought hard and quickly. I’d always told her that if she wasn’t sure if a word was bad, she could ask me about it and never get in trouble over it. So, I gave my answer. “Well, honey, you shouldn’t say ‘damn’ unless it’s in the Biblical sense and there are responsible adults around. Even then, you should probably avoid it. If you feel you must, you may use it, but only when you’re grown up and out of my hearing. I’d prefer you didn’t say ‘darn’ because it’s too close to ‘damn’ and it just doesn’t sound pretty coming out of your mouth. It’s not nearly as bad as ‘damn’, but still…and you can always say rats, phooey, drat, etc. Does that help?” Her question answered satisfactorily, she perked up and ran off, leaving me in the dust and pondering the teenage years in my future.
Then there was her performance yesterday. We were in the car, talking about something, and I answered a question of hers by saying, “Just a little bit.” Without hesitation she launched into the “My Fair Lady” song, but with a marvelous bit of childish mistaken identity: “Just a li’le bi’, just a li’le bi’, just a li’le bi’ o’ burning duck!” I laughed so hard I almost wrecked the car.
Then there was our entrance to our new church. Shortly after we arrived, the kids’ ministry decided it was going to redecorate its area of the church (not our fault). The powers that be declared one wall available for the kids to write and draw on, and provided lots of magic markers. Sophie, eager to impress her new church friends with her artistic prowess, drew a picture of our dog with an arrow pointing to his behind with the word, “Pee” written in big, black letters.
Maybe we can try the Presbyterian church on the other side of town. I bet they haven’t heard of us yet.
Sam has learned some new things since we’ve moved. He discovered toilet paper the other day. He touched it gently and inquisitively, just in case it bites or something, and looked at me to make sure I didn't tell him "no". I just watched him. He touched it again. It was squishy. It was soft. He began poking it in earnest. That made it roll a little. His eyes widened. I knew it was bound to happen sooner or later, and at least I could set some boundaries if I was here to see it. So, I just sighed and let him figure it out. He made it roll a little more, and then began pulling the loose end and walking away with it. A big grin started stretching across his face. Next thing I knew, he said, "Oh, woooooow" and then: "Like dat!"
We are in so much trouble. The bathroom will never be the same.
He has also learned that farting makes people laugh (at least when the fartee is a toddler); he has learned how to turn on the keyboard, turn up the volume, start the demo song, dance like it’s 1999, and feign ignorance when I tell him to turn it off. I never knew toddlers could get down and boogie like that.
Since moving here we have thrust ourselves into a new world, chock-full of strange and wondrous experiences. We have contributed mightily to the local economy via Wal-Mart; we have been to the local pharmacy at least twice, and frequently three, times a week since moving. We live near both railroad tracks and chickens. Whichever one doesn’t wake us up, the other will surely do so. By the way, did you know that roosters crow all day long? I hate those birds. They are completely unpenned, and roam freely all day long. They used to roam in our yard until SM and our pony-sized dog came around the corner and surprised them one morning. SM says he figured Prince improved the chicken’s reflexes by 120%, but I think that’s an exaggeration. It couldn’t have been more than 115%. At any rate, except for the crowing, they leave us alone now.
It’s still taking some getting used to, this driving up to a different house. Often I stop what I’m doing and wonder what’s going on in our old neighborhood. It’s a little sad to me; we lived in a truly lovely, gracious old Southern town that was beautiful in more ways than I can count. The only thing more beautiful than the flowers were the people, and we have so many friends we miss. But, as we like to say, gas isn’t ten dollars a gallon (yet), and there’s no brick wall on the interstate. And there’s always snail mail and email and Ma Bell. There ARE ways to keep in touch. It’s just not the same. A new acquaintance recently said, with a remarkable amount of perception, “There’s often a certain amount of grief associated with moving, especially if you loved the place you just moved from.” How right he is. I expect to see certain landmarks as I drive around, and it jerks me back to reality when I round a corner and don’t see them. I guess that’s what I get for driving on autopilot, eh?
Now Where Did I Leave That House…
We moved a few months ago, and I swear: ever since then it’s been like living in the Twilight Zone. I mean, more so than usual. We moved only an hour and a half from our old home, but it feels like Mars sometimes. What makes it really confusing is that I used to live here, back before fire was discovered. So, some things I remember and other things are brand new. Very surreal, if you know what I mean. One minute I’m cruising along a familiar road, then I make a left and spend the next three hours wandering in confusion and figuring out how long the juice box and graham crackers in Sam’s diaper bag can last three people.
We moved into a rental house on a Friday in January. Three days later, Sam exhibited moving-day blues in a really spectacular way, by spiking a 105 degree fever and earning himself a trip to the local ER. This child, who never a day in his life was affected by Tylenol, was given said drug by the ER nurses over my protests that it was useless. The nurses smiled just a little condescendingly at me while they coo’d at Sam and coaxed him to sip the medicine. He, in turn, groaned pitifully and looked at them as if to say, “I…[gasp]…asked her to…[gasp]…give it to me, but…[groooooaaaaannnn]…she wouldn’t do it…” and then in one hour flat his fever broke. Now, I ask you: what self-respecting mother wouldn’t feel like scum incarnate if all she’d had to do was give Tylenol instead of GOING TO THE EMERGENCY ROOM??? I could NOT believe it. I just kept repeating, “It’s never worked before…I promise, it has never, ever, in his whole life, ever worked before…what did you give him? Was it special NASA Tylenol or something?” One nurse, trying to make me feel better, said that they’d probably given him more than I normally did, because of the extreme situation. Uh-huh. Right.
So that was the first weekend.
The following weekend we were scheduled to get satellite TV installed. This was serious cause for celebration; the house was wired for cable (which was disconnected after the last tenant left), and so regular network TV didn’t work. We couldn’t find the box with all the DVD’s and videos, so all I and both children had to watch for one week straight were two DVD’s we got from Walmart. It was incredibly cold that week, so we had to stay indoors, and with Sam still sick, we were homebound.
We got really, really sick of those two DVD’s.
By Thursday Sam was well enough that we risked a little trip to the zoo. I bought a poster for Sophie so that she could start decorating her room. Of all the available posters at the zoo, showing pretty parrots, stately giraffes, cuddly koalas, etc., the poster she wanted most was of a deep black, menacing panther staring hungrily at the camera. Well…OK. If she can sleep with that thing staring at her, so be it. So we got home and I mounted the poster on her wall.
Friday came, and with it, the satellite installation guy. Remember, we were three people on a serious cabin fever trip. We were desperate for any deviation from these two DVD’s. The installation guy came in the house; Sam took one look at him and, throwing his arms open wide, flung himself at the guy’s knees and hung on for dear life. Sophie began bouncing up and down like a kangaroo wired to a generator, and shrieked, “WOULD YOU LIKE TO COME UP TO MY ROOM AND SEE MY BLACK PANTHER POSTER?”
Did I mention that the gentleman in question was black?
I’ve never seen a serviceman work so quickly…and peel out so quickly, too, for that matter.
That was the second weekend.
By the end of January, each child had been sick two times and I had been sick one time. Thank heavens, SM, who was now the only breadwinner in the family, stayed relatively healthy. He kept looking at us strangely and shaking his head slowly. I don’t think he’d ever seen such pestilence so up close in his life. We learned monk-like patience and endurance from that first month.
Then my son decided he would stop eating. Forever.
Now, let me back up just a moment and give some details here. Before we moved, I worked outside the home. SM got a job opportunity in this new city that enabled me to not only come home, but also to homeschool our daughter. I was really looking forward to both these changes. Sam had had more babysitters in his short little life than a whole daycare, and he had always had problems with his feedings as a result. It was just a matter of inconsistency, I told myself. Get him with one person long enough and things will smooth out. Yes, I discovered later, that one person is me and my brain waves are now so smooth they are flat lines. You see, while inconsistency between babysitters was an issue, it was not the primary issue. HIS MOUNT EVEREST OF STUBBORNESS was the primary issue. Oh, yes. Sam is stubborn. He is the epitome of “cut off your own nose to spite your face”. My lovely, sweet little boy is the most stubborn thing on two legs. He drove off one babysitter (an experienced mother of two) after only three days because he would not eat the entire time she watched him and it unnerved her to the point of hysteria. I’m a highly stubborn person, and this child who isn’t even two years old yet was beating me into the ground. Sam is normally an easy-going fellow, but when it comes to eating, he’s Attilla the Hun. It’s a game, and he is the umpire. I thought that was supposed to be my job, but I have been assured that the dinner table is the number one battleground between toddlers and parents, and we parents really don’t ever win. After three months of intensive head-butting togetherness (along with many tears and one hysterical conference with the new pediatrician) I figured out just a few rules of the Eating Game:
1. Do not feed the child unless he is bawling and hugging the refrigerator. Cruel, you may say, but if I give him food one second before that, it will absolutely be rejected. And as we all know, a toddler’s style of rejection usually means food getting smeared on something important, expensive, and uncleanable.
2. Do not simply assign a food by plunking it down on a plate and walking off (always a dicey proposition in any case). Offer a choice between two foods. I don’t care if you assign roast chicken, herbed vegetables, and Baked Alaska: it will be rejected, period, to the tune of outraged howling. On the other hand, if I offer a choice between two foods, no matter how nasty, it will light up Sam's life because HE gets to decide something about his future, and that’s a Big Deal. I could offer a choice between mud and spackling, and it would still make him happy. Go figure.
3. DO NOT LOOK AT THE CHILD WHEN HE IS EATING. This acknowledges that he has temporarily capitulated, or at least come to a mutual understanding with you, and that is too much for his fragile ego to handle. If our eyes meet while he is in the act of eating, he will hurl the food down, gag on whatever’s in his mouth, lay his head on the table, and sob for all he’s worth. It just doesn’t pay to look at him.
Throughout this ordeal, everyone assured me that “when he’s hungry, he’ll eat.” Well, maybe that works on Planet Earth, but Sam obviously flew in from somewhere else. No one would believe me when I said, “No, he won’t, because he’s gone days existing on nothing but juice and milk.” See, this is what confused me: I have to give him liquid to keep him hydrated, but this same liquid would keep him full and ultimately sabotage my feeding efforts. It was a Catch-22. I went to the pediatrician and begged for enlightenment. He said that while it was theoretically POSSIBLE that my son had some sort of physical issue that prevented him from wanting to eat, he thought it was just…STUBBORNESS. And, oh, yeah, “he’ll eat when he’s hungry.” That’ll be $25, ch-ching!
I tried everything. I tried being mean. I tried being sweet. I tried being tough. I tried nonchalance. I tried schedules. I tried spontaneity. I tried pretty-colored food. I tried bribery. I tried everything in a loving parent’s arsenal, and nothing worked. One day, after a particularly bad morning’s attempt to get him to eat breakfast, I dropped Sam off at Mommy’s Morning Out and sobbed on the shoulders of the preschool director and Sam's teacher. I was flat out of ideas, and I was being beaten by a one-year old. The only foods he would reliably eat every time were yogurt and cheese puffs, neither of which constitute a complete diet. I was convinced he would be 18 and still eating yogurt and cheese puffs. I poured out my sorrows to the ladies in the preschool, and they listened, patted my shoulder, and comforted me. One of them mentioned the “give him a choice” method. That sounded interesting. That was the day of the pediatrician’s appointment. After the appointment we stopped by Burger King, where, inexplicably, Sam ATE TWO WHOLE CHICKEN FRIES. I was stunned. He looked at me as if to say, “What?”
The next morning I offered him a choice between a breakfast bar and a pop tart. He goggled at his choices, and leaped for the pop tart. A moment later he had eaten 2/3 of it. I stood in amazement, truly thunderstruck. It was like being given the key to a locked door.
So those were the first three months.
Meanwhile, as a sort of segue between acts, Sophie was doing her part to keep things interesting. Occasionally she would say something entertaining, shocking, and/or barbarically humiliating. One day, out of the blue, she asked me, “Mommy, which of these is OK to say: damn, darn, or rats?” I was silent, kind of shattered by this, and thought hard and quickly. I’d always told her that if she wasn’t sure if a word was bad, she could ask me about it and never get in trouble over it. So, I gave my answer. “Well, honey, you shouldn’t say ‘damn’ unless it’s in the Biblical sense and there are responsible adults around. Even then, you should probably avoid it. If you feel you must, you may use it, but only when you’re grown up and out of my hearing. I’d prefer you didn’t say ‘darn’ because it’s too close to ‘damn’ and it just doesn’t sound pretty coming out of your mouth. It’s not nearly as bad as ‘damn’, but still…and you can always say rats, phooey, drat, etc. Does that help?” Her question answered satisfactorily, she perked up and ran off, leaving me in the dust and pondering the teenage years in my future.
Then there was her performance yesterday. We were in the car, talking about something, and I answered a question of hers by saying, “Just a little bit.” Without hesitation she launched into the “My Fair Lady” song, but with a marvelous bit of childish mistaken identity: “Just a li’le bi’, just a li’le bi’, just a li’le bi’ o’ burning duck!” I laughed so hard I almost wrecked the car.
Then there was our entrance to our new church. Shortly after we arrived, the kids’ ministry decided it was going to redecorate its area of the church (not our fault). The powers that be declared one wall available for the kids to write and draw on, and provided lots of magic markers. Sophie, eager to impress her new church friends with her artistic prowess, drew a picture of our dog with an arrow pointing to his behind with the word, “Pee” written in big, black letters.
Maybe we can try the Presbyterian church on the other side of town. I bet they haven’t heard of us yet.
Sam has learned some new things since we’ve moved. He discovered toilet paper the other day. He touched it gently and inquisitively, just in case it bites or something, and looked at me to make sure I didn't tell him "no". I just watched him. He touched it again. It was squishy. It was soft. He began poking it in earnest. That made it roll a little. His eyes widened. I knew it was bound to happen sooner or later, and at least I could set some boundaries if I was here to see it. So, I just sighed and let him figure it out. He made it roll a little more, and then began pulling the loose end and walking away with it. A big grin started stretching across his face. Next thing I knew, he said, "Oh, woooooow" and then: "Like dat!"
We are in so much trouble. The bathroom will never be the same.
He has also learned that farting makes people laugh (at least when the fartee is a toddler); he has learned how to turn on the keyboard, turn up the volume, start the demo song, dance like it’s 1999, and feign ignorance when I tell him to turn it off. I never knew toddlers could get down and boogie like that.
Since moving here we have thrust ourselves into a new world, chock-full of strange and wondrous experiences. We have contributed mightily to the local economy via Wal-Mart; we have been to the local pharmacy at least twice, and frequently three, times a week since moving. We live near both railroad tracks and chickens. Whichever one doesn’t wake us up, the other will surely do so. By the way, did you know that roosters crow all day long? I hate those birds. They are completely unpenned, and roam freely all day long. They used to roam in our yard until SM and our pony-sized dog came around the corner and surprised them one morning. SM says he figured Prince improved the chicken’s reflexes by 120%, but I think that’s an exaggeration. It couldn’t have been more than 115%. At any rate, except for the crowing, they leave us alone now.
It’s still taking some getting used to, this driving up to a different house. Often I stop what I’m doing and wonder what’s going on in our old neighborhood. It’s a little sad to me; we lived in a truly lovely, gracious old Southern town that was beautiful in more ways than I can count. The only thing more beautiful than the flowers were the people, and we have so many friends we miss. But, as we like to say, gas isn’t ten dollars a gallon (yet), and there’s no brick wall on the interstate. And there’s always snail mail and email and Ma Bell. There ARE ways to keep in touch. It’s just not the same. A new acquaintance recently said, with a remarkable amount of perception, “There’s often a certain amount of grief associated with moving, especially if you loved the place you just moved from.” How right he is. I expect to see certain landmarks as I drive around, and it jerks me back to reality when I round a corner and don’t see them. I guess that’s what I get for driving on autopilot, eh?
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