Archive for June, 2011

it’s a delicate balance, this. balance between acceptance and resentment. between gratitude for the life that i have today and the one i’m tempted to wish for instead. but then that seems so… wrong. so ungrateful. so disloyal.

normally that’s the kind of stuff i can rationalize or pray or deny right out of my life. it doesn’t trip me up. usually.

mike went on an alaskan cruise with kim-17yr. she graduated. it’s a gift. they really did need some time together, and it was – and is – a great way to facilitate that.

as it is a graduation gift for her, and she does not like me much, of course it made mucho sense that i would not be invited. i genuinely did not want to go anyway. this is still the case.

i’d much rather be here than there.

no question.

if i were gone, i’d have missed the amazing hit Caden-7yr got yesterday that sailed past 2nd base. i’d have missed Seth-5yr bizarrely referring to his nipples as ‘bikinis.’ (or, ‘buh-kay-nays.’)  i’d have missed 17 arguments in target today about if it is or is not impossible to step on cracks in the ground. i’d have missed my life.

so why was it necessary to go to the garage, where there were no kids, and give myself permission to just BE upset? what could there possibly be to be upset about anyway?

i was completely generous and allowed 15 full seconds of Upset Time In The Garage before deciding that was enough, no need to dwell or wallow, and called it off.

i didn’t figure out what was bothering me in those 15 seconds.  just as well.

but something is definitely not quite right with me.

i know because i used the word ‘mucho’ up there at the beginning of this post, and that is very unlike me. it’s like foreign emotions took over and i combated them by pretending to be in a taco bell commercial.

probably the least effective coping strategy ever.

right behind the 15 seconds Upset In The Garage strategy.

**************

i normally won’t write stuff like this because i hate thinking that then y’all will feel obligated to try to cheer me up or something. seriously, don’t, it’ll make me cringe. i’m fine, it’s all ok.

isn’t cesar millan just the cutest thing ever? *

*YEAH, I was trying to distract you, but he really is, and dog whisperer is on, and you know i’m all stream-of-consciousness around here anyway.

This morning I tried everything I could think of in order to get Caden-7yr in a “baseball mindset.”  I sang. I danced. I pep talked and mothered and pulled out ALL the motivational stops. I turned up EMF’s “Unbelievable” and told him it was for him because he was going to be unbelievable on the field today. I made a fool of myself, gladly, in order to inspire that sweet child. I sang “Centerfield” –ALL of it, because I know all of it and also because I couldn’t think of what else to do.  But imitating the way John Fogerty pronounces some of those lyrics was pure maternal love, and the effort was utterly lost on Caden-7yr.

Nothing I tried broke through his pre-game stoicism.

I asked if he was nervous.

No.

I asked if he was upset or had a stomachache.

No.

Finally, frustrated, I told him I would do or say or sing whatever was necessary to help him get ready for his game. I told him that I was excited to watch and wanted him to be excited to play. He rolled his eyes and said, “Mom. I do not need anything.”

“WHAT? I’m your mommy and I want you to need me and come ON, lemme help. Let’s visualize hits and you tell me where they go and what base you end up on.”

“Uh? No.”

He was right, actually. He didn’t need anything. He had an amazing game and their team did a great job and won.

I probably had more fun than he did, even, but that’s all right. Is it really too much to ask to be needed by a 7 yr old? I mean, he can’t even tuck his shirt into his baseball pants without my help yet. Shouldn’t he need me just a little bit more, still? I tie the cleats. I mean, really. Let me mother you to pieces just a little bit more, sweet baby, you are ONLY seven.

In the middle of the game, my mom was telling me about how she’d said to the boys the other day, “I know your mama didn’t raise you to be disrespectful.”

(I don’t really want to know what occurred that prompted that particular announcement.)

And Caden-7yr said, “No. My mama raised ME to be respectful and funny.”

And… that’s adorable. But my mother told him that actually he just IS funny, and it’s not that I raised him to be that way.

Although I think if he wants to give me credit for this, it should totally be allowed. Especially since I can’t do anything whatsoever that has any value at all to his pre-game mindset.

(unbelievable.)

I’m probably overreacting.

I do that.

But.

If I go missing, please tell the police that they need to find the door to door steak salesman who was in my neighborhood yesterday afternoon. He was wearing an orange shirt with a collar. (Sorry. I’m not really a visual person, and physical descriptions are always a challenge. But Mike could describe him.)

Mike was home for an hour or so in the middle of the day and someone came to the door. It wasn’t one of those nationally or regionally known companies with trucks that have routes and menus, etc. This was a guy with a poor quality brochure about steaks sold by a company no one had ever heard of.

I watched their brief interaction from my vantage point on the couch. Mike gave him the brush-off by saying, “Well, my wife’s a vegetarian and I’m about to go out of town for awhile.”

At this point, the Generic Brand Steak Guy looked at me.

I looked at him.

He had definitely reacted to Mike’s words. His expression either meant:

a) Cool. Thanks for the tip – I will return when you are gone, murder your wife, and sell a new variety of steaks made from a petite vegetarian. Limited edition.

or, more likely

b) we have vegetarians in West Texas? WHAT?

A few years ago I would have tried to explain to Mike that you don’t say things like that to strangers, out of what should be a more protective stance towards the security of his oh-so precious wife. And he would have completely not gotten what the big deal was, as I have a history of overreacting to people trying to kill me.  Because, hello? He IS going out of town and also, i AM a vegetarian and the truth was the most expedient way to get rid of the Steak Guy.

I briefly considered trying to explain what was wrong with his statement, and what an uphill battle it would be, and then just didn’t even bother. Mike thinks the best of people. It’s a good quality and not one I want to change anyway. Instead I’m telling y’all what to do just in case, and I discussed extra angelic security measures with the Almighty.

He and I used to have need for those talks far more often. They’re the reason I’m still here. Those quiet, unmistakably authoritative directives “watch out,” “turn around,” “move that,” “wake UP,” “don’t go in there.” Words whispered right into my spirit that saved me, over and over again from minor to major harm.  Words that saved, and words that reminded me I was worth looking out for.

It was such a horrific time I’d never want to re-visit. Simply surviving it with any shred of sanity was a serious life accomplishment for me, and total proof that God can and will be there in every moment. He was there. Always.  Even when I was afraid to sleep, but finally did, He stayed.

I don’t really like to think too much about those days, but it’s necessary in order to hold on to what that sort of faith looked and felt like. When people talk about depending on God for everything – I get it, when before those words sounded hollow and religious. Depending on whispered directives in order to get through each day unhurt is not my life anymore – God carefully whispered me right out of that phase and into another one where I usually sleep so peacefully I forget to appreciate He’s there.

Anyway. I don’t suppose He brought me through the last 7 years in order to let me get killed by a door to door steak salesman.  Now that I think about it.

Right. And I didn’t think that at all when I started writing this, and now I’m reminded of all the very real ways He kept me safe for so long and I feel a bit faithless for even forgetting it long enough to worry… tempted to delete the whole thing. But maybe this veeeery-not-eloquent reminder can stay here in case i need it again one day.

In case any of you need to hear it, there’s nothing special about me – YOU are very much worth His looking out for, standing guard over, whispering saving words sort of love also. In case you need that reminder. (Remarkable, isn’t it?)

My sister, LaLa found an old picture of the two of us in front of the Harvest Gold refrigerator. It’s very Harvesty Gold. Beautiful. Functional.

LaLa and I are a bit Harvesty Gold, as well, thanks to overexposure and 70s era camera work. We’re pretty little, and clinging to each other as we share one chair that is placed in the middle of the kitchen for some reason.  LaLa’s pretty dark brown eyes stand out against all that yellow.

Actually, after much squinting, it becomes clear that one of us is WAY overexposed and I have no idea why there are no photos of me wearing, you know, SHIRTS. Why was I constantly half naked, and photographed as such…?

How did this happen? Why did no one toss me a shirt and say, here, put this on and smile for the camera. You’ll thank me in 30 years.

Sure, it was Texas and it was hot.

We had air conditioning.

My sister, who is FAR LESS COLD NATURED, was always clothed.

I was the younger one. Technically, the ‘baby’ of the family. But even Texas babies wear shirts and I was not one of those kids who was averse to clothing. I was easy going.  I was not constantly ripping clothes off. I just never had any on in the first place that were candidates for removal.

Perpetually, frustratingly topless until about age 7, if the photographic record can be believed.

Once I had to write a very stupid paper on what I’d do if I could travel back in time. I remember sitting at my 4th grade desk and not being able to come up with anything. I don’t know what I ended up writing about, but I really did not like the assignment. Sure, it’s waaaay too late now, but Mrs. Huff? I KNOW THE ANSWER NOW!! I’d go back with a suitcase full of shirts and DRESS. MY. SWEET. SELF, oh yes, I would.

Later today, we’re getting the refrigerator fixed. I hope. The milk is still an issue and the fridge REALLY needs to be fixed.

Maybe afterwards, I’ll pose in front of it and take a topless photo.

OH, RIGHT. I won’t do that because that would be WEIRD.

Today I packed the wrong swim shorts for Ethan-11yr. I had no idea he’d grown that much since last year. My first clue was when 2 boys emerged from the gym bathroom and Caden-7yr told me that those shorts were so tight Ethan-11yr could not get them on or off and he was having a bit of a crisis.

Except, in Caden-7yr terms.

Caden-7yr is pretty laid back about most things, so there wasn’t really any urgency at all in his delivery of this particular message.  I told Caden-7yr what Plan B would be, and sent him back to the boys’ restroom to communicate it to Ethan-11yr. Before he could get there, though, Ethan-11yr came out of the restroom, having successfully squeezed into a tiny pair of  yellow, floral swim shorts.

He looked proud. And uncomfortable. The waistband cut into his flesh leaving red marks, but he didn’t care.  He was going to swim in that disgusting pee-water indoor kid pool, and nothing was going to stop him. I admire this. Mostly. The ratio of water to urine cannot be ignored though, and it just icks me out.

One little girl stood in the very shallow water and discovered how fantastically dramatic it was to quickly flip her head toward the water’s surface and let her long pretty hair slap the water, and then stand up, flip her head back, and let water fly off her hair in a huge arc as her hair made its whiplash-like return. She was probably 6, adorable, and having a great time.

Seth-5yr stood with his mouth hanging open at this bizarre display of female activity. He took off his goggles to get a better view. She repeated this many times, until her neck probably hurt. Seth-5yr looked back at me a couple of times as if to say, “What is this? Explain it to me. No, nevermind, let me just enjoy this rare sighting.”

Later, I asked him about what he thought about the girl who was making her hair do tricks and he quickly said, “What? I did not see her. I did not see that girl with the long hair and the blue buh-kay-nay. Don’t ask me – I did not see any of that.”

Um. Right, Seth-5yr. I didn’t mention the blue bikini, yaknow.

As we left, Caden-7yr  lamented sadly that he has blond hair. This was depressing to him, as he’d somehow gotten the notion that only girls are supposed to be blond, and this clearly made him less than attractive, and a bit defective. He seemed to be sharing with all of us how this is a hardship he must live with, and he’s coping okay.

In order to refute this belief system, we named every single blond male person we knew, and I mentioned how the word is spelled ‘blonde’ when describing a female’s hair, and without the ‘e’ when describing a male’s hair. And clearly, it’s all God approved and written into the English language and on. And on. And on.  Because I can dork out and bring God and grammar rules into any argument, if necessary.

And then he changed the subject and said, “I know that place like the back of my hand.” And Ethan-11yr slapped his hand over the top of Caden-7yr’s hand and asked him to describe his own hand in order to back up this claim.  (I still don’t know which place he was claiming to know so well. It hardly mattered.)

Caden-7yr said, “Okay: Freckle. Hair. Skin. Fingers.”

Ethan-11yr pulled his hand back and they checked and jointly found this description to be inaccurate. I only know, because Caden-7yr laughed and said, “Yeah, I just made that up. FINE. I know that place like the back of Mom’s favorite gyms.”

And his brother didn’t quiz him on the accuracy of this, because that seemed far more likely to be true I guess, and that was the end of it.

You’re not supposed to really enjoy all the endless driving you do as a mom. But I really, really do.

With conversations like this in the backseat, it’s no wonder. They’re just so strange and entertaining.

Grateful…

for Caden-7yr killing a monster-sized spider in the laundry room today

for a client of Mike’s, who I’ve never met, insisting on making me vegan spaghetti last week

for vegan spaghetti actually tasting amazing. (Would NOT have guessed that. It had tofu in it, and it STILL tasted amazing.)

for Mike coming home and dealing with a neighbor issue I didn’t want to confront personally but was probably going to have to if he didn’t. But he did.

for Ethan-11yr, who likes to curl up with me on a couch with a blanket and watch educational animal shows until I can’t stand it anymore.

for Seth-5yr, who got SO excited that he jumped up and down when I made corn dogs and salad for lunch.

for my mother, who will brainstorm any problem at any time.

for Seth-5yr, who last night wanted Caden-7yr to spell the word “cat-hairily.” He used it in a sentence to demonstrate context: “he did that VERY cat-hairily.”

for Caden-7yr, who was patient with this request as he explained how that was not a word, even though it had been used in a sentence, and he would not spell it. Repeatedly.

for my mother, who never seems to mind when i call and say, “Hey…. can you help me? Mike’s out of town and 2 kids have practices at the same time at different places…”

for Ethan-11yr, who said, “What is that sound? I hear money. Is dad home?” And didn’t think that was a weird thing to say at all.

for Mike, who brought me sushi home after his radio show today when it was SUCH a sushi emergency.

for all of you, who are a source of much friendship, amusement, wisdom, and  kindness in my life.

I dreaded the appointment with the knee doctor today. The thought of it dragged me down into a state of ‘let’s get it over’-ness.  There’s nothing wrong with my knee. In fact, this was the “fine- go away, fly and be free – it’s been 1 1/2 YEARS since surgery, there is NOTHING wrong with this knee” appointment. (And I didn’t mention falling down the prairie dog hole a few weeks back.)

The best thing to wear is shorts that are short enough that the dr will not have to move them and then double the tickling. I’ve learned the hard way. The assistants stand in the doorway and laugh – which is fine – but this way there is about 50% less to laugh about.

I just hate going in there. It’s a sports medicine place. So they like athletes. The walls are covered in sports gear and framed, autographed photos of all their amazing amateur/high school/college/professional athlete patients. They say things like “you’re the best, dr!” and “couldn’t be doing this without you!” while posing in uniform. Or a candid shot while the post-surgical patient and success story is in the middle of a great touchdown or whatever.

All that’s fine. It’s a sports medicine place. Like I said. And all of that does back up what you hear about this guy: he’s the best. only go to him.

It’s what goes ALONG with all that sports stuff that drains me of any inclination to voluntarily walk through those doors without making sure it’s absolutely totally necessary and required of me. And that is… the ugh– we have here: A Mom. A normal, regular mom-looking mom-type. Not an athlete. Not a future success story with an autograph for our office wall. Just a mom. Ugh.

That vibe, I do not like.

This doctor guy is really good. I have no reason to doubt that he’s the best, like everyone anywhere says. And I’m grateful.

This other thing doesn’t hurt my feelings, so much as it strikes me as bad marketing to let on that you have serious favorites among your clientele. If I like you and think you’ve done a great job at whatever your business is – I will make sure EVERYONE hears about you. I’m a referral machine if I believe in you. And if you do a great job, and are nice, but send a really weird but highly consistent message that you wish your talent and time were directed at  someone different/better/more interesting… then I won’t really want to send people your way.

It took me a more than a year and a half to figure it out and put it into words that this is what I don’t like about that guy, and about that place. That’s how I know it isn’t personal — if my feelings are hurt in some way, it does NOT take me a year and a half to figure out why. (It might take me a year and a half to decide to do something about it, but that is actually quite different.)

There were years of horrible guy-wrenching family therapy in which the biggest lesson I learned was that I do NOT need the return  love/approval/attention of someone else in order to be perfectly happy in my life. It made much more sense to stop waiting, wishing, and working for those things (that weren’t coming) and learn to be perfectly fine and content with myself and my life without them. Can’t imagine how miserable and pathetic I’d be if that had not sunk in. But it did. And today oddly proved that in some small way.

So a doctor’s office that thinks I’m nothing special is really… nothing at all. I’m only telling you all of this because it led to a funny contrasting scenario.

I had to leave the doctor’s office and go to the Tire Place. OH HOW I HATE THE TIRE PLACE. Let’s not get me started on how I hate the Tire Place. It’s cold and cold and more cold and I just hate it.

But I ran over a startling number of nails and had 2 flat tires so it couldn’t be avoided. The Tire Place was empty and there were lots of Tire Guys standing around with nothing to do but come treat the ordinary mom-looking, mom-type in short shorts like she was their ABSOLUTE favorite kind of client and YOU COME BACK NOW, PLEASE? Or just stay NOW. Really? You have to go?

And oh, please no, I hope I don’t have to go back to either one of those places ever again, but it was an interesting set of encounters for one morning. I think they both prove the same thing – what other mortal, flawed human types think of you is extremely circumstantial and inconsequential, and it’s better to try not to let the good or the bad opinions matter too much.

If everything had gone according to plan, I’d be at the gym pool with the kids.

BUT.

There were many incidences this morning involving kids shrieking and yelling and slamming doors (most of that done from joy, actually) and my telling them to STOP. “I know you’re excited about swimming. But this isn’t working. Be excited in a way that does not look like THIS.”

But there was no stopping.

And what those sweet babies do not yet realize is that I am not just panting at the opportunity to put on a bathing suit and take them to the gym pool. I don’t like to be cold, wet, barely dressed, or around people, and this activity requires all 4 of those.  I try not to let on, though, so they don’t know that I only take them out of pure stay-at-home mommy summertime obligation.

And also because I know it makes them so tired that later on they will take nice, long naps.

I sat them on the couch and told them that I wasn’t mad at them, but that there would be no swimming today after all. There would be no rewarding previously discussed behavior with a trip to the pool. You want me to take you swimming… then you should probably remember to be a bit more respectful to me and the generally accepted noise level standards.

I told them they could run around in the sprinklers instead and we’d try again real soon. They perked right up and went outside and I turned up Black Crows and then Van Halen really loud to drown out the sound of their happy yelling.

The music was louder than any yelling or door slamming. I admit it.

I just don’t have a problem with that irony.

I kinda like it.