Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

[This is NOT the Winner of Club 17 post.  That’ll be in a few more days.] 

I’m wrapping up a very informal, ultra private celebration. What is that, exactly? Well. It’s been fun. I set up a hot pink ipod on a speaker right next to the bathtub and grabbed some little bath gel things in the shape of whales. So cute. Do you know the kind I mean? They’re clear, small, and they dissolve and give the bath a burst of moisturizing stuff. Fun. These were green whales. Which seems odd. They should have been blue whales. But anyway. They were also stubborn, and took over an hour to actually dissolve, and I refused to help them out by squishing them. It was a loooong bath. 

While soaking, I painted my toenails navy. Then one smudged. So I started over, and went with purple. Loooovely.

The playlist for this particular bath included:
Elvis — Are You Lonesome Tonight? (oh yeeees! Gloriously so, Elv, since the kids are gone)
Franki Valli — My Eyes Adored You
Dwight Yoakum — Honky Tonk Man
Oak Ridge Boys — Bobbie Sue (of course there’s an explanation, but it’s not that interesting.)
Eddie Rabbit — I Love a Rainy Night (am i the only one who loved that album cover? it caused me to fall in love with the 5 o clock shadow. it was a short phase.)
Prince — Kiss (yes, of COURSE i pretended to be Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman and air kissed. It was totally that kind of bath)
Metro Station — Kelsey (it’s just funny)
A whole bunch of songs that I downloaded because they have my mother’s name in the title. Now. This is a good idea if you’re giving your mother an ipod, and want to add a few unexpected songs. However. It is VERY important to edit out the songs that make it sound like your mother is evil. Oops. Deleting those soon. Every time one of the evil ones came on, I sunk below the water, bugged my eyes out, and alternated between giggling and gasping at the horror of some of the lyrics. How can those little song previews leave out so much negativity?! Deleting. Deleting. Deleting.
The Mavericks — What a Crying Shame
Willie Nelson — Shotgun Willie (i just like it when he twangs, “shotgun willie sits around in his underwear…”)
Bon Jovi — You Give Love a Bad Name
Black Crowes — Hard to Handle
Eva Cassidy — Over the Rainbow
Lyle Lovett — Long Tall Texan

So how long was that bath? More than 2 1/2 hours. Plenty of time to learn something utterly disgusting about the green whales. After the bath water cools, the moisturizing liquid within the whales actually transforms into a solid. A white solid that sticks to your entire body exactly as if you had shmeared yourself with Crisco. Did you know that? I had no idea. The discovery of being coated in a lardlike substance REALLY takes away all the appeal of those little whales. Never again.

So the purple toenail painting, Crisco wearing bath was a celebration because… my book is out! Julie emailed and told me she saw it on Amazon. I thought she was mistaken. I had no idea. I checked. Surreal.The next day a copy arrived from Capstone (the publisher). It was tied up with a chocolate-y brown ribbon. It’s prettier than I expected.It took less than 5 minutes for me to find a mistake. On the last sentence of the About the Author page, it reads “A Love for Larkspur” is his first novel. Did I write that? Uh, probably. Did I approve that? Definitely. My photo is there on the page. I look like a girl at least. But then there’s a description of all my non-girly hobbies. Mudding. Kickboxing. Etc. And then the ‘his first novel’ phrase.  Well. Apparently I had a trannie moment. That’s what every first time Christian author wants. A trannie moment. In print.

So when an author’s book comes out, there’s a certain expected response.  She (0r he, as the case may be) should publicize.  Ask others to do the same. Etc.   i just caaaan’t.  It’s taken me days to even write this!   

There’s a huge part about writing that I’ve never been comfortable with, but just always assumed I’d get over when the time came.  Except I haven’t.   When you write, a huge amount of yourself ends up on the page.  Flaws, biases, insecurities - all those things I don’t often point out to everyone.  It’s all there.  I know.  I tell y’all most of that stuff anyway.  But it’s in a very deliberate way.  And this is different, somehow.  

So I should tell you to all go and buy one.  To tell your friends to do the same.  But if I’m really being honest with you, I’m quite afraid that this was all some sort of mistake and it - and I - completely stink.  I keep remembering a time in elementary when I was sooo excited about Show and Tell.  I was a VERY shy kid, but for some reason I was excited that day about whatever I’d brought.  And when it was finally my turn, I changed my mind and told myself that what I’d brought really wasn’t that great after all, and that no one would be interested in it. I stayed in my seat and just shook my head no when the teacher asked if I had something to share.   

I’d still really like to just shake my head no and keep it to myself.  It was ages ago that I signed a contract with Capstone saying I’d get out of my chair and share.  The day was coming, of course, when it would arrive in a chocolate-y brown ribbon and a friend would tell me what websites it was listed on…  I thought I’d be ready. Who wouldn’t be ready for that…? This is my proverbial Big Break.  It bothers me to think how ungrateful it must seem to not be playing the role of excited author/marketer.    

I have a friend who likes to say, “It is what it is.” I hate it when he says that.

I sort of thought that by the time I was this age - and published - that I wouldn’t be such a trainwreck of insecurities and would hardly resemble the shy elementary kid I used to be.

I wonder why I thought that…It is what it is.

1.  I’ve been long gone - haven’t even turned ON a computer in weeks.

2. I’d like to blame my mother for this.

3. Except that it is VERY tacky for a grown woman to blame her mother for her own actions.

4. But ya’ll!  My MOM is here!

5. She lives in Australia, and comes to visit twice a year, and now is one of those times!

6.  The shopping!  The SHOES!  The conversations and dreams she has that revolve primarily around handbags!  LOVE THAT!

7.   Mucho chocolate consumption.

8.  We’re working off the calories with laughter.

9. Yeah, that’s what I’m telling myself.

10. Caden-4yr calls her ‘Fanmother,’  since ‘g’s are hard for him.  I call her J-Mom, and you can too if you’d like.

So I’m going through one of those (numerous) spells where I avoid the phone, writing here (or anywhere else), and I haven’t checked my main email inbox in 2 weeks.  I do that.  No big thing. I’m fine. 

Hope you are as well.

See you tomorrow. 

(Really.)

This morning the boys and I piled into the car, and Ethan-8yr immediately made a face and said, “Yuck! What’s that smell?” 

I don’t have much of a sense of smell, and didn’t know what he was talking about. But i DO have a phobia of gross, forgotten sippy cups lingering under car seats.  I asked Ethan-8yr to look for an old cup. 

He diligently searched the car, and then said, “Oh!  Yep. I see it.”

“A sippy cup?”

“No.  Just an old beer of Dad’s.”

….?

Um.   Last I checked, Mike didn’t drink.  Last I heard, he wasn’t really big on drinking and driving, either. 

“Uh? Ethan-8yr?  Could you hand it to me please?”

“Sure.  Gross.”  He hands me an unopened can of Mr. Pibb and makes a face.

“Uh…that’s Dad’s, but it’s not beer.  I think it’s kinda like Dr. Pepper.   The wrong drink came out of a coke maching the other day.”

“Oh!  Like Dr. Pepper?!  CAN I HAVE IT, pleeeeeaAse?”

“No. And what was smelling so bad?”

“Oh, probably just Seth-2yr.” 

In all fairness, sweet little  Seth-2yr did not smell bad (at that particular moment).  If that conversation had lasted even a few moments longer, I’m sure Caden-4yr and I would have been unintentionally maligned as well.

This morning Ethan-8yr and Caden-4yr collided in the hallway.  I couldn’t see it, since they were around the corner, but I could certainly hear it.  It was clear that Caden-4yr had been the one who got hurt.  He’s pretty tough, so his yelping in pain got Ethan-8yr’s attention very quickly. 

“I’m sorry, Caden-4yr! It was an accident!” 

Pause.  

“Here, why don’t you punch me in the Twinkle Spot?” 

Which made me think….well.  Maybe Mike forgot to use anatomically correct words in his talk the other day… 

And while I considered this I heard Caden-4yr say, “Well. Okay!”

And I stopped pondering the vocabulary of my children and then shrieked at them to stop, and then somewhat calmly explained that you NEVER invite someone to punch you in the Twinkle Spot (this needs to be said?), or anywhere else for that matter. Then I outlined how it is better to reduce the total number of injuries, accidental or otherwise, than to simply make all the injuries EQUAL among them.  And I forgot to correct the vocabulary and didn’t give it a second thought  until right this moment.  I suspect I’ll have a chance to get around to that tomorrow.  

Seth-2yr has had a fever and a sore throat.  He’s moped and been miserable all day.  So tonight I was VERY surprised to hear him laughing hysterically.  He was in the bathtub with Caden-4yr, who was screaming “MooooOOOOoom!”  Interesting combination of very loud, conflicting noises coming from that bathtub.  One brother totally deliriously joyful, and another panicked and needing help. 

I ran in and found Seth-2yr, laughing harder than perhaps he’s ever laughed, and Caden-4yr - a stricken look of horror on his face. 

He was covered in vomit.

“Mom.  Look what Seth-2yr did! It is uh-skuss-ting.  I am uh-skuss-ting.”

“Oh! No.  You are not disgusting.  Um. You just have a lot of throw up on you.”  Riiiight. Realizing how ridiculous those statements were, and how suddenly thankful I was that i have an almost nonexistent sense of smell, I just covered my face so Caden-4yr wouldn’t see me smile. 

Then we both came to our senses and started washing him off.  Well, not Seth-2yr.  He laughed and pointed, and tried to re-enact the moment of drama in case I had somehow missed the greatness of what had transpired.   

Poor Caden-4yr.  He got smashed in a hallway collision, coated in Projectile Style Sick, and he didn’t even get the consolation prize of punching anyone’s private parts.       

I have a loose policy of ‘no nagging.’  Mike hates nagging, and I usually dislike myself when I fall into it.  So instead I ask him to do whatever it is I want done, and then do it myself if he won’t.  Works for us. 

Very rarely there are exceptions.  When it came time to start having  the series of talks on  body parts/functions/how things work/sex , I talked with Kim-14yr.  We talked more than she wanted to. We had books.  We had more talks.  And Mike assured me that with the b0ys, he’d be the one to take the lead.

So I asked him to start that process, especially with Ethan-8yr.  (although, at the TIME of the request he was Ethan-7yr.)  Mike agreed.  He bought a book on how to talk to your kids about such things.  I think he even read it.  It lived on his side of the closet, and every Tuesday and Friday morning I’d go to get his dry cleaning organized and I’d see that book.  The sight of that book bugged me greatly, since it was a fantastic reminder that he hadn’t just TALKED TO THE KID.  So I started leaving little notes on the dry cleaning slips and tucking them into his drawers.  These were charming surprises, I’m sure. Really endearing. 

I think the first one read “You said you’d do this months ago.”  I tucked it into the How to Talk to the Kid book where it wouldn’t be missed.

Another month passed.  The next note, also on the dry cleaning slip read “JUST DO IT” 

And then another month. 

Why didn’t I just follow my own policy and do it myself?  Because I REALLY want the boys and Mike to have the ‘we can talk about stuff’ relationship, and this seemed a milestone in fostering that.  

The last note read, “Please talk to him by Friday.  Address whatever issues are preventing you from doing it by then and get it done.  Please.”

I didn’t really think he would.  And yuck!  That escalated from nagging to ultimatum. Gross. 

However.

Friday night Mike and Ethan-8yr had a conversation.  YEA!!!

Perhaps it had been awhile since Mike read the How to Talk to Your Kid About This Topic Your Wife Thinks is Sooooo Important book, or perhaps he hadn’t fully addressed whatever was preventing him in the first place.  Maybe he was just nervous. 

I really don’t care, because he did it, and that makes me VERY happy.

But for whatever reason, Mike started the conversation a little on the vague side.  “So… Ethan-8yr.  Do you know the differences between how boys and girls are made?”

I know.  Isn’t that cute ALL BY ITSELF?  Oh, funny. 

Ethan-8yr said, “Sure.  God made girls with longer hair. They think different too.  And they walk differently.”  Then he does a dramatic, prissy walk, complete with alternate shoulder thrusting and swiveling hips and says, “Especially if they’re practicing for a runway.” 

Well.  I’m sure that cleared things RIGHT up for Mike.  How he kept a straight face through that, and THEN transitioned to the intended direction of that discussion is beyond me. 

And what girls does he know who are ‘practicing for a runway’ and why does he even know what that means?!

Caden-4yr and I sat on the couch this morning, a rare lull in a hectic few days.  We’d been talking about his school picnic, Ethan-8yr’s school picnic, our upcoming roadtrip and all the things we needed to do. 

He sighed, rumpled his entire face into a frown, and asked me, “Mom, is this a special moment?”

“Oh yes, Caden-4yr.  This is a VERY special moment,” I said.  I put a hand on each of his cheeks, and smoothed out  his worried forehead until he smiled.  “Why?”

“Well, I heard on the radio that in a very special moment, ‘rhyming is everything.’” 

“Oh.  Well. I don’t know why they said that, but okay.  Hop and Stop.”

“Thank you.”  Then he ran off to test out his glow in the dark dinosaur in the blackness of his closet.

A few minutes later I was wondering about this very odd conversation and then…   ah yes.  I DO remember the radio commercial that I suppose he heard…  a pharmaceutical sort of ad, actually.

“And guys, we all know that when it comes to that special moment, timing is everything…”   

Around our house, there is an unusual phrase.  It’s uttered FREQUENTLY, and always by Caden-4yr, in his odd little Austrian accent.   

This phrase is ’Ho and Tell.’

Lovely, huh? 

Ho and Tell actually has TWO meanings, adding to the frequency of times it comes up conversationally.  It is SO hard not to break into giggles on these occasions. 

First meaning:  hotel.   “When will be at the Ho and Tell? I yike dis Ho and Tell. It is a yittle bit nice of a Ho and Tell. I yuv it.” 

Second meaning for Ho and Tell: ‘Show and Tell.’  Every Friday morning Caden-4yr is preoccupied with what his Ho and Tell will be, and then he rehearses what he will say when it is his turn.  He prefers to rehearse privately, but if he has to he will do it quietly in the car.  Then if Mike asks him what he’s saying, he will indignantly say, “I am talking to mySELF. DAD.”

Sometimes I think it will be a little sad when the day comes when Caden-4yr sounds like just any other West Texan kid.  He’s endearing and entertaining every time he speaks. 

Happy Ho and Tell Day, y’all. 

Don’t worry about the google searches.  I gave up trying to prevent the weirdos after this post - it attracts quite the wrong kind of crowd, daily. 

I know you thought I forgot, K T Cat.  I didn’t.  It just always takes me forever to get around to these! 

So.  Her challenge was to write a memoir.  In SIX words. 

I intentionallydid not read other people’s because it would mess with me.  And unfortunately.  This is what I came up with:

Got a booger?  I’ll tell you.

(You weren’t expecting anything brilliant, I hope.)

Hey, Geekwif, you’re next!

Well.  I no longer have the mental image of the naked woman at kickboxing.  In its place is the far more horrifying image of the bloody innards of Seth-2yr’s left knee. 

This morning I put Caden-4yr and Seth-2yr into the bath with loads of toys.  I also gave them those specially-made-for-showers-because-they-are-unbreakable mirrors.   Except that they weren’t.  Those mirrors were the good, old fashioned ones made up of potential shards. 

Well. 

Oops.

Seth-2yr yells “Mommay!”  (he says ‘mommy’ usually, but if it’s urgent for any reason at all he switches to ‘mommay‘) Caden-4yr yelled, “Byood!”  (He doesn’t say the ‘l’ sound.)   

And boy was there a lot of byood.  Seth-2yr was screaming and crying and I got him out and put him on the bathmat and could not decide if i should a) attend to the large amounts of blood or b) figure out where it came from because my Mommy Guilt was already out of control and I was sure it was my fault somehow, but it was still unclear precisely how.  I opted for both a and b, at the same time, which may have slightly delayed the realization of how bad that cut was.   Again. Oops. 

Then I put on my Extreme Game Face.  This involves sky high eyebrows, a higher than normal pitched voice (side effect of valiently trying to deny inner hysteria), and huge Miss USA smile that has no place in that reality.  But there it was.  I explained to the boys that it would be very important to give the leg a nice squeeze to make the bleeding stop, and showed how to do that with a navy bathtowel. 

I’m not really good with blood.  I don’t know a lot about cuts.  LaLa and I were saying just last week how the two of us went through one box of bandaids BETWEEN US in our entire childhoods. It was always the same box in the cabinet.  It didn’t get a lot of traffic.  That’s the kind of daring we were.

I’m probably one of the most overprotective mommies I know just so my kids can avoid unnecessary bleeding, crying, and hurting.  But this? This was a gash.  There were layers and chunks I did not recognize as skin, or maybe they were a little more important and deeper than that.  No idea. 

My lips were sticking to my teeth because I’d been smiling so wide,  so I tried to make a more normal face, but I just couldn’t.  I told the boys that the Applying Pressure phase was similar to a nice, firm hug.  Seth-2yr gave me a  dirty look and screamed louder.  Hey. I’m not good at analogies, never have been. 

Every time I pulled the towel back to look at the cut, Seth-2yr would scream his head off. Then I’d cover it up and he’d politely say, “thank you!”  Again. And again. Then I turned to Caden-4yr and said, “The next step, with a big owie, is to go see a doctor, so can you go get dressed?”   Caden-4yr looked at me for a second and then asked, “Why are you talking like that?”  I tried to close my huge smile and he ran off to get dressed in record time.   

I slapped an enormous bandage on the knee, hoping it would be so large that the blood would not come through to the front and then start Seth-2yr off again on hysterics.  As I put him in the car, though, I could see it was already barely starting to show through.  I whispered to Caden-4yr, “Let’s not talk about the blood or the cut. It really bothers Seth-2yr, okay?” 

To which Caden-4yr replied, loudly, “THERE WAS SO MUCH BYOOD THOUGH!  IT RAN DOWN HIS LEG AND YOU HAD TO GET IT OUT FROM BETWEEN HIS TOES EVEN, MOMMY!” 

More hysteria from Seth-2yr at this point. 

There isn’t traffic where I live.  Today, at that exact moment. There was.  A big truck had to back out onto a road and traffic in both directions had to stop.  Then the traffic lights were out, causing further chaos. 

Mike, the Calmer One In Times of Vomit and Blood, is out of town.  So he calls the clinic ahead of my arrival and probably says, “My wife is coming in with two little boys. She’s pretty crazy right now and her face may be frozen into a fake smile. Please don’t be fooled by that, and look at my kid’s knee as soon as they get there.”

They look at the knee as soon as we get there.  The nurse says the bleeding has stopped (it hadn’t), and told us to have a seat.  Where we waited for an hour, with favorite stuffed animal puppies and blankets we’d brought from home.  The boys watched Dora the Explorer on the television in the waiting room and I stared off into space and noticed that my insides were shaking.    A few minutes later Caden-4yr turned to look at me and said, “Mommy.  Zat is the strangest thing.”  [remember that Caden-4yr is the kid with the really thick, unexplainable Austrian accent]  He looks at me closely and says, “Your eyes leaked.  Two drops.  They… they dripped. They dripped drops.”  He leans closer and says, “Why would they do that? Is there something wrong with your eyes?” 

I brushed away the tears and wondered why he somehow didn’t recognize them as tears.  Then I noticed my face aching.  Ahh.  I was smiling again, with the sky high eyebrows.  And my face was such a bizarre contradiction, that he simply did not consider that those would be tears.  This of course launched me into a silent heaping of self condemnation about how FREAKY that is and what long term effects has this morning already had on both of them WITHOUT their mother at a loss to turn off the freakshow of incomprehensibly combined facial expressions. 

A  nice man sitting nearby witnessed that lovely conversation and starting talking to the boys and me about dogs and Transformers and people we both knew.  It was a VERY nice thing for him to do - striking up conversation to distract the crazy lady.  VERY NICE.

We finally get back to the examining room and the doctor says that yes it will need stitches.  I nod. I figured.  I mean, I figured that in a ‘there’s a whole lotta blood here, so yes that makes sense’ sort of way.  NOT from the educated, experiential point of view of having any idea what stitches actually entail.  Nuh no.  If so I would have called my pastor and begged him to come help me, and by the way, could you pray that my face is okay, later, when Seth-2yr’s knee is all taken care of? 

A nurse sized me up and tried to get me to tell him  whether or not I would be okay whenever they did the stitching.  He said they really needed to know ahead of time, if at all possible.  “Of course! I’ll be fine!”  I didn’t think to say, “Never seen stitches.  Have no idea. And since you ask, my entire torso has vibrated involuntarily for 90 minutes, since the exact second I laid eyes on this cut.  And this smile?  It’s not mine. I’m not this nice.  I have no idea how to make it go away.”  Perhaps that would have been more truthful and candid. 

Caden-4yr jumps up and down and cannot stop talking about the “Byood! There was SO MUCH BYOOD!”  And Seth-2yr melts down.  There are 2 nurses and a doctor in the room when someone mentions the word ‘accident.’  Caden-4yr says, “THIS WAS NOT AN ACCIDENT! MOMMY SAID OVER AND OVER THAT IT WAS ALL HER FAULT.” (I have no memory of this, but I’m sure I did.) He stops and points at me, just in case the two nurses and one doctor are unsure which mommy he might be referring to. “IT IS ALL. HER. FAULT.”  He nods, matter of fact-ly, glad that he straightened out that detail for all present. 

They look at the cut.  Seth-2yr freaks whenever they remove the bandage.  Caden-4yr is inspired to make loud observations about every last part of the cut and the byood.  He thinks it’s very cool. 

So stitches entails me LYING ACROSS SETH-2YR’s BODY to hold him down while he screams - totally understandably - as they dig around in the cut with a syringe and inject some sort of numbing liquid.  DID. NOT. KNOW. THAT.  If I had known that, I might have just slapped a big strip of duct tape across his knee, prayed, and spared him. 

Caden-4yr helpfully reminds Seth-2yr that the doctor promised he could have a lollipop and stickers afterwards.  I’m laying on top of Seth-2yr and Caden-4yr is patiently trying to tell him that he should probably quit crying because the doctor probably meant that he would only get the lollipop and the sticker if he didn’t freak out like that, and he wouldn’t want to miss out on a lollipop and a sticker.  Seth-2yr revved it up a notch, at this, and it is VERY hard to physically hold down an irate 2 yr old , exude calmness for his sake, and simultaneously convince the four year old behind you to STOP IT ALREADY and of COURSE the kid is getting a lollipop and it’s okay to cry because of ALL. THE. BYOOD.

One of the nurses left and got stickers and lollipops for both of them, and they both calmed down.  Seth-2yr’s knee was now numb and he could focus on my freaky face right above him, and the Dora sticker.  He licked his sucker and then managed to stick in to my shirt directly between my shoulder blades. 

We finally left.  He got 5 stitches.  The sight of the stitches makes him scream at the top of his lungs (”Mommay!  I SEE IT!”) so that I come running from wherever I am and yank the bandage back into place so that he doesn’t see it anymore.  Pointing out that it looks sort of like the stitches on the top of a football helped briefly. He loves footballs. He perked up and said, “Yeah!”  Then he looked at me and - even though i was RIGHT THERE- yelled, “Mommay! I SEE IT!”  With fresh tears and all.

I have since devised a new bandaging system that does not slip out of place, and now that he’s in bed asleep I’ve realized that of course PANTS would have been a good idea. Brilliant. 

We picked Ethan-8yr up from school, and Caden-4yr gave the summary.  There was much emphasis on the byood and Seth-2yr freaked out again.  We calmed him down.  Ethan-8yr said, “I wanna see it!”  And Seth-2yr freaked out again.  We calmed him down. Then we went to the grocery store for bandages and came home and they all started talking about playing outside. 

You have got to be kidding me.   “NO!”

Caden-4yr said, “But mommy. It is a bootiful day outside.” (I usually say this to him before i INSIST he play outside.)   

“No. No one’s playing outside. NOT TODAY. Go sit on pillows, and don’t even think of getting hurt.”

Caden-4yr went to his room, talking to himself, “Sit…. on…. pillows….?”