but the strep that was so awful for Caden-8yr and Seth-6yr came back for Ethan-12yr and for me. my mother jumped in and helped take kids places and pick up prescriptions.  Ethan-12yr and i went to the doctor yesterday and now we’re popping pills and keeping a pretty low profile. (low, as in flat against soft horizontal surfaces)

i’m getting there. today i put on a pair of FABULOUS new shoes, courtesy of a Christmas gift card,  and decided to look a thousand times better than i felt (not hard) and really just fake the sickness away for a few necessary hours. i told my mom it was ‘shoe therapy.’ and it worked. and then i came home and faceplanted for a few hours.  shoe therapy is always worth a shot, but it has its limitations.

i have a very quiet weekend ahead. yardwork if i’m up to it. faceplanting while wearing bunny pajamas if i’m not.

anyway.

that’s what’s up with the short, slightly weird blogs lately. i wasn’t admitting illness.

okay, i’m still really not. i mean, it came and it was gross and i’m still tired… but i’m in the getting OVER it phase. i don’t HAVE strep. i headed it off at the pass. yes. that’s what happened here.

i’m fine. that’s all i meant to say. hi. and, ‘i am fine.’

Ethan-12yr is attempting to ‘get on the leaderboards for a clone wars adventures tournament.’ that’s what he said. he’s at the computer at my desk.

so if i’m ‘fine’, then Ethan-12yr is probably ‘way more than fine.’

and ambitious in a really cute, geeky way right now.

this is more ‘nothing’ than my usual brand of nothing blogging. I KNOW. but denial can easily do that to you if you’re not careful. i will be careful.

It was the voice of my truck’s almost dead battery, calling for help.

My mistake.

I haven’t ever hooked up the jumper cable thingies and done that myself. I called my dad. But couldn’t reach him. So then I waved off the help of two strangers in pickups* and did it myself.

Battery charged, I had only enough time for mild mud action before taking an abs class. The abs class killed me. The abs class made me want my bunny pajama pants.

I’d completely forgotten about my weird, deformed rib. And then that abs class killed it with some reverse crunches and now it is bruised and sore and I’ll probably never forget it again. But that’s okay. Because I’ll never forget and do reverse crunch things again, either.

*strangers in pickups will ALWAYS stop and try to help you here. It’s West Texas. That’s what they do. I want nothing to do with strangers in pickups right now. Particularly if they’re cute. And one of them was definitely cute, so I frantically waved him off and got rid of him even faster than I waved off the next stranger in a pickup, who looked pretty creepy. Creepy I can deal with if I have to – cute, no WAY, get thee BACK with your chivalrous self, man.

But there is a distinct upside.

The mud is everywhere. It calls me. (When mud calls me, it sweetly says my first and last name. Not Kilgore. The mud knows my real last name, and it is not afraid to use it.)

Mike has the kids tonight.

I’ll spend the evening exploring my favorite back roads and the dirtiest, muddiest places and get more than a little reckless. It’ll be good. And then I’ll come home, filthy and tired,  and put on flannel bunny pajama pants and I’ll watch Texas Country Reporter. I record them and save them up and watch them like I’m 83 or something. I guess I just like Bob Phillips’  voice. Or I’m incredibly boring. Whichever. Doesn’t matter.

A friend and I did a ‘mud run’ recently. It was… lame. There weren’t many people, no one seemed very interested in the event, and there wasn’t any MUD. There was a decent amount of slightly dirty water. If you put water on certain kinds of west texas clay, it just turns to a gray puddle. And even if you crawl through it, you will NOT get muddy. You’ll get wet. So. We got wet. And disappointed. It was a serious mud letdown.

But tonight I’ll make up for that.

Mud. Bunnies In Pink Scarves Pajama Pants. Bob Phillips’ voice.

Not everyone’s winning combination for a Monday night, but it’s sounding really good to me.

It was a weird morning here. The boys used to make me breakfast with Mike on Mother’s Day and so they especially missed him and were very aware of the differences this day held. They gave me their cards and surprises and when i got up too early, they firmly told me to go back to bed. They tried to get along and be kind, but their own mixed up emotions about the day got in the way and there were at least two really petty freakout fights over nothing, before 9 am.  We talked through it and then i told them they should probably call Mike. They did, and the next petty freakout fight wasn’t until about 1pm at my mom’s house.  They are… fragile, today.

I’m doing that “here, let me just withdraw further from society” thing I’m so fond of. If I’ve flaked on you with emails and texts and phone calls, and I certainly haven’t read your blog in ages, well. This is why.

I told a friend of my decision to just “let myself go” and that did not go over well. She’s had some similar stuff going on in her own life, but more recently, and so she had the energy to jump forcefully on the ‘you are worth more than that’ soapbox. And it made sense in the moment. I took her word for it, started working out more, eating less, and I suppose I’m officially putting on a tiara and not letting myself go. So to speak. I like exercise and am rather halfhearted about food anyway, so I guess it was a weird idea in the first place.

I put on a tiara the other morning (literally) and Caden-8yr stopped in the hall and said, “Whoah… Mom’s wearing eyeshadow.”

“WHAT…? Eyeshadow? Didn’t you notice the big shiny TIARA?”

“Well, sure. But you’re in a tiara phase. I didn’t know you were in an eyeshadow phase. So THAT is what I pointed out.”

I figured if my eyeshadow were somehow THAT noticeable to an 8 yr old boy – a group not known for even knowing the word ‘eyeshadow’, I better tone it down. So I did. The alternative would have been an even bigger, shinier, tiara, and I already had on the biggest one I had.

He’s a funny kid.

He and Seth-6yr just got over strep. And it wasn’t just any kind of strep. It was the kind that hit very suddenly, and with fevers so high that they each spent a different night clinging to me because they were hallucinating. My side of the family does that when we have high fevers. Fun times. It’s really difficult to explain to a small child in the middle of the night what a hallucination IS, and that it really isn’t real and they really are safe and here, just hang onto me like a terrified, sweaty monkey if you need to, we’ll get through this night together.

They’re okay now. And I have caught up on sleep again. And even laundry.

I’m a recovering doormat.

(That was out of the blue. I know. Hang in there with me, though. I’ve wanted to tell you this forever, and if I wait for a transition to occur to me, I never will get around to it.)

I’m a recovering doormat. It’s been going on for a couple years now. I wasn’t the sort who signed up to do stuff i didn’t want to do or said yes to all sorts of favors for people. That’s not me, and it never was. But I did do this weird thing where in several key relationships, the two of us IN the relationship would both sort of exalt the other person. It sounds so weird to even write that. But that’s what we did. If the other person were into that sort of thing. (And if you are a doormat, then you have certainly attracted numerous people who are into that sort of thing.)

God dropped a couple of people into my life who were not into that sort of thing. And who didn’t even understand that dynamic at ALL. Without their knowing, a few conversations gave me a glimpse of a different, healthier approach. I started looking at things from a non-doormat standpoint. Then I started attempting to re-negotiate the terms of some of my relationships, with an eye on God’s vision of who I am.

But some things are non-negotiable.

With more than one individual, there was a distinct, “no – this doesn’t work” message. Give this up, go back to serving ME, wasn’t that more fun…? And…. no. I lost those individuals. I hadn’t anticipated that, really. I thought I could gently reconstruct the relationships in the way they always should have been. I asked for certain things. I started speaking up, drawing lines, and acting like someone just as important as the other person, and explaining WHY.

But those relationships had only ‘worked’ because of the original way they were (mis)constructed, and my changing the deal wasn’t acceptable. It made everything all wrong and not worthwhile for the other person. I had agreed to one set of terms  - maybe even insisted on those terms – and then… changed them.

I lost those people.

They lost a very faithful doormat.

They never knew me. And when given the chance… weren’t interested. And that’s all right. They weren’t the people who were ever there if I needed something or someone. Now if I need someone or something… they still aren’t there.

And so in that way, it isn’t all that different.

This OFFENDED Caden-8yr. He always wanted me to reprimand his brother. I always declined. And laughed. Finally, I asked Caden-8yr if he felt that this was somehow… in some way… disrespectful to God. Maybe that was the source of his discontent.

And? It was.

Like, “taking the Lord’s name in vain” sort of blasphemy?

YES.

“But… we do not serve a God named guacamole. So…? I’m really okay with this, Caden-8yr.”

He got irritated.

So of course Seth-6yr said it more.

I ignored it.

And then one day I decided that I would try to address it differently. I made guacamole. I covered the bowl with a stainless steel bowl, turned upside down so it looked like a silver cloche in a fancy restaurant.

I called the boys to the table, and instructed Caden-8yr to pray over the silver domed mystery bowl.

He hesitated. He giggled. He said he didn’t know what to pray.

I told him he HAD to do this and it was very important to transforming the contents of the bowl.  Just  pray over it and bless whatever food was beneath the dome.

He did.

Then I unveiled it and asked him what it was.

“Broccoli?

“UH? NO.”

I took it over to Seth-6yr and asked him to peek and announce what it was.  He had no idea.

I whispered the answer and he  shouted, “HOLY GUACAMOLE!”

And the 2 boys who had fought over holy guacamole shared a bowl (and a chair) and happily ate it and no one objected to that phrase  again.

I thought that was the end of the story.

But yesterday Seth-6yr came home with a bracelet with the word ‘Guatemala’ embroidered on it. A friend of his had returned from a trip with bracelets for all her classmates. Seth-6yr was distraught because he lost his “guacamole bracelet.” I told him it wasn’t guacamole. I had him repeat Guatemala a few times.

Then, as I left his room after tucking him in, he said, “Will it make anyone mad if I say Holy Guatemala?”

And… yes. It probably will.

But that’s okay.

Seth-6yr told him, “my mama does not have a man.” By accident. I think he just said what went through his head when the guy assumed my truck belonged to a husband-type. But STILL. Could we please delete that phrase from his vocabulary? Some truths rarely need to be spoken.

My poor truck. It’s dented to pieces from large hail, and it appears that air has been let out of tires, and then a couple weeks back it suffered the indignity of being covered in shoe polish cartoon drawings of male genitalia. Whoever did that didn’t really plan ahead and buy white shoe polish, as is customary. Or maybe they just made the artistic decision to use Cordovan. I don’t know. But cordovan penises and testicles everywhere seemed especially strange to me.

They disappeared instantly with Windex. (You don’t see THAT in Hints from Heloise.)

I don’t think anyone’s really out to get that truck. Maybe that’s naive. But I really don’t.  I think it sits on a corner in a neighborhood with bored teenager types and it’s just too irresistible to mess with.  (I feel almost the same way about it.)

We have baseball later. Seth-6yr’s team. There was an odd coup thing that occurred and the old coach was replaced with a really rude, new coach. Which is fine. I guess. But last week was his first game to coach and he didn’t let Seth-6yr bat. At all. So after the game I waited until he was finished talking to people, introduced myself, and said I’d noticed that Seth-6yr  hadn’t gotten to bat. He was immediately rude and defensive, and answered by saying, “WELL IT WASN’T INTENTIONAL. IF THAT’S WHAT YOU”RE SAYING.”

But… no? I didn’t say that or think that…. I was just bringing it to his attention since… he… was.. the coach…?

He got even angrier.

I got big-eyed and surprised.

I’d stayed out of the mama-drama gossiping and  meetings that led up to the coup and admittedly – GLADLY – have no idea the politics and backstory that went on. (as if I need that in my life right now? NO THANK YOU.) All I knew was that my kid should have gotten to bat, and he didn’t.

But I do know there had been a conflict between him and Mike. Perhaps it actually WAS intentional as payback for Mike. Absurd as that is, it makes more sense than anything else. (Mike was somewhere, observing the discussion  from a distance. Probably just as well.)  The coach jumped in his truck and left, even though half the team parents were all standing around still.

Mike wanted to discuss it all, especially the issues that bothered him,  with the league people. And I thought it might be in Seth-6yr’s best interest going forward, since nothing got resolved when I’d talked to the coach directly. So we did. The league guy we talked to was helpful. Made notes and seemed on top of it all. Then he laughed and said he was a little afraid of me too, and he checked out my butt when we left in such an obvious way that I wanted to put a hand back there to block his view.*

But my kid better bat tonight, or I’ll really give that coach a reason to jump in his truck and run off. YEAH.

(Okay, not really. But obviously it wouldn’t be too difficult.)

*Fine. Whatever i was wearing was probably slightly tighter than it should have been, but you know what? I AM HAPPILY “LETTING MYSELF GO.” That’s it. Right there. I said it. I’m eating more, working out less, and you caught me, Mr Baseball Guy, my jeans are a little too tight. But i haven’t decided if it’s worse to go and buy a whole new wardrobe one size bigger right now in the middle of a divorce, from ‘community property funds’ or worse to look slightly scandalous and assume – sometimes incorrectly – that no one will care or notice. I’m CHEAP. As in, ‘don’t want to spend the money.’  Not the other kind.

Sesth-6yr, upon hearing of a person’s pattern of bad choices in a passing conversation: “Fiery DARTS. That’s what that is. Fiery darts from hell. Learned about that at school, yes we did, FI- UHR-EEE DARTS. I’m gonna play basketball now.”  I looked up Ephesians 6:16. Seth-6yr was RIGHT on track with that unexpected word.

“Restraining Orders. Tell me everything you know, please.” (turned out to be unnecessary. no, not Mike)

“Does God ever speak to you through Johnny Cash? LISTEN TO THIS, it’s about when people lie about you, LOVE IT, best line is “long tongue liars” and what happens to them. God CUTS! THEM! DOWN!”

Seth-6yr, in a pathetic voice while getting tucked into bed and feeling like stirring up some drama: “Mom, sometimes the Enemy says to me, ‘your mom is the worst cooker ever’ and then it makes me sad.”

(the above was immediately followed by a gaspy laughing spitting yelling reaction that had him hiding his dimples in his pillow because he KNEW he couldn’t have gotten a better reaction than that.)

“You are a little mama, but that’s okay because you are tougher than big guys.”  (I don’t feel like that right now, but let em think it anyway.)

“God either put us together to be friends because He knew we needed each other — or we just drew together all on our own like two magnets because no one else in this town has lives as screwed up as ours.”

“Where do you go to school?” This one had to have been the strangest. It was a neighbor of my mother’s, my age, and she was talking to ME. Hello? Divorcing. Mother of four. WRINKLES. But hey, that’s fine.

My dad, via text: “It’s been a long time since you asked me how to fix something you broke.”

My dad, via text, regarding my adamant refusal to be set up with a ‘nice guy’ he knows, and my telling him I also was not interested in the average sized man named Tiny who tried to pick me up at Lowe’s: “OH. There’s never a good reason for an average sized man to be nicknamed TINY.”

(That is an excellent observation.)

“Even though it’s been months, I still have a DENT in my left ring finger. Like one of those African women who has the gold rings around her neck and then she gets deformed? That’s what this is like… OH. NO. NEVERMIND. THAT”S AWFUL. MAYBE I”M BEING CYNICAL ABOUT MARRIAGE. SORRY.”

“Is it terrible that I threw open the door with a smile when I saw it was the Constable because I was hoping he was serving me with divorce papers? YES. Yes, I guess it is. WOW I HAVE A BAD ATTITUDE.”

There was a moment when a law enforcement official pulled his SUV up to the house and there were several POSSIBLE explanations for his presence that went through my head . I don’t EVER want that to be the case. Please, let me be more boring than that.

The kids and I are sleep deprived from severe weather, tornado type stuff. There is minor damage to home and truck. i can’t even care yet. WAY down the priority list.

There was an emergency therapy session today. I had a long written list of Things That Are Making Me Freak Out.

I can only tell you about one of the minor things:  the man at church.

He freaks me out.

He’s gotta be in his 80s and I thought he was nice to me a couple of weeks ago. I told my mom about it and she said that he was flirting. I said of course not. I reminded her of his age. She said that some men will flirt with their mortician, so his being in his 80s doesn’t really preclude that behavior. I laughed at her. And then forgot.

But she was right, it turns out. The 80s-ish man with a hearing aid got his flirt on with me during the quiet, serene, SILENT, and reverent passing of the plate time and i thought i’d just DIE of embarrassment. He loudly started hitting on me. THEN. OF ALL TIMES. LET ME JUST DIE NOW, JESUS. Folks around us adjusted hearing aids and turned around to stare. My face got really really hot and my hair was in a ponytail so i couldn’t even hide behind it. I made a tiny, involuntary high pitched whimper sound, but I could. not. help.  it.

Solution: Never sit there again. EVER. Despite the alarming, impassioned invitation to do so pretty much forever.

Lesson: If there is always a blank spot in the same place each week, WONDER WHY. Be suspicious. MISTRUST THE HARMLESS LOOKING OLDIES, if necessary.

Seth-6yr last night told me that in order to live a longer life, I should pet animals. I smiled. He looked pointedly back and forth from me to the cat, who was across the room. And then when that didn’t work, he told me to GO PET THE ANIMAL. He said he’d read about this is in a book. There was something urgent in his face. I asked if he was worried about me. He said he was. So I petted the cat.

I found out why he was worried about the length of my life a little later. I’ll be doing other things besides just petting a cat in order to live to another Sunday and a different pew. I’m fine. I got this. I just hate it that Seth-6yr felt he had to strategize for my safety.

Solution: Pet a cat. NOW, MOM.

Oh, so cute.

He’s right though. Nothing wrong with new, out of the box strategies.

Do you believe that? It was a statement made by my lovely therapist lady about  month ago and I considered it… and then almost forgot about it. I was reminded on Monday morning, and again yesterday afternoon.

Wednesdays, the kids get out a little early and I take them over to my mom’s. For some reason, the boys were VERY laid back and quiet and calm and kind and peaceful. Seth-6yr played with a miniature zen garden (tiny rake and sand) for TWO HOURS. I curled up on a quilt in a sunbeam and listened to the unusual peace of a house full of content (and maybe tired) boys.

My mother loves beach glass, and there have always been blue and green frosty pieces of beach glass in dishes around her homes for as long as I can remember. She was showing Seth-6yr a rare find, and I listened from my sunbeam as she described how she found a perfectly intact, whole, frosty glass bottle on a beach one day. She told him why that would be so rare to find an unbroken vessel like that. It had delighted her, as if someone had put it there just for her to find.

Exactly. 

I very much believe Someone DID put it there just for her, just because He loves her.

I had a moment like that of my own on Monday. I was looking at Craigslist for trashy furniture and found a GORGEOUS chair. Normally, I’m looking for stuff to fix up and get rid of. But this was gorgeous, and needed nothing except a good home. It’s a curvy, carved chair from the late 60s and it has the EXACT color of Seriously Ugly Green fabric that I happen to REALLY adore right now. I’d call it peuce. Or Squished Pea. It’s my FAVORITE ugly color. There’s a lot of it in my bedroom right now.

It was $50. I don’t spend $50 on chairs I do not need, just because I want them.  I’m in a Minimal Expense Phase. (Except when I spent many times that amount a few weeks ago and then texted Mike to say, I JUST SPENT A LOT OF MONEY. ON MAKEUP. YOU SHOULD PROBABLY DIVORCE ME ALREADY. But that was an isolated thing. (the makeup was great,  Mike seemed to find it humorous, and was unmoved apparently in moving forward with legal stuff.)

But there was more to this Craigslist thing. There was a definite ‘go get the chair’ vibe coming from God. I texted the seller. A woman called me right back and told me to come get it.

I LOVE my ugly green chair. i really do. But that was just a bonus. The real blessing that day was meeting this tiny, full of joy, woman. She opened the door to her home, smiled a huge smile,  and threw her arms around me in a hug. She immediately told me she was 86 1/2 years old. I guess if you want to throw your arms around a stranger when you’re 86 1/2, you just do it. When she did this, she smashed her hand on the wall and then threw her head back and laughed about how she’d just broken a nail off. It was endearingly clumsy, and exactly something I would have done.

Her home was empty, except for the green chair that her family members had said no one would ever want. She was selling her house and moving in with a daughter, and that chair was about all that was left. She worried about a buyer, but then said that God would bring her the exact right buyer for her house just as He had brought the exact right buyer for her chair.

We sat on the hearth and she told me her life story. She and her chair had lived at the same lake in Central Texas that my family used to visit regularly when I was really young. The coincidence delighted us both. She wanted to know about the boys. About church. About God. About Mike. And then she gave me a tour of her home and told me why SHE had been the perfect buyer for the widow who sold it to her 13 years before.

An hour later, when I carried out the chair and put it in the car, she hugged me again and planted a sweet little old lady kiss right on my cheek and held my face between her hands and said, “You. Are. Precious.” And then she laughed, as if she were completely delighted with life and stood in the driveway and waved while I backed my car into the street.

I drove away talking to myself about that lady. She made me want to laugh and cry at the same time. I don’t think there was any particular spiritual message to be found. Just that sometimes when you’re feeling a little down, God can pick you up and send you off to a meeting with a little old lady angel type- and then the rest of your day and week seems to change course.

Just because He loves you.

Except.

The Exception.

Ethan-12yr and I were reading together in his room  -’devotionals for dog lovers’ or something like that. add an animal to any conversation, and suddenly you have ethan-12yr’s undivided attention. Seth-6yr came in and he was crying.

He got the standard line.

He went back to bed and wailed his little heart out.

I yelled for him to hang on and I’d be there in a minute.

He screamed that there was a moth in his room and it was going to eat his underwear.

He was PETRIFIED. Genuinely terrified for his life and for his underwear.

I sent him to the couch, away from the moth, and laughed all over Ethan-12.

I told him I’d help him in a little bit, and to get comfortable, and I went to tuck in Caden-8yr.  Caden-8yr wanted to know what was wrong with Seth-6yr.

Caden-8yr listened to my explanation and then said, “you know you’re the reason why he thinks that, right?”

Caden-8yr has a matter of fact little way of looking bored as he totally nails you with some bit of truth you’ve forgotten and he remembers verbatim.

“Um… no?”

“Well. Last year we were outside and I caught a moth and gave it to him and he said he would keep it as a pet. And so he kept it in his underwear drawer. A few days later you found out about it – because he said to you, “I have a pet moth, Mom” – and then you got mad and told him that it would EAT his underwear and he had to get rid of it and then he went to his drawer and pulled out a pair of Elmo underwear and it had holes and he was sad and he threw them away.”

“WHAT? HE DOESN’T EVEN HAVE ELMO UNDERWEAR.”

“Well. Not anymore. Because his pet moth ate them.”

“So… he’s afraid the moth on his ceiling who hasnt’ moved all day is going to eat the underwear right off his body while he sleeps and that’s why he’s so afraid he’s crying his head off?”

Caden-8yr took a moment. And then said, “Yes. Because that is what you told him.”  There was a hint of condemnation in that statement.  I heard it loud and clear.

I thanked him for that little revelation, we read about Joseph, and then i went to slay the moth with Seth-6yr. I used a broom with clorox wipes on the end of it. I don’t know what else to slay moths with, and this did the job JUST fine in case you need to know.

Seth-6yr cheered me on until I killed it and did not ONCE suggest sparing his life and keeping it as a pet.

I tucked him in, apologized, and he and his underwear slept peacefully the rest of the night.

I feel terrible about how upset he was, and how it really WAS my fault, but then it’s just so cute I can’t stop laughing. Seth-6yr took a baseball to the thigh in a game a few weeks ago. He shook his leg, looked at me for a brief second in the stands to see if I’d seen it happen, and then went on as if it didn’t hurt at all. He didnt’ rub it, cry, yell, or say a word to anyone.

He had a baseball sized purple circle bruise on that thigh the next day.

He can be tough.

But clearly, there are limits.

Moth and Underwear Limits.