I’ve Become My Mother In Law

It’s bad enough when we become our mothers. According to my children, I’ve gone a step further. I blame the dog.

My Italian Greyhound is very special. Very. And he has a sensitive stomach. Something must have gotten in there because he stopped eating, started vomiting, and ended up losing 6 of his precious 22 pounds. We can’t have that now, can we? The vet gave me two different medicines and suggested I try to give him some “higher quality” food. Whatever.

So there I am in the kitchen browning hamburger to mix with rice. For the dog. Just to nurse him back to health, mind you, then it’s Old Roy or nothing.

“Mom!” my daughter cried. “What are you doing?”

“It’s for Simon.”

“You’re turning into YaYa,” she said.

Yeah, there’s really no point to this story. Just wanted you all to know that I’ve become a woman who cooks for her dog. It can only get better.

Community Building Goes Commando

I have learned in the past couple of months that when you say yes to attend a meeting because they “just really appreciate your input”, that means you have actually committed to working on the project. And when you tell the organizers that you can “help” in a particular area of the project’s execution, this means you will be heading up that committee. Try it, you’ll see.

Anyway, I accidentally volunteered to build a playground. And when I say “build a playground” I don’t mean showing up on the work day and assembling some pre-fabricated pieces. I mean I signed on to “make it happen.” (What could I say? They appreciated my input.) While I’m sure I’ll meet some wonderful people and learn valuable skills (including community building) throughout the process, so far it’s just a source of material.

Picture a dozen adults tasked with choosing playground colors. The organizer pulls out 30 or so metal and plastic samples and tells us we must choose two metal colors and one plastic color–and we must devise three different color combinations. 30 x 2 + 1 to the 3rd power? That’s like infinity, right? I looked at the clock and tried to ignore the growl in my gut.

Almost immediately preferences emerged. Clear factions formulated and soon there developed a rift between The Bolds and The Naturals. Voices of reason tried to steer the color conversation to practical matters like the color’s effect on the temperature of different surfaces. Heated debate about reds vs. yellows vs. greens and browns continued. An old man wondered aloud why we were even building a playground. “Let them play with sticks!”

After much shuffling of metal and plastic samples, two natural color schemes and a combat motif were chosen.

Ahh… I love the smell of community building in the morning.

What’s Wrong With This Advertising Model?

I have been in love with Pandora for a while. It is the ultimate running companion. Since I use the free version, after about 40 minutes an ad comes on. Then my music resumes and all is right with the world. I don’t mind the advertising. I wonder how they know someone listening to Ludacris is also in the market for laundry detergent, but it’s all good. Usually when I run I listen to upbeat pop or rap, but occasionally, when I am feeling extra one-with-nature I’ll turn on the Gregorian Chant channel. I turn the volume down low so I can hear the birds chirping and the wind rustling through the trees along with the voices of the monks (or studio musicians-whatever). I’m peaceful like that.

This morning I got my chant on. After 40 minutes a song ended and my internal reverie was interrupted by this too-cheerful message:

“That one always gets me going!” Followed by some pitch for soap or cleaning products or a nonstick something or other.

Pandora, one word: customization.

Possible Signs of the End Times

My children have been acting strange lately. I don’t know whether to be ecstatic or terrified. Over the past week one or both have done the following:

- cleaned the playroom (not as the result of a threat)

- mowed the lawn as promised, remembering to sweep up afterward

- put laundry away in appropriate drawers

- generally displayed a helpful attitude in all domestic matters

You might want to start stocking up on dry goods, and psalms.

Talking to Boys

When did talking to boys become so difficult? My son and his friend attended engineering camp at the University of Arkansas this week. (We’ll save the geektacular jokes for another post.) It’s a cool opportunity and I’m curious what they do all day, and being on the pick-up end of the carpool, you’d think I would be able to extract some decent information.

So, what’d you do today?

We did some stuff and then we had a lecture.

What kind of stuff?

Engineering, mostly.

And what was the lecture about?

Our schedule.

What about your schedule?

The things on it.

And those things are?

You know, the details.

And what would those details be?

About the stuff on our schedule.

Yeah, that’s what I’m trying to understand. So what is on your schedule?

Mom – WHY do you ask so many questions?

You Might Be a Mother If…

Browsing around for something to write about, I became distracted by some spots on my screen. They didn’t wipe away easily so I did what any good mother would do. I put a little spit on that fancy electronic cleaning wipe and scrubbed them off.

Containing Myself

I lost my Container Store virginity last week. I’d heard the hype so I walked around an outdoor shopping mall in north Dallas for forty minutes waiting for it to open on July 4th. Sure, I was also avoiding my family, but that’s another story. Inside the store I had to pry myself away from magnetic doohickies that stick to your locker door – holding lipgloss, concealer sticks, and other essentials for surviving high school. Despite the fact that I’m not in high school and have no locker of any kind, I actually had to tell myself-repeatedly-that I had no use for such things. This is how intoxicating the Container Store and any other place of its ilk is for me. I’m mesmerized in certain sections of Staples, dumbfounded in the closet area of Lowes, and stupefied among the office supplies at Target.

I am a consumer of home organization porn. I want to believe–I do believe–that life is better when its contents are properly stowed and labeled, preferably in a clear typeface. Getting organized causes me to simplify, to cull all those unnecessary objects from my life, or at least contain them in space-efficient decorative bins. The process works for ideas too. Just check my hard drive, my internet spaces, the 3-ring binders that grace my not-very-orgnized shelves, the post-its on the white board I’m using to plot my novel.

A friend of mine has a pantry that has to be at least 100 square feet. Her custom built home is not some ridiculous mansion and she has no servants to fetch the Sunday linens; the woman simply values organization. There is a place for every can of mushroom soup and tiered platter in that miracle of modern kitchenry. To be that organized, equipped…. well one could probably survive the apocalypse in a place like that – if one had enough adjustable shelving and plastic boxes.

Sometimes I think it’s a joke, all this planning and organizing – just one more way to procrastinate. But then the loan officer calls about my refinance. I reach into the drawer next to my computer and pull out the file labeled “refi” and pull out the document she’s requesting before she finishes her sentence. Sickening, isn’t it?

We’ve Made it Past the Fourth of July

It’s really summer now – we’re deep into the heat of sunburn, the thick of the humidity. And what does that mean for parents everywhere? In my experience we fall out into two camps.

Parent A:  I can’t believe summer vacation is half over already! I’m starting to miss them just thinking of school starting again. It really is true – they grow up so fast. Treasure every moment!

Parent B: I cant’ believe I haven’t been institutionalized already. Actually, that might be a welcome rest. Only six weeks to go. I will make it. I will, right?

Which parent are you? On a given day?

Conservationist Rednecks in Training

My children care about the Earth. And they have lived in Arkansas for most of their lives. Hence the following exchange:

“Hey, Mom, did you know we saved three gallons of water today?”
“How did you do that?”
“We peed in the yard.”

Maternal pride swells.

My Ten Pound Baby Is Not

My daughter turned ten last week. She wanted to see her birth certificate so we got out the baby book. There on the first page a blatant error stood out. Her birth announcement read 8 pounds 14 ounces. Shocked that I would make such a mistake I searched for other documentation. The hospital record of birth, her crib identification card, and in the doula’s notes all confirmed her actual birth weight: 8 pounds 14 1/2 ounces. Damn. My second baby, the one who had to be pried out of me under anesthesia, the one with the Apgar score of 1, the one who nearly killed us both was a TEN pound baby. Ten.

Okay, so maybe I exaggerated a tiny bit. But when you have a baby that weighs in a 9 pound 14 1/2 ounces, you are allowed to round up. It’s an ounce and a half for goodness sake. And that’s just what I did, from day one she was a 10 pound baby. I told everyone, have been telling everyone for the last decade that I birthed a ten pound baby. It indicates my kick-ass-ness as a mother and underscores her tomboyish toughness. But she wasn’t just under 10 pounds; she was just under 9 pounds. The fact would not reconcile with my myth.

“I don’t care what it says,” my husband told her. “You’ll always be a ten pounder to me.”

That’s our story and we’re sticking with it.

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