Goo Mascot. May 29, 2010

And this is why my funk moods always evaporate eventually …

Owen was playing with a big jar of slimey goo.  (What IS that stuff, really, and why do kids love it?  It’s like a jar of Stretch Armstrong’s insides).  Next time I saw him, he had poked a hole in the middle of the goo and managed to work it over his generously-sized noggin.  After completing my momentary freak-out and reassuring myself that the goo necklace wasn’t choking him, this exchange:

“Why are you wearing slime around your neck?”

“Because it’s my mascot.”

“Your what?

“My mascot.”

“Um … do you mean ascot?”

“Yeah, that’s it.”

“Do you even know what an ascot is?”

“Yeah, it’s a thing you wear around your neck.  It’s like a bandana, but fancier.”

Coming soon to a haberdashery near you … the Goo [M]Ascot.

“Oh, The Divorces.” May 27, 2010

I’m in a funk that’s lasting a few days longer than I’d like.  I think it started when I was combing through old photo albums looking for pictures of my parents to put into the birthday blog posts (here and aqui).  I have albums and albums and albums full of separate pictures I’ve compiled for each of the kids—a photo-journal of their lives from birth forward.  I probably should’ve avoided taking that particular trip down memory lane, because I don’t think I was really ready for it.  Too many photos of too many happy times.  Too much evidence of promises made and then completely disregarded.  Too much “what was going to be” that now, isn’t.  Too early for me to be ripping the scab off that wound.  I look at those pictures and just get hit with wave after wave of “What the hell happened?”  How could that become this?

Quite tellingly, I stopped putting any photos in albums last summer.  I should catch up, but the photos we take now all look sort of sad to me—like the kids and I are trying really hard to be ok, but nothing’s quite right no matter how much we pretend like it is.  I hope (and expect) that will get better in time, but I’m not sure that once I get on the other side I want to look back at too many photos of this year anyway.

I was driving home today and a song came on the radio (KXT—for anyone in my area, tune in and be graced with some of the best and most off-the-beaten-path music you’re likely to hear off-satellite).  It was Tracey Thorn’s “Oh, The Divorces” (I Shazamed it.  God bless you, iPhone!).

Give it a listen here if you have a few minutes:

The haunting melody and the melancholy of her voice sort of grabbed my gut and wouldn’t let go.  And the lyrics … well, there were too many lines that hit way too close to home—it does a pretty good job of describing what divorce looks like in my world.  Being the ones that you’d least expect.   The all-too-commonplace infidelity.  The effect that divorce has not just on the couple going through it, but on the people on their periphery as well.  The choosing of sides, whether you intend to or not.  And this line:

“The honeymoon, the wedding ring …
The afternoon handovers by the swings.”

That line kills me in its simplicity and impact.  How a once beautiful and real and seemingly impermeable state can just disintegrate into an arms’ length transaction of passing children back and forth … how love can turn into “the legal biz and custody.”

But it happens.  Again and again and again.  And there’s never really much that differs among the stories.

“And this one is different
And each one of course is
And always the same
Oh, the divorces!”

I keep hearing of other peoples’ divorces and I wonder what in the world makes any of us think it’s ever actually going to work?  Why we think there’s a guarantee where none exists?  And when it happens, when we hear of another marriage falling, don’t the ones still standing (and the ones who’ve managed to get back upon their feet again) ask this:

“I examine my heart
See how it stands
Wonder if it’s still in safe hands.”

But how can you ever really know?

I don’t know if this song makes me feel hopeful or disheartened.  A little of both, I think.  I feel certain I’ll read this post tomorrow and think it is a downer—too negative, too pessimistic, too hardened.  But like it or not, that’s part of my reality these days.  It’s not the whole story, but it’s a very real part and I’d feel like a fraud if I didn’t write about the bad parts as well as the good.

At a minimum, this song makes me feel like my story has been told a million times before and will be told a million times after.  There’s comfort there.  It doesn’t get me out of my funk, but it does make me feel as though this is just one part of my life.  Just one step on the road.  Just something to get through.

I can do that.

A Good Cry. May 26, 2010

Sometimes what I need is a really good cry.

I watched the LOST finale last night and that got me started.  Seeing so much finality and emotion on the screen just opened the floodgates, and once I started I couldn’t stop.  Of course, after the first 30 seconds I wasn’t crying about a damned television show, but there’s been a lot of stuff building up in me lately and I just haven’t had time to deal.  Or time to feel.

And so, as it always does, that backlog of things that have been eating away at me eventually found a way to spill out.  The result was a seriously eye-swelling, nose-snotting, chest-hitching, headache-leaving good cry.  That’s what I needed and that’s what I got.  I could tell you what all I was crying about, but I won’t because it doesn’t really matter.  Any one of the things that triggered it would sound unimportant—it’s the confluence of them all that just gets to be too much sometimes.

And you know what?  It kinda sucked.  But at the same time, it felt kinda good to feel that bad.  It needed to happen.  This morning, I feel better.  Cleaner.  Nothing’s changed since last night, but nothing seems as weighty anymore, either.

I wonder what men do when all the bad builds up?  I know it must happen to them, too, even if the things that cause it for them are different than the things that cause it for us women.  And I know that when it happens, most of them don’t give in to a good cry.  Maybe they should.  Because sometimes it really, really helps.

Happy Birthday, Mom. May 25, 2010

Today is my mom’s birthday (I won’t tell you how old she is).  The picture above is of her, pre-kids, back before she was a mom.  It is a picture of a young girl, newly married, trying out her fledgling maternal instinct on a practice-dog-child.

My mom didn’t need the practice.  She is, and always has been, an AMAZING mother.  I sometimes wonder why she was never burdened by the self-doubt and worry that I feel so often … that heart-squeezing fear that maybe I’m not a good enough mother, that pressure of always feeling like I need to do more/try harder/be better.  I suspect that if I asked her, she’d tell me she did feel those things at one time.  I don’t think I’d believe her, though.

I’m not sure I know how to properly write a thank-you note (because that’s what this is meant to be) to my mother.  How does one even begin to do that?  To describe and appreciate the one who gave me life, who wiped my bottom and doctored my skinned knees.  The one who held my hair when I was sick and the one who listened to my hoarse tears through that first broken heart … and the second … and the third …. The one who worried about me and who worries about me still.  The one who is mother.

That’s me, less than a month old, and that’s my new-mother mom.  She was 26.  I’m guessing she had no idea what she was doing but I look at this photo and I know she was loving me.  And I know she never stopped.

My mother always put her children first.  She took care of us before she took care of herself.  When money was tight, any extras (including birthday or Christmas gift monies from her parents) bought us shoes or clothes or fun.  She put a home-cooked meal on the table every night.  She was always the class room mother at school.  She made me write thank you notes and say “Yes, ma’am” and “Yes, sir” and “please” and “thank you” and “excuse me.”  She corrected my grammar.  She made me say my prayers and made sure I went to church.  She baked cupcakes and bought birthday gifts and arranged play dates and helped us with our homework and washed our clothes and cleaned up after us and refereed our fights and monitored our television watching and made our doctors’ appointments and talked to our teachers and made sure we were hanging around with good friends and attended every awards ceremony/piano recital/sports game/school play.  She was Always.There.  She was constant.

And she always made us believe that there was nothing on earth she’d rather be doing.

My friends always loved my mom.  Most wanted her to be their mom.  Some still want that.  She is truly and deeply and sincerely one of the kindest people I’ve ever met.  She makes friends with anyone, anywhere.  She is the one who drives her friends to chemo appointments and sits with them when things are bad.  She is the one who checks in on elderly neighbors (even after they’re not neighbors any more).  She takes food and she sends flowers and she writes notes and she offers help.

She adores her grandchildren.  In trying to gather pictures for this post, I realized that my mom is rarely in the photos we take.  I think she is usually preparing food and getting something ready or just handling one of my kids so that I can relax for a moment.  She’s off being a mom somewhere, and we rarely capture it on film (which is so sad but so perfect because it exemplifies how moms just never stop doing their mom thing and how nobody really notices it until they go to look for photos and see that mom isn’t in any of them).  99.9% of the photos she is in however?  They look like this:

and this:

and this:

For the past eight years, if she’s been in a photo of mine, she’s almost always holding one of my children.  And not just holding them, but holding onto them for dear life.   She is actively loving them—hugging and squeezing and kissing and smiling.  She is their “Gigi” and when she knocks on the door they go running into her arms.

My mom feels pain when I feel pain, and this past year she’s felt a lot.  I wish I could have spared her that.

I’m 38 years old and my mom is still my mom.  She still does for me and takes care of me—in so many ways I probably take for granted and in ways I’m sure I don’t sufficiently thank her for.  She is still my mom, but she is also my friend.  And I am so lucky, because she is a really, really good friend.

She’s not going to like me posting that picture, but I’m doing it anyway.  This was on vacation last year and it’s my mom pretending like she is about to smoke that cigar in my hand.  And it’s hilarious because she never, EVER would actually do that.  (She’s a lady.  Ladies don’t smoke cigars! ) But she’s goofing around with me and we were having fun and there’s another picture taken right after that one (and I’m not posting it because if you think THIS photo is unflattering, you should see the one that came right after) where we are both laughing hysterically.  And it’s a good memory for me.

If I’m doing anything at all right as a mother, it’s because of my own mom.  I know for sure I’m not doing it as well as she did, but I’m trying.  I am so unbelievably blessed to have been born to her.  I have always needed her.  I still need her.  She is mom and she is still the safest place in the world.  Happy Birthday, Mom.  I love you.

Field Day. May 21, 2010

Today is Field Day at my kids’ elementary school.  Avery and Owen have different assigned times to participate in the Field Day activities, so The Ex and I decided to each take a shift and spend some one-on-one time with them.  We let them decide which parent went with which child.  Usually, they split fairly predictably along gender lines, with Avery choosing me and Owen choosing The Ex, but today they flip-flopped.  Owen chose me and I can’t remember the last time I spent a happier two hours.

O’s in a Pre-K class with 8 little boys.  They are all rough and tumble kids, but all very sweet to each other.  When they run around on the playground, they seem to be connected by invisible string—they’re like migratory birds moving in formation, and they turn and bank and change course in unison.  I watched Owen spin with his friends on the tire swing until I was nauseated.  I watched them on the swings, kicking higher and higher, looking up at the clouds the entire time.  They all laughed the purest, deepest, whole-body laughs, and you could tell just by looking at them that there wasn’t a cell in their bodies that wasn’t exploding with joy.

One of Owen’s classmates took to calling me “Mom” and Owen beamed with pride.  When it was time for me to leave, another of the boys said, “Awww.  Don’t leave—you’re fun!”  Simple words from a 5-year-old boy, but I felt like I’d won the lottery.  Owen was exceptionally sweet and loving the entire morning.  He reached for my hand as we walked around to the various activities, he gave me bear hugs and kisses without prompting, and he never left my side.  I know the days of that type of public affection are limited. So limited that I realize this might be the last time it happens.  So limited that it’s requiring a fairly Herculean effort for me not to go back up to school right now and get some more of it while the getting’s still good.

As we were first walking out onto the field, I realized I had forgotten my camera.  I told Owen, and apologized for not being able to take any pictures.  He took my hand and said, “That’s ok, Mom.  It’s more importanter for you to spent time with your son than to take pictures.”  And he was right.

Saying Yes. May 19, 2010

This post is the final part of Five for Ten over at Momalom.com. I skipped only one of the topics, but because I jumped in at the last possible minute after the series was already underway, I’m feeling ok about hitting 4 out of 5.  Today’s post, and last topic of the series, is YES.

Then …

I said yes to him.

I said yes to marriage, to partnership, to life and love and parenting.

I said yes to together forever.

I said yes to total trust, total exposure, total vulnerability, total immersion of myself into another.

I said yes to putting the WE before the ME.  I said yes to the greater good.

I said yes to fidelity.  I said yes to commitment.

He said yes, too.

And then he said NO.

Today …

I say yes to my children.  I say yes to my family.  I say yes to my friends.

I say yes to me.

I say yes to pain and to pleasure and to laughter and to tears.

I say yes to not knowing the map of the future.

I say yes to courage, strength, contentment, hope.

No to bitterness, revenge, hatred, destruction, harm.

I say yes to new paths.  Yes to trying new things.  Yes to new possibilities.

I say yes to honesty.  I say yes to being open.

I say yes to this life, this day, this way.

Yes.

Happy Birthday, Dad. May 18, 2010

This is quite possibly my favorite picture of all time.  That’s my dad when he was two, holding some scraggly yard bird.

Today’s my dad’s 66th birthday.  He’s impossible to buy for.

My dad grew up in a very small town in Alabama with very little money.  Very small town.  Very little money.  He got his first job before he hit double digits and never stopped working his ass off until he retired a few years ago.  He (with a little help from the US Navy) put himself through college and graduate school.  He met and married my mom and they had me, then three more kinda like me.

My entire life, until the day he retired, my dad worked six days a week.  On his day off, I think he worked even harder at home—there were always projects to be completed and yard work to be done.  I rarely remember my dad just sitting, other than to read the paper at night and maybe to watch an occasional Alabama football game on TV.  He was always working.  I say this with awe, because now that I’m an adult, I know how bone-tired life can make you feel.  I don’t ever remember hearing him complain about too much work, though.  On the contrary, he seemed to welcome it—where there was work, there was the feeling of a job well done at the end of it.  And that made doing the work worthwhile. I learned the value of hard work from my dad, the satisfaction of doing something that needed to be done, the sense of utilizing the time in a day to move the ball forward.  I learned that effort, in and of itself, was an achievement, but also that the only way to achieve anything of value was to work hard for it.

My dad taught me how to ride a bike.  How to fish.  How to mow the yard.  He taught me that getting frustrated with something wasn’t going to make it any easier.  He taught me how to drive a stick shift.  How to change a tire.  How to rebuild the engine of a 1981 Ford Escort after you forget (for a very long time) to put oil or water in it.  He taught me that doing the best that you can do is always good enough, but that doing anything less is cause for embarrassment.  He taught me how to throw a ball.  How to throw a punch.  He taught me how to go along when you needed to get along, but never to take any crap off of anybody.   He taught me, by example, his love of reading.  He introduced me to science fiction—Asimov and Heinlein, Lucas and Roddenberry.

My dad was hard on me.  He didn’t put up with much bullshit and he absolutely would not tolerate a smart mouth (those of you who know me can imagine how well that went over).  We butted heads quite often.  There were times growing up that I thought I’d never measure up.  Once I became an adult, though?  He took a giant step back and let me walk around on my own two feet.  He rarely offers advice now unless I ask for it.  He may not always agree with or understand my decisions or my opinions, but he is clear in his words and in his actions that they are mine to make.  And when the tough times come, as they’ve come this past year, he is utterly and completely supportive of me.

My dad is retired now.  To my sisters’ and my complete amazement, retirement suits him just fine.  He works in his yard and in his garden.  He travels … as often as he can and as far around the globe as he can go.  He goes to every Mavs home game.  He socializes with his friends.  He helps out my sisters and me with various house and yard projects.  And he enjoys his grandchildren.

He watercolors with Avery.

He takes Owen exploring in the woods.

He introduces Amelia to the beautiful things he grows outside.

He goes to my kids’ ball games and swim meets, school programs and birthday parties.  He takes them to the movies and to the beach.  This summer, he’s taking them to a Dude Ranch.  Visits to “Pop’s” house are adventures—he pulls the kids on tractor rides, lets them harvest vegetables from his garden, takes them on treasure hunts in the woods.  He makes sure they are introduced to science and nature—that they know the vast wonder of just being outdoors.

I don’t remember a time when he seemed happier.

I wouldn’t be the person I am today if it hadn’t been for my dad, and I am grateful to him for all his hard work and for the acceptance of hard work he instilled in me.  I watch him with my children and know that on a different scale, he is shaping them, too, and I am grateful for his influence upon them.  We are all lucky to have him.

Happy Birthday, Dad.

Maybe Honesty Isn’t The Best Policy. May 17, 2010

So, I have this thing about not lying to my kids.  They know this and they trust this.  They regularly comment on the fact that I never lie to them.  I evade a lot, though.

My kids don’t know I have a blog.  I’ve never mentioned it because I’m definitely not going to let them read it anytime soon and because I don’t want The Ex to know it’s out here (partially because it’s none of his business and partially because the idea of The Ex or The Girlfriend reading any of my inner sortings makes me feel physically ill).  Then last night as I was making dinner …

Avery:  Mom—do you have a blog?

Me: Ga … Wha … Who said … AHEM.  Why do you ask?

Avery:  Well, DO you?

Me: Um, well, sometimes I write things and let people read them online and how do you even know about blogs and WHY are you asking me this, exactly?

Avery: Because if you had a blog you could find a new husband.

Me:  I could WHAT?

Avery: You could advertise and find a new husband.

Owen: Yeah—You could say “I’m a mom and I’m pretty and smart and single and come marry me!”

Me: Well, thank you for that, O, but I’m pretty sure I’m not going to do that.  Why, pray tell, do you think I would want to find another husband?

Avery: Because you need somebody to help take care of us.

Me: Your Daddy helps me take care of you.

Avery: Like, by giving you money? (Aside: THANK YOU, Ex, for introducing our kids to the concept of child support—no doubt explained as though you’re doing it out of the goodness of your heart rather than via court order.)

Me: Yes, by giving me money and by going to your ball games and by taking you to school and by taking care of you and lots of other stuff.

Avery: Yeah, but he’s not here all the time.

Me: No, he’s not.

Avery: And that’s why you need a new husband.

Me: I really, really don’t.

Avery: Well, if you won’t start a blog to find a new husband, can we start one for you?

Me: No, you may not.  Sweetie, I am good.  You don’t need to worry about me.  If Mommy wants to spend grown-up time with someone while y’all are at your Dad’s, I can do that without advertising. I can find my own dates, but thanks.

Avery: So, DO you go on dates when we’re at Dad’s?

CR-AP!  Being trapped by a 7-year-old is embarrassing.

Me: Yes, I have gone on dates.

Avery: What?  When?  How many dates?  Who with? Where did you go?  Do we know them?  How old are they? Are they as old as Mia’s dad?  Did you KISS them?

And that, my friends, is why we should all rethink the not lying to our kids thing.

Remembering Her Childhood. May 16, 2010

I have three sisters.  The youngest two sisters are twins and they are ten years younger than I am.  As the oldest of four, I filled the predictable role of bossy, take-charge, know-it-all in our family (still do).  When the twins were born, my parents relied on me the same way I rely on Avery now—to be a second-tier parent, to be responsible, to set a good example, to feed and diaper and bathe and play with and watch over these babies that needed so much.  I started babysitting at age 10, and was left alone with them for full weekends by the time I was 15.  Throughout my high school years, the deal was: I got to go out one weekend night and I had to babysit one weekend night.  Looking back on it now, I’m surprised I didn’t resent the hell out of them, but it was never that way.  When they started talking, they called me “Mama” and they were always, always my babies.

I’ve written before about how I always knew I had to be a mother.  In truth, I only knew it after the twins were born.  My preteen years introduced me to the kind of love you can feel for little ones … it wasn’t the same as the love that I’d feel for my own children years later, but it was close.  I can remember lying in bed at night and crying myself to sleep worrying that something horrible would happen to them … that they would ever feel pain, that they would ever struggle.  No doubt the hormones of puberty contributed to that emotion, but I loved them purely and deeply.

I left home when they were 7 and we drifted apart over the next decade or so.  I went to college and law school, spent time abroad and years in D.C., eventually got married and started having my children, and basically grew up and did my own thing.  They grew up, too, largely without my involvement in their teen and college years.  They spent their own time abroad and out of state, eventually (thank goodness) coming back to town to settle in here for awhile.  I’m still ten years older than they are, but our relationship is no longer a maternal one.  I may still offer opinions and advice (possibly more than they’d like), but now it’s a give and take—I try to teach them how to be patient with their lives and see the big picture, and they try to teach me how to listen to cool music and dress like something other than an approaching-40 suburban mom.   We are sisters and we are friends.

Caroline is the younger twin … the baby of our family.  Of my three sisters, she is most like me (for Caroline only: like I).  We are geeks at heart: Joss-Whedon-loving, sci-fi-watching, book-reading, over-analytical grammar nerds.  She is a PHENOMENAL aunt—she loves my children almost as much as I do, and I adore her all the more for it.  I watch her with them and listen to her talk about them, and I realize that she feels about my children the same way I used to feel about her.  They are her “practice children” and her introduction to motherly love.  She is often overwhelmed by the depth of her feeling for them, and if she didn’t know it before, I think she knows it now: she must be a mother one day.

She takes care of me, too.  She is the sister who most knows when I need an emotional pick-me-up, who volunteers to take my kids for a sanity check whenever I get close to the breaking point, who worries about me and goes way out of her way to make my life easier.  She is the objective voice I seek when I start to feel a little bonkers.  She came over and spent the night with me last night, because she missed my children and because we were both in need of some good girl time.  I am as comfortable with her as I am with anyone on the planet.  We drank wine and talked about men and tried to solve each others’ problems and straighten out each others’ neuroses.  We relaxed and laughed and cried and generally just checked in with each other to make sure we were both doing ok.

I remember the child she was.

I admire and love the woman she is now.

I did a great job raising her. 

Ginormous Hockey. May 15, 2010

Scene, This:

Time: 7:15 a.m.

Conversation:

Me:  Bubba, do you want to wake up and get some breakfast?

Owen:  I just had the best dream ever.

Me:  Oh, yeah?  What was it about?

Owen:  I was playing ginormous hockey.

Me:  Which is …

Owen:  It’s hockey but you play with shovels.

Me:  Ginormous shovels?

Owen:  Yeah.

Me: Was it fun?

Owen: Yes.  I was playing with Lizzie and Pop.  I would’ve played with you, too, if you hadn’t waked me up.