Saturday, December 2, 2006
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
They Used to Call Me Fatlip
Today at story time there was a young girl, probably four, who only had one arm. We happened to be sitting right next to her and her mother. She only had about 5 inches from the shoulder on the "missing" arm. I'm 31; I've seen plenty of this in my day. But today, I saw it through my children's eyes and I braced myself for one of Benja's loud and inappropriate questions or one of Avee's loud and obviously sympathetic "ooohhhhhhhhh babies" that comes when she sees something she thinks is an owie. I wished so badly that I knew the "right" thing to say. I distracted Avee as she repeatedly tried to reach for the girl's sleeve and look up it to find the missing arm. Benja never noticed, and I was relieved.
As is pretty much the case with most things in parenting, I'm at a loss for the best approach. I'd like to teach my kids about other children they will encounter who will be different. I'd like to teach them appropriate responses and behaviors. Adults just look the other way or ignore---and kids won't do that.
When I was a newborn, I developed a "fat lip". Quotations because that's what we called it, not because it wasn't really fat. It was huge. It was purplish and for quite some time, the only thing people saw when they looked at me. (Oh, that and the RED HAIR) I grew up being gawked at, made fun of, and questioned all the time. I learned to cope with it. Sometimes it was really hard and other times, it was sort of fun to stand up for myself or be an expert on face deformities. When I was very young my older siblings taught me to say, "I'd rather have a fat lip than a fat head!" when rude people called me Fatlip. I can remember being appalled (if 5 year old children can feel appalled) by adults who would gawk, point, whisper, and sometimes even say, "Did you know you have a fat lip?" SERIOUSLY PEOPLE!!!! To this day, those kinds of reactions from adults, shock me. It may have been more reflective of where I grew up than anything else though.
I grew up. My lip grew down. My parents used this lip as a tool for the forming of my character. I prayed every night, "please bless my lip". I learned to pray for what was best, not for what I wanted. I wanted it zapped, but I rarely prayed for that. I can still remember the night when I went to pray for my lip and realized, my prayer had been answered. I was about 18. It had been unnoticeable for at least 4 years at that point. I still have a bump. I see it when I look in the mirror. No one else does.
There were some people who approached me about it, that I had no problem talking to. They were kind, naturally curious, and non-judgmental. Even kids can perceive that stuff. There were others who just wanted to ask first so they could tell other people. I always knew the difference.
I was thinking about this today, after we saw the girl with only one arm. She knows she's different. She's felt the stares. Maybe she's cried that she can't do some things others can. She probably has already learned to zone out the nosey people around her. But she's also a child who probably likes to talk, and maybe her parents have been able to help her be proud of her differences. If I were her mother, what would I want her experiences around other children to be? Would I want it ignored? Would I want it acknowledged and for her to have a chance to express herself? I don't know. I can't remember what I wanted as a child with a "deformity." I just remember learning to deal with whatever came my way. I always knew when people said nothing, that they really wanted to. And then others who immediately asked about it were rude. But what is the happy medium?
I'd like to know if anyone has any firsthand experience or even passed on wisdom for dealing with situations like today. I know that probably, some awkward conversations will have to happen---but just as a mom who's winging it most of the time, I'd also like be somewhat prepared.
And tomorrow I'm going to tell you about a little boy we encountered whose mother was debilitating him far more than being born with one arm could. You don't want to miss part 2, At McDonald's Playland.
As is pretty much the case with most things in parenting, I'm at a loss for the best approach. I'd like to teach my kids about other children they will encounter who will be different. I'd like to teach them appropriate responses and behaviors. Adults just look the other way or ignore---and kids won't do that.
When I was a newborn, I developed a "fat lip". Quotations because that's what we called it, not because it wasn't really fat. It was huge. It was purplish and for quite some time, the only thing people saw when they looked at me. (Oh, that and the RED HAIR) I grew up being gawked at, made fun of, and questioned all the time. I learned to cope with it. Sometimes it was really hard and other times, it was sort of fun to stand up for myself or be an expert on face deformities. When I was very young my older siblings taught me to say, "I'd rather have a fat lip than a fat head!" when rude people called me Fatlip. I can remember being appalled (if 5 year old children can feel appalled) by adults who would gawk, point, whisper, and sometimes even say, "Did you know you have a fat lip?" SERIOUSLY PEOPLE!!!! To this day, those kinds of reactions from adults, shock me. It may have been more reflective of where I grew up than anything else though.
I grew up. My lip grew down. My parents used this lip as a tool for the forming of my character. I prayed every night, "please bless my lip". I learned to pray for what was best, not for what I wanted. I wanted it zapped, but I rarely prayed for that. I can still remember the night when I went to pray for my lip and realized, my prayer had been answered. I was about 18. It had been unnoticeable for at least 4 years at that point. I still have a bump. I see it when I look in the mirror. No one else does.
There were some people who approached me about it, that I had no problem talking to. They were kind, naturally curious, and non-judgmental. Even kids can perceive that stuff. There were others who just wanted to ask first so they could tell other people. I always knew the difference.
I was thinking about this today, after we saw the girl with only one arm. She knows she's different. She's felt the stares. Maybe she's cried that she can't do some things others can. She probably has already learned to zone out the nosey people around her. But she's also a child who probably likes to talk, and maybe her parents have been able to help her be proud of her differences. If I were her mother, what would I want her experiences around other children to be? Would I want it ignored? Would I want it acknowledged and for her to have a chance to express herself? I don't know. I can't remember what I wanted as a child with a "deformity." I just remember learning to deal with whatever came my way. I always knew when people said nothing, that they really wanted to. And then others who immediately asked about it were rude. But what is the happy medium?
I'd like to know if anyone has any firsthand experience or even passed on wisdom for dealing with situations like today. I know that probably, some awkward conversations will have to happen---but just as a mom who's winging it most of the time, I'd also like be somewhat prepared.
And tomorrow I'm going to tell you about a little boy we encountered whose mother was debilitating him far more than being born with one arm could. You don't want to miss part 2, At McDonald's Playland.
Friday, September 15, 2006
WARNING
If you are unscrupulous and live near me, please stop reading this. We can't afford it.
I spent most of yesterday painting and crackling my dining table. Lots of paint. Fumes. I'd like to think that factored in to the story I'm about to tell.
Last night one of my neighbors pulled up in her car and Bo immediately pounced on her with 50 questions, "What are you doing? Where did you go? What are you eating? Why are you eating in your car?" She was sweet and answered him. When you don't have to live with it, it's kind of cute. Then they moved on to what she was going to do next. He's great with timelines. She said she was going to pick up her boys from football practiced and asked if he wanted to come. Of course he did. The kid knows the routine, he said "But first I need to put on some pants." Yes, it was about 6 pm. Yes, he was outside. No, I don't think there's much cuter than a 3 year old running around in navy blue undies. Yes, I'm low-rent.
Since the poor kid had been cooped up all week, I let him go. She knew we were battling chicken pox, so I figured it was her own choice to take the risk. I went in and got the keys to the car and pulled out his booster seat to put in her car and off they went.
We finished up the table, cleaned up the yard and went inside. Bo came home. I put my kids to bed. Some of them twice.
This morning I took the trash out to the curb and saw something on top of my car that didn't belong. I stepped closer and about fell over.
Do you see what I saw?
Twelve hours they were there.
Not only is this something that should NEVER happen. It is something one should never let the father of one's children know has happened.
And yet, I blog.
The end.
I spent most of yesterday painting and crackling my dining table. Lots of paint. Fumes. I'd like to think that factored in to the story I'm about to tell.
Last night one of my neighbors pulled up in her car and Bo immediately pounced on her with 50 questions, "What are you doing? Where did you go? What are you eating? Why are you eating in your car?" She was sweet and answered him. When you don't have to live with it, it's kind of cute. Then they moved on to what she was going to do next. He's great with timelines. She said she was going to pick up her boys from football practiced and asked if he wanted to come. Of course he did. The kid knows the routine, he said "But first I need to put on some pants." Yes, it was about 6 pm. Yes, he was outside. No, I don't think there's much cuter than a 3 year old running around in navy blue undies. Yes, I'm low-rent.
Since the poor kid had been cooped up all week, I let him go. She knew we were battling chicken pox, so I figured it was her own choice to take the risk. I went in and got the keys to the car and pulled out his booster seat to put in her car and off they went.
We finished up the table, cleaned up the yard and went inside. Bo came home. I put my kids to bed. Some of them twice.
This morning I took the trash out to the curb and saw something on top of my car that didn't belong. I stepped closer and about fell over.
Do you see what I saw?
Twelve hours they were there.
Not only is this something that should NEVER happen. It is something one should never let the father of one's children know has happened.
And yet, I blog.
The end.
Saturday, July 15, 2006
Joze
Today is my cousin Josie's birthday. She would be 27 years old. Two months after she turned 25, she was hit by a car while biking up a canyon in Utah. She was about 14 miles into the ride, just a couple of miles from the top.
She was in her second year of a PhD program in Molecular Biology. She was brilliant, humble, athletic, beautiful, disciplined, kind, hard-working and a good friend. She died in the arms of fellow bikers as they tried and hoped desperately to be able to save her. Nobody could have.
She had a brand new biking outfit on she'd gotten for her birthday. She had a completed RS lesson sitting in the front seat of her car, to give the next morning.
She had gone to the temple and an REI sale that morning.
I had never felt a devastation so complete, one that coursed throughout my entire body, before the night I had to walk into a room and see her lying still in a pink casket. I didn't feel my legs giving away underneath me, until I suddenly felt someone's arms around me, pulling me back up, offering support. There was no way to ever capture her look without her bright eyes and infectious smile. I was angry with the effort to even try.
Josie unwittingly turned people's heads with her physical appearance. At my bridal shower J crashed it with a couple of his friends. One of them spotted Josie in a crowd of 25 women and commented, "That is the most beautiful girl I have ever seen." It wasn't an overstatement by any means.
At her memorial, I learned more fully, that her heart changed people. I thought that the way she made me feel valued and smart and like the greatest addition to her life was unique to our relationship. 450 people at a memorial service in the state she only went to college in said otherwise.
At her funeral I spotted a guy standing alone, visibly shaken. I approached him and learned that he was part of the janitorial staff at her lab. She had invited him to have lunch with her a few times. He had never known anyone like her. None of us had. I stood and cried with someone who probably would have gone unnoticed in my life, at the funeral of a girl who didn't let him go unnoticed.
The last man to speak with her wrote a lengthy letter about their encounter and it was displayed at her funeral. He was too shaken up to attend. He asked her how it was going as they passed on the road. Huffing up an insanely steep mountain she exclaimed, "Thi
ngs are excellent! How 'bout you man!?" He was moved by her enthusiasm and friendliness. I think we all were.
When Josie was 9 we became penpals. She grew up in California, I in Missouri. We corresponded through letters well into our twenties.
When she was 10 years old she lamented in a letter that the teacher had changed their seating arrangments, but she was still sitting next to Leon, and "couldn't escape his inexorable wrath". I was 14 and had to look up the word "inexorable" in the dictionary. The following summer I spent in California. I wore a pink shirt a friend had given me, a lot. One day Josie told me she didn't think my hair matched the pink. It was the nicest constructive criticism I have ever gotten. I never wore pink again until 2001. For a wedding. And it was a nice pink. :)
I still don't wear pink.
When Jay and I were moving from St. Louis to Utah, I called Josie and she gladly went and checked out a potential apartment for us. She had duplicate keys made before we got there. I've saved them because she paid an extra dollar fifty to have them cut on leopard print and smiley faces and they always made me smile when I used them to open our door.
She was graduating, moving, working, and beginning a PhD and always managed to find time to come and check on me, a new mother in a new town. She took me grocery shopping my second night in town because I have no sense of direction and would have ended up in Winnemucca faster than I would have found the local grocery store.
At the time, I had no idea how much she packed into a day, so I had no idea how much she was giving me with those hours here and there.For my birthday that summer, she showed up at my doorstep at 9:30 at night with a Skor bar and a box of Glide floss. "I didn't know what to get you but everyone can use floss, right?"
We met monthly on Sundays with other cousins for family dinner. Josie was always the highlight for me at these gatherings. She would always be standing at the counter helping in the preparations. She always turned with a big smile and arms opened for a hug. For months after, that void at family dinners was tangible and hard to cope with for a lot of us.
I miss Josie. My sadness over her loss has become steadily more "socially acceptable." I don't burst into tears mid-sentence. I don't have to walk out of rooms anymore because I can't keep myself under control. I don't walk around my house sobbing over the entertainment center as a dust it. Or sit in my rocker and weep while I hold my baby, because I just can't shake my sorrow. If I'm braced for the conversation, the details of her death don't reduce me to a heap of snot and tears.
I don’t miss the good ol’ days with Josie, because she always lived to the fullest. No regrets, truly.
I miss what could have been. The amount of comfort I found in knowing I will see her again, turning to face me with a great big smile and arms open for a hug, is indescribable.
I think the greatest legacy a person can leave, is an internal desire to be a better person because you know her.
Josie did that.
I look forward to telling her thank you.
She was in her second year of a PhD program in Molecular Biology. She was brilliant, humble, athletic, beautiful, disciplined, kind, hard-working and a good friend. She died in the arms of fellow bikers as they tried and hoped desperately to be able to save her. Nobody could have.
She had a brand new biking outfit on she'd gotten for her birthday. She had a completed RS lesson sitting in the front seat of her car, to give the next morning.
She had gone to the temple and an REI sale that morning.
I had never felt a devastation so complete, one that coursed throughout my entire body, before the night I had to walk into a room and see her lying still in a pink casket. I didn't feel my legs giving away underneath me, until I suddenly felt someone's arms around me, pulling me back up, offering support. There was no way to ever capture her look without her bright eyes and infectious smile. I was angry with the effort to even try.
Josie unwittingly turned people's heads with her physical appearance. At my bridal shower J crashed it with a couple of his friends. One of them spotted Josie in a crowd of 25 women and commented, "That is the most beautiful girl I have ever seen." It wasn't an overstatement by any means.
At her memorial, I learned more fully, that her heart changed people. I thought that the way she made me feel valued and smart and like the greatest addition to her life was unique to our relationship. 450 people at a memorial service in the state she only went to college in said otherwise.
At her funeral I spotted a guy standing alone, visibly shaken. I approached him and learned that he was part of the janitorial staff at her lab. She had invited him to have lunch with her a few times. He had never known anyone like her. None of us had. I stood and cried with someone who probably would have gone unnoticed in my life, at the funeral of a girl who didn't let him go unnoticed.
The last man to speak with her wrote a lengthy letter about their encounter and it was displayed at her funeral. He was too shaken up to attend. He asked her how it was going as they passed on the road. Huffing up an insanely steep mountain she exclaimed, "Thi
ngs are excellent! How 'bout you man!?" He was moved by her enthusiasm and friendliness. I think we all were.When Josie was 9 we became penpals. She grew up in California, I in Missouri. We corresponded through letters well into our twenties.
When she was 10 years old she lamented in a letter that the teacher had changed their seating arrangments, but she was still sitting next to Leon, and "couldn't escape his inexorable wrath". I was 14 and had to look up the word "inexorable" in the dictionary. The following summer I spent in California. I wore a pink shirt a friend had given me, a lot. One day Josie told me she didn't think my hair matched the pink. It was the nicest constructive criticism I have ever gotten. I never wore pink again until 2001. For a wedding. And it was a nice pink. :)
I still don't wear pink.
When Jay and I were moving from St. Louis to Utah, I called Josie and she gladly went and checked out a potential apartment for us. She had duplicate keys made before we got there. I've saved them because she paid an extra dollar fifty to have them cut on leopard print and smiley faces and they always made me smile when I used them to open our door.
She was graduating, moving, working, and beginning a PhD and always managed to find time to come and check on me, a new mother in a new town. She took me grocery shopping my second night in town because I have no sense of direction and would have ended up in Winnemucca faster than I would have found the local grocery store.
At the time, I had no idea how much she packed into a day, so I had no idea how much she was giving me with those hours here and there.For my birthday that summer, she showed up at my doorstep at 9:30 at night with a Skor bar and a box of Glide floss. "I didn't know what to get you but everyone can use floss, right?"
We met monthly on Sundays with other cousins for family dinner. Josie was always the highlight for me at these gatherings. She would always be standing at the counter helping in the preparations. She always turned with a big smile and arms opened for a hug. For months after, that void at family dinners was tangible and hard to cope with for a lot of us.
I miss Josie. My sadness over her loss has become steadily more "socially acceptable." I don't burst into tears mid-sentence. I don't have to walk out of rooms anymore because I can't keep myself under control. I don't walk around my house sobbing over the entertainment center as a dust it. Or sit in my rocker and weep while I hold my baby, because I just can't shake my sorrow. If I'm braced for the conversation, the details of her death don't reduce me to a heap of snot and tears.
I don’t miss the good ol’ days with Josie, because she always lived to the fullest. No regrets, truly.
I miss what could have been. The amount of comfort I found in knowing I will see her again, turning to face me with a great big smile and arms open for a hug, is indescribable.
I think the greatest legacy a person can leave, is an internal desire to be a better person because you know her.
Josie did that.
I look forward to telling her thank you.
Friday, June 2, 2006
Mid-day Trivia
This morning I was driving to the HUMONGOUS DFW airport to pick up J. It really is a huge airport. Well, maybe not the inside, but the outside is like 6 freeway exits to get to your desired terminal. Insane.
I have trouble getting on the right highway, making the right exit, merging to the left 3 lanes while the lane I'm merging into is trying to get on the right to exit----it's just not pretty. is trying Once you are merged and whatnot, terminals A-E are big ol' freeway exits of their own.
After you take the right off-ramp, then you have two more choices of direction. I've only ever chosen "Arrivals" but even after that, there's two more choices. We are rats in a maze and J is our piece of cheese. It's okay, I think if J had to be any food, it would be cheese.
Anyway, as I'm nearing the airport the SECOND time around, Bo asks, "When will we see Daddy?" I say, "Really soon, we are sooo close!" Then he asks, "Hey! What does 'soon' mean?"
And this is what I came up with:
It means, s-s-s...It means pretty s-s-s...uhhh, it's like, in the near fut---it's coming up....it's....
What it WAS, was entirely ridiculous. What DOES soon mean!?!?! Could the reason that I, an intelligent woman, cannot define soon--be because I have conversations like this regularly:
Bo: Somebody broke my fire truck
Me: What happened?
Bo: It's broken
Me: How did it break?
Bo: Somebody broke it.
Me: What's wrong with it? How do you know it's broken?
Bo: Because it won't work
The sad thing about this dialogue is, I'm the idiot in the conversation. He is answering every question I ask. He later came crying about it again (it sadly is not making it's 110 decibels screeching siren sound, the jury is still out on whether this constitutes broken or blessing) and I suggested he might need a nap. He suddenly forced a horrific smile that looked more like a chihuahua bearing it's teeth and "cheerfully" said, "But I'm happy! I'm just happy" combined with a forced laugh.
We really do condition our children unknowingly. This all stems from, "Your whining and crying tells me you are tired." So obviously, happy and forced laugh means you aren't tired.
I have trouble getting on the right highway, making the right exit, merging to the left 3 lanes while the lane I'm merging into is trying to get on the right to exit----it's just not pretty. is trying Once you are merged and whatnot, terminals A-E are big ol' freeway exits of their own.
After you take the right off-ramp, then you have two more choices of direction. I've only ever chosen "Arrivals" but even after that, there's two more choices. We are rats in a maze and J is our piece of cheese. It's okay, I think if J had to be any food, it would be cheese.
Anyway, as I'm nearing the airport the SECOND time around, Bo asks, "When will we see Daddy?" I say, "Really soon, we are sooo close!" Then he asks, "Hey! What does 'soon' mean?"
And this is what I came up with:
It means, s-s-s...It means pretty s-s-s...uhhh, it's like, in the near fut---it's coming up....it's....
What it WAS, was entirely ridiculous. What DOES soon mean!?!?! Could the reason that I, an intelligent woman, cannot define soon--be because I have conversations like this regularly:
Bo: Somebody broke my fire truck
Me: What happened?
Bo: It's broken
Me: How did it break?
Bo: Somebody broke it.
Me: What's wrong with it? How do you know it's broken?
Bo: Because it won't work
The sad thing about this dialogue is, I'm the idiot in the conversation. He is answering every question I ask. He later came crying about it again (it sadly is not making it's 110 decibels screeching siren sound, the jury is still out on whether this constitutes broken or blessing) and I suggested he might need a nap. He suddenly forced a horrific smile that looked more like a chihuahua bearing it's teeth and "cheerfully" said, "But I'm happy! I'm just happy" combined with a forced laugh.
We really do condition our children unknowingly. This all stems from, "Your whining and crying tells me you are tired." So obviously, happy and forced laugh means you aren't tired.
Saturday, May 27, 2006
My House is a Wreck, But the Silence is Flawless
Jay is swimming with Ben. Avery is soundly sleeping in her rootbeer sodden dress. And I am finally blogging. We have Jay's 14 year old brother staying with us for a few weeks and now computer time is shared between 3 computer-aholics. I also have to be very careful what I write about the said younger brother because in the 3 and a half days he's been here, he has "quoted" me 3 times from my blog. Like when I hauled him into the master bathroom to make him watch the kids while they bathed (ie, free childcare in a contained space) and he said, "Oh yeah, I see what you mean by a terrifically large and almost completely useless master bathroom." I sort of stopped cold. It's very odd hearing yourself quoted like that. I'm gonna try and not talk too much about him. My spouse, children, and random impression-leaving people are fair game, but he didn't ask to be blog fodder, so I won't force him to be. Plus I overheard him say to Jay, "So now that I'm coming to stay with you for a few weeks, Angela's probably gonna blog about me now." Sam, if you're reading this, go get me a Slurpy at 7-Eleven and never you mind what I write about you in my blog.
I have 5 gazillion things I'd like to blather on about, but I'm going to try and control myself. We had a family party in Missouri for Benjamin. One of my friends made Ben's c
ake. It was amazing. It was a crime to cut into it.
If I were completely internet/picture-posting saavy, combined with verbally succinct, I could post the picture of the "cake" I made for Ben's Texas party today that we had with a couple of friends and two of Jay's cousins here. It would just be so much more amusing to see them side by side. But alas, I'm none of the above so you have to wait a minute to see it.
We have some cute footage here of the 3-year-old showing off his new skill of holding up three fingers (I'm impressed because I was 23 before I mastered that skill). That combined with, "I'm free at last" made for some great party entertainment. I wish I had some pictures of my adorable 4 year old nephew asking me with wide eyes of delight and anticipation, "Is THAT a PINATA". When I told him it was he asked if he could please be the first to hit it. I said yes because that's what you do when you still haven't found a way to hang the pinata and your 1 year old is dumping out the pineapple plate and your birthday boy is peeing down the slide, and you're so hot and sweaty and...
I'm quite certain that Avery still thinks my brother is her dad, which is okay for now but could present some social problems if the misperception continues into adulthood. Avery spent most of her time getting people to hold her or chasing various cats and dogs and screeching with delight. She said her first REAL word. I'm calling it real because she uses it in the right context, she'll repeat it, and we all understood it. It is "Cuatica" for Nautica, my brother's gigantic Siberian Husky. I totally could have made that breed name up, but it sounds good, right?
I adore this picture of Avery with Grandpa and a box of raisins.
About today's party. I just couldn't get my act together enough to even remotely plan or prepare for Ben's party. I was really excited about it because it was at a really cool spray/water park in a nearby town---but just the logistics of it all were overwhelming me. Going to Wal-mart at 10 PM to find "anything train" to put on cupcakes is your first clue. When I walked away from the cake department with 8 Spongebob toppers, I knew we were in for a long night.
Finally after looking for ANYTHING train to no avail my friend Amy thought of just doing a giant cookie and putting a little train and tracks on there. Brilliant. So we got a little train toy, a gigantic tube of cookie dough, and headed home. That should be simple, right?
Here's the interesting part of the story. I have icing dye, I have decorating tips, I have black icing in a tube---if you looked in my cupboard, you would think "Now there's a girl who knows how to decorate." Even just a simple, "Happy Birthday Ben" and not much more. You would think that. You would be sorely mistaken. I burned the first cookie. Jay, bless his heart, jumped in the car and got me another one in record time. I did not burn the second one. But by the time it was time to walk out the door, it was not cooled, nor decorated. No problem. I watched my friend Amy effortlessly decorate a gigantic cookie with cute little pink and green "flower" dots with pastel M&M centers. I can write a few measly words and some black lines. Please.
What actually happened was a full on war with a sandwich bag and red frosting. It was all over me, and nowhere it should have been on the cake. After poorly gauging the spacing on the cookie (hereafter to be referred to as theartistic attempt from hell cake), I had to settle for just writing "happy birthday" and not include Ben. What does he care, he's only Free, and won't notice. I step back from my work and groan at random splotches of red icing. I had already conceded that the lettering didn't have to look good, but random splotches, come on now---even Ben's gotta know that ain't right. Jay is standing nearby and either out of kindness and sympathy, or a desperate attempt to salvage any decency, offered to do the train tracks on the cake. I happily surrendered the decorating tools. I walked off muttering to myself about, "just because you have the tools, doesn't make you a craftsman."
I was applying mascara when I heard Jay blurt out something like, "Oh geez!" I didn't care. I can control my mascara brush, I can't control anything else. I finish my makeup (yes, I did say that the cake decorating commenced AFTER it was time to go, so what if I went and put on makeup AFTER that...) and walk back into the kitchen where Jay appears to have hit a bump in the road. Or the tracks. And he is in a bit of a skirmish with a blob of black icing, a butter knife, and his own body's manueverability. If I have laughed that hard ever, I don't know when.
Okay, I know when, but I started laughing SO HARD. And I seriously can't stop. This was 4.5 hours ago and I have burst out laughing about 14 times since then. Not just Jay fighting with the cake, but the finished product was just ridiculous.
What's really funny to me though, is in all of my decorating ineptness, I have these incredibly talented friends. It was Amy's idea to put a train on the cake--
-so we had a topper train on hand.
I mentioned it to Jay and he immediately dropped the butter knife and let out a heavy sigh of relief. Not that a cute toy train was going to stop THIS train wreck, but whatever, we do what we can. I plunked the cute little train on top and we walked out the door.
I was still laughing when we arrived at the park and of course had to explain why. Jay's cousin said, "It looks cute, it's a little weird that the train is stuck in tar, but the rest is cute" That too keeps making me burst out laughing at random times. When Amy, who had conceived of the idea, showed up, she burst out laughing. I'm sure what she had in mind and what we produced were two very, very different things.
I have 5 gazillion things I'd like to blather on about, but I'm going to try and control myself. We had a family party in Missouri for Benjamin. One of my friends made Ben's c
ake. It was amazing. It was a crime to cut into it.If I were completely internet/picture-posting saavy, combined with verbally succinct, I could post the picture of the "cake" I made for Ben's Texas party today that we had with a couple of friends and two of Jay's cousins here. It would just be so much more amusing to see them side by side. But alas, I'm none of the above so you have to wait a minute to see it.
We have some cute footage here of the 3-year-old showing off his new skill of holding up three fingers (I'm impressed because I was 23 before I mastered that skill). That combined with, "I'm free at last" made for some great party entertainment. I wish I had some pictures of my adorable 4 year old nephew asking me with wide eyes of delight and anticipation, "Is THAT a PINATA". When I told him it was he asked if he could please be the first to hit it. I said yes because that's what you do when you still haven't found a way to hang the pinata and your 1 year old is dumping out the pineapple plate and your birthday boy is peeing down the slide, and you're so hot and sweaty and...
I'm quite certain that Avery still thinks my brother is her dad, which is okay for now but could present some social problems if the misperception continues into adulthood. Avery spent most of her time getting people to hold her or chasing various cats and dogs and screeching with delight. She said her first REAL word. I'm calling it real because she uses it in the right context, she'll repeat it, and we all understood it. It is "Cuatica" for Nautica, my brother's gigantic Siberian Husky. I totally could have made that breed name up, but it sounds good, right?
I adore this picture of Avery with Grandpa and a box of raisins.
About today's party. I just couldn't get my act together enough to even remotely plan or prepare for Ben's party. I was really excited about it because it was at a really cool spray/water park in a nearby town---but just the logistics of it all were overwhelming me. Going to Wal-mart at 10 PM to find "anything train" to put on cupcakes is your first clue. When I walked away from the cake department with 8 Spongebob toppers, I knew we were in for a long night.
Finally after looking for ANYTHING train to no avail my friend Amy thought of just doing a giant cookie and putting a little train and tracks on there. Brilliant. So we got a little train toy, a gigantic tube of cookie dough, and headed home. That should be simple, right?
Here's the interesting part of the story. I have icing dye, I have decorating tips, I have black icing in a tube---if you looked in my cupboard, you would think "Now there's a girl who knows how to decorate." Even just a simple, "Happy Birthday Ben" and not much more. You would think that. You would be sorely mistaken. I burned the first cookie. Jay, bless his heart, jumped in the car and got me another one in record time. I did not burn the second one. But by the time it was time to walk out the door, it was not cooled, nor decorated. No problem. I watched my friend Amy effortlessly decorate a gigantic cookie with cute little pink and green "flower" dots with pastel M&M centers. I can write a few measly words and some black lines. Please.
What actually happened was a full on war with a sandwich bag and red frosting. It was all over me, and nowhere it should have been on the cake. After poorly gauging the spacing on the cookie (hereafter to be referred to as the
I was applying mascara when I heard Jay blurt out something like, "Oh geez!" I didn't care. I can control my mascara brush, I can't control anything else. I finish my makeup (yes, I did say that the cake decorating commenced AFTER it was time to go, so what if I went and put on makeup AFTER that...) and walk back into the kitchen where Jay appears to have hit a bump in the road. Or the tracks. And he is in a bit of a skirmish with a blob of black icing, a butter knife, and his own body's manueverability. If I have laughed that hard ever, I don't know when.
Okay, I know when, but I started laughing SO HARD. And I seriously can't stop. This was 4.5 hours ago and I have burst out laughing about 14 times since then. Not just Jay fighting with the cake, but the finished product was just ridiculous.What's really funny to me though, is in all of my decorating ineptness, I have these incredibly talented friends. It was Amy's idea to put a train on the cake--
-so we had a topper train on hand.I mentioned it to Jay and he immediately dropped the butter knife and let out a heavy sigh of relief. Not that a cute toy train was going to stop THIS train wreck, but whatever, we do what we can. I plunked the cute little train on top and we walked out the door.
I was still laughing when we arrived at the park and of course had to explain why. Jay's cousin said, "It looks cute, it's a little weird that the train is stuck in tar, but the rest is cute" That too keeps making me burst out laughing at random times. When Amy, who had conceived of the idea, showed up, she burst out laughing. I'm sure what she had in mind and what we produced were two very, very different things.
Friday, April 14, 2006
Of Parks and good parenting, and Britney, and Carpets, and Police, and Excessive Use of Quotation Marks
Does it ever end? When you're a little kid it's inane assertions like, "my dad's bigger than your dad!" like THAT makes you any better than another 7-year-old. It was true in my case and all that has done for me is make me big-boned and hopelessly pursuing the smaller figure of my petite-fathered counterparts. Then when you're in high school it's "I have more stylish clothes" or a car, or a life. In college, it's "I go on more dates than you" or "I have a higher GPA". And NOW, I'm a 30 year old, educated, friendly girl who's day consists of diapers, cut up sandwiches, The Little Engine That Could--and WHY, philosophical discussions on WHAT pooped in our backyard and WHY, and an eternal, endless, circular relationship with the dishwasher and washing machine...do I really need to be one-upped when I take my kids to the park?
Today at the park, after following Avee over the play structure as she precariously wobbles near the high edges in her bold statements of independence and watching Bo chase older, uninterested kids, and play with other children's toys for 45 MINUTES I say, "Bo it's time to go, Avee has to nap now." Bo objects, of course---but it's acceptable objections and I'm able to reason with him. But not so quickly that I don't hear the other mother nearby with her two children say, "We're going to go soon too, we've been here over an hour." Well throw me in the bad parent jail. I'm sure I'll sleep better there and I won't have to feed anyone.
It actually kind of made me laugh when it happened. I'm not insecure about myself, so I don't really care about that kind of stuff---but seriously now. If that kind of thing were to bother me, I would have been bothered long before when her brilliant 4-year-old sounded out and then spelled my sons name in the rocks while my brilliant 2-year-old yelled "No, it says SIX, not E!" and my genius 1-year-old wiped her cookie on the bottom of her shoe, intermittent with licking the shoe itself. I happen to know for a fact---that particular behavior is on the MENSA checklist.
My real friends say, "You took your kids to the park? You're a good mom."
So, yesterday I was at the park with my kids, DANG I'm a good mom. And Avee, was cruising along the play structure. I hadn't thought to just get on it with her, and was just standing alongside it to catch her should she need. So she fell off the other side. About 3 feet. Bumped her head twice on the way down. Her cries were more from being scared and a little of "You're a lousy mom, mom"--and not so much pain, so I felt a little better. Also while I was comforting her she climbed over me to get back on the structure. When she's a little older, we're going to have to teach her the whole, "When you fall off the horse, you gotta get right back on" approach to life.
I thought about how the night before on CNN Headline news was Britney Spears getting a visit from DFS and a police officer after her 6 month old fell out of his high chair. I thought how much that stinks for her to have that on national news when my children swallow bottles of allergy pills and fall off play structures and NOBODY knows until I blog about it. That's not the only difference between Britney and me.
So later, while I was online checking prices for airline tickets, Bo decided to redecorate our living room. With permanent marker. On our carpet. Over about a 2 square foot area. Yeah, so I pretty much felt like throwing up when I saw it. I felt sick that I had let it happen, sick for how mad I knew it would make J, and sick for how much I'd miss Bo when J saw what he'd done. Bo even said later, in his defense, "The cahwpet didn't look pwetty so I made it pwetty." Nice Bo, nice. It's there-goes-your-deposit-and-any-hopes-of-having-guests-over-without-feeling-like-a-slob beautiful. I was surprisingly well-put together in the disciplining of this. In fact, afterwards I thought, "shouldn't there have been more smacking and respective screaming involved for that to have been effective?" I lectured him, J made him sit in his room, he didn't get dessert (I NEVER make dessert, and we had it last night), I think he got the message.
Bo was sent to bed for the 20 minutes before dinner was ready, and came out just as it was ready. As we sat down to eat, two police cars pulled up in "front" of our house
.
It's actually our back door, but it's out our dining and living room windows, so it feels like the front. I was carrying the noodles from the sink to the table and stopped cold in my tracks. For a second I thought I was Britney Spears. Did I beat Bo? Did I leave any marks? Did I sufficiently comfort Avee when she fell 3 feet in front of my nose and anyone could have seen? I'm not kidding, I ACTUALLY THOUGHT I WAS BRITNEY SPEARS. Turns out there was some problem across the street and the police were a little lost.
Well, our carpet is still orange and green. My friend Amy came over with her super-cleaner and plunked herself on the floor and worked away at it. I have good friends---I'm not sure I am that good of a friend. I would probably come by for the after-cleaning celebration of cheesecake. It's definitely lighter, but still quite evident. If he'd used more earthy tones it would blend better with the chex mix and dried milk. We can't have it all though, can we?
Today at the park, after following Avee over the play structure as she precariously wobbles near the high edges in her bold statements of independence and watching Bo chase older, uninterested kids, and play with other children's toys for 45 MINUTES I say, "Bo it's time to go, Avee has to nap now." Bo objects, of course---but it's acceptable objections and I'm able to reason with him. But not so quickly that I don't hear the other mother nearby with her two children say, "We're going to go soon too, we've been here over an hour." Well throw me in the bad parent jail. I'm sure I'll sleep better there and I won't have to feed anyone.
It actually kind of made me laugh when it happened. I'm not insecure about myself, so I don't really care about that kind of stuff---but seriously now. If that kind of thing were to bother me, I would have been bothered long before when her brilliant 4-year-old sounded out and then spelled my sons name in the rocks while my brilliant 2-year-old yelled "No, it says SIX, not E!" and my genius 1-year-old wiped her cookie on the bottom of her shoe, intermittent with licking the shoe itself. I happen to know for a fact---that particular behavior is on the MENSA checklist.
My real friends say, "You took your kids to the park? You're a good mom."
So, yesterday I was at the park with my kids, DANG I'm a good mom. And Avee, was cruising along the play structure. I hadn't thought to just get on it with her, and was just standing alongside it to catch her should she need. So she fell off the other side. About 3 feet. Bumped her head twice on the way down. Her cries were more from being scared and a little of "You're a lousy mom, mom"--and not so much pain, so I felt a little better. Also while I was comforting her she climbed over me to get back on the structure. When she's a little older, we're going to have to teach her the whole, "When you fall off the horse, you gotta get right back on" approach to life.
I thought about how the night before on CNN Headline news was Britney Spears getting a visit from DFS and a police officer after her 6 month old fell out of his high chair. I thought how much that stinks for her to have that on national news when my children swallow bottles of allergy pills and fall off play structures and NOBODY knows until I blog about it. That's not the only difference between Britney and me.
So later, while I was online checking prices for airline tickets, Bo decided to redecorate our living room. With permanent marker. On our carpet. Over about a 2 square foot area. Yeah, so I pretty much felt like throwing up when I saw it. I felt sick that I had let it happen, sick for how mad I knew it would make J, and sick for how much I'd miss Bo when J saw what he'd done. Bo even said later, in his defense, "The cahwpet didn't look pwetty so I made it pwetty." Nice Bo, nice. It's there-goes-your-deposit-and-any-hopes-of-having-guests-over-without-feeling-like-a-slob beautiful. I was surprisingly well-put together in the disciplining of this. In fact, afterwards I thought, "shouldn't there have been more smacking and respective screaming involved for that to have been effective?" I lectured him, J made him sit in his room, he didn't get dessert (I NEVER make dessert, and we had it last night), I think he got the message.
Bo was sent to bed for the 20 minutes before dinner was ready, and came out just as it was ready. As we sat down to eat, two police cars pulled up in "front" of our house
.It's actually our back door, but it's out our dining and living room windows, so it feels like the front. I was carrying the noodles from the sink to the table and stopped cold in my tracks. For a second I thought I was Britney Spears. Did I beat Bo? Did I leave any marks? Did I sufficiently comfort Avee when she fell 3 feet in front of my nose and anyone could have seen? I'm not kidding, I ACTUALLY THOUGHT I WAS BRITNEY SPEARS. Turns out there was some problem across the street and the police were a little lost.
Well, our carpet is still orange and green. My friend Amy came over with her super-cleaner and plunked herself on the floor and worked away at it. I have good friends---I'm not sure I am that good of a friend. I would probably come by for the after-cleaning celebration of cheesecake. It's definitely lighter, but still quite evident. If he'd used more earthy tones it would blend better with the chex mix and dried milk. We can't have it all though, can we?
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