Family

Children — No Comments
18
May 12

Stage mother at the piano recital.

I am so not the stage mother.

But honestly at this point, I think it would be better for my child if I was.

*   *   *

Today we went to the rehearsal at a local church for my daughter’s piano recital on Sunday.

The Lord gifted my daughter with an ear for music. This is good because I am tone deaf. No. That is really being way too complimentary about my musical skills.

She can play quite well.  But, she doesn’t practice.

Oh, she practices some. But not like she should.

A good mother would step in and make her play at least 30 minutes a day.

I am not a good mother. I’m happy when she sits down and I hear cheery melodies floating through the air. I never keep track of the time.

She got up today and played both her songs.

There was a little bit of stumbling.

She came rushing over to me after she was done.

“Can we go?”

No. I explained we needed to wait till the end. Then I said,

“Hannah you just need to practice more.”

Her reply,

“I can’t play on that piano. That’s not like our piano. It’s too clean.”

The more she explained, the more it made perfect sense.

The chips and dings in, pencil marks on and chocolate-stains ringing our ivory keys are her markers. They are how she recognizes the notes.

This church’s piano is pristine.

And it freaks her out.

I get it. Imperfect to touch. Weeds in my garden, dirty dishes in the sink and toothpaste splattered on the bathroom mirror.

It’s hard for me to play in perfect peace where things are sterile, not real.

What do you think? Is it easier to play on imperfect keys?

Of course this post never would have been written if I could afford to have someone clean my house six days a week.

 

 

Children / Uncategorized — 3 Comments
9
May 12

The day I started yelling at malfeasing boys in strange cars.

Yep.

You go bopping along 30 years of life and then someone puts a newborn in your arms.

This same baby you felt kicking and scratching inside of you a day ago.

Hello baby.

What am I supposed to do with you?

Once again I’m linking up with MamaKat’s Writer’s Workshop and I’m choosing  prompt number 1) Share a parenting moment where you really began to realize what this mothering thing is all about.

*   *   *

I had this baby.

I figured out how to feed him and change him.

Image credit

 

I never could figure out to keep him from looking like a dead baby bird in his car seat. (Looking back, I think it was because I kept the seat at too steep an angle for his little weak neck to stay upright.)

I was mostly going through the motions.

Oh, I loved him. But I felt as a baby sitter, a caretaker — wondering when some professional wearing a green smock would put a hypodermic needle in my body (still carrying 10 plus pregnancy pounds) and shoot me with the Mommy virus.

Then one day I was leaving Kroger pushing my new little charge/dead baby bird in the cart to the car.

SCREEEEECCCCHH.

A car whipped around a corner and down the aisle of cars lined as Dominoes.

“SLOW DOWN!” thundered out of the depth of my quaking torso.

I hated that boy driving that car. If my eyes shot out lightening bolts, he would be a pile of grey ash.

What just happened?

An awareness started oozing all through my body feeling all warm and tingly as if someone had just injected me with dye for a MRI.

How care that young fool race around in a 2000 lb. death mobile endangering my child!

My child.

Not the cute, wrinkly producer of dirty diapers. Not the crying, scrunched-up red face. Not the baby bird with the broken neck.

My son who I cared whether he lived or died more than I ever thought humanly possible to think about myself much less another being.

Yep.

That’s when I knew I was a mom.

How about you?

Mama’s Losin’ It

Children — 5 Comments
4
May 12

Shoeless Joe. How do these things happen?

Tonight we went to eat Mexican.

This doesn’t happen often because my husband is not a fan.

Which is a good thing.

Because I really love it.

So I don’t get the chance to overindulge very often.

We get to the restaurant and put our name in.  I see my friend Karen who asks, “Jamie, why are you taking a picture of the floor?”

Here’s why.

How do we not notice our child is barefoot?

Well, he made it to the booth.

And we actually made it through the meal.

After a filling platter of tacos what do you want to squeeze down your esophagus into your tight belly?

Ice cream.

Yes, Shoeless Joe made it to the ice cream parlor.

And after getting home and putting on a pair of socks and tennis shoes, he got into bed.

Do you have a shoeless joe in your house?

Children — 11 Comments
2
May 12

I wanted drama. So I lied.

I lied.

I just wanted to feel more important and most importantly, wanted Bitsy Beckham (name changed for the Facebook age) to think I was important.

It’s time again for MamaKat’s writing workshop and I’m choosing Number Two: Tell about a time an adult caught you doing something wrong.

image credit

*   *   *

I was five and Bitsy was seven. Our house were separated by a chain link fence.

Bitsy would play, play, play with me ~ until it was time for her older school friends to come over. I stared at them dancing around her backyard at a Brownie meeting thinking if I looked pitiful enough surely they would ask me over.

Nada. No invite ever came.

Bitsy only played with me when it was convenient.

I had enough.

I wanted Bitsy to invite me to Brownies d*mnit!

So I thought up a lie and I thought it up quick.

I was going into the hospital on Friday to have my tonsils extracted — or so I told Bitsy. As the week went on, the story grew and grew.

But Brownies came and went that week and I was still on the other side of the fence. Curses.

*   *   *

A rainy Thursday night.

I lay in bed saying prayers with my Mama when there was a knock on the front door.

Very odd.

“Tracy, could you come out here?” my mother’s voice echoed down the hall. (I went by Tracy back then but that is a whole notha’ story.)

I tiptoed down the dark hall, turned the corner and saw Mr. Beckham, Bitsy’s nice-looking, terribly kind father, clad in a all-weather coat, dripping wet.

His arms bursting with presents.

“You don’t look like a little girl who is having her tonsils out in the morning,” was all he said.

ARGHHHHHHH!

The most humiliating moment of my life and it happened at age five.

What about you? Has a tale ever come back to bite you BAD?

 

Mama’s Losin’ It

Children — 2 Comments
29
Apr 12

Sometimes you just got to roll with an 8 year old.

When you have two children close in age it’s easy to always lump them together in outings. At least for me.

With our busy lives, efficiency indicates that after school, we go to the library together. We go to the pool together. Heaven forbid, we go to Wal*Mart together.

Lately, I’ve tried to reverse this trend and on Sunday afternoons and when my daughter has play dates, I  spend a part of the afternoon with my son alone. (But not on the pipe together. I’ll stay on the bank with the camera phone, thank you very much.)

 

Though I suggest the activity, I’ve learned that things run smoothly if I let him set the tempo, the rules – basically run the show. Without being disrespectful for the most part.

Today I suggested tennis.

Great.

For my son, this equated to a crawfish catching expedition.

 Just roll with it.

As I walked into the television room to find two of the hotdogs I’d planned on feeding the family tonight in a homemade crawfish catcher….I just rolled with it.

After walking to the park…

When he crept back in the bushes slipping and sliding in the teeny creek to set his trap – in his new shoes we were to play tennis in….I just rolled with it.

 

He's in there somewhere....

 

When we got on the court and batted the ball back and forth, running here and yond…well, you know.

The same went for taking a break at “half time”  to run down to the creek to see two hotdogs still floating in the cage in the creek.

And here I sit typing away…for I’ve learned to bring my laptop whenever there might be a possibility of water and crawfish.

 

 

Yes, best to be prepared even when rolling with it.

Can you roll like an 8 year old or are you more squarish?

 

 

Children — 2 Comments
24
Apr 12

You can never have enough.

“You can never have enough bras. It’s not the same with socks. You always have enough socks.”

My 11-year-old daughter in Wal*Mart this afternoon.

She was pulling the full court press for more bras.

Not just any bras.

Bras with padding and cups.

Yes. They make these for pre-adolescent breasts.

Wait. I can’t even say breast.

It’s a prepubescent chest.

Then she got all excited about outfitting me.

“Mama, you’ve got to buy this so you’ll look like a teenager again.

This is what teenagers are wearing?

That wasn’t what my first breast shield looked like ~ at all.

But I did buy her one more bra with a smidgen of padding. The only underwire she’ll be wearing for the next few years will be on her braces. (If I can help it.)

She picked one with a peace sign over her heart.

For as she said, “One more just in case….you never want to run out.”

Funny, for me it’s the socks I tend to lose and not the bras.

What about you?

 

 

Attitude Matters / Family — 3 Comments
20
Apr 12

The rest of the story. My grandaddy and his WWII Baby Boom.

Grandaddy.

I always called my grandfather Grandaddy even as grown woman stooping to kiss his 95-year-old head.

I knew lots about my Grandaddy but it wasn’t until he was in his late 80s that I learned the “rest of the story.”

Joining up with MamaKat this week at little late, but couldn’t resist her prompt  3.)   Tell us something you learned about a grandparent that surprised you.

*    *    *

My grandfather was a obstetrician in Orlando from the 1920s till he retired. Back then Orlando was citrus, mosquitoes and beautiful sandy-bottomed lakes.

And babies needing to be delivered, for where men and women reside in close proximity that tends to happen.

So Grandaddy delivered lots of babies through the Depression and then came WWII.

All the doctors enlisted and went over to serve. I mean all.

But Grandaddy couldn’t pass the physical because of phlebitis in a leg. An injury sustained when an old sterilizer burst (basically a bladder filled with boiling water).

This troubled him greatly but what could he do?

So Grandaddy and another obstetrician in Brooksville (town outside of Tampa) where the only baby-delivers in Central Florida. All the rest went to Europe. Not to deliver babies but help patch-up babies who had grown into young men.

For a period of a few years, these two men delivered every baby born between Tampa and Orlando.

* I had always heard my grandmother say how Grandaddy slept with his shoes during that time.

Doctors made house calls back then.

*  I had always heard how just to see his Dad (who was never home) my Dad went on the calls with him. My Dad jokes how he knew what everyone’s living room looked like in Orlando for that is where he sat waiting for his father.

But not until his late 80s did I hear the rest of the WWII Baby Boomer story.

When the war was over and all the doctors back at their practices, Grandaddy invited them all to a banquet.

At the end of the meal, he handed each one an envelope.

In it was all the monies he had collected from their patients during the time they were gone.

He said it was the least he could do because he was unable to serve.

*   *   *

I was the oldest of his granddaughters.

After I went to law school, he said I reminded him of Portia from the Merchant of Venice.

image credit

 

I think that highly unlikely, but I loved it that my Grandaddy thought it so.

What about your grandparents? Any surprises for you?

 

 

Mama’s Losin’ It
 

Children / Midlife / Uncategorized — 6 Comments
14
Apr 12

The cord has a teensy tear. And mom has a teensy tear.

 

A person lies under that lump of blankets.

My son.

Our son.

Dad, son and mom were on our way to an Accepted Students Day at his chosen college. Festivities began with breakfast so we got an early start. Hence the comforter and the sleeping senior in the back seat.

From someone who has googled “What freshman need for college” (it’s basically a list like you’d pack for summer camp without the sleeping bag), I figured any organized activity from the school will help me in the next few months get my first child off to college.

Many of you have done this.

And then many of you have young children and this point in their lives heading to college seems as far away as Jupiter.  (Jupiter is still a planet, right? Planets seem to be in such a state of flux these days, I’m never quite sure.)

Yes, it seemed like yesterday I was teaching him his planets. Jupiter is the big one. With the red spot. Mostly all gases they say.

Or he was going with Mr. Troy on church outings to the telescope in Rutledge.

Now overnight I’ve become a tag along “mom” who is overly interested in uncool things.

 

Sitting in the auditorium with the other parents, it seemed like yesterday I was sitting in one with my mom. Out in the middle of Texas — a three hour flight and 2 day drive — from my home.

How did I get in the mom chair?

That’s what struck me today.

With how time roars by, there’s no way in a I’ll ever accomplish all I’d like in the time allowed on this earth. My mom who was sitting with me at my orientation now sits three months from her 80th birthday.

Though she looks damn good for 80 (as I’m sure I will) there’s not much time left for her to save the world.

Same goes for me.

No, today I realized one of my greatest accomplishments lay under a blue comforter on the drive to South Carolina this morning.

Kind of takes the pressure off.

You’d think I’d feel better.

But nope, I still feel like Pluto – first they welcome me as a planet and then they don’t need me in their galaxy anymore.

What about you and this whole children growing up thing?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Children / the looney-bin — 5 Comments
11
Apr 12

I respectfully disagree iPhone Lady. A smoothie is food.

“Everyone knows a smoothie is in the food group.”

Silence.

“Are you suggesting it’s a type of water?”

*   *   *

 

After sending the children off to school, I tried to call my husband.

Putting the phone on speaker (as is my custom) — I noticed that it was very, very quiet.

Examining the itty speakers on the phone, a pink gooey substance clung on their bitty woofers.

Dear Mother of pearl, the smoothie.

With only 5 minutes till departure for Morgan County Primary, I made an error of epic portions — I handed my eight year old my phone to play a game.

I had fixed him a fruit smoothie for breakfast.

My phone had ended up in his smoothie. I knew it.

Everything seemed okay, till I plugged in a charger.

The smoothie immersed phone wouldn’t recognize the charger. After cramming every charger in the house into it’s backside — NOTHING charged my phone.

Have you ever been so mad you spit tears?

Late this afternoon, I had the above mentioned conversation with the iPhone Lady on the Apple hotline.

“What is wrong with your phone?”

“It won’t charge. Something is stuck in the port and I can’t clean it out.”

“Something is stuck in there?”

“Well, no. My son stuck it in a food sort of thing and I think there is residue in the port.”

“What?”

That’s when I got ‘Ma’amed” by the iPhone Lady and told I was screwed.

Any advice on how to talk to iPhone people?

And John if you read this blog post,

HAHAHAHAHAHA.

This is a total fabrication. What will I dream up next?

 

 

 

She told me that no one would talk with me for a service related question unless I paid $69 some odd dollars for protection not including water damage.

 

I was thoroughly confused at

 

 

Children — 4 Comments
9
Apr 12

Road Trip Rules. What’s your Top Ten?

Road trips.

That’s what this week’s Monday Listcle is all about. “A list about ten things ROAD.”

So here goes.

10.  Kill.

 

9.   How I never fly anywhere any more.

8.   That said I do a lot of driving — with children. Tip number one.

Limit potty breaks to designated rest areas. Only leave interstate for gas and food.

The one thing that supersedes this is Mommy can leave the interstate anytime for coffee.

I do try to “hold it” with the kids till the next rest area. My sister could teeter in a bottle parked at rest area if her young kids were asleep and she didn’t want to wake them.

 

7. Let sleeping children SLEEP.

Never ever, wake a sleeping child on a road trip. EVER. Not even when you get to the hotel. Sleep in the car with them.

 

 

6.  Talk radio.

Most probably a sign I’m aging. Music used to be enough to keep me alive and kicking. Now if I’m really sleepy or bored — I listen to people talk. The Oprah network on Sirrus has saved me.

 

5.  Take children’s shoes off before they get in and hide them…

Nothing turns me into a bull staring at a red cape than getting to a rest area,

having a bladder set on BURST and a child unable to find a shoe to shuffle with me to bathroom.

 

4.  Drive somewhere with your husband.

Without the children, we eat when we want. Yell with abandon at the Garmin lady when she keeps insisting we make a legal U Turn. And arrive at our destination still happy that we decided to leave home in the first place.

 

3.  Order onion rings at drive-thrus.

No comfort food that your crazed-travelling-with-children self eats on a road trip has any calories. In fact, it enlarges your breasts and shrinks your rear.

 

2.  Sometimes mommy needs Silence.

No Disney channel, no movies, all games must be on mute. No fighting. No talking.

No unnecessary breathing.

 

1.  And most importantly, buy gas in Georgia and wine in Florida.

You’re taxed on the converse in each state.

 

What about you? Any road trip rules?

 

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