mattress mayhem

Many moons ago, when we lived in our little one-bedroom apartment in Georgia, my family came to visit over Easter weekend, and brought an air mattress with them. My sister slept on the couch and we inflated - manually - the balloon-bed on which Mom and Dad would sleep. And when I say "manually" I mean "orally". Yep. No vacuum inflaters back then. Not even a measly little foot pump. We huffed. And we puffed. And we huffed. And we puffed. And we blew that giant overpriced pool float right up. . . over the course of, say, two or three hours.

Later, while we were all sleeping peacefully in our respective beds, the apartment complex came under attack. In the wee hours of the morning we were startled awake by an explosion akin to a sonic boom or an 8.2 earthquake:

BOOM!!!!

It hit us so hard we literally screamed ourselves awake. "WHAT WAS THAT?! ARE YOU OKAY? ARE WE UNDER ATTACK? IS EVERYBODY ALIVE?" I ran the 5 steps from my bed to the living room to witness the following: the air mattress had exploded, Dad was lying FLAT on the floor, Mom was draped over him like the wreath on a winning racehorse, and the remaining air (and saliva) in the mattress was poofing out past their toes. Recalling this story still makes me laugh out loud.

I'd give anything to have an actual photograph of "Ground Zero" following this mattress-mayhem, but then again, the mental picture in my head is so worth these thousand words.

it's tough to be a SAHM... or how I survived four days without folding laundry

That's SAHM - Stay At Hyatt M.E., just to clarify.

Four days in the Hyatt place with my Mayah.  (When I say "my Mayah", I fully understand that I share her with three other grandparents, five great-grandparents, one aunt, two uncles, two cousins, an entire youth group, a daddy, a mommy and a partridge in a pear tree.  But indulge me...)

I was a Stay-at-Home-Mom for a good chunk of my parenting years and - some of you will hate me for this, but I gotta be honest - it was pretty doggone easy.  I never thought of it as hard or stressful or claustrophobic.  Sure, we were always broke.  Sure, I was always picking up 'odd jobs' to make ends meet.  Sure, our entertainment came in the form of board games and park days and movie nights with videos checked out from the library.  Sure, we took advantage of mooching off my parents as much as possible, but I'm telling you, I wouldn't trade my gig as a SAHM for all the blog readers in the country.

A few years ago I moved from SAHM to "Take Him to Work with Me Mom", and this year officially graduated to "Empty Nester", and I gotta tell ya, I'm growing accustomed to having things my way.   I fix what I want for dinner, take long baths with no interruptions, read books besides "Little House on the Prairie", and I never have to feel guilty for staying up too late playing Scrabble on Facebook.

So, my four days with my 19-month-old granddaughter in this upscale suburban hotel didn't come without its challenges. 

First, there was the unrealistic expectation by the hotel housekeeping staff that we would actually get out of bed sometime before noon so they could come in and make the beds and vacuum and take out the trash and bring clean laundry.  Oh, the inconvenience.

Second, since Mayah and I were without a car, we had to actually WALK a half mile or more in balmy 70-degree weather to places that fix your food and let you hang out and drink coffee...and then clean up after you.  Again, such hardship. 

Third, I was forced to lie, thus ALMOST making me feel guilty.  See, several people every day told me how adorable/sweet/smart my little girl was.  And I TRIED to be honest.  Well, honestISH.  One woman said, "Oh my, your daughter is BEAUTIFUL!" to which I responded, "Thank you!" (My daughter IS beautiful, she just happened to be 20 miles away at the time.)  Another woman smiled and asked, "Is she your first?" and I answered truthfully, "YES she IS!"  She didn't say first WHAT, so it wasn't REALLY a lie...right? 

Fourth,  Mayah had moments of missing her parents.  "MamaDada?" she queried, as she pointed to the door.  I would assure her they were coming back, but for today she was just getting to play with M.E.  But occasionally, she missed more than 'MamaDada'... she missed her nursing time with mommy.  And she let me know in a myriad of ways that she was CERTAIN I could serve the same useful purpose for her if I would only let her try.  She would poke me, roll her wrists (her sign for 'milk'), climb into my lap, try to pull my shirt up, and look at me as if to say, "WOMAN, you're holding out on me!  Don't try to tell me THOSE puppies are not loaded with boobie juice!"   Sorry kid, been there, done that, and happy to no longer have my body used as a vending machine, thank you very much.  So she would just curl up in my lap and let me sing to her as she drifted off to sleep in my arms.

I told you...it was a tough week.

someday

I spent last week with one of the loves of my life.  We held hands, took long walks, and kissed - a lot.  We stayed up late in our hotel room, talking and reading and snuggling, and cuddled in bed until late in the mornings.  We watched birds and picked honeysuckle.  We laughed.  We even fed each other grapes.  No stress, no worries, no expectations, just 96 hours of falling more in love.

I guess, at this point, you should know that this particular "love of my life" is my 19-month-old granddaughter, Mayah.

I was blessed to tag along with my daughter and son-in-law, to Atlanta, where they attended a conference, and Mayah and I got to be together - just the two of us.  Living 5 hours away in Indianapolis has made our limited time together very precious - especially now that she's old enough to like me.  :)    

There's more to come on this blog about the difficulties of living out of a hotel room with a toddler, but for today, I just want Mayah to know I had the BEST week.  I love you, little girl.  Someday I hope you fully understand how much. 

crunchier than grape nuts

I was recently invited to join a "Crunchy Moms Group" on Facebook. (If you don't know what that is, Google "crunchy mama". Yes, now. The rest of us will wait.)

Now that you know what a Crunchy Mom is, you should know ... I am not one. But I joined the group anyway, because it seemed like the polite thing to do.

I feel like such a fraud.

I am not crunchy; I'm caffeinated.

Crunchy moms are granola women who make their own soap and wear hand-made calico peasant skirts and love farm animals. They hug trees, listen to twinkle ding-dong music, go braless, and consider flip-flops as dress shoes. They braid their hair, bravely venture out in public without makeup, grow their own mushrooms, and clean their houses - and their bodies - with nothing but baking soda and vinegar.

I, on the other hand, wear deoderant. Yeah, the aluminum-laden, cancer-causing regular kind. I tried to give it up.

I ordered an all-natural, Jasmine-Lemon Grass Crystal Essence from hippiestuff.org. My bout with that lasted precisely 37 stinky days when I decided a long, healthy life ALONE, reeking of Jasmine-Lemon Grass BODY ODOR wasn't as fulfilling as the risk of a shorter pleasant-smelling life with an active social calendar.

Clearly, I am NOT a Crunchy Mom. Pseudo-crunchy at best, dipped in a little organic coconut oil.

Although, a couple of days after I joined the Crunchy Mom group, someone posted a "How Crunchy Are You?" quiz. (And you KNOW I can't pass up a good quiz.) Okay, so I was a co-sleeping, partial-cloth-diapering, non-vaxing, homebirthing, homeschooling, non-medicating, organic-baby-food-making, recycling rebel whose youngest self-weaned at 30 months. Oh yeah, and I'm a doula.

QUIZ SCORE: "Granola Earth Mama". The only thing that saved me from a perfect score of "Crunchier than Grape Nuts" is that I paint my toenails and shave my armpits.

Well, most of the time.

Still...L'oreal is my best friend, I haven't worn a peasant skirt since 1977, the only mushroom I ever grew was behind the toilet in our humid Georgia apartment, and thanks to Mary-Katherine Gallagher the thought of tree-hugging kinda freaks me out.

All things considered, maybe I am a little crunchy. Crispy perhaps. Half-baked more likely.

But for all of my truly crunchy friends out there, I AM proud to announce that I'm growing organic onions in my spring salad garden. Oh wait, that's not a salad garden... that's a flower bed.

Never mind.

my life as a newspaper - second edition

HEADLINE NEWS:
A school official replaced a child's "unsatisfactory" sack lunch with ... chicken nuggets. Seriously? Yeah. Watch THIS .

The REALLY ridiculous part to this (beside the fact that school lunches are among the worst of the worst nutritionally), is that kids will only eat what they are taught to eat at home. I eat lunch most Wednesdays with a group of 20 second graders - not ONCE in the entire school year has ANY of them ever chosen a vegetable (usually green beans and carrots are the offerings) when they go through the lunch line. OCCASIONALLY a few of them will pick up a piece of fruit. OFTEN many of them will use their pocket change to buy an extra bag of chips or a Capri Sun to supplement their chicken nugget, instant-mashed-potato, white roll and chocolate milk cafeteria lunch.

HUMAN INTEREST:
Speaking of children, Mayah and I were Skyping the other day, discussing arachnology*, optimism* and astronomy*, the depths of which exhausted her little 18-month-old brain, and she fell asleep. Her lovely mom and I continued to talk for a bit about more mundane subjects like nutrition and parenting, then we said our goodbyes. A bit later, I got a text that read, "Mayah just woke up very confused about why her M.E. is not still on the computer!" Needless to say, M.E. logged back on and said goodbye with waving and "I love you" signing and kiss blowing.

*arachnology = Itsy Bitsy Spider
*optimism = If You're Happy and You Know It
*astronomy = Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star

CLASSIFIED:
Speaking of texting, because my son does not properly know how to express his emotions with anything other than sarcasm, he texts me horrible things when he travels so I will know he made it to his destination safely. Our last exchange read something like this:
Kevin: I died in a car crash.
Me: Well, I certainly hope you were wearing clean underwear.
Kevin: I was ... BEFORE the crash.

LIFESTYLE:
Speaking of underwear, Kacey nap-dreamed that I was an out-of-control wedding planner at my niece's wedding. In the dream, I got mad at Kacey and threw her bridesmaid dress into the hall and made her wear a sports bra and a black leather mini-skirt, which of course, is completely ridiculous. No self-respecting wedding planner would allow a bridesmaid to upstage the bride.

OBITUARIES:
Speaking of leather, Norman Mailer is dead. Not the author - though he is dead too as of about 4 years ago. The Norman (and) Mailer I'm referring to were cows. 'Norman', after the calf Billy Crystal brought home in the movie City Slickers, and 'Mailer' because once you have a cow named Norman, the two writers in the family saw it as the obvious, and humorous, second choice. Anyway, Norman and Mailer recently took a one-way trip to visit the butcher, after which Kevin confessed to his father that he once punched Mailer dead in the nose when the cow tried to kick him. When his father expressed disdain, Kevin said, "Dad, the cows are hamburger now. Just think of what I did as 'pre-tenderizing'."

A few nights later, as I was eating some Norman Mailer spaghetti, Sara M. asked me if I was thinking about the cows as I ate it. I said, "Yes. I'm thinking, 'You're DELICIOUS.'"

EDITORIAL:
Speaking of hooved animals ... I think Deer Crossing signs are discriminatory. They're really Buck Crossing signs. That's why you almost exclusively see does as roadkill, because we aren't properly warned to look out for them.

Besides that, I'm pretty sure the antlers on these signs are backwards.

a bouquet of newly-sharpened pencils

To say I'm a big fan of words is a hyperbolic understatement. Words set the stage for life. Your use of words shapes how others see you, perceive you, respond to you. But for your words to have any worth, they have to come, not just from your mouth or your fingertips, but from inside who you are. Your words have to be real. Genuine.

That being said, I find the dialogue in most chick flicks to be fluff, and outside of a good pillow or a toasted marshmallow, I don't have much use for fluff. But great dialogue? Well, great dialogue has me still holding my eyes open at 1:30 a.m., completely enthralled with a sappy Nora Ephron movie I have seen at least a dozen times because of language like this:

Well, it was a million tiny little things that, when you added them all up, meant we were supposed to be together... and I knew it. I knew it the very first time we touched. It was like coming home... only to no home I'd ever known... It was like... magic.

'What will he say today?', I wonder. I turn on my computer. I wait impatiently as it connects... and my breath catches in my chest until I hear three little words: 'You've got mail'. I hear nothing. Not even a sound on the streets ... just the beating of my own heart. I have mail. From you.

I would have asked for your number, and I wouldn't have been able to wait twenty-four hours before calling you and saying, "Hey, how about... oh, how about some coffee or, you know, drinks or dinner or a movie... for as long as we both shall live?" And you and I would have never been at war. And the only thing we'd argue about would be which video to rent on Saturday night.

I love that you get cold when it's 71 degrees out. I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich. I love that you get a little crinkle above your nose when you're looking at me like I'm nuts. I love that after I spend the day with you, I can still smell you on my clothes. And I love that you are the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night. And it's not because I'm lonely, and it's not because it's New Year's Eve. I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.

I've been thinking about you. Last night I went to meet you, and you weren't there. I wish I knew why. I felt so foolish.... Anyway I so wanted to talk to you. I hope you have a good reason for not being there. You don't seem like the kind of person who'd do something like that. The odd thing about this form of communication is that we're more likely to talk about nothing than something. But I just want to say that all this nothing has meant more to me than so many somethings.

All I'm saying is that somewhere out there is the man you are supposed to marry. And if you don't get him first, somebody else will, and you'll have to spend the rest of your life knowing that somebody else is married to your husband.

People are always saying that change is a good thing. But all they're really saying is that something you didn't want to happen at all... has happened. Someday, it'll be just a memory. But the truth is... I'm heartbroken. I feel as if a part of me has died ... and no one can ever make it right.

I'm gonna get out of bed every morning... and breathe in and out all day long. Then, after a while I won't have to remind myself to get out of bed every morning and breathe in and out... and, then after a while, I won't have to think about how I had it great and perfect for a while.

Do you ever feel you've become the worst version of yourself? That a Pandora's box of all the secret, hateful parts - your arrogance, your spite, your condescension - has sprung open?

Sometimes I wonder about my life. I lead a small life - well, valuable, but small - and sometimes I wonder, do I do it because I like it, or because I haven't been brave? So much of what I see reminds me of something I read in a book, when shouldn't it be the other way around? I don't really want an answer. I just want to send this cosmic question out into the void. So, good night, dear void.

And then the dream breaks into a million tiny pieces. The dream dies. Which leaves you with a choice: you can settle for reality, or you can go off, like a fool, and dream another dream.

it's not in my best pinterest

I have a subscription to Teen Vogue, yes I do. Come on, you know how I love Zac Ephron, and articles on dealing with jealousy from my BFF, and learning how to accessorize an outfit with toe socks and glitter heels. Seriously though, they started sending it to me based on some online purchases for my niece, and despite numerous efforts, I can't get them to stop sending it.

Aside from Teen Vogue, I don't subscribe to magazines. At all. No Newsweek or Cosmo or National Geographic. No Guns N Ammo or Martha Stewart Living. I'm just not a magazine person; seems like a tragic waste of trees. Besides, I have MSN and Google and bookshelves filled with novels.

That being said, Pinterest is the hottest thing going right now. Anybody who's ANYBODY (mostly of the female persuasion) is addicted. I, however, don't get it. I mean, I GET it, I just don't "get" it. According to the Pinterest website, " Pinterest lets you organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. People use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, and organize their favorite recipes."

Truthfully, this is the kind of stuff I look at on Pinterest:

To me, Pinterest is the equivalent of earmarking magazines, and passing them on to my best friend, who turns down the corners on the pages she likes and then passes them off to her sister, who in turn marks the pictures and articles that appeal to her, then takes them to her doctor's waiting room for the next patient to read, ad infinitum.

My questions for Pinteresting people are: What am I going to do with 3 different recipes for baked oatmeal? For heaven's sake, I don't even own 3 cookbooks. Why do I need a virtual bulletin board filled with pictures of cupcakes? Does EVERYBODY in the world like Nutella? WHY do I want to repost pictures of furry kittens? And DIY projects??? Get real. I do NOT want to melt down my leftover Yankee Candles and turn them into a dissection tray or sand down the cedar chest my granny gave me as a wedding gift to make my own coffin (though there is some metaphorical significance there.)

I have so many better things to do with my time. Now, somebody please start a Scrabble game with me on Facebook.

how low can you go?

FOREWARD
When my son tells me about his Ultimate Frisbee Tournaments, it sounds like this to my brain:
"So this guy ran down the field and dove and caught it and then he threw it and they scored and then another guy jumped and caught it and then HE threw it and WE scored and then the same guy who made the first throw caught it again and then..."

When my husband tells me about horse stuff, it sounds like this to my brain:
"So the horse ran to the back field and I ran after it and made it run in circles until it got tired and then I went to the barn to get the other horses and I took them out to the back field and then I got the tractor and hauled a round bale out to the back field where the horses were running and..."

So when I tell a birth story, I'm very aware that to some of you it sounds like:
"So then she had a contraction and then we walked and then she had more contractions but she was only dilated to 4 so we walked some more. And then her back hurt but she was only dilated to 5 so we squatted and lunged while she had more contractions. Then she was dilated to 7 and the contractions became really intense and then the contractions were really close together and ..."

But I've got a story to tell and I promise, it won't sound anything like that.

INTRODUCTION
She was only worried about two things:
1. Transporting the 40 miles to the hospital in the dead of winter,
and
2. Staying calm, relaxed and peaceful. (She, MaryKate, had been very stressed and anxious the last time, and did NOT want that experience again.)

CHAPTER ONE
The Call came at 12:40 a.m.. Contractions 10-12 minutes apart, MaryKate is ready for me. Foregoing my usual "I-have-plenty-of-time" shower, I dressed quickly and hit the road, stopping to fill my empty gas tank at 1:00 in the morning. I am 6 blocks from their house when her husband calls (NEVER a good sign), "Steph, we are at 4 minutes apart, we need you now!"

Two minutes later I let myself in the side door. Hubby takes my keys and starts loading things into the van. I find MaryKate laboring in bed, eyes closed, very internally focused. I remind myself: calm, relaxed, peaceful. During contractions I do my "back magic", and in-between I get her some water and put on her shoes.

I hold her hair back away from her face and doing my best Julie Andrews impersonation (who once said about herself, "Sometimes I'm so sweet, even I can't stand it.") I whisper, "We're not going to be laboring at home, MaryKate. You're doing great, but this is happening fast." Inside my head, Gilbert Gottfried is shrieking, "OH MY GOODNESS, THIS IS TOO FREAKIN' FAST!!!"

The next contraction finds us squatting in the driveway. Her mom - who will be following us in her own car- asks, "Are we going to make it to the hospital??" Calmly I smile and hear Julie Andrews say, "Most certainly!" (Internally, Gilbert panics, "We may not make it to the hospital until AFTER the baby comes, but we'll definitely make it!")

Before we hit the road, MaryKate insists I teach her husband how to do "that back thing", so Lance gets a crash course in a technique I've been perfecting for nearly 3 years. Now the 40-minute drive...and though I could drive crazy fast and get us there in 30, there is a laboring woman on her knees in the place of my center console, so safety has to take precedence. Through all of this, I am pretending to be cool as a cucumber. Driving 80 mph, talking over my shoulder in my best Mary Poppins voice, "You are doing such a great job, MaryKate. Practically perfect in every way. Take a deep breath through your nose ... now blow it slowly out through your mouth. Goooooood."

With every mile, contractions are growing closer and more intense, and suddenly she responds to one of them with a screeching dolphin-call. "MaryKate..." I speak in a soft, low tone, and quite possibly with a British accent, "remember what we talked about. Keep your throat relaxed. Bring your voice down low. Moan it out. Remember: LOW."

From the floor behind me I sense the beginning of the next contraction...her throat tightening, her shoulders rising, her voice starting to squeak with the pain...and the next moment I will forever remember as one of my Favorite Things (Sing with me: "Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, bright copper kettles and MaryKate's contractions...") She remembers what we talked about, brings her dolphin screech down to a deep Darth Vader growl, and for the next 45 seconds I hear, "low low low low low low low low low low low low..." as she literally chants the word "low" through the entire contraction. It is ALL I can do to keep from laughing hysterically!

Now I become the living GPS, only with a slow, lilting voice.
"Only 10 more minutes and we'll be there."
"Three more contractions, MaryKate, and we'll be at the door."
"Just a spoonful of sugar and the baby will be out."

Maneuvering the parking lot like Speed Racer, avoiding the bumps, swerving around parked cars and a cigarette-smoking nurse, I zip to the front door, jump out and grab a wheelchair. After some chair-not-working-and-what-do-we-do-about-the-bags confusion, the four of us glide through the deserted hospital corridor, up the elevator and into Labor and Delivery.

It is 2:02 a.m.

"This is MaryKate and she's having a baby," my Julie Andrews voice says. And even though we are pre-registered, the nurses respond with a myriad of questions, asking for insurance cards and social security numbers, and a request for MaryKate to get on the scales so they can weigh her. Clearly, they are not understanding, so Gilbert makes an appearance outside of my brain, "Ladies! This is MaryKate's THIRD baby, it doesn't matter what she weighs as she will weigh 12 pounds less in only a few minutes! We need a room right now!" Sensing the urgency, one of them says, "Room 4!" and in we go. MaryKate stands up out of the wheelchair and grabs the bed as I instinctively take my place behind her. I feel a splash on my foot just as she announces, "My water broke! My water just broke!" Why, yes, yes it did.

She lays down on her side as we get her lower half undressed, feet still dangling off the bed. Dr. M. comes in and says, "Let's get you all the way up in the bed." So with hubby on one side and me on the other, we pull her up in the bed. Before we can even get the bed raised, one nurse is trying to get her shirt off, another is trying to monitor her. I politely ask them to "get real", as MaryKate is hit with one MASSIVE pain - her feet on the bed, her head on the bed, the rest of her body imitating the St. Louis arch. She looks wide-eyed at me and declares, "I'm on my back! I'm on my back! I don't want to be on my back!" I tell her I understand completely, and as SOON as this contraction is over, we'll get into a better position. Before I finish my sentence, Dr. M. announces, "We're crowning...and THERE she is!" And Gilbert Gottfried screams, "WHAT THE...???"

Time of birth 2:09 a.m.

my life as a newspaper, the leap day edition

HUMAN INTEREST:
Stephanie's BRILLIANT 17-month-old granddaughter, Mayah, recognizes her letters, oh yes she does. Chicka Chicka Boom Boom gets the credit.

SPORTS:
Stephanie's AMAZING son, Kevin, is playing Ultimate Frisbee for Harding University and they are the number one ranked team in the nation (really)!

In playing this so-called sport earlier in the season, Kevin's cranium collided with the ground, rendering him concussed. When consulting with the E.R. physician, Kevin asked, "What should I do?" The doc replied, "Next time, don't land on your head."

ENTERTAINMENT:
If Stephanie's cowboy husband made movies, they would all be over in approximately 11 minutes... roughly the time the villain makes his first appearance. The bad guy would steal a car/rob a bank/shoot an innocent bystander/roll his eyes at a cop, then BANG, the "good guy" would instantly shoot the bad guy.

Movie over.

In other news, I recently saw both "The Descendants" and "The Artist" at Maiden Alley Cinema. Exceptionally good movies, though I didn't think the "The Artist" was artsy enough to deserve the Best Picture Oscar. Maybe if they added Olivia Newton-John in roller skates and some E.L.O. music...

EDITORIAL:

WHY predictive texting? Are we so lazy that our phones think we can't finish typing entire words??? (My finger is exhausted!) So, I type out the words I want, and my phone changes them into other words. For example, Andy made a NICE play against me the other day in Words with Friends and I tried to say, "Ooohhh, NICE play." What he got instead was, "Popgun, NICE play" as though Popgun is my own little nickname for him. What??? How does OOOHHH become POPGUN??? I'll have to admit, though, sometimes it can be funny ... like when one of my more reserved postpartum clients texted to say, "I'm thinking about pimping."

She quickly sent a second text that read, "PUMPING!!! I'm thinking about PUMPING!!!"

GENERAL NEWS:
Do you drink Mountain Dew or Orange Crush or Gatorade Ice or ANY soft drink/sports drink that is a bit "cloudy" in appearance? It might interest you to know that clouding agent is called Brominated Vegetable Oil or BVO. It contains bromine, a poisonous chemical whose vapors are both corrosive and toxic. BVO is used in light-sensitive photographic paper, as an additive in gasoline and as an agricultural fumigant. BVO causes numerous health issues including iodine deficiency, cancer, heart disease and kidney disease, to name a few, and has been banned in over 100 countries, just not in the U.S. because they know we'll feed our kids anything.

OBITUARIES:
Mice. They were preceded in death by other mice. They are survived by many more mice, who had better stay out of my house if they want to remain on the survivor list.

LIFESTYLE:
I have an artsy doula client (whom I just love!), but whose extreme right-brainedness makes even creative ME feel like an accountant. When making our last appointment she texted: "Let's meet at the coffee shop sometime before darkish." Darkish? What time is darkish? Is that as the sun is setting, or that half hour after it has set, or the few minutes before total darkness when everyone on the street looks like a silhouette? And even more, how much "BEFORE" darkish is before? Half hour? Ten minutes? I didn't know. To be safe, I showed up an hour and five minutes early and waited in the van. Pretty sure the barristas thought I was casing the joint.

BUSINESS:
Over the holidays I took one very rare day off from work. My co-worker (who happened to have a badly scraped up nose) texted me, "Great. With my nose, I'm already Rudolph, and now you're gonna be Splitzen."

CLASSIFIED:
I have a text on my phone that SHOULD be classified, that simply states: "I want you to look at his penis". I would put it in context, but that would take all the fun out of it.

COMICS: ('cause I always save the best for last)
As I was driving downtown last Saturday night, I passed by the Catholic Church just as a large crowd was leaving the building. I thought to myself: Mass Exodus.

Then I laughed, 'cause I tickle myself.

the wrath of cohen

Some pictures really are worth 1000 words...

...and boppin 'em on the head

Once upon a time, Walt built an entire career on one, then he let a bunch of them make Cinderella's ballgown. The Mighty one was a superhero, and the Mexican one was super Speedy. Spielberg brought a little Russian one to America, and E. B. white let his sail a boat in Central Park. There were, apparently, three blind ones, though Bart Simpson's was just Itchy. The one in the nursery rhyme ran up a clock, and at some point you have scrolled around your desktop with one. Tom chased one who often stole cheese, you've probably let a giant one named Chuck E. serve you pizza, and Laura Numeroff gave one a cookie.

So why am I completely freaked out to have one in my house???

I was sitting in my chair, as I often do when I chat or write...one foot tucked under me, the other foot in the floor, laptop in, well, it's called a laptop for a reason. Then I sensed it. You know that feeling you get when there is SOMETHING else in the room with you. I peeked around the laptop and THERE IT WAS, not 4 inches from my foot. I screamed silently (since there was no one else at home or in the woods to hear me, I obviously wouldn't have made a sound anyway), quickly tucked BOTH feet under me, and watched it watch me.

Ewwww.

When it was a safe distance away (safe distance = 3 car lengths), I went to get a mousetrap. Not finding one, I came back with a broom, as I guess I thought I could use it as a getaway vehicle if I saw her again. I say "her" because she was small. And kinda cute. And completely gross. And though I NEVER gave her a cookie, she still left little chocolate sprinkles in her wake. *Shudder.

I used to have gerbils as pets. Explain this to me.

Anyway, a couple of days and a mousetrap-shopping-spree later, the cowboy trapped one and notified me via text. I breathed a deep sigh of relief until the second text arrived stating "what a big sucker he was".

No, no she wasn't.

She was a wee little thing. Dainty. Delicate. Disgusting. And apparently still vacationing in my house and inviting her friends.

Oh, where is a hungry snake when you need one???

She - let's call her "Mini Mouse"- tormented me for days, zipping around corners, scurrying under sofas, bounding across the bedroom floor, forcing me to leap into bed and pull the comforter up on all four sides to make CERTAIN she did not have an access ramp to my mattress. Once she even stared me down from the back of what USED to be my favorite reading chair.

Finally, today, I broke down and bought glue traps. I don't like them. They are inhumane. Or inrodentane. But this cohabitation arrangement had gone on entirely long enough; it was time for this unwelcome tenant to go. The cowboy lined up several traps in a row, baited them with cat food (which works great, especially in the absence of an ACTUAL cat) and within a few minutes we heard her. Then we saw her. She raced under the couch, around the leather cube, across the brick hearth, landing on one of the glue traps with all the finesse of an Olympic medalist, and went flying across the floor like a sticky Jamaican bobsledder.

I will not tell you what happened next, though a reference to Little Bunny Foo-Foo would be appropriate.

Go ahead, Good Fairy, goon me.

The End.
I hope.
I really, really hope.

food, baby!

My daughter is an amazing mom - she took care of herself while pregnant, gave birth naturally (as in, intervention-FREE), feeds my granddaughter organically, and at 16 months, is still breastfeeding. She's a great mommy in dozens of other ways as well, (and my son-in-law is a fine baby daddy). My granddaughter is one happy, well-adjusted little girl.

Mostly.

See, she loves her milk and her bread and her rather pricey 'puffs' (cheerio-like organic snacks) and her baby food. They are "clean" foods. They don't get her fingers messy. They don't feel funny in her mouth. But she will not TOUCH real foods. And I mean that LITERALLY. Will not touch, much less eat.

I teased my daughter, "You can stop that, you know." Kacey agreed that, yes, she could, but she couldn't STAND for her baby girl to cry and she was afraid she would starve to death. I assured her that she would NOT starve.

"You're gonna MAKE me do this, aren't you?"

"Of course not," I said. "She's your daughter, it's completely up to you", but Kacey restated emphatically, "You ARE gonna make me do this, aren't you?!"

So I smiled and assured her I would help her with some "tough love".

We started the day with some corn, which Mayah refused with a tightly-closed mouth and a turn of her head. I tried to open her little mouth and insert a kernel, but she spit it right out. We repeated this process for about 20 minutes. She looked at me, then at her mommy, then back at me as if to say, "WHY would I want to put this weirdness in my mouth when I have mom's body 24/7 as a vending machine?"

She cried. She whined. She pouted. But she ate nothing. Fine.

A couple of hours later we tried some blueberries and grapes, but no way. She wouldn't even touch them with her fingers.

At lunch, we gave her a buffet of black beans, corn, tomatoes, strawberries, bananas and canteloupe. She did TOUCH it - as in, pick it up and throw it in the floor - but she would NOT eat it. Not one bite. She asked for her "milk", but Kacey did the hard thing and told her 'no'.

She cried. She whined. She pouted. But she ate nothing.

Following an afternoon of shopping and talking and bonding, my daughter and I went for coffee. We bought Mayah some all-natural gummy snacks. I attempted to push one through her pursed lips, but she clenched her teeth and looked at me with disgust and said, "M.E., darling, you know I adore you, but if you try to feed me ONE MORE BITE of ANYTHING today, I will shove these gummy snacks up your nostrils and suffocate you in your sleep."

So, I went to Kroger and bought a smorgasbord of options for her: peas, carrots, green beans, yogurt, berries, bananas, organic fruit strips, etc., and we went to meet our Darling friends and their child (Cohen) for dinner. We hoped Mayah might be inspired to eat after watching Cohen, for whom eating is a religious experience. But no.

She cried. She whined. She pouted. But she ate nothing.

Finally, at bedtime, she begged for her milk. (Begging = climbing up into Kacey's lap and making reverse waving signs with her hands as if to say "gimme, gimme, please, please!") Kacey firmly told her there would be no "milk" until she ate ONE BITE of something. So I put a piece of fruit strip into her mouth. She spit it out. I put it back in. She spit it out again, this time with attitude. I put it in a third time. It came back out. And a fourth time. The beauty of fruit strips, however, is they dissolve in saliva, so with each reinsertion, the fruit strip became smaller and gooier. Finally, it liquified in her mouth and we called it good. Twenty-four hours and all she had eaten was a fruit strip. Fine.

The next morning Mayah woke and happily ate a bowl of real oatmeal with blueberries, as if the previous day never existed. At lunch she ate a fruit snack and a bowl of green beans (she greatly enjoyed feeding herself like a big girl with her own little fork). For dinner she ate half a banana and more green beans. Every day since has resulted in new fruits and grains and eggs and veggies being added to her repertoire.

Stubborn as she was - IS - it only took one day of "tough love" for Mayah to decide we meant business. One day to learn it was a fight she wasn't going to win. One day to get her to eat foods she wouldn't even try before. One day to learn how to use a fork and feed herself. One day to get over her stubbornness. One day to cut their baby food bill by 75%.

One day.

to kill a water buffalo

I'm standing in the hospital room, quite literally falling asleep in an upright and locked position, in-between her contractions. It is 9:30 a.m. and we have been at this "laboring" thing together since I arrived at their house at 1 a.m. I'm wearing shoes that aren't nearly as comfortable as they should be for as ugly as they are. My lower back is aching. I haven't eaten in 14 hours. And I would kill a small water buffalo with my bare hands for a cup of coffee or a pillow.

"WHAT AM I DOING???" I ask myself. This is not fun. This is HARD. She is exhausted and in tears from intense back labor. She doesn't know what she wants anymore. Yesterday she knew what she wanted to do, tomorrow she will know what she wished she had done, but today, well, today she just wants it to be OVER.

And, frankly, so do I.

Finally, with the option of an epidural looming in front of us, we decide to give it one more valiant try ... and it works. My doula experience pays off and it all finally comes together as we get the baby turned and dilation then quickly moves from 6 to 9. Just an hour later she is holding her beautiful baby girl. She EARNED this moment. Her husband hugs me a long, sweet hug of thankfulness. Her mom wraps her arms around me and says, "You are my new best friend." Our sweet little baby mama looks up at me, her face glistening from sweat and tears, and says, "I feel like I owe you my life. THANK YOU. There is NO WAY I could have done this without you."

I'm still standing here in ugly shoes. My back is still aching. I would still kill a water buffalo for some caffeine. But I KNOW why I do this.

am I WHO?

This is where I live. Sort of. This is my "church office", and I love it. Really love it. This was Kevin's "schoolroom" for grades 5-11. This is where I plan events, coordinate volunteers, design graphics, write blogs, have deep and meaningful conversations with people, and generally do all my planning, organizing and communicating. This I where I got a phone call a few weeks ago when a salesperson asked me if I was "Mrs. Christ".

Uh huh, 'cause I'm just THAT good.

I love that I have the freedom to make it look like "me".

I love the granny-apple-guacamole-green on the walls.

I love the dark wood.

I love the "HOPE" that is leaning on the baseboard, I think it's symbolic that I haven't hung it up higher..."not getting my hopes up yet" so to speak. :)

I love "Mr. Smiley" who lives behind my door.

I love my comfy little couch that is perfect for Kevin's afternoon naps when he is home.

I love the slightly funky bookcase which holds a yummy hazelnut-scented candle, leftover wedding flowers, my iHome, my "Happiness" (a Willow Tree figurine), and a little book called "How to Love Someone You Can't Stand" which I make myself read regularly because ...
well, just because.

what's in my ... purse?

Hi, and welcome to "What's in my..._____?"
(Episode 1 - The One with the Copper Purse.)

Why am I blogging this? Because I'm home on a Friday night, the laundry is done, I'm caught up on Words with Friends, I've stared blankly at Facebook for a half hour, and I can't go to bed because I have no hope of dozing off until the cowboy is in stage four of his sleep cycle and has stopped actively dreaming about rescuing the world from nuclear holocaust..

So here is my winter purse. It's the exact color of a 1980 penny, and although the straps are a bit too short for "throwing over my shoulder" it's a fine bag.

What's IN my purse?
An organizer
A make-up pouch
Kindle Fire, iPod and cell phone
Wallet, 2 checkbooks, receipts
Keys, hairbrush, fun spinny toy.

The cell phone, though scratched significantly, glows a lovely shade of purple and is all 'matchy-matchy' with the hairbrush.

The beaded, lime-green keychain (which is 'matchy-matchy' with the wallet), holds the key to Eddie van Honda, my house key, 2 work keys, and 2 keys from friends' houses so I can use their bathrooms and wifi at will. Just kidding. I would never do that. At least, not while they're home.

The colorful spinny toy is so I can entertain Mayah and Cohen and any other toddler who needs to think I'm the coolest person ever.

The receipts are from the day Sara and I drove to Nashville and stocked up our carts and coolers with healthy, organic groceries and then topped off our food shopping with dinner at Chipotle. And since we were also shopping for Jessica and the other Sara, our Whole Foods bill rivaled the daily accumulation of the national debt. Still, I now have organic sesame seeds and extra-virgin coconut oil, so I feel complete.

So...what's in my wallet? $67 (which is 67x more cash than normal), a "Love Live Grow Go" card from church, semi-dated pictures of my kids, a photo of Evarest - the child I sponsor in Tanzania, my driver's license with important numbers blurred out like a bad guy's face on Cops so you aren't tempted to steal my identity, cause, let's face it, who doesn't want to be me? And the following cards: debit, Visa, health insurance, blood donor, Sam's, Kroger and Panera. Oh, and tickets to the upcoming "Spamalot" at the Carson Center. :)

The make-up bag consists simply of 2 kleenex, NON-anti-bacterial hand sanitizer (would that make it bacterial sanitizer?), 2 lipglosses (one light, one dark), a granite eyeliner, Cover Girl's professional mascara in waterproof black because this is the ONLY mascara that is truly waterproof. Trust me on this. It is the product that allows me to blubber like a baby with grace and dignity. The last item is, of course, Pearberry lotion to be all 'matchy-matchy' with the smell of my hairspray.

Kacey gave me this organizer last Christmas so I could carry "bags" instead of "purses", but it ain't happenin' - I NEED compartments. Still, I use the organizer to house my most-used handbag items.

Three clicky pens - 2 black ink, one purple. Dentyne Blast CocoMint gum because I hate the taste of most chewing gum, but when I want to mask the smell of sushi on my breath, this tastes just like Andes mints and makes me happy. A Cover Girl Lipslick, color: Princess. Shut up, I don't want to hear it. It's the perfect shade of pink. A Physician's Formula compact powder (because Cover Girl foundation products smell like Noxema. Bleh.) A Bonnie Bell vanilla chapstick, as apparently I'm still 14. Two pairs of reading glasses in case I inadvertently leave one somewhere. Nail clippers and file because I bite my cuticles which make my nails break easily, and a pair of tweezers in case I get a splinter, not to pluck the little hair that appears under my chin out of nowhere and grows 3/4 of an inch in one day.

And there you have it. Stay tuned next time for "What's in my ... __________?" (Episode Two: The One with the Pockets.) Although I don't carry anything in my pockets. Unless, of course, I'm running into Huck's for coffee in which case I put $2 and my keys in my pocket so I don't have to carry my purse inside. But otherwise my pockets are always empty. Pocket fuzz maybe, something akin to bellybutton lint. That would be it. So, on second thought, don't stay tuned. T'will be too dull.