A Starting Line

So…yeah.

I read the blog of a lovely woman who has 14 kids. She’s adopted some, birthed some. Some are typical, some have special needs.

This woman recently wrote a post about her daily, hour-long workouts and what she likes (and doesn’t) like to eat.

She said she’s 5’7” and before starting her workouts, she weighed 125lbs.

Yes.

And she confessed that she hates to eat.

What?

I mean…for real?

She also admitted that she knows she can’t afford to lose even a single pound.

OMG.

Whatever.

Except, okay. Sure. There are must be people out there who don’t like to eat, who have incredibly high metabolisms and who struggle to gain weight.

I’m obviously NOT one of those people.

I want to lose weight.

I do.

I just don’t know, right this second, how to even get started.

I’d love to exercise. I mean, if I could find an exercise that I didn’t hate and that didn’t make me breathe hard and sweat and feel gross, sure, I’d love to do that.

I was a naturally thin kid. I ran, I rode my bike, I played tennis against the roof of our house for hours. I mowed the lawn, an acre with a push mower. I moved a lot and didn’t even think about my body.

I think about my stupid body all the freaking time these days. I hate my body so much. I hate my stupid feet, my horrible stomach, my disgusting boobs. I hate my jiggly arms and my short neck. I hate my thighs and my chubby cheeks.

I know that’s awful. I’m sorry.

But I need to start somewhere. I need to find a way to motivate myself to NOT eat all the chocolate covered raisins; to not eat my weight (which is considerable…) in Suzy-Qs.

I need to WANT to go for a walk, to fight the pain my feet and just get off my giant butt and MOVE.

What do I start?

How does one start working out for an hour every single day?

I only have two kids and I can’t imagine finding the time to work out daily for an hour. I just…can’t.

I know I will never be that person who gets up early to work out. And once I’m home, I can’t imagine actually leaving my family again to go workout. So…what do I do? Where do I start?

How do I fix myself?

Hey Jealousy!!

Our local school held the graduation ceremony on the Sunday before Memorial Day. Which is nice for those with graduates, it gives a day to recover from festivities. Others who might want to travel for the weekend probably aren’t so excited about this.

Anyway!! This isn’t about the school administration and their scheduling issues.

Alyssa wears T-shirts and hoodies. She’s not really a ‘dressy’ kind of gal.

Alas, she is in the band and choir, so she’s required to dress up on occasion. She often stands in her room wringing her hands in despair, lamenting her lack of dressy clothes. Which amuses me to no end because I try and try to get her to even LOOK at dressy clothes while we’re out and about but she refuses, saying everything looks stupid or just not her style.

Which, yes, of course dressy clothes aren’t your style, my dearest love. We all get that. But when you NEED them, it doesn’t matter that they aren’t your style, you still have to wear them.

Ahem.

Where was I?

Yes, the Saturday before Memorial Day. Which, if you’re keeping track is the day before graduation, my mom and I took A and O to Fort Wayne with the intention of looking at Kohl’s for a dress for Lyss to wear to graduation THE NEXT DAY.

Yes, nothing like waiting until the last minute. Sigh.

As is our norm, we decided to go to lunch before hitting the stores. We tried to go to Steak ‘n Shake in Fort Wayne but found that the north location (on Coldwater Road for those who want to know) has closed. Huh. Who knew? Well, now WE know, which is guess is what matters.

My mom suggested we just go to the mall. The girls very enthusiastically agreed with that suggestion. They love Sbarro’s pizza.

After lunch we headed to JC Penney’s because, well, it was right there.

We came across racks and racks of dresses priced at 40% off.

We picked five dresses and headed to the dressing room. My mom and I waited outside the stall while Liv went in with Lyss to serve as her zipping girl. It was sweet.

Alyssa ended up with three dresses, one purchased by me, one by my mom and the last one, Alyssa bought herself because she happened to have a bunch of cash on hand. Smart girl.

As we headed out of town, my mom commented, “It’s so sweet that Livie showed no signs of jealousy while Lyssie was trying on those dresses.”

I shrugged. Neither of my girls seem to be jealous of the other.

Olivia knows that even if she’s not getting a dress this week and Lyss is, it might be Liv’s turn next week (or you, know some other time.)

Now, don’t think I’m sitting here tooting my horn as an awesome parent who has fostered good will within her children.

Ha! We all know that none of this is my doing. I can’t take credit for their awesomeness. I mean, I’ve love to, of course. I’d love to be able to say that I’ve loved them both so thoroughly and so evenly that they KNOW there is no reason to feel jealous of the other. But…yeah. No. I don’t get that credit.

My girls are just good kids. They don’t feel any need to compete with each other because they actually like each other and enjoying seeing the other succeed and/or get nice things every so often.

We share the love and they both know that in the end, it will all even out.

Remember when I worried incessantly that Alyssa would be jealous of Olivia’s need for therapies and extra attention? Yeah, apparently, I was stupid for worrying.

I’m a lucky, lucky mom.

Flash Back to the Fifth Grade Field Trip That Didn't Happen

Fifth grade is the year that kids are introduced to D.A.R.E. At least that’s the case at our local school.

Olivia had actually enjoyed the monthly programs throughout the year. She’s come home each time with all kinds of stories about the day. I think her favorite was when the officer presenting one day was dividing the kids into pairs.

He pointed to two kids and said, “You’re a pair.”

Then he pointed to another couple of kids and said, “You’re an apple.”

Olivia got such a kick out of that one. She loves puns and ‘clever’ jokes.

Last week, with only two weeks left in school, she brought home a paper that described a fifth grade field trip. They were going on a day trip to a D.A.R.E. camp. And it was only going to cost each child $5 to attend.

The very first activity listed was…

Animal handling.

If you know Olivia at all you can imagine her reaction to that one. The face she made was priceless.

The next activities were things like ropes course, rock building, fire starting, canoeing…

You get the picture. It was a list of all the things that Olivia hates.

Then, the worst fate of all, according to Olivia, is that the kids were instructed to pack a sack lunch.

She brought this form home on a Friday. It was a full week and a half before the field trip was scheduled.

She worried all weekend long about how she’d eat lunch if she was expected to do so OUT OF A BAG. Let’s remember that she did not eat at school in kindergarten and first grade. She finally started eating a little of her lunch in second grade because they moved her from the regular class table to a table by herself. In third grade, she moved invited select classmates to join her at her exclusive table.

In fourth grade, she was integrated back into the regular table with the rest of her classmates, which is where she sits and eats these days. However, she never takes her food out of her lunchbox. She leaves the container inside the lunchbox and hovers over it, surreptitiously moving the food from the lunchbox to her mouth, hoping against hope that no one will actually see her eat.

She’s weird.

I told her on Friday evening I’d email her teacher Monday morning but she fretted all weekend about that field trip and the lunch involved and how much she did not want to go to that day camp. I also told her that even if her teacher said she thought Olivia should go, well, of course we’d just keep her home that day. We weren’t going to pay $5 and send her on a trip we KNEW she’d hate. We’re perfectly capable of torturing her at home for free. No need to pay some camp to do it for us.

I kept my promise and emailed her special ed teacher on Monday morning saying basically, “Olivia does not want to go to the D.A.R.E day camp. She’s suffering quite a bit of anxiety over the thought of having to attend. Help.”

Her teacher, bless her, replied immediately, “She does NOT have to go to that camp. She can spend the day in my classroom. I was planning to take my non-fifth graders to the Dairy Treat that day. Olivia can go with us.”

When I got home that evening, I informed Olivia of the new plan.

Her relief was palpable. She gave a sigh and said, “Yeah, ice cream is way better than animal handling.”

Oh gurrrrl. I feel you on that one.

In the end, none of this even mattered because the field trip was canceled due to inclement weather. Did you know that's been raining the Midwest since about mid March? Yeah.

File Under: Advice I Hope I Never Have to Remind Myself to Take

So back in the day when I was receiving my first four rounds of chemo, my worst days after the chemotherapy treatment were Friday and Saturday immediately following the Tuesday that I received the treatment.

Fridays were awful with the body aches and the general lethargy.

Saturdays were a little better but the, um, intestinal distress kicked in then. Not horrible, nothing uncontrollable but still, distressing.

The routing in our house is that the girls and I buy groceries every Saturday after we’ve gone to lunch so as to not go to the grocery store hungry.

I never missed a Saturday during those nine weeks of receiving A/C chemo (adriamyacin and cyclophosphamide.) Looking back, I know that the reason I insisted on going to the store even on those Saturdays following a chemo treatment was because I didn’t want to admit that chemotherapy was affecting me enough to actually change my routine.

I didn’t want my cancer or the treatment necessary to ever affect my girls.

I know now, though, that it would have been okay to stay home on those Saturdays. The grocery shopping could have happened on Sunday or any other day of the week.

I didn’t have to push myself to be ‘normal.’

My life wasn’t normal at that point. I should have accepted the non-normal issues I faced and rested.

In the end, no one was hurt by my need for normalcy. We got through. Sure, I had to take more than a couple of bathroom breaks in Walmart on those Saturdays but I got through.

But if I could tell my past-self (or anyone else just getting a diagnosis and starting treatment) anything at all, it would be to let go, even just a little, of the need for ‘normal.’ It’s okay to admit that you don’t feel good. It’s okay to admit that chemo is hard. IT IS HARD. And it’s okay to not be able to do the things you did before chemo. Things will get better. They’ll get back to normal. And that normal may look a little different from the old normal but that’s okay too. You’ve been through a lot. Take the time to be kind to yourself. Let your friends and family be kind to you. But also, if it will cause you more stress to not buy those groceries, well then just buy the groceries. Do what you need to do to get through this day and handle tomorrow as it comes.

Hi Guys! Welcome Back to My Summer

The first day of summer started with Olivia climbing her little butt out of bed at 6:50am. And WHY would she got back to be when there was fan fiction to read and tablet games to play and dads to annoy?

Most school mornings I have to almost drag her out of bed. But that first morning? She was bright eyed and ready to start her summer.

Sadly for her (but mostly for me) I have to work this summer and so her summer isn’t going to be quite as fun as past summers have been.

Since I just started my job (you know, nine months ago) I don’t have a lot of vacation yet (I currently have four hours…HOURS) of paid vacation time. Sure, I also have four days of unpaid time (aka, personal time) available to me but who wants to go on a vacation and spend money when they’re not actually earning any money? Not me, I’ll tell you.

So we’re going to have to skip Cedar Point this year. We skipped it last year too since I wasn’t working and you know, that pesky money thing. I was also still recovering from radiation and so wanted to stay out of the sun and let some of the residual swelling at the surgical and radiation site go down.

We do plan to have a little fun this summer. I’ve found a really groovy sprinkler thing at Sam’s Club that can make your yard resemble a water park. No slide, alas, but it’s still really cool and it’s only $30.

My mom plans to take Liv and the boys (my nephews) to a really neat water park about twenty minutes from our house. I might take an afternoon off and join them once. It’s got slides, a pool, a wading pool, a hot tub, water cannon, etc. We went a couple of years ago and had a blast.

Since the local pool doesn’t open until 1:00 each day, I will probably take a few afternoons off this summer and take Liv to the pool. Alyssa, that weirdo, prefers the lake. Ick. I much prefer the lovely chlorine of a pool over the muck and sand and weeds in a lake. Alas, Olivia just likes water and so, in hopes of getting Lyss to go with us even a couple of times, I’ll probably suffer through a few visits to the lake. Of course, there are the weekends.

This year the 4th of July is on a Thursday, so we get the 5th off too as a holiday so yay, long weekend!! We’ll definitely do something.

I hope, though, that during all of her non-water time, Olivia will remember to put her tablet down even a little and read a book or three.

I’m not actually expecting this to happen…just hoping.

Of course, if I were a decent parent, I’d MAKE her read but since I’m not there all day, well, we know how well that plan will go down.

Confession: I was there all day every day last summer and I didn’t make her read. See above re: not a good parent.

A Junior and a Sixth Grader

As of Thursday, May 23rd at 1:30, I am the parent of a junior in high school and a sixth grader.

That’s pretty awesome.

I got to see Amy’s granddaughter for the first time last weekend. She’ll be six months old on the 27th (she shares Olivia’s birthday.) She’s beautiful. She looks like her Mimi. Amy chose that as her grandma name when her ex-husband’s oldest daughter had kids and Amy was very active with them. I love it.

She’d have LOVED this baby. She was so sweet, so good-natured. Amy’s daughter and son-in-law are very lucky.

I got to hold that baby and it was awesome.

But..I love the stage my kids are now. I didn’t enjoy the baby stage as much as a lot of people do.

Babies are so much work. Sure, they’re adorable but they also need to be fed and cleaned and carried and put to bed and…and…and the list is never ending with their needs.

People who want to have babies because they want someone to love them are insane. Babies don’t love you. Babies need you.

Teenagers are so much better than babies. They might be sassy but at least they can feed themselves and take care of their own bathroom needs. They can dress themselves and make their needs knowing by using their words.

I love teenagers and preteens. Olivia won’t be a teenager for another six months and that’s cool too. She’s a little needier than your typical twelve year old but hey, she can speak, she can walk, she can (sometimes) feed herself. So yeah, I’ll take these two over all the beautiful babies in the world.

Sophomore year was good to Alyssa. She received the Outstanding Musicianship award from her choir teacher for the year. She got 5th place at the BBC (Buckeye Border Conference) in high jump. She participated in the school play. She went to several honors choirs/bands. She went on a lot of dates with Naomi and hung out with other friends too. I think she had a fun year. She started driving this year and will probably get a job this summer. That ought to be fun.

Fifth grade was…challenging at times but overall, I think it was a good year for Olivia. She is learning fractions (sort of) and has started to understand multiplication. It helps when I count by fives when we’re working on things like five times six and so on. Her reading is amazing and her creativity for making up stories and writing them down knows no bounds.

She loved the phases of the moon section of science and I currently know more about symbiotic relationships than I ever wanted to know.

We’re ready for summer, for a break. We’re ready to slow down even though that might not actually happen for all of us (I’m looking at you, Miss Lyssie Lou Who and that job you’re going to get.)

Post Office Line Rules

I go to the post office every day for work. This is not a bad gig. I get to leave the office every single day at 10am. I check the post office boxes (yes, multiple), leave outgoing mail, get supplies if necessary (most only certified mailing papers, we sent A LOT of certified mail.)

Most days I don’t even have to go into the area where you have to interact with the postal workers. I just go to post offices boxes and the drop box.

But the other day, I had to go in and drop off…you guessed it, a certified letter and get the receipt date stamped.

So I got my stamp and went to the first of the six PO boxes I check each day. The very first one had an envelope in it addressed to one box below the actual box it was in. So…back to the counter I went to give the dude the envelope in hopes of it making it to the correct box.

Then I went back and checked the other five boxes, sure that I’d be on my way back to work in no time.

Only too bad for me, because after I got my receipt stamped and then dropped off the outgoing mail in the drawer, I checked the PO boxes and guess what? There was one of those yellow tickets (not a yellow ticket of leave, I’m not 24601) that say something like, “So sorry we missed you, please bring this to the counter to pick up your mail.”

Yes, I had to go BACK inside and wait for the postal workers behind the counter.

While I’d been gathering mail from the other five boxes, I heard the doors open and heard the lady postal worker call out, “Hello, I’ll be right with you.”

There were two workers that day, a lady-type person and a dudish person. The dude was at the far register and the lady was at the register closer to the doors through which customers enter.

I went back in to the counter area and this little old man was waiting closer to the door.

See, the lady-type worker was the one who’d spoken to him and so he was waiting closers to her area.

Now, I don’t know how your post office works but ours has a counter on the customer side of the counter. Waiting patrons wait on the far side of the counter for the next available worker.

The little old man was not where one usually waits but it didn’t matter. We’d both get helped in good time.

And hey, I was on the clock so whatever.

But alas, it DID matter to the woman who entered a few minutes after I did.

Little Old Man and I were waiting just inside the door.

This woman entered and within seconds, she realized that we were NOT waiting where we were SUPPOSED to be waiting. You’d think the world was going to end.

She informed me, “The line starts over there.”

I raised an eyebrow and said, “Yes, I know. But he was here first.”

She didn’t care.

She told me again, “But we wait over there.”

I narrowed my eyes and said, “I know.” Then I pointed at Little Old Man.

What the hell difference did it make where we waited? There were two workers and only three of us customer. The line was bound to MOVE fairly quickly.

But because this woman was the BOSS of LINES, she had the nerve to go up and take Little Old Man’s arm and LEAD him to where he should be waiting.

OMG! Seriously?

Then, she happily and probably SMUGLY took her place behind me, thrilled that all was right with the line at the post office.

Then..THEN! She started to explain to the back of my head that if we didn’t start the line where we SUPPOSED to start it, it would get all backed up when the post office got busy.

Guys? It was a TUESDAY…in May.

She actually mentioned how busy the post office gets during CHRISTMAS, like that somehow justified her audacity at TOUCHING poor Little Old Man. Did I mention that we were FIVE MONTHS past Christmas, which puts us SEVEN MONTHS before Christmas? What the hell does the fact that the post office gets busy during Christmas have to do with anything about that particular day?

I very pointedly ignored every single word she said because I didn’t CARE about her REASONS for doing what she’d done and I refused to give her the satisfaction of a response to her excuses.

I’m sure, though, that she left the post office that day feeling quite proud of herself for taking the time to school us commoners on the CORRECT way to line up at the Angola Post Office.

For what it’s worth, by the time I’d left with my envelope and bag of other miscellaneous mail, she was being waited on, Little Old Man had already left and…there was no one else waiting in line for service.

So yeah, waiting six feet from the ‘beginning’ of the line would have caused SO much trouble for ALL of the ZERO people who came in after the Postal-Line Police Woman, also known as HAG.

And get this, after all her explanations of the place getting crowded and the line being backed out the door were so very obviously ignored, she tried to get on my good side while I was waiting for the dude postal worker to get my envelope from where ever postal workers go when they leave the counter (ignore the man behind the curtain) by saying that Little Old Man reminded her of her dad, who’d died last year and she was just so enjoying this little bit of time with Little Old Man, as if he were some sort of surrogate dad for her.

Yeah, okay, Lady, whatever you say. Just because strangers who line up ‘WRONG’ remind you of your dearly departed Papa, don’t go around TOUCHING them. I mean…for reals. This is kind of a rule, as in the most important of all Post Office Line Rules.

Pool

For the last week or so, Olivia has been asking when the pool is going to open.

She’s ready for summer and swimming and afternoon at the pool with mom.

Last summer was amazing for us. It was the first summer I was able to be at home with Tom and the girls and Olivia and I spent more afternoons at the pool than I can count.

One night recently as I was tucking her into bed, she asked again when the pool was going to open. I told her it would probably open after school let out for the summer.

Then I said something about taking the occasional afternoon off to go to the pool with her, since the pool doesn’t even open until 1pm each day anyway.

She gave me a confused look and said, “But I thought you had the summer off.”

Oh, baby, I wish!

I told her no, I only had last summer off. This coming summer, I’d have to work since I’d just started my new job last fall.

Then I said, “But last summer was so great, wasn’t it? I loved spending my afternoons swimming with you.”

She nodded.

I reminded her, “We’ll still spend a lot of time together this coming summer, even though I have to work.”

I love that she remembers our awesome summer. I love that she wants to continue to spend time with me. I love that she’d figuring out who time works and building memories of past times.

I do wish we were independently wealthy so I could spend my days at home with her and Tom and Lyss (though, let’s face it, Lyss probably won’t be home much this summer…see: Teenager.)

Even with working, we’ll make more memories, spend as much time as possible in the water at the pool, swimming like mermaids and being silly. It’s what who we are, it’s what we do.

How lucky am I to still be here to do all this?

Sramriches and Other Embarrassing Memories

Back in the day, when Alyssa was a tiny tot, she often asked for macamoni and cheese.

It was adorable.

One afternoon a few years ago, my mom was watching Olivia and my nephew Jaxon. They were having tea and snacks.

My mom sliced some lemons for their tea.

Jax loves to eat lemons like normal people would eat an orange.

He announced to the room, “We’re eating womens.”

Olivia gave him a stern look and informed him, “We are NOT eating ladies!”

Jax’s favorite food group is the sandwich. But until very recently, he called them sramriches. I can’t stand the cuteness. His absolute favorite sramrich is the peanut butter and jerry kind.

When Lyss was still eating macamoni and cheese, she’d often ask me, “Mommy, can I have something from the nitchen?”

Because I’m a horrible human being, I’d say to my eighteen month old (no exaggeration, she was speaking in full sentences at a year and a half, don’t judge me, Olivia spoke at three, so it all evens out to average. I’m not bragging, just telling it like it is.) “But Lyssie, we don’t have a nitchen.”

And she’d reply with the haughtiest of tones, “Mom. You know I mean kitchen.”

Can I remind everyone that she was eighteen months old at that time of these conversations?

Jaxon’s favorite president is Hammerham Lincoln.

We fought an endless battle with Olivia to get her to stop using her shirt sleeve as a napkin. Tom finally gave up the fight and cut the bottoms off old socks, creating what he called, “Sleevekins.” The cuffs of the socks fit perfectly over O’s arms and sleeves, creating a removable area she could wipe her mouth on and save the sleeves of her shirt. Tom’s an innovative fella.

For the record, she hasn’t had to use a sleevekin for several years. We’re not completely disgusting over here.

Until a couple of years ago (Jaxon is eleven, by the way) he called my girls Ryssie and Ribbie. I think I might love this kid.

I want to remember these things so I can tell these stories at each of their graduations. Because that’s what we oldies do to the younguns, that’s why.

No...with a Side of PSTD

think I have post-traumatic stress syndrome left over from the twelve years of sleep deprivation I suffered at the hands of my wonderful, loving, adorable, EVIL children.

Why do I think this, you ask?

Let me tell you!!

First, background (because I can’t just jump into a story, I have to give background and make it that much longer, right? Right.) Mother’s day was lovely. Tom and the girls were very kind to me and I got some wonderful things and loving words. I slept in, Tom made breakfast, Alyssa got me a bamboo plant that I took to my desk at work. All great things.

Alas, laundry does not care that it was Mother’s day. Laundry sat in the basement in great piles and taunted me. It reminded me that I better not spent too much time at my mom’s celebrating HER because that laundry was not going to do itself.

So I did laundry all afternoon on Sunday, as it my curse. (Let me stop here and say that I don’t actually mind doing laundry. In all actuality, in this day and age, it kind of actually does do itself. One simply loads the washer and then the washer does the actual work. The dryer is the same. I don’t even mind folding and putting away all that laundry. I feel like it’s a labor of love for my family. Yes, seriously.)

Anyway! The laundry was taking FOREVER because I chose to also wash all the sheets that day.

Tom offered to ‘help.’ As in, he’d load and unload the machines but he’s not one for folding or putting away.

He also always overloads the washer which means it take two cycles in the dryer to finish a load. Ahem.

So…I ended up leaving only a load of towels unlaundered Sunday night.

When I got home from work in the Monday after Mother’s day, Tom had washed and dried the last load of towels.

He’d also done a bit of research on bedwetting. He’d done this FOR ME, don’t you know?

More backstory, I wet the bed until I was eight years old. My mom was so great about never making me feel bad about this. It was just something I couldn’t help doing.

Our house is a house of bedwetters. We can’t help it. One of us stopped at nine years old. The other…well, let’s remember that the freaking cards are stacked against her. Not only did she get the bedwetting gene from her mother but also probably from her father (not going there, not this time) but she also, unluck of the draw, was born with a syndrome that causes problems with potty training and all that entails.

I don’t mind washing sheets several times a week. I don’t mind that she sometimes needs a shower firs thing in the morning. She sleeps through it all and that means, YAY, I sleep through it too.

Have I ever mentioned that Alyssa, that darling girl whom I treasure with every cell in my body, didn’t sleep through the night until she was two years old?

I have? Oh, okay, well, there it again, written out for all to see.

And, just for the record, let’s remember that my sweet Olivia, light of my life, didn’t sleep through the night until she was EIGHT (8) YEARS old. Yes. YEARS. As in, she woke up every single night, at least twice, sometimes four or five times for more than TWO THOUSAND NINE HUNDRED AND TWENTY (2920) nights. That’s not even adding in leap years or that last month of nights from when she turned eight in late November and then, FINALLY, in December started sleeping through the night. Sit on that and ponder how I came out even semi-sane.

Ahem.

So.

That Monday afternoon, my better half had done some research on bedwetting and alarms one can purchase that will go off at the first sign of dampness.

He was thrilled to find that he could purchase one such alarm for the low, low price of $23.95.

Wouldn’t it be great, he thought, if the child who still wets the bed (for what it’s worth, she wears Pull-Ups and they don’t leak all that often) were to learn to wake up when she felt the need to pee?

Sure. It would be awesome if she did that. Not just for us but mostly for her. We want her to have that freedom, that sense of maturity and maybe even, someday, spend the night at a friend’s house without having to worry about the stress of Pull Ups and/or wetting the bed.

And yet…when he showed me the picture of the kid on the website wearing that alarm, I had to hold back tears.

Look at this picture:

Doesn't everyone feel panicky at the sight of that peaceful imp, just sleeping so soundly, alarm ready to BLAST him and the entire population in the tri-state area awake at the first hint of moisture?

The very thought of being woken up several times a night by a screeching alarm for, what weeks, or oh please dear Heaven, no, months?

I can’t go back to that.

We’ve been sleeping well for four years. But those four years haven’t erased the twelve years prior to that when I was woken up no fewer than two, most nights four times every single night for YEARS.

Is it selfish of me?

Probably.

Should I get over myself and do what’s best for my kid?

Obviously.

And I probably will but I had to put this out there, that sense of doom and depression that sets in at the thought of going back to being woken up over and over and over again each night for who knows how long.

I dread it. I feel panicky at the thought of it. It makes me sick to my stomach just considering the possibility of starting those nights of being pulled from a deep sleep, stumbling around, helping her to the bathroom, finding dry undies, resetting the alarm and then doing it again and again and again.

Tom could tell that I was not into his idea. (Yet another parenthetical: He always gets a little pissy when I don’t immediately embrace and applaud his ideas. He’s a little princess about that kind of thing…sigh.)

I tried to explain to him that he didn’t understand my panic because he wasn’t the one who got up with those two demons angels every night for years.

He offered to set up a cot in the family room and sleep down there with our darling until the alarm did its job and trained her brain to wake up when she needs to pee.

Ha. Hahaha.

Right.

He’s a funny, funny guy.

We all know who will be responding to that stupid alarm if we go that route. And it won’t be Not-The-Mama.

I’ll grin and bear it and I’ll come here and bitch and moan about it, because it’s what I do. But I can’t promise to be sane when this is all over. That, my dears, is simply asking too much.

At

I have often told one my children that her sister is not doing something AT her.

A week or so ago, I felt like I needed to tell a male relative that same thing.

The female partner in that marriage had taken it upon herself to fix a door that wasn’t latching. She was very proud of herself and showed off her handiwork to the rest of us.

The Man, who was sitting on the end of the couch where he’d probably been all day long, rising only to eat the food that had been prepared for him by his wife, got extremely pissy about her having fixed the door.

He said loudly and obnoxiously, “I guess I’m not needed around here. Maybe I should just move out.”

What?

Where did that come from?

It wasn’t as if she’d fixed the door AT him. The Wife said calmly, “That door hasn’t latched properly in months. When someone mentioned what might fix it, I tried it and it worked.”

Man replied, “I’ll just move out and take all my stuff with me.”

Wife replied under her breath, “Promise?”

But seriously? Why was he so mad that she’d fixed the door? Had he expected her to TELL him the door wasn’t latching? I mean, he used the bathroom every single day, several times a day, had he NOT noticed it wasn’t latching?

For the record, Tom is NOT Man in this scenario and I am obviously not Wife. Tom pretty great, actually, when it comes to seeing what needs to be done and just doing it without any input from me. He washes dishes when he sees them in the sink; he will feed the girls when it’s dinnertime without my having to say anything.

And none of this makes him a hero. It makes him an adult; a partner in our marriage.

The couple in question are both retired and Man has decided that retirement for him means he sits around all day long, not lifting a finger around their house. He doesn’t wash dishes, doesn’t do laundry, has never vacuumed a rug. He will mow the lawn but he bitches and moans the entire time if Wife doesn’t help him with the mowing.

Wife does all the cooking, all the cleaning, most of the gardening and I think she’s on the verge of being done with it all. And get this, when Man does do something like, say, mow the lawn, he bitches and moans for hours afterward if Wife doesn't get on a mower and 'help' him. And the times he gets off his butt to weed the garden? HE LAYS DOWN IN THE GARDEN WHILE WEEDING. Who does that? I mean, seriously?

She’s a saint in my book because Man is still alive and well-fed. If I were in her shoes, I can’t say the same would be true. He might be alive but not because I kept feeding him. Hell, I rarely prepare Tom’s food even though he’s an actual nice person because he likes weird things and so he cooks them himself. And guess what? He’s a grown man who knows how to use the stove and as such, I do not heap praise upon him for taking care of himself.

But honestly, even the laziness isn’t the worst of it. The fact that he gets mad, acts like a freaking child, when she does something he thought he should be ASKED to do is what gets me. Grow up! Stop being a passive aggressive ass and make yourself useful.

No one fixed the door so that you would feel useless. She fixed the door so people could use the bathroom with the door closed and latched.

I don’t think this is a gender thing so much as a personality thing. This guy is just lazy and hypersensitive to his laziness. He knows he’s lazy but he doesn’t actually want anyone to point it out, so if he thinks you are pointing it out, it’s going to piss him off and he’s going to be an ass.

I know there are women out there who are much the same (me…maybe? I hang my head in shame at the very thought of being at all like him.) but in this case, he definitely has some ideas about gender roles and who should do what around the house, even though both are retired and have the same amount of hours in the day.

This is just a bunch of rambling to say that some people just suck. That’s all.

Relatively Speaking

At work one recent Friday, a co-worker came in from being outside and declared, “It’s really nice out there.”

Oh, really?

About a half hour, I went out to check our company mailbox.

I decided that, sure, it was lovely out there, if one was simply walking to one’s car after a leisurely lunch. But being outside for hours at a track meet? Not so much. And guess who was going to be attending a track meet that afternoon/evening.

This spring has been…wet…and cold; oh wait, and windy…so very windy.

Of course, there have also been some very lovely days.

These opinions are all based on track meets, don’t you know?

And back in the days of junior high track we had a couple of MISERABLE springs.

So, relatively speaking, this has been a decent spring.

Seventh grade was awful. So cold; windy and cold and snowy! That first meet was just amazingly terrible. It was held in Pettysville, Ohio. Go ahead and look it up on Google Maps.

I’ll wait.

.

.

.

See how it’s there in the middle of freaking nowhere? Yes, there are flat open fields around the track. No windbreaks what so ever. It was so awful and because I was a novice track parent, I hadn’t gotten Alyssa any of the necessary garments that track athletes wear under their uniforms on cold days.

So there she was in a tank top and shorts and it was all of 45 degrees Fahrenheit with a horrible wind blowing from the west.

We remedied the lack of running pants and long-sleeved shirt the very next weekend but I confess to still, four years later, feeling a bit of maternal guilt over that one.

I don’t really remember eight grade meets all that much except the one at my high school where it rained the entire meet. My mom and I both had umbrellas and yet, because of the way the rain was falling, we ended up soaked. I don’t think the temperature was much above 50 that day.

Last year, the weather was so crappy in the beginning of the season that they cancelled/postponed at least three meets.

I was glad for this…cancer treatments, bald heads and cold track meets do not mix well. But I wasn’t working and so I couldn’t justify not going to any meet that was actually happening.

They did postpone one meet so far this year. It was due to cold temps and rain. I think the high that day was 42. I greatly appreciate not having to sit out in that kind of weather for hours on end.

But on the other hand, we’ve had some amazing weather for a couple of track meets too.

The very first one was so nice that we all ended up sunburned because we weren’t used to 62 degree weather and sunny skies.

Basically, spring in the Midwest is a crap shoot. One day it’s 65, sunny and low winds and the next day it could be 40 degrees with 20 MPH winds and rain/sleet.

Tell me why we live in this area again.

Friendly

I've turned into my mother. I remember back in the day, when I was a sullen pre-teen and teenager and I'd go to the grocery store with my mom. It drove me NUTS that she talked to EVERYONE. She talked to the cashiers, she talked to the baggers, who were sometimes (rarely...but sure, sometimes) cute and it was so embarrassing.

Guess what? I have a face that says, "Talk to me, I care."

Sure, my face lies but I don't have the heart to stop people when they take me at face value (ha! Get it?) and talk to me.

At Alyssa’s track meet one blustery Friday afternoon, I stood at the fence watching her compete in the high jump.

Next to me stood a lady who must have been in her mid-seventies.

She was lovely. Let’s call her GM (for GrandMom)

As the relay that was taking place on the track began, the lady next to me said she was there watching her grandson, who was seventeen.

I smiled and pointed out Alyssa, saying she was sixteen.

This opened the door and I found out that my fellow spectator was raising her two grandsons, who are seventeen and thirteen.

She lost her husband quite a few years ago and then, when her son died, she took guardianship of her grandsons.

I didn’t ask where their mother was. Maybe she died when the boys’ dad died.

I also found out that this woman’s mother lived to be 100 years old and mowed her own lawn up until the end.

I mentioned that I lived three miles from my mom and GM told me that she’d lived a mile and a half from her own mother and her brother, who never married and lived with their mom until the end, told her she couldn’t move any closer than that or else she’d end up back in her mom’s house.

I told her that she was a very good person for taking in her grandsons and she replied with a shrug, “You do what you have to do.”

Her grandson who was compete that night fell during a hand off in one of the relays. He happened to fall right where we were standing. She made him show her his hands, which were pretty scraped up. She told him to go wash them and get a med-kit.

Later in the evening, her grandson came up and put his head on her shoulder. She patted his head with her hand. It was so sweet.

When I told Alyssa this story the next day, she said, “You make friends everywhere you go.”

I suppose I do. It’s not a bad habit to have.

Momentum

The valedictorian of my high school class gave a speech about coasting.

It was a good speech. I mean, I still remember is thirty years later, it must have been decent, right?

He talked about how easy it is to coast through life but if you do that, at some point, you’re going to realize that you’ve coasted right past the points where you could have made difference choices.

He said something about being more deliberate, making actual choices and following through because when you coast, you’re letting life lead you rather than you leading your own life.

I feel like I’m lacking momentum these days.

I get the bare minimum done. I do what needs to be done to get through the day.

The laundry gets done on Sundays. The girls are fed, the carpets vacuumed and the kitchen floor is swept.

But nothing else ever gets done.

I have a list of things I want to do and it keeps growing. But I do the minimum because I lack the motivation to even get started on those other projects.

I think that once I get even one thing started, the momentum I will build will at least help me finish one of those projects.

These projects aren’t the type that will make our lives hard if they don’t get done. It’s not like I need to reshingle the roof and am just not doing that. No, it’s more like the closets need to be organized, or the toy room needs cleaned out. These are not life-enhancing projects, but they’re things I’d like to get done and they just aren’t happening.

I’m tired.

Like, all the time.

But that’s no excuse for not getting off my tired, achy butt and doing things.

Except, there’s laundry that needs to be folded and children who need to be fed and those cookies aren’t going to bake themselves.

I’m looking for a little motivation to stop coasting. Got any tips for creating momentum out of apathy?

Foul Ball

The last track meet of the season (not counting the BBC meet – aka Buckeye Border Conference) was the first Monday in May. It was a make-up invitational meet that had to be rescheduled due to ridiculously cold temps and monsoon-like rains. This spring, I tell you, has been the wettest in forever.

There are ponds where there hadn’t been before, rivers are overflowing and there’s mud everywhere. It’s as if we moved to the wetlands of Florida without the warm temperatures. I’m over it.

Lucky for us, the weather on that Monday was quite lovely. The sun shone intermittently and the wind, while brisk, was not blustery. Did I mention that the wind at these freaking meets has been horrible? Yes, it really has.

Back to the meet.

It was held in Hicksville, a small town (though bigger than our town) about twenty minutes south of us. The track in this town is not at the school. It’s across town, actually. It’s in what they call the ‘athletic fields’. The football field is there as well as several baseball diamonds. #foreshadowing

Parking was awful that day. There were at least two baseball games going on. The track meet was an invitational, so there were at least six teams there along with all the attending parents and grandparents. There was also a soccer game being played somewhere among the fields.

And what the actual hell, Ohio drivers? Why must you all park like you’re driving a $100,000 car? You can’t be bothered to actually park close enough to the car next to you so as to NOT take up two space each?

Lucky for me (ha!) I work at a place with the narrowest parking spots in the tri-state area. So too bad for you, but I’ve become an excellent parker. Not to brag, but I can wedge my Chevy Equinox into the tightest space imaginable and do it in one try.

So my mom and I arrived at the meet, we found the last parking spot left by the obnoxious Ohio drivers and their horrendous parking abilities.

We paid our $5 to get in and made our way to the high jump, which, wheee, was close to the port-o-pots I needed to use because I have a bladder of a field mouse. Port-o-Pots are NASTY.

While I was in there, I heard them announce the results of the girls’ high jump?

What? We were maybe ten minutes late, who were the girls already done with the high jump?

Apparently, they’d started a half hour earlier than I’d thought they were starting. Huh.

Alyssa tied for second place, by the way. Go her!! Wish I’d seen it.

We left the high jump and headed to the bleachers beneath which Alyssa and her teammates had placed their bags. Why they feel the need to hunker down beneath the bleachers like a bunch of hoodlums at every single meet is beyond me. I do not claim to understand the minds of today’s teenagers. Let’s face it, I’m old.

Alyssa came out and told us she’d cleared 4’6” again, which was awesome. It’s her current record for this year. She was quite proud of herself, as she should have been. I was proud of her too.

She didn’t end up running in any races, so, my mom and I paid $5 each to watch her sit on a grassy knoll across the track from us. That was great fun.

We finally decided we’d had enough of the brisk wind, the shouts of other parents nearby and the non-visits from our favorite high school athlete, so my mom and I headed back to my car to go home.

As we approached my car, the lady in the car next to mine asked me if my car was mine.

Uh-oh, I thought. Did she think that since I’d had to park a little close to her vehicle that I’d dinged her door? I hadn’t but I didn’t know if she knew that.

I told her that it was indeed my car.

She pointed to it and said, “It was hit by a baseball.” Then she pointed to a dude and his dog. The dude was holding a baseball. He said he was getting it for is dog.

Oh.

Okay, then.

Apparently the ball the dude was holding was the ball that had hit my car. I glanced at my car from the front and didn’t see any damage. I moved toward the driver’s side door and still didn’t see any dents. Thankfully, I didn’t see any broken windows.

The lady in the neighboring car pointed to my drivers’ sideview mirror.



Ahh, there it was. The fixture itself wasn’t broken but the mirror that sits in the fixture was shattered.

That was a hell of a hit from the baseball diamond. Alas, poor kid, it was definitely a foul ball.

By this point, the dude with the dog had absconded with the baseball that had hit my car. I wondered why he’d want a ball that probably had glass shards in it for his dog. Weirdo.

I called Tom to see if I needed something from the baseball people in case we had to make an insurance claim. He said they’d probably believe us that a ball hit the mirror.

I place the mirror, which was hanging on by a couple of wires, gently back into the fixture and started for home.



I crawled over speedbumps and it held all the way through town.

Alas, the first time a truck passed me going the other direction, the blast of wind caused the mirror to fall out of the casing, it dangled at a lovely angle that allowed me to see myself in profile the rest of the way home. That was a special kind of torture.

By the time I got home, Tom had already ordered a replacement mirror off eBay for $37.90. He’s pretty sure he can change it out himself.

I do know that it could have been so much worse. It could have been the back window or even the sun roof. So…while it sucks, I’m not losing any sleep over a broken side view mirror.

Reporting the Weather for the Hair Impaired

The weather reports need to be given according to my hair.

You know, like if the weather is going to be lovely, the report could be, “0 products needed today, go ahead and straighten it. It’ll be fine.”

Or, “Yeah, a little wind, better use 2 products to control the frizz.”

Then, on the worst days: “Dude, don’t even bother, no matter what you do, you’re going to look like a hag all day long.”

Now, please don’t read this as complaining about my hair.

I have admitted that a bad hair these days is a hundred times better than a good bald day because, alas, there is no such thing as a good bald day. Ha. I crack myself up.

But seriously, until my hair is long enough to go into a ponytail, I probably won’t have a good hair day, so there’s that.

And let’s all face it, my hair takes up about 99.9% of my brain, pretty much 100% of the time. So…yeah.

Eggs - One More Step Away

Olivia and I dyed Easter Eggs this year.

Alyssa was originally going to do it with us. I bought two dozen eggs with the idea that each girl would dye a dozen.

I bought them on Friday afternoon after work, boiled them when I got home and planned to have them ready for A and O on Saturday when we got home from the grocery store.

Alas, Alyssa was presented with better plans and so she ditched us.

Really, it’s not all that dramatic, I just like adding flair to my stories.

Olivia and I had a blast, she turned the fingers on her right hand green and declared it her Zombie hand. The eggs were pretty and made delicious deviled eggs.

It’s just one more area where Lyss is growing up. She’s pulling away and that’s a good thing.

She’s got two more years of high school before she’ll be off to college. These years are for figuring herself out, finding out what she wants and how she wants to go about getting it and for pulling away from the family she was born to and finding her people outside this closed circle.

We can be here, a comforting place to land when she needs a break from the life she’s creating for herself.

I pray we’re building bonds that will help her fly but still come home once in awhile.

I know I’m getting ahead of myself with all this maudlin stuff. She’s only sixteen…but she’s ALREADY SIXTEEN. Can you even believe it?

She’s go so much ahead of her, so much life, so much fun, so much love.

I hope she takes the love we’ve given her with her, reminding her that she’s so special, so amazing and that we’re always here, loving her, cheering her, missing her.

Powerful

My love is sleep is well documented.

Each time one of my kids (Alyssa) asks me who my favorite daughter is, I tell her, “Whichever one goes to sleep first.”

I have lamented the fact that neither of my children were good sleepers as baby ad nauseum. I think they were both out to kill me, quite honestly. Their lack of sleep definitely contributed to my current state of fatness. I mean, if they’d slept better as babies, I wouldn’t have had to self-medicate with Mountain Dew and Funyuns to stay awake during our horrific commute back in the day.

Of course, now that they both sleep wonderfully, I can’t actually blame them for my obesity. I need to take all the credit for that myself.

But finally, FINALLY, after all these years of wondering if either of my girls would become the lovers of sleep that I am, we have arrived.

Last Friday night, we all went to bed at the lovely hour of 10pm. I know, we’re a boring bunch, what can I say.

Alyssa woke me up the next morning at 6:30 to excitedly inform me that her track meet had been cancelled. She was so excited she didn’t know if she could go back to sleep, but she was sure going to try.

I was just REALLY relieved because I hadn’t been looking forward to sitting around in 42 degrees with rain falling on me. I’d planned my wardrobe accordingly and thought I was prepared but when the option to stay in bed where it was dry and warm presented itself, yes, I was so happy to not have to bundle up and still freeze.

Around 9am I heard shuffling from Liv’s bed. She rustled around a bit and then announced, “Wow. That was a powerful sleep.”

Ha! Oh sweetie, I totally feel you on that one. Sleep is such a powerful thing. It can restore you. It can heal you. It can take you on adventures and brighten your mood.

We all need more nights that lead to eleven hours of powerful sleep.

Being Friends and Ending Relationships

During our four years of high school R and I were best friends with two guys, J and D. J and D were great fun and R and I spent as much time with them as possible. We ate lunch together every day.

One September lunch period, we were sitting around talking about prom, which obviously, was months and months away.

Someone (probably R, she was the idea gal) suggested that the four of us go together. This was before I started dating JLC by at least a month, maybe two.

The rest of us thought it was a rad idea and so it was a date. I would officially be going with D and R would go with J but it was totally a foursome thing and definitely a FRIEND thing.

So when I started dating JLC a month or so later, I didn’t even thing about prom. My plans were set, and I wasn’t going to change them.

As prom loomed ever closer, JLC started making comments about us going.

I informed him that he wouldn’t be attending prom that year, at least not with me. He was a sophomore, so unless he found a junior or a senior to take him, he wasn’t going.

I told him about the plans R and I had made with J and D and how I had no intention of breaking those plans.

He wasn’t happy but what could he do? He did insist that I PROMISE to go with him the next year, even if we weren’t together. Because obviously, I was a woman of my word. Ugh. Whatever. I’m going to say right here to anyone and everyone, teenager, pre-teen, adult, elderly, EVERYONE, if you make a promise to someone while in a relationship with that someone for a future event and you break up before that event happens? Guess what? You CAN BREAK THAT PROMISE. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do or go anywhere you don’t want to go with someone you’re no longer in a relationship with even if you promised to do that thing or go to that place while you in the relationship.

I mean, come on! Why would you want to go to prom with your now EX-boy/girlfriend? Why?!?

My junior prom was so much fun. J, R, D and I had a blast. There were no romantic expectations, there was no pressure, it was just friends having a blast with each other. We went from prom to R’s house where we watched horror movies until 4am and crashed on her parents’ living room furniture.

Senior prom? Was not so much fun. I went with JLC because at that time we were still officially dating but we were on the brink of breaking up.

The weeks before prom were fraught with tension because I refused to ride to prom in his mom’s station wagon and his Ranchero had bitten the dust months before. Not that I’d have consented to riding in that beast to prom either.

I knew I was being a bitch about it and maybe I was trying to get him to break up with me over the whole car thing but I dug my heels in and was ready to die on that hill.

I offered to borrow my mom’s car and pick him up but he was a chauvinist pig and wouldn’t have anything to do with that. So I offered to just meet him at prom. I’d drive myself in my mom’s car (she had a Zephyr, it was a neat car) and he could drive his mom’s stupid station wagon and we could meet at the door.

He didn’t go for that either. I think he ended up borrowing a car from someone he went to church with.

I didn’t care. I just knew I’d won that battle and it meant that when it came time to break up with him, I’d win that one too.

When you’re relationship denigrates to the point that there are battles to be won…it’s time to just let it go. Break up and move on. Everyone will be happier, eventually.

Promise.

All The Wrong Reasons or More Memories

I went out with my high school boyfriend (JLC) because he liked me.

Let that sink in.

I didn’t actually like him all that much. I definitely wasn’t attracted to him. Okay, to be fair, he wasn’t exactly gross but he also wasn’t at all someone I found romantically attractive.

I dated him for a year and a half.

That’s so sad, isn’t it?

I thought I was such a badass feminist in high school and there I was, dating a guy I didn’t even really like but he liked me so…

We finally broke up after he kissed another girl. I was so relieved to finally have an excuse to break up with him. The REASON I wanted to break up with him was because I didn’t want to be in a relationship with him anymore.

And that’s reason enough. But when you’re eighteen, you think you have to have a REAL reason and just wanting someone to go away didn’t seem like real enough.

Obviously, I know better now.

My best friend (R) in high school hated JLC. She thought he was a tool and a loser.

She wasn’t wrong.

JLC wasn’t R’s biggest fan either but his ambivalence toward her turned to a white hot hatred the summer before our (R’s and my) senior year. JLC was a year behind us.

I worked at the Dairy Treat in our town. It was a tiny little establishment with both table inside people could use and be served by waitresses as well as a window at which people could place their orders and wait to pick them up.

One day that summer, R had shown up as my shift at work ended. I don’t know what we were going to do but as we waited at a picnic table outside the Dairy Treat, JC pulled up in his new-to-him car.

This car was ridiculous.

It was a Ranchero, which was the Ford version of the El Camino.

Here’s what Wikipedia says about the Ranchero:

The Ford Ranchero is a coupe utility that was produced by Ford between 1957 and 1979. Unlike a pickup truck, the Ranchero was adapted from a two-door station wagon platform that integrated the cab and cargo bed into the body. A total of 508,355 units were produced during the model's production run.

JC’s Ranchero looked very much like this:

Except his was in much worse shape. In fact, it was hideous. As he drove up the road toward the dairy treat, where RO and I were sitting, the hood on his car came unlatched and flew up, obstructing his view of the road.

Smoke and dust billowed from the engine and JC was hanging his head out the window trying to see where he was going.

Obviously, this was hysterically funny and while I tried to contain my mirth, R did nothing to stifle her laughter. She laughed until she cried.

JLC was pissed.

He loved that stupid, horrible car and her laughter at the awfulness of that car just fueled his anger.

Our senior year was rife with JC’s distain for R and her ‘haughty’ attitude. For her part, R thought JLC was a schmuck and didn’t care even a little that he didn’t like her. She also didn’t understand why I was dating him. She was never mean to me about it but she didn’t hide the fact that she thought I was WAY too good for him.

I don’t know why I’m telling this story, except maybe to remind everyone out there that sometimes (most times even) we should listen to our friends. They are a little removed from romantic relationships and they see things we don’t always see or that we ignore.

RO was so right about JLC. He’s been married three times, divorced twice, has five kids and has been arrested for domestic violence.

I was lucky to get away when I did.