Valentine Outtakes 2013

I think she has a book behind there...

Oh, the things we have to endure...

Oh, no! She's explaining things again. Watch that hand!

Was not! Were so--pfbbt!

See, Mom? We already learned how to give you patronizing smiles!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Blanket Apology

I feel like I should apologize a lot these days. Like this

Dear dog, I am sorry I’ve skimped on your walks so much lately. I know sniffing a pee-soaked palm frond makes your day, but I can’t always get there.

Dear daughter, I am sorry I snapped at you this morning. I realize that you can’t eat without dragging your teeth along your utensils every single mouthful. It’s really not that big a deal, even the 7,586^th time. Really.

Dear son, I’m sorry that I very nearly said the rude version of “be quiet” to you. I know that your emotions feel unbearably intense and you’re trying to express them in words. I applaud the fact that you’ve stopped hitting. But we’re going to have to get our minds around the idea that you must stop randomly screaming your cotton-pickin’ head off when you don’t like the way I phrase something.

Dear husband, I’m pretty sure my terrible housekeeping has not resulted in our house having sick building syndrome. But if you think so, then I am sorry.

Dear friends, I’m sorry I can’t keep up with you—literally or figuratively. I don’t know how you all do it all, and I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch more. I’m terrible at remembering birthdays. But I do love and miss you!

Dear family, Did I mention that I’m terrible at remembering birthdays? That, and I haven’t sent out any pictures or updates on the kids, or asked how you’re doing…I’m so sorry. I do love and miss you all!

Dear body, I’m sorry for all the skipped workouts and all the crap I stuff in you when I’m trying to stay awake. I’m just…sorry!

Dear house, I don’t think I’ve given you sick building syndrome, but the layer of grey grime all over is my responsibility. I’m sorry.

Dear microwave, I’m sorry that I can’t LEAP over to you the second you beep about my food. I know you’re just trying to help when you keep beeping. And keep beeping.

Dear plants, I’m sorry. They said “low forty degrees.” How I could have known there would be frost on the grass by morning?

Dear everyone I haven’t mentioned, I’m issuing a blanket apology for being late, spelling things wrong, sitting at lights when they turn green because I’ve forgotten what a green light means, losing the thread of conversations, looking harried, zoning out, and otherwise not quite doing anything up to par.

And dear bed, I apologize for the way I’m going crash face first into you any second now!

Someday, when I crawl out from under this blanket of fatigue, I will make it up to you all.

PS Dear computer, I’m SORRY I tried to rename this in Word while it was open. Geesh.

Love-Hate or Embrace

I admit it, I’m curious to see how this (admittedly media-driven and unscientific) survey by Today Moms goes. They've asked (women, I assume), "Do you love your body?"

My journey through life in this body has definitely been a love-hate relationship. Right now, I love what my body does, though I'm not crazy about how it looks, especially post-kids. More on that here.

I’ve had a kind of miraculous discovery lately. My body likes training and eating well. This has become my default setting. For someone who has always struggled to exercise, this is a revelation. Kind of like pulling myself up a rope and over a wall made me realize, “I can do this.”

It’s more profound than that, even. I’ve always believed my body to be defective, sub-par. I am blown away by the realization that if I follow the formula that everyone else follows, if I do the training, I get the results. My body isn’t broken!

As far as looks go... I’m one of those people who weigh themselves twice a day. I don’t take it seriously—I know the weight will fluctuate and I don’t get worked up if I eat something salty and gain two pounds of water weight. I need to know what the weight is, though. Why? Because otherwise I will have NO idea how I look. Here’s a little illustration.

We took the kids to a fall festival two years ago and I had on a black shirt. When I glanced through the pictures, I saw a woman in a black shirt and assumed it was me. Here’s one of the pictures:

 Here’s a picture of me from that same day:

Can you see what I mean? I have never had ANY idea how I look without objective measurements. The other lady and I both look fine—just different. And, from the inside, I had NO IDEA which one was me. Incidentally, it was really hard to find a full-length shot for comparison—I was hiding behind a child in nearly every picture, reflexively covering myself.

I may be lost about how I look, but I’m starting to get an idea of how I work. I like to run, especially distances. When it comes to upper body, I like to use my pulling muscles better than my pushing muscles. I don’t start anything fast, but I do enjoy good, hard sprints or sets once I’m warmed up. I have very strong thighs. My lower abs, not so much.

Most of all, I can DO things.

And I think I'm going to focus on that for now. I embrace that!

My Baby's Book

 Remember--we're not trying to understand poetry here, just experience it.

I wrote this, heavily pregnant with my second child, as part of my own surrender to the joys and struggles of motherhood. Since then, I've worn size six clothes occasionally and even had my first pedicure and manicure. I love that women all celebrate and pamper themselves in many, many ways!

I would also love it, though, if we all could celebrate the physical signs of motherhood--of any life fully lived--as much as we celebrate the physical signs of youth. Beauty comes in the shape of laugh lines, worn arthritic hands, sun spots, and thoughtful forehead crinkles, too.

Here's how all that spilled out of me six years ago.

It’s a lot of work

To get your abs back

After kids

You can do it, but

It’s a lot of work

An anorexic, boob-jobbed

Mother of three

Said to me

Well, I want them back

Of course

Three years with ‘Captain Crunch’

And a black belt

Earned me some

Pretty nice abs

Back in the day

But I see mothers

Tanned and cured (pedi and mani)

Slimmed and toned

To perfection

In size six resort wear

And high-heeled sandals

Conceding to motherhood by

Carrying a designer tote

And I wonder

Did they rent their kids?

I wouldn’t trade the

Raw knuckles and rough nails

From washing

Kids, clothes, dishes, counters,

Cars, sea shells…you name it

I wouldn’t forego

The grey-smudged eyes

From years of late night checks

And early-rising hugs

I wouldn’t give up

The forehead wrinkle

From the years of tantrums

Or the mouth lines

From all the times I smiled

To hold back tears

From feelings

Too deep for words

I will not surrender

The intimate map of

Child bearing

The silver rings of scars

Around my nipples

The expanded belly button

Or the bikini-line fat dune

I look down sometimes

And remember

Perky bosom and flat tummy

And I laugh

My body is used—

What of it?

How sad if it were not!

No plastic, no silicon

No botox for me

My baby’s book

Is written in my skin

Sticks Like Peanut Butter

When rating songs, elementary school kids look for simplicity, repetition, and ability to irritate adults.

When I was a camp counselor—back in the day—I NEVER, never, ever, never taught my kids the “Little Red Wagon” song. Like they need an excuse to say, “You can’t ride in my little red wagon AN-Ymore to-day.” Over and over and over again. But somehow it always got out. Sigh.

Face it. Any song with the “a little bit louder and a whole lot worse” option ranks high on the elementary song chart…and literally kills adult brain cells.

Last summer, S. came home from camp with a catchy little ditty about llamas—a kinder, more PC version of the “Happy Llama, Sad Llama” song. It didn’t bother me too much, despite its off-the-chart earworm quality. I kind of had to admire the clever finger play. And maybe singing it endlessly wasn’t as much fun without a hit squad of friends. Maybe it just didn’t set adults’ teeth sufficiently on edge to be worth repeating. Who knows?

Right now, though…. Both my kids have joined together in musical brain cell assassination. I’m not sure how they both picked up the same song at the same time, but they have.

First of all, let me say that I had a WEEK last week. Our family seemed to experience every kind of difficulty, from the profound to the ridiculous, last week. I worked my butt off. Big A. was out of town. And the hits just kept coming—all the way up until last night when Big A. sliced his fingers open cutting an overly frozen ice cream cake.

Yeah, that kind of week.

So I’m in the car with S., listening to my most favorite piece of music right now (listen here—you’ll thank me), and trying to take deep breaths. Over the music, S. starts in with “Peanut butter jelly time.” (You can listen here if you want, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. I’m warning you!)

“Sweetie, can we just forget about that song for today and listen to this music?”

Silence. The song ends; it’s gorgeous. A moment of additional silence.

“Peanut butter gummi time. Peanut butter gummi time.”

So, I’m sure you’re all dying to know—did I bite and say, “I asked you not to sing that anymore,” thereby giving S. the opportunity to say, “But it’s different!”

Nope. I just melted into a pool of brainless goo sprinkled with a stress topping.

So I lived through the weekend, and Little A. wanted to go to school today despite his hacking cough. I didn’t think he’d make it, so I was a bit apprehensive about picking him up. Would I be wrestling a tired, cranky, tantruming child into the car while listening to his kind, sweet teacher positively describe his “tough day” with “a lot of tears” and a “hard time sharing”?

No! He bounced into the car, happy as a clam. Yay! He’s in a good mood. He’s even singing…

“Peanut butter poopy time. Peanut butter poopy time.”

Naturally.

I decide to reinforce the preschool standard. “Sweetie, let’s not use potty words.”

“Peanut butter poo--boobytrap. Peanut butter boobytrap.”

Nice save, son.

Sigh.

Mom Friends, Part 1

There will probably be an infinite number of parts to this one, because mom friends are the best friends. I learned that—more by blind instinct than any plan—when my oldest was about three months old.

Long ago, we moved to a new town where I knew no one. I worked from home; our church community consisted mostly of retirees. No one in our neighborhood seemed to come outside. My husband worked a solid half hour away. And then we had a baby.

Long before I was ready for it, Big A. had to go back to work and I stayed at home, alone, all day with the baby. I ran up a ridiculous phone bill to my mom. I watched Oprah. I forced myself not to check the mail until 3:30 every day. And I swear the clock actually moved backwards when I was waiting for 5:30 and my husband’s homecoming.

My sister-in-law, who’d already been through it, recommended a group for moms that she enjoyed. I Googled and called and looked up directions and found one nearby. I manipulated our nursing schedule and nap schedule and hauled exactly one crap-ton of stuff with us to the meeting.

I hated it.

First of all, I don’t like meetings. I don’t like organized activities. I especially don’t like mompetition (although we didn’t call it that back then).

So I went the other way and tried another type of national group. Turns out S. and I liked that one okay, but it only met once a month. So we tried paying for a once-a-week Mommy and Me play class.

Not crazy about that one, either.

Actually, the playing part was okay. The “teachers” though—whoa. Sometimes you just want to say something like, “Oh, I am SO glad to be here! My kid hasn’t slept more than twenty minutes in days.” And then you want someone to say, “Wow. That sucks.”

These people asked me things like, “So, how do you feel about that?” and “Have you considered a more ___ technique?” or “When does she eat?” and “Do you think you are parting her hair wrong?” STOP THE INQUISITION, ALREADY!

Then I stumbled across a weekly story time for babies at the local library. We went into a peaceful, cheerful room, sat in a circle and sang some nursery rhymes, did some clapping games, and listened to a book. That took about twenty minutes. Then the kids crawled into a giant pile of toys in the middle while the moms talked.

This worked for me. I like books. I like silly songs. I loved letting S. play with other kids. I loved talking to real moms. We went to this story time from the time S. was three months old until she aged out at eighteen months. After a while, we all started going to the breakfast place across the street for lunch afterward. You should have seen our table—yes, that would be a table for sixteen or so with half high chairs.

I am still friends with so many of those moms. Others I just run into around town, but I always love seeing them. And our kids! Holy moly, they’ve grown.

And I’ve confessed to at least one mom that I always envied her because she seemed so on top of things. You know what she said? “Oh, no—that was you. YOU always had it together!” We both laughed at how wrong we’d been. But that’s what the whole thing was all about. We learned that, as different as we all are, we are all the same.

We look different, we choose differently, we have different lives and different kids. But we all have hopes and fears and dreams and worries. We also all had poopy diapers, endless laundry, sleepless nights, humiliating moments in public, joyful moments of parental pride. And we learned that it was all okay.

So that’s the first thought I'd like to throw out there. Mom friends know it’s all okay.