Dilapidated Memories – What the Hell?

Yesterday, I had a chance to take our five year old on a tour of my old stomping grounds. I felt like it was a great time to really show him around, since he’s old enough to remember where we go and what he sees; we’re still struggling with having him remember what we say, but that’s a topic for another blog post. When you live in a small town, build a home only 17 minutes away from the house you grew up in, and buy your father’s small business, you tend to get tangled in those roots that you’ve been putting down since you were born.

The problem with yesterday’s tour, though, was that memory lane is a lot more overgrown and decrepit than it used to be. I was downright depressed when we were done, but I didn’t want him to know that I was on the verge of tears, so I sounded like one of those overzealous Washington, DC, tour guides that you can’t wait to ditch at the next monument.

First up was the house my dad was raised in, along with his six siblings. My grandparents haven’t lived there for decades, and the house isn’t exactly on a route I travel often.  It doesn’t look like the version I’ve romanticized in my head.  The front porch is different, and of course my grandfather’s truck isn’t parked beside the barn.  The trees are older and more tired looking.  I guess I had expected it to look exactly as it did when I visited my grandparents and hunted for Easter eggs and played with all of the cousins outside. I vividly remember petting the cows and calves in that barn, picking apples along the winding dirt road, and riding all over the fields on the three-wheeler with my aunt. And there it was: just an older farmhouse. I told our son all of the memories I could in the three minutes it took to drive past, trying to make my memory come alive for him.

Then, I drove past the famous sled-riding hill. All of the kids from my neighborhood and the two adjoining ones slid down that hill, and we thought it was the best way to spend those freezing snow days. The trip up took the breath right out of us, as did the trip back down on our inflatable tubes. The hill, thankfully, looks the same. I guess a weed-covered hill doesn’t change all that much in 25 years. It was nice to hear his breathy, “Wow!” when he saw just how big it really is.

Feeling a little rejuvenated by the sameness of the hill, I drove past the old corner store. We used to buy ice cream there, on the way to the community center for bowling after a hard day in elementary school. I also remember going in with a fistful of cash and purchasing milk for my mom, from one of my classmates’ moms. She was always so nice and smiled when she asked how I was. Now, there is a display in the front window for clothing. The display was very nice. But, it’s just not the same.

The real shock came when we drove past the store to my old elementary school. Again, not exactly on my daily travels, the school is a place I haven’t seen for years. Half of it is gone. My third grade and second grade and sixth grade and fourth grade classrooms were torn down years ago. The tennis court that hosted daily kickball games and was the site of my very first homerun (second girl in my class to achieve that feat) have been removed and there are weeds growing in its place. The playground equipment that served as home to secrets and dares also has been removed. The remaining portion of the school is a personal care facility. So, I was pointing and describing things to my son, hoping that he could picture the images of my childhood as vividly as I could: “Over there is where I won the three-legged race with my friend. Right here is where we used to line up to go in after recess. That’s where we used to play hopscotch. I lost a tooth right here.” He nodded and looked where I was pointing, but the magic that I felt was making no impression on him. Through his eyes, it must look like an overgrown field and a boring brick building.

One more turn, and we were at the site of the old community swimming pool. The place where I received most of my childhood torture and harassment – it was not easy being a chubby girl trying to swim with all of the older boys from the surrounding neighborhoods – is now another overgrown empty lot. After financial and management and a host of other issues, it, too, has gone by the wayside. I admit, I glossed over that part of the childhood memories and told him that I used to swim with friends there.

Another turn, and we were at the community park and ball fields. He already has been at the park several times, but this time I made sure he knew that the park is where I had school picnics and attended friends’ birthday parties and walked with friends during summers off from school and had some of the best fun of my young life. I showed him the softball and baseball fields and proudly told him that I was a member of the first softball team in our little village. That first year, we practiced and actually had matching team shirts and a couple of scrimmages by the end of the season. By the next year, my dad sponsored one team and another local dad who owned a business sponsored the other team, and we had real uniforms and helmets and coaches and rivalries. More fields were built, more games were scheduled, and more girls joined. I was feeling pretty special when the voice from the backseat asked if we had Sour Patch Kids at the concession stands. Way to bring your mother back to present reality, kiddo. I am happy to report that we did. And, it made me feel great to see kids on the new, shiny, colorful park equipment and cars parked at all of the ball fields. Some things about childhood should improve with age, and I’m so glad it’s the park and ball field; it seems to be those places of play that can hold a community together the longest.

Finally, we headed toward my parents’ house, down the long tree-lined street that housed of so many of my classmates, teammates, teachers, and friends. I told him that my friends and I spent hours walking along those streets, talking, and heading to the ball games of their older brothers and sometimes to see the boys on whom we had crushes play baseball. “What’s a crush, Mommy?”  “When you really like somebody and think you might want to swing beside them.” Dear God, please keep him this young and innocent forever. Again, the houses are looking older, the trees are growing taller, and the community members are walking more slowly. I showed him the houses of good friends as well as those that handed out the best candy for trick-or-treaters. By that time, he was giving me polite nods.

A lot of my childhood places are gone or heading in that direction. To make matters worse, when we go on the tour of my junior and senior high school years, I’m not going to have much to show him because my senior high school has been torn down, the football field has been torn down, and the Dunkin’ Donuts has been torn down and rebuilt facing a different direction. (Yes, DD had that much of an impact on my teen years.) I suppose that things had to change after all of that time passed, and it’s good that my small town is trying to rebuild and thrive as much as possible.

It’s just hard to see those physical places that meant so much exist now in such a completely different state. I guess it’s just one of those things about getting older: not much stays the same. What the Hell?

The Battle Over Toys – What the Hell?

Toys. They’re everywhere. I can’t find one room that doesn’t have a toy in it at this very moment. Not even the bathrooms, and there are three of them. We can’t help it that our boys are so adorable that everyone who knows them buys them things. (Yes, Sheldon, that was sarcasm.) At least, that’s what the guilty parties say when they show up with the toy bags in hand. I’ve even heard, “But they’re just so CUTE.” We can’t help it that they have a grandmother and grandfather and great-grandmother and extended family members who can’t resist spoiling them; in fact, they proudly announce, “That’s our job.”

If you noticed that my husband and I haven’t been mentioned in the list of guilty parties, that was not an oversight. We don’t even give the boys a chance to ask for toys at the store. And, on the rare occasion that they do, we are quite capable of saying, “No.” Funny how that tiny little word can be so darn difficult for some people to say. But, before you get the wrong idea, we are not turning into Herr Meisterburger Burgermeister. (No idea what that means? You need to brush up on your Claymation Christmas movies, my friend.)

My husband and I believe the boys need to earn toys or spend their birthday/holiday money on them, rather than get them simply because they batted their impossibly long eyelashes at us. We also teach them how to walk through the toy aisle and LOOK, not BUY. You’d think that’s a foreign concept to some of our ever-so-loving older relatives. Believe it or not, you are, in fact, allowed to leave a store without buying a toy. There are no toy police at the exits who force you to go back in and buy toys before they let you walk out the door.

But, I’ve given up on fighting the forces that are beyond my control. I’ve let it go. *Cue Disney song… NOW!* I’ve been coming to terms with the fact that I can parent only my children; I cannot parent my elders. I have tried making suggestions and making those tough phone calls and having those tough conversations with them. It’s a delicate balance because I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings; but, on the other hand, it would be great if our parenting style were supported and reinforced by everyone who comes into contact with our boys.

Just typing that last sentence, though, felt foolish. These types of things don’t happen in real life, and I come from a very long line of stubborn people. If they want to spoil our children, they are going to do it, come hell or high water.

And, let’s not forget the simple facts. My parents were not sure that they were ever going to get the chance to be grandparents. My grandmother was not sure that she was ever going to know the joy of holding a baby with her blood running through its veins again. For the first year of his life, our older son commonly was referred to as “The Blessing” and “The Miracle.” I never called him that because I thought it was a pretty hefty burden to place on a young child; once his tantrums and potty-training nightmare occurred, those nicknames quickly fell by the wayside, anyway. So, these people waited years for us to have children, and they celebrate their childhood with toys.

There are worse things in the world that grandparents and great-grandparents and other relatives can do than spoil children. Because of my husband’s and my parenting style, our boys are not yet spoiled rotten. We will continue to do everything in our power to prevent that from happening, and we know that truly is not the intention of anyone. They love our boys so much, and we are so grateful for that. Truly. And, not a day goes by that I don’t think about how blessed our boys are to have all of these people in their lives.

In the meantime, we will continue to make suggestions about timing for toys and the conversations to have with the boys prior to handing them their new toys. And, we will continue to add toy tubs to our growing collection. But, at the end of the day, I’ve learned another important lesson in parenting: not everyone is out to sabotage you, even if it feels that way because you just stepped on the third toy of the day. What the Hell?

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Kitchen Disasters – What the Hell?

There is only one smell worse than that of the things you hoped would taste delicious burning to a crisp in your oven: the smell of the plastic containers that are holding the delicious food you’ve already made melting in your oven, while the deliciousness inside burns to a plastic-covered crisp.  I haven’t had too many cooking and baking mishaps in my lifetime, because I don’t have enough courage or know-how to really screw up anything; I follow recipes like they are carved in stone, and I rarely try anything adventurous.  The truth is, it’s when I try to get adventurous and deviate from that hand-written path of a recipe, disaster strikes.

Years ago, when we were still a young, blissful, childless couple, I made my famous chicken tetrazzini.  I don’t have too many signature dishes, but if I had to pick the one, this would be it.  My husband concurs.  It requires three pots bubbling away on the stove at once, which is just about enough to put me right over the edge, but I remember feeling confident in my cooking abilities that night.  I think that was due in large part to the Justin Timberlake blaring in the kitchen while I danced and sang.  Apparently, I was trying to bring sexy back while cooking.  It was three days after Christmas: my husband’s birthday.  I was making his favorite dish as a surprise for when he got home from work.

Halfway into the cooking frenzy, I noticed that something smelled terrible.  I couldn’t figure out what it was, and I wasn’t about to stop my dance break to check it out.  I should have.  I wish I would have.  But, I didn’t.  I just figured I spilled something on a burner and it was going to burn off soon.

Within three minutes, I knew what it was.  I couldn’t believe how stupid I was, and I was afraid to look inside the oven to confirm it.  There they were: two huge plastic containers filled to the brim with Christmas cookie goodness, and they were melting all over the inside of the oven with the cookies inside.  Well, they weren’t really inside anymore; they were falling in a hazy plastic goop to the bottom of the oven and starting to flame.  I saw this through the oven door.

I was not known, in the days prior to becoming a mother, for being calm, cool, and collected when I was on my own in stressful situations.  Flashback to Christmas the year before the melting cookie disaster, when our puppy was about six months old.  He lifted his leg on our beautifully decorated, perfect Christmas tree, and I cried and called my mom.  I didn’t know what to do with the tree or the tree skirt or the wet barely-three-months-old carpet underneath, and I panicked.  She came and rescued the tree, the tree skirt, the carpet, and the dog (I was determined never to speak to him again), and before she left, she sat me down and told me that I needed to learn to take a deep breath and deal with it.

So, when I saw the gigantic disaster in the oven and figured that I had only seconds to live because I was sure the whole house was going to erupt into a giant ball of oozing, melting, plastic-covered cookie fire, I got on my phone.  I still hadn’t learned that take-a-deep-breath-and-deal-with-it lesson.  I at least had enough sense to turn off the oven, and I turned off all of the burners and dumped the half-completed chicken tetrazzini in the sink.  But, I had no idea what to do after that.

I don’t remember why, but I talked to my brother before I talked to my mom.  He told me NOT to open the oven because there could be a fireball – too late, and I was damn lucky – and I could hear his tires squealing while he was still on the phone with me.  I didn’t know how to get the plastic containers out of the oven because they were a dripping inferno, but I knew I had to get them out somehow.  I still had no idea what to do.  The only thing I could think of doing was opening all of the windows and turning off the heat because it was the middle of winter, and I put the dog outside because those fumes were killing us.  I was sure of it.

I wanted to beat my head off the wall because I felt so stupid.  What is the first thing they teach you in home economics?  Make sure there is nothing in the oven before you turn it on.  Well, I baked so little that I never kept anything in the oven, and the cookies were barely five days old, so I really was not used to having to worry about anything being in my oven.  I was shaking.  I was crying.  And I was choking on that smell.

Five minutes after my brother got there, it was all over.  He got the plastic containers out of my oven by carrying them on the oven racks over metal cookie sheets to my front yard.  They still were dripping fiery bombs, but at least they were not in the oven anymore.  I had no idea what to do with the mounds of melted, gooey plastic stuck to the bottom of my oven, but I knew they wouldn’t get any bigger.  It took weeks for that smell to leave our house, and I still haven’t lived it down; every Christmas, my brother tells the story and my parents and husband tease me about where I store the cookies.  I haven’t stored one thing inside our oven since that day.

Fast forward to today.  The big kid and I decided to take a risk with our banana bread and dumped chocolate chips into the batter.  I thought the pan looked really full when I was putting it into the oven (yes, I made sure it was empty before I turned it on), but I thought the batter would just bake into a nice, tall, golden brown loaf.  I was wrong.  Within ten minutes, it smelled terrible, and I realized there was a smoky haze in the air.  I wanted to panic.  I had a sleeping two year old upstairs, and the last thing I wanted was our smoke detectors to start beeping because they’re hardwired and nearly impossible to turn off.  I really wanted to turn off the oven and dump the whole sorry-looking mess in the garbage.

But, I knew I had to keep it together for the five year old who had that same look of panic on his face.  I took a deep breath.  I dealt with it.  I opened the oven, put foil on the rack underneath the exploding banana bread, and started scraping out the burning batter mounds on the bottom of the oven with tongs.  I enlisted him to help by bringing me paper towels, turning on the ceiling fans, and opening the door to the back porch because I didn’t want him to be scared of a kitchen disaster.  More importantly, I wanted him to see his mom in control of a scary situation.  I’d like to say the rolling smoke and horrible smell were scary only for him, but I felt that old panic rising fast, too.   And you know what?  We survived.  The bread wasn’t a total disaster; all three boys at least tried it.  I’m not even upset that I’m the only one who likes it.

When my mom showed up tonight for a completely different reason other than my calling her in my old panic-stricken state, she immediately said that I should have made muffins instead of bread.  One lesson at a time, Mom.  What the Hell?

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Summertime, And the Livin’ Is Easy – What the Hell?

It’s summer.  I think this finally sank in today, because we had one of our atypical lazy days at home.  We only seem to be able to enjoy those during the summer, and it so rarely happens that I don’t feel guilty about it.  While we were lounging around and enjoying the weather, I started thinking about why this summer feels so different.  It didn’t take me long to figure out that it’s because of my new adventure.

I don’t have to despise the height of the corn in the fields or the date on the calendar because this is the first summer that I can remember that isn’t dedicated to counting down and dreading the August flip.  I can enjoy my children and our activities without thinking about how many more Saturdays we have until school starts and Saturdays are consumed by grocery shopping and cleaning and lesson planning and grading and getting as much done as possible so we can spend some quality time on Sunday without having the mad dash Sunday night to get everything ready.  I didn’t hate the Fourth of July because the summer is just downhill from there.  I’m loving everything about this summer, but there are some things that seem just a little sweeter, just a little better, just a little more summer than in years past.

• Sunscreen – There’s something about the smell of our boys’ sweat mixed with their sunscreen and their normal we’ve-been-outside-playing-today smell that makes me melt.
• Lemonade – If you’ve never squeezed your own lemonade before, you are missing out on something truly delightful.  Ours tastes even better because our five year old has to be our taste tester and swish it around in his mouth a few times, deciding if we need just a little more sugar before it’s perfect.
• Strawberries – I don’t enjoy cooking as much as I probably should, but I could stand in the kitchen and clean and cut up strawberries forever.  It’s not just because they’re fresh and smell so good.  It’s because the little hands reach for them faster than I can prepare them.  It’s also because the big kid and I have figured out how to make “special strawberries” with a hollowed-out center filled with sugar.  It’s our special treat, once a day.  Just us.
• Lightning bugs – We finally got a chance to go hunting tonight, and we had a blast.  Once the little guy was asleep, we armed ourselves with our bug-spying eyes and bug-catching container and were amazed by how many lit up our yard.  Three things stood out tonight: 1) my eyes aren’t what they used to be, 2) our five year old is faster than I realized, 3) we, who go on housefly hunts and swat with a vengeance, can be so gentle with lightning bugs.  I wanted to freeze time when our big kid asked them if they were ready to be let go and then told them good night as he watched them fly away.
• Ice cream – We have the absolute best local ice cream shop a few minutes from our house, and there is no place we’d rather be on a hot night than in their long lines.  Everybody shares and has to “have just a bite” of everyone else’s.  I used to get worked up about melted ice cream on the car seats.  Now I pack a roll of paper towels and let the boys do their own thing.  It’s just a car.  And some day they will be able to keep up with those incessant drips.  I do not long for those days.
• Swimming – This is the first summer in five years that I don’t feel like I have to be a lifeguard on duty 24/7 at the pool.  The big kid is swimming without any flotation devices, and the little kid is in his Puddle Jumper as happy as can be.  I am back on the diving board and flipping into the water having the time of my life and loving the looks on the boys’ faces because they didn’t know their Mom could do those things.  I don’t get to be the hero often, so I’ll take it when I can.
• Fireworks – We have backyard fireworks shows nearly every weekend, all summer long because we can’t say no when our big kid sees those brightly-colored pyrotechnic packs at the store.  We secretly love the flashes and bangs as much as he does.  The smell of that acrid smoke is a summer staple.
• Later bedtimes – We don’t do much to mess up our bedtime routine, but gradually later bedtimes are a natural part of summer.  We play outside longer and harder, and it’s hard to justify bringing in those dirty, sweaty boys who are having such a good time without any technological devices or TV in front of them.
• Porch sitting – When we were planning our house, I knew there would be no compromising on the porches.  A front porch with plenty of room for rocking chairs and a screened-in back porch with a porch swing were early parts of the dream home plan.  I never dreamt that the boys would love to be on the porches as much as I do, and it’s so much easier to convince the little guy that we are, in fact, outside on rainy days when we’re on the porch playing.  Summer nights on the back porch are my favorite way to wind down and relax with my husband, while looking at the stars and watching the lightning bugs fly, this time without worrying about being caught.

So, I’m finally able to enjoy a summer.  A whole summer.  I don’t know what day it is, and I’m fine with that.  What the Hell?

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One of Those Days – What the Hell?

It’s been one of those days.  I can’t get focused for some reason, which is totally out of character for me.  I’m having trouble connecting thoughts and remaining on topic.  I’m reading and rereading and not getting anywhere.  I think I’ve had to charge my phone twice today because I kept adding Reminders and grocery items and checking the weather and seeing why my Facebook notifications were flashing.  I have been procrastinating, and I loathe procrastination.  I found things on the internet and television to distract me nearly all day, and I normally work with music on so that I can keep working without distractions.

I’m yawning and stretching every two minutes, and I keep feeling like I have to flex my toes and ankles.  I’m never one to crack my knuckles, but I caught myself doing it today.  Twice.

To make things worse, I caught myself biting my fingernails three times today.  Actually, the biggest problem I’ve found since starting this writing venture is that I’m losing fingernails daily.  I don’t have some sort of fingernail-eating bacteria invading my hands, or anything; I have a bad habit.  When I was younger, I bit my fingernails.  My mom tried everything from painting terrible-tasting liquid on my nails to making me wear gloves.  Nothing worked.  I remember bloody fingers and painful days, just because I couldn’t kick that stupid habit.  The day that I finally quit was the day that I got the call for my first teaching interview.  (Yes, I still bit my nails well past my teen years.)  I had two weeks to let my nails grow, and I was determined to do it.  From that point on, I knew that I had to be an adult and exercise some self-control over my fingers.  And, I was successful until about a month ago.

Now, I catch myself  biting my nails when I’m stuck on a sentence or a word or I’m struggling with an idea or a difficult subject.  It’s been eleven years since I last bit my fingernails, and here I am, staring at four nails that don’t look like they belong on my hands because there’s almost nothing left of them.

I don’t know what made today so different for me, but I hope that it’s one of those things that rarely happens, or I might not be able to do this writing thing after all.  It’s hard to write about the weirdos on the morning game shows and what my friends are up to on Facebook, so I really better find a way to cut out these distractions the next time they happen.

Ooh – I have six new notifications, two new emails, and a text.  What the Hell? 

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Generational Gap Differences – What the Hell?

The generational gap between my grandmother, mother, and me has become far vaster in recent weeks. I don’t know if it’s because my mom and I are home more now that school has ended, or if it’s just because I’m paying more attention to what’s happening and being said around me, but it seems like we are worlds apart. These things will never, ever be something we can agree on:

Ironing

I didn’t own an iron until my mother bought one for me two years ago.   I have used it once, to iron curtains that were driving me crazy because they weren’t hanging straight. I eventually gave up trying to iron them and threw them into our steam dryer, so I don’t even know if that counts. We fold our clothes and hang them up and put them away at least six weeks after they are dry, so we’re really not a very wrinkly family.

When we are invited to weddings, my mom takes the clothes we are going to wear to her house and irons them because she can’t stand knowing that we might make a grand, wrinkled appearance at a social function. Forget that my husband and I have to wrestle two kids while we are getting ready and that being tackled by those same kids while we’re on our way out the door makes us wrinkly anyway. She can’t stand knowing that we are wearing clothes that have not been introduced to an ironing board.   This is the same woman who irons jeans. Jeans! She stands and “gets clothes ready” for hours every night so that she and my dad are freshly pressed in the morning. She has been known to take people’s shirts off of their bodies, just so she can iron them before anyone leaves the house.

Then, there’s my grandmother. She irons underwear and kitchen towels. I wish I were using my powers of sarcasm and hyperbole here, but I’m not. The woman literally will iron any piece of cloth in her home if she detects even a hint of a wrinkle. I know for a fact that it takes her hours upon hours to iron her curtains after washing them for Christmas and spring cleaning. Thank goodness she’s retired and has oodles of time on her hands.

Scrubbing Floors

I own two regular vacuums, a stick vac, a carpet cleaner, and a steam mop. I clean as often as possible, which sometimes means weeks pass before the steam mop is freed from its space in the closet because it isn’t always possible to clean with our two little ones around the house. The only time I get down on my hands and knees to clean a floor is if the little guy pees on the rug during a diaper change or if someone spills a massive amount of liquid. Otherwise, I grab one of those handy dandy appliances and go to town on our vinyl, laminate, or carpeted floors. The steam mop means no chemicals and a quicker drying time.

My mother and grandmother turned up their noses when I got the steam mop. They even turned up their noses at the stick vac, until my grandmother tried the thing and loved it. It probably helped that I had her use her broom and dustpan in front of a sun-filled window so she could see all of the dirt and dust flying around while she “cleaned.” I gave her our older model stick vac, and she’s still using it. My mom, on the other hand, can’t seem to let go of that broomstick. We tease her that she clings to it because it doubles as a mode of transportation for her, but she doesn’t appreciate our stab at humor.

What these two old-fashioned women can’t seem to get past is the fact that I don’t fill a bucket with hot water and some sort of cleaning agent, grab a rag, and scrub the vinyl and laminate floors on my hands and knees. Apparently, a floor isn’t clean until you’ve killed your knees and back in the process of cleaning it. They ask me when I’m really going to scrub our floors. I have offered to let them do it for me, since I’m apparently failing by using the steam mop, but neither has taken me up on the offer yet.

Cell Phones

My cell phone is within arm’s reach virtually every minute of the day. It’s my link to email, texts, tweets, updates, weather, likes, comments, and almost everything else during the day. I am not perusing the web every day, all day long, on my phone. I do, however, have to look at it frequently during the day for information about my freelance job, and it’s my number one device for communication.

My mother has caught on to the cell phone era almost as well as my grandmother caught on to the benefits of the stick vac. Mom texts and calls proficiently, and she knows that if she wants to reach me quickly, she has to text.

My grandmother, though, bless her heart, has no idea where her cell phone is 99% of the day. She hardly ever turns the thing on, and she has no idea what a text is. She says the cell phone is best used in emergencies, and I hope she never needs it because she’d be screwed. Her aversion to her own cell phone, though, means that she avoids our cell phones as much as possible. My landline exists because of her. If my phone rings, you can guarantee it’s because Nana is calling. Our little one yells, “Nana!” when he hears it ringing, because even he knows that she’s the only person on the face of the planet who refuses to communicate with a cell phone: that includes refusing to call mine from her landline. Ugh!

Facebook

I embraced Facebook five years ago, and I haven’t looked back. What started as a means for sharing our older son’s very first pictures with long-distance friends and family has become a daily routine of status updates, photo uploads, shares, comments, and likes. I find recipes and warnings and articles and videos – well, everything – on the social media site. These days, I use it for promoting this blog and our small business and for reading as much as I can since I have my freelancing and blogging gigs.

My mother does not “understand” Facebook. She doesn’t know why people have to tell each other where they are and what they are doing and what they are supporting through social media. She doesn’t understand why I “like” things and comment on things from people I don’t even know. She does not want to create an account, does not want to see how it works, and does not want me to spend too much time on it. I don’t know what she’s afraid of, but those are some pretty powerful emotions I encounter whenever I ask her if she wants me to help her get started with Facebook.

This is the area where my grandmother and mom agree the most in their reaction and their resistance to the things of my generation. When I talk with one of them about Facebook, I might as well move into the other room and talk with the other one, because they have the same reasons for disliking Facebook and refusing to make a profile.

 

In the frustrating end, I love my mom and grandmother with all my heart. But, it seems as though lately our generational gap is making it harder to communicate and see eye-to-eye. I probably can live without getting them to come around to Facebook. But, I will not give up my steam mop or give in to ironing all of our clothes. So, I guess we will just continue to mutter, “What the Hell?”

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What Do I Need? – What the Hell?

The dishwasher was empty, courtesy of my husband, the counters and table were clean, courtesy of me, the washer and dryer were running, courtesy of both of us, and the kids were asleep, courtesy of the sleep gods. It was 9:50PM, and we were just starting the work that accompanies our jobs that pay the bills after our supper/playtime/bath time/bedtime/clean-up/Mommy/Daddy jobs were done for the time being. My husband asked me my favorite question: What do you need? And tonight, I decided to be completely selfish and just go with the answers off the top of my head. Here they are…

I need a magic time wand. Not a regular magic wand. No, no. And not a time machine. Absolutely not. I’d get in too much trouble trying to live in the 60s. But a magic time wand. When the baby is having an especially adorably good day, I would freeze time with it. But, I’d pay it all back when he’s having a I’m-going-to-throw-myself-down-for-the-umpteenth-time-and-kick-and-scream-even-though-I-don’t-even-know-what-I-want day. Kind of like Give a Penny, Take a Penny.

I need blazing fast internet that isn’t acting up exactly when I have a deadline. And I need it to download when I think of something, not just when I finally find what I’m searching for. And I need it to remember every site I’ve ever been to because there aren’t enough bookmarks in the world for everything I have going on.

I need someone to figure out how I can walk on the treadmill without waking up the whole house AND be able to read all of the books I have stockpiled for “when I have time” while walking on said noisy treadmill. I don’t know if I’m not doing it correctly or what it is, but I might as well try to read while driving on the PA highways, bouncing all over all of the potholes. The result would be the same: I’d be sweating more than I should be and feeling frustrated, my liver would need a rest from bouncing off my ribcage, and I’d be looking for the nearest rest stop.

I need someone to potty train our younger son. I couldn’t do it the first time with the more patient, reasonable child. I don’t have a prayer with this one.

I need somebody to rub and massage my feet all day long. And my temples. That would be heaven. I could die a happy woman.

I need somebody to explain retirement and taxes to me in a way that I really understand. I’ve tried hard, really I have. I’ve done the research. I’ve talked to the right people. I don’t get it. I never will. It’s not the math. It’s all of the combinations and possibilities and words I don’t care to know.

I need somebody to show me how to keep our bathtubs clean. For more than two days. I hate cleaning them, and I’m too short for our extra-deep tubs and I never feel like they’re really clean, even though our five year old points out that they squeak, so they have to be clean.

I need to figure out how to get rid of the I’m-33-so-I-shouldn’t-be-dealing-with-this-acne-and-this-hair-where-I-don’t-want-it problem. I’m hoping that getting myself out of the high school environment will rid me of the high school hormone problems, too. This is a big dream, seeing as how my PCOS makes so many things about life as a woman unpleasant.

I need somebody to explain to me why we get the same bugs in the house at the same time each year, in the same places, and then tell me how to get rid of them. We keep everything clean… well, within reason. We have screens in the windows. We don’t let our doors hang wide open. Yet, there they are. I’m ready to wage war on them. I’d hate to firebomb this house, but some days that fantasy seems worthwhile.

I need somebody to drop off loads of money to our house once a month so I can pay off our school loans and this house. I’m not asking for a million dollars or even an astronomical lottery payday. Just enough to cover school loans and the mortgage. Then, I could put away what I promised myself I’d be putting away for our boys’ college educations.

I need to figure out a way to sleep comfortably. I don’t get many hours of sleep, and those that I do get are not the most restful of my life. Maybe that magic time wand could help a little.

So, What Do I Need?  I guess all of the things that I just wrote about, because they flew onto the page so quickly. But now I’m feeling selfish and greedy for just allowing myself to be honest about what I need. What the Hell?

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Why Do I Blog? – What the Hell?

Somebody asked me the other day why I’m blogging.  It’s not making any money, is it?  Nope.  Not a penny.  This isn’t about money.  It’s certainly not about wasting time doing something that isn’t lucrative.  It’s like asking an artist why he paints or a singer why she sings.  Words are my passion.  I love saying them, hearing them, spelling them, and stringing them together in a dozen different ways until it sounds just right.  Wordsmithing is my thing.  I’m not perfect at it; I’ve never taken a creative writing course (I was too busy earning that teaching degree I’m not currently using).  I just write.  Because I love it.  And because…

It helps me sleep at night
My brain never stops.  I’m always thinking and planning and wishing and hoping.  And worrying and stressing.  Writing somehow gets most of that out, or exhausts my mental capacity just long enough to help me get those 4-5 hours of coveted sleep.  You read that right. 4-5 hours.  I’ll sleep when I’m old.

It quiets my negative thoughts… most of the time.
Unless I’m writing about something that severely ticks me off or some radical injustice, I’m usually able to get it all out on paper and then be done with it.  It’s that cathartic experience that everyone needs once in awhile.  I haven’t ruined my keyboard yet with tears, either, thank goodness.

It gets my blood pumping.
I think about what I want to say and how I want to say it and why I want to say it, and pretty soon I’ve written pages without really thinking about it at all.  It’s exciting and thrilling for me to get all the words and thoughts out and to spend so much time doing something that I love without feeling guilty about it.  If exercise worked through fingers typing on a keyboard, I’d be a size 2.  That would be grand!

It’s something that I’ve always been told I’m good at, and I like knowing that I’m good at something that I love doing.
I’m good at cleaning, too, but I don’t love doing that.  So, I write.  For the most part, I’m good at lots of things, but not one brings me more joy than writing.  If you’re wondering how being a mom fits into this since I should love being a mom, I absolutely do.  But, you must’ve missed my previous post, “Am I Doing Anything Right? – What the Hell?”  Read it, and you’ll understand.

It helps me think.
I type faster than I write, and I type almost as fast as I can think.  That’s a good thing, because the more I type, the more I realize I have a lot more on my mind.  Writing helps me get it all organized and analyzed and OUT.  “Out” is a big word when it comes to my writing.

It’s a creative outlet.
I’m not artistic, I’m not the best singer, and my piano is at my parents’ house.  Writing is something I can do anywhere, anytime.  I’m getting damn good at telling Siri what I want to write about in the car, too.  I wish there were a keyboard on my steering wheel, but I don’t think that would pass those highway safety tests or please those kind officers who have moved in right down the street from us.

It helps me to get in touch with me.
I get in touch with my feelings and my thoughts and my fears and my dreams through my writing.  There are times when I seriously don’t know what I want or how I’m going to get it until I write about it.  I wrote pages about our dream home before we even sat down with the contractors.  I needed to see it, so I wrote about it first.  When we were choosing baby names, I wrote them all down, too, about a million times.  I needed to see how they looked.

It helps me connect with people.
There is nothing worse than feeling isolated.  Writing is a way to get those thoughts and feelings out there and find other people who are in your boat.  (Now, I get those people on my blog.)  We really aren’t so different after all.  Except those people reading the NRA blogs.  They can stay there.

I get excited when I see how many people have viewed my posts.
It’s not about the numbers for me when it comes to motivation or inspiration; I’d write if I only had one reader, my husband.  But, it’s nice to know that people are reading my thoughts.  It’s even nicer when they send an email, follow me on Twitter, or Like or Comment on the blog itself.  The best part is when they Follow the blog.  Then, I know that I’m not as weird as I think I am, because other people are reading and agreeing or reading and disagreeing, but at least we’re all reading what I’ve written.

I survived teen angst and high school through writing; why not survive motherhood and a pause in my career through writing, too.
I had a journal on my old, old Dell desktop that went on for hundreds of pages.  I categorized by month, my weekly crush, my monthly conflict with my mom… well, you get the point.  I can’t really remember a time that I didn’t turn to writing.  Now, I get through the terrible twos and self-doubt and gripes about society and anything else my mind throws at me.  Same process, same cathartic experience, just at a different point in life.

So, yes, my name is Bailey and I’m addicted to blogging.  And I don’t see that changing any time soon.  So, when you ask me, “Why do you blog?” my answer is going to be, “Didn’t you read the blog?  What the Hell?”

*I hope you paid attention to that one about connecting with people.  There are lots of ways to connect with me.  Click either of the Follow buttons at the bottom of this post (one is for fellow bloggers and one is for people who want to receive email notification of my new posts), Comment on any of my posts, email me at baileyshawley@gmail.com, follow me @baileyshawley, or send me a message on Facebook.  Better yet, help me connect with even more people by sharing my blog on your Facebook timeline or retweeting my posts.

Am I Doing Anything Right? – What the Hell?

Being a mom means there is a constant chorus of “Am I doing it right?” and “How can I do it better?” playing in my head. There is absolutely no way of knowing that you are doing anything right or that you are making anything better. You ask others – mainly, your own mother – for advice and you automatically judge those who you know are doing it WAY WORSE than you are. (Be honest. You know you do it.) But, there’s always that little voice in your head at 2AM when you can’t sleep, anyway: “Are you a good mother?” And then, you have no hope of sleeping for the rest of the night.

One thing that I know I must do for both of our boys is to work every day at helping them to gain self-confidence. I had self-confidence, I think, until my self-awareness trumped it. In about third grade, I began to notice that people called me names because of my weight and people disliked me because I was smart. I never thought that being smart could be a bad thing, and thank goodness I never put myself down because I was intelligent. The weight, on the other hand, proved to be a giant obstacle from that point on and continues to be one of the biggest challenges and paralyzing forces in my life. I can go from feeling like I’m having a great day, to catching a glimpse of myself or seeing one of the million pictures the little guy took of me with my phone that day, and think, “Ugh. There it is again.” And it’s on those days that I feel like people are looking at me and judging me more harshly than others. And, it’s on those days that I pull into myself and try to get as small as possible so people don’t see ALL of me. I put that seed of doubt in my mind, and I convince myself that others see me as I see myself. It’s ugly. I’m working on it.

Knowing my own hang-ups makes me worry even more about being a good mom. I don’t want any of my self-confidence challenges to become apparent to our very sensitive boys. I constantly am on guard, trying to build up their self-esteem and their self-worth without being a helicopter parent or making them feel like they are perfect children. And I try to push down my self-doubt and portray myself as a very together, confident mom, wife, and woman. It’s a balancing act, and I don’t think I’ve fallen off the parenting wagon yet.

Then, I realized that their self-confidence meters are not solely controlled by me. Our older son had a significant expressive speech delay. I didn’t even think “delay” was the correct term for it, no matter what all of our evaluations and IEPs said. I thought it was more of a there-is-no-speech-coming-out-of-this-child’s-mouth-and-I-don’t-think-he’s-ever-going-to-talk problem. We started working with local agencies and our pediatrician right around his first birthday and were doing baby sign language by eighteen months. After grueling speech therapy, medical and psychological testing, and several creative games devised by yours truly, our son is speaking circles around kids his age in terms of his vocabulary, including emotional literacy. He’s not on any of the spectrums or labeled with any of the abbreviations that so many parents and teachers deal with on a daily basis; he just had a tough time getting his mouth to say what he wanted it to say. He’s scary smart and has ideas and language skills to back it up. I could not be more proud of his hard work and dedication to become the talker that he is today.

But, I see how his continued struggles with a few enunciation patterns are dogging him. He uses synonyms or flat-out descriptions, just to avoid having to say certain words. He whispers words that contain his “trouble sounds” because he doesn’t like to be wrong or misunderstood (more on that damn perfectionism issue we’ve got going on in this family in an upcoming blog post, for sure). This smart cookie of ours who scored off several of the pre-K and kindergarten and first grade and second grade charts for vocabulary and problem solving at age four doubts himself and allows his lack of confidence in his speaking ability to impede him from doing things I know he wants to do. And, it breaks my heart.

I watch him want to sing along to songs kids his age have been singing for years; yet, he stops himself just as he starts to let the first sound fly out of his mouth. He never has sung “Happy Birthday” or “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.” He never has really sung the alphabet song, though he has known his letters forever. He won’t sing any of the songs at school that I’ve been dying to sing and act out with him: no “I’m a Little Teapot” here! I’ve been told by our saint of a speech therapist that it’s because he’s afraid of not being able to keep up, and that he doesn’t want to be embarrassed if he can’t. More of that perfectionist issue he inherited from his mother, which is more of that guilt complex I’ve formed for myself since I first held him in my arms.

I watch him at the playground and park and other social situations with kids, and sometimes I’m in awe of him. He is afraid they won’t understand him when he says his name, but he says it anyway. And then he asks them how old they are. He’s developed his own icebreaker, bless his heart, because he knows most kids love to report their ages to one another. And, he knows that when they ask him for his age, it’s a short answer that they will understand.

I watch him walk over to a mother with a baby and ask if it’s a boy or a girl and stand and talk about his own brother for long stretches of time. He’s coming out of his shell on a regular basis, and I allow myself one thought: “I might actually be doing something right!” I want to do cartwheels and a little cheer. But I stop myself. People would laugh.

Thank goodness my kid has more self-confidence than I do. What the Hell?

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It’s a Miracle! – What the Hell?

We had just finished building our new home and finally moved out of my parents’ home – some day, when I have the energy, the Building a House and Avoiding a Divorce series will be featured on this blog; for now, just know that my husband, our then nine-month-old son, and I moved in with my parents for 16 months while we built our home. Our firstborn was in a bedroom more than ten feet away from our own bedroom for the first time in his life, and the empty bedroom waiting for our second child was two steps away. My husband and I hadn’t been focused on much other than the new house for months, so it was a breath of fresh air to be able to walk through our new home in the buff, flirt with each other without being under the gaze of my parents (I still like to think that my dad thinks I’ve only had sex twice – once to produce each son), and be a little loud in our intimate moments. So, when September and then October rolled around and I was starting to feel queasy and rundown with horrific headaches, a friend of mine suggested that I take a pregnancy test. She jokingly asked if I were late, because she knew that with my PCOS, there was no telling when I was late or if I were menstruating at all until I started craving copious quantities of chocolate. (In case you missed it, read The Fertility Roller Coaster – What the Hell? for more information.)

I bought a new box of pregnancy tests but wasn’t hopeful at all. You don’t undergo months of fertility treatments for the first baby and then expect to miraculously conceive a child the second time around. In fact, I had mentioned to my OBGYN a couple of months earlier at my annual appointment that I hoped to see him sooner, rather than later, to start the ultrasound/medicine routine again, and he said to let him know when we were ready to start trying again. Nobody said we would be able to conceive without the divine intervention of Clomid and hCG, and while we weren’t doing anything to prevent a pregnancy in those first few weeks of finally being in our own home, we certainly weren’t actively trying to get pregnant.

I just remember that I felt funny, and I was asking my family doctor about being tested for diabetes and thyroid issues. He said to give it a couple of weeks and come in if I weren’t feeling better, since we had just had a huge life change and lots of stress. I decided that I would just take a pregnancy test to rule it out, so I could give him that information when and if I did have to go in for an appointment.

The first time I had taken home pregnancy tests, I nervously paced the bathroom floor of our starter home, crying, and praying for those three minutes to pass a little more quickly than a great-great grandfather snail idly strolling through the garden in October. I wouldn’t let myself look at the test until a few seconds after the three minutes had passed, just to be sure it “took” before I looked at it. This time, I didn’t time it and went about my early-morning routine because I never dreamed I’d be pregnant.

Then, I looked at the stick. There were two distinct lines. In fact, they were two of the darkest lines I had ever seen in all of my pregnancy testing days.  The first time around, I had taken pregnancy tests once a day for two weeks after my first result because I just couldn’t believe it was true, even AFTER a blood test confirmed it. But, this time the lines were distinct. And staring back at me. What the Hell?

I remember sinking to the floor – very dramatically, like in those chick flicks I secretly watched on late weeknights when my husband worked his previous sales job until the store closed – and thinking, “It’s a miracle!  WHAT THE HELL?!?”

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