Party Up at the DMV

I took my oldest son, Jacob, to get his learner's permit this week. I drove him to a small town nearby so as to avoid the crazy 3-hour wait at our local DMV. On the way there, he was cool and confident...after all, it's only a written exam and he knows his stuff. I, on the other hand, was wound so tightly that my knees were trembling and my stomach was somersaulting all over the place. My first born is learning to drive. Egads! Where is that toasty little blonde-haired blue-eyed loaf of bread I baked in my oven? How is it that he weighs as much as I do and clears me by a solid 3 inches?

While we were at said small town DMV, I overheard...because I was eavesdropping...I do that sometimes because I'm nosy like that....anyway, I overheard the older DMV lady asking the young mom whom she was assisting when she was going to try for kiddo number 4. Number 4. As if asking a woman about her reproductive plans isn't rude enough, this old lady had to throw some crazy in the mix. The young mom chuckled uncomfortably and proceeded to tell this lady that she was recently divorced so that wasn't going to happen. Much to my surprise, the older lady laughed and explained to her that she didn't need to be married to have another baby because single people have children all the time. Seriously, old lady? She already has 3 kids. Why is that not enough for you? Do you even realize how much work and money go into raising 1 child let alone 3? As the mother of 4, I can't imagine going it alone. There are days when the laundry threatens to take over the entire house, the kitchen sink is piled high with thousands of cups (clearly we drink by buffet rules...clean cup each trip, please), and the kids are bouncing off the padded walls of my insane asylum. It's days like these you can find me huddled in some dark recess of my closet rocking back and forth chanting:

                                   Y'all gon' make me lose my mind up in here, up in here

                                   Y'all gon' make me go all out up in here, up in here

                                   Y'all gon' make me act a fool up in here, up in here

                                   Y'all gon' make me lose my cool up in here, up in here.

                      (Who knew rap artist DMX understood the plight of the stay home mom?) 

I guess it's a rite of passage for some old ladies. Forget that whole notion of wisdom coming with age. Some old ladies choose to spew the crazy and say whatever absurd ideas pop into their heads. Maybe I will be like that...it might actually be fun but I will spew responsibly.

After Jacob passed his exam, we drove back to town and headed over to the high school football stadium, a.k.a. the largest vacant parking lot that we could find. Jacob was anxious to get some drive time under his belt and I was, well, just anxious. So I parked the car and I went over the ins and outs, the bells and whistles and the various blind spots of The Big Pearl (my Ford Expedition). Then it was time to let the man child drive for the very first time ever. Suffice it to say, it turns out that big parking lot could stand to be bigger and really I think we could have done without all the parking lot light posts. Also, I wonder if his driving school instructor is a drinking man because I know after an hour of touring the various bends and turns in that empty parking lot, I would have traded my favorite Chuck Taylor's for a Valium. 

Jacob actually did a great job considering it was his first time out but my leg is still sore from slamming my imaginary passenger side brake.

                                           

Summer Olympics Dallas 2024 or Zombie Apocalypse?

My sweet precious absolutely beautiful girl, Vivie, is freakishly strong. No, I mean it. Girl is crazy-hoist-herself-to-the-top-of -the-fridge-and-climb-up-the-rain-gutter strong. She is (and I refer to her this way with all the affection a mother has for a child who is so desperately wanted and loved) my Little Dung Beetle. Did you know that dung beetles are among the strongest of creatures on the planet with the ability to pull over 1000 times their own body weight? Okay, so I don't call Vivie my Little Dung Beetle for obvious reasons, but I am floored by her strength and agility.

She has the makings of a real gymnast. At the ripe old age of 3, she already has that muscular triangular build that is so Mary Lou Retton-esque. So in an effort to give Vivie the foundation to become a gold medal gymnast should she so desire later on, George and I had decided to enroll her in a gymnastics class this summer but then her friend, Reed, who is very much her male counterpart to her wild child ways, invited her to attend his gymnastics class for Bring a Friend Day. Well, I was pretty excited at the prospect of getting a sneak preview of my girl in action and of course, I was certain that the instructors would take one look at my little powerhouse and offer her a scholarship to their program because surely, she is Olympic bound.

So the morning of our big day (I'll admit I may have had just a small sip of the Stage Mom Tea), I dug out a hand-me-down blue sparkly and velvet leotard, dressed Vivie, and pulled her hair up cheerleader style. Again, I admit to having sampled the Stage Mom Tea. We made our way to the gym where I filled out the necessary "We Are Not Responsible If Your Olympic Bound Child Breaks Every Talented Bone in Her Body During Our Session" paperwork and proceeded to wait for Reed's arrival and let's be honest...for someone to acknowledge how Vivie is built just like a miniature Olympian, a Mini-Nadia, if you will. Reed arrived but not the acknowledgement that my girl was indeed ready to take the gold.

In my efforts to prepare Vivie for class, I left out one detail, however minor. I failed to mention to her what exactly we were doing. I had simply told her that she and Reed would get to play together. Again, I am not sure how I managed to drop the ball on this one, but alas, I did. Class was getting ready to start, so all the kids (and there were a bunch because after all,  it was Bring A Friend Day) lined up at the door that leads to the gymnasium and all the parents, myself included, headed upstairs to the observation room. Oh yeah, seeing as how I only told Vivie that she would be playing with Reed, I also didn't mention that  I would be upstairs. Vivie, who was completely enthralled with Reed and feeding off the excitement of all of the other kiddos, was completely unaware that I had left her immediate vicinity. The gymnasium door swung open and the kids burst into the wide open space filled with trampolines, rings, parallel bars and all that jazz. There was a fury of excitement and laughter as the two college age male instructors shouted, "RUN!" From the observation room, I saw a sea of children take off running for the other side of the room at which point, I expected to see Vivie right in the middle of the group if not towards the front (she is Olympic bound, you know). When Vivie heard, "RUN," she looked over her shoulder to see that not only was I not there, but none of the mommies were there. I can only imagine that she was wondering what kind of monster must have snatched up all the mommies, caused those two big guys to yell, "RUN," and scared all of her newfound friends to take off screaming. Well, Vivie started to wail and darted after the kids, trying to catch up with the other survivors. When she reached the group, they turned to run back from whence they came, leaving her in their dust. She then ran back to the starting point, tears streaming down her face, as she continued to wail, " I want my mommy! Where is my mommy?"  She spent the next 35 minutes curled up in my lap refusing to participate until the last 10 minutes of class. Not exactly the first impression I hoped she would make. Those last 10 minutes were all I needed to see to know that we will indeed be back and hopefully next time, she will enjoy the whole session. If the road to the Olympics is paved with blood, sweat, and tears, Vivie may have just taken her first steps, however timid, onto that road.

Shop Til You Drop

My mother, albeit loving and nurturing, is a real Suck-It-Up-Buttercup kind of mom. Just as there is no crying in baseball, there is no whining in her presence. She was raised with the understanding that for almost any injury she had, her daddy had had worse in his eye on any given day. So Mom is not a complainer by nature and she raised my brother and me with the understanding that whatever our wounds may be, my Papaw most certainly had worse in his eye, a thought that always left me wondering what exactly had been happening to this man's eyes. I feel I should tell you that he did indeed have both of his eyes and they were fully functioning.

While our boo boos and owies were usually minor, there were those few times when Mom's reassuring sentiments of  "you're fine" or "shake it off" missed the mark. As mothers, haven't we all been there? I know I have. There was that time my oldest son, Jacob, was practicing handstands in his bedroom and landed on his foot wrong. He was trying not to cry when he crawled on his hands and knees down the stairs. I looked at his foot...no swelling, nothing protruding from the skin..."You're fine. Prop it up with some ice on it. No biggie." A couple of hours later when he was still complaining (very unusual for Jacob), we took him to the doctor. Turned out he'd broken not one, not two, but three bones in his foot. Yep....and the Mother of the Year Award goes to yours truly. I really should have known it was something worse than what had been in my Papaw's eye because prior to that mishap, the last time Jacob had shed any tears with an injury was when he broke his collar bone earlier that same school year. All that and the kid still earned the Presidential Award in Physical Fitness.

At least when I missed the mark with Jacob's broken foot, I had the luxury of doing it without an audience. Mom had not been so fortunate. I was about 15 and she and I were shopping at our local Target. This was before Target had eaten all of its Wheaties and grown into the super store we all know and love. I tell you this at the risk of showing my age because you need to know that the checkout lanes were the old school style with the steel railings separating each lane. Mom and I were just wrapping up our shopping excursion when I said to her, "I don't feel well. Can I have your keys and wait for you in the car?" To which she replied, "You're alright. We're almost done." So there we were waiting in line as all of our items were making their way down the conveyor belt. Time was slowing down and my head was starting to spin. I moved to the other side of the railing from Mom so I could support myself on it as my stomach was starting to flip flop and I was getting tunnel vision. Then suddenly, everything was quiet and black. I had passed out right there in the checkout lane at Target. Luckily, I had been leaning on that shiny cold steel railing so when I dropped, I didn't hit the floor. Instead, my body draped over the railing, my long hair and longer arms dangling to the floor. I must have been like that for a minute or what seemed an eternity to my mother who was embarrassed and concerned all at once. I'm not sure if Mom noticed me right away or if the cashier or the people in line behind us brought me to her attention as she was busy paying for our items. I wish I could have seen the expression on the cashier's face. She wasn't much older than myself and when I awoke to the sensation of Mom trying to pull me up by my hair using one hand, her other hand still clutching her wallet, I could hear the worried cashier ask Mom if I was okay. Mom was laughing as is apparently her custom when someone falls, faints, or otherwise makes a scene. I  then heard Mom say "Allison, get up. Get up. She's alright. She does this all the time. Get up, Allison!" 

For the record, I didn't do that all the time. I came to fairly quickly and we managed to make it home intact minus just a smidgen of my dignity. Apparently, I had the flu and that, my friends, was worse than anything my Papaw had ever had in his eye. 

Betty the Basted Beauty

One of my love languages is good food. When my kiddos tell me that a meal or dessert I prepared for them is delicious, my usual response is, "Well, that's because you are tasting the love and goo." Goo being the warm mushy feelings that surround the love itself. We have our family favorite recipes that have their frequent appearances on the menu cycle and then we have those meals that are meant for special occasions because they require a little more love and goo to get them on the table.

A few years back, I decided to try my hand at a new recipe, one of those extra lovin' numbers. I was craving roasted chicken and I had never before prepared a whole chicken. So feeling a little adventurous and really excited to knock the socks off my family with a juicy succulent bird, I hunted down the perfect recipe. I knew it was the perfect recipe because Ina Garten said so, and let's face it, she would know. Recipe in hand (Perfect Roast Chicken), ingredients, and a kitchen all to myself...not sure how that happened...I started the process. 

"Preheat oven to 425." Done. 

"Remove the chicken giblets." Wait, what?

"Remove the chicken giblets." Eyes glazed over. What?

"Remove the chicken giblets." Chickens still come with those? No, that can't be right. 

Picking up my plump whole chicken, I took a closer look at its packaging and I saw the most horrific words, "with neck and giblets." What? Nooooo. I carefully put the chicken back down on my counter, washed my hands and left the room. I was not prepared for this. I don't do blood and guts. I was the most ineffective lab partner when it came to dissecting creatures. Nope. This surprise feast just wasn't happening. I could wait to make the meal when George got home and he could remove the giblets and apparently the neck, too. So there I sat resigned to wait for my man to save the dinner, when that nagging woman in my head (she's old and rugged and most likely slaughtered her own pet chickens before removing their giblets) started fussing at me to put on my big girl panties and if I needed to wear some latex gloves that would be okay, she wouldn't tell anyone. So I did put on my big girl panties and a pair of latex gloves and I marched into the kitchen praying the whole time that I would not faint or vomit. 

I removed the wrapper and carried my hefty bird by it's legs to the sink. Let me just say this, raw chicken is slippery and I don't know about you, but I don't hug naked chickens so getting that heavy bird to the sink without dropping her to the floor and sending her into a salmonella spin was a feat in and of itself. Gosh, this was about to get real personal and I didn't want to be rude so I introduced myself to the bird, named her Betty, and promptly apologized for the many ways in which I was about violate her. I gingerly stuck my hand in Betty's carcass and pulled out a plastic bag of what my Aunt Nita would have probably called gravy goodies but we were not having gravy with this meal...especially if I had to put those goodies in it. I was not ready for that. I could just imagine ripping that plastic bag open and the slimy innards flying out all over the place slapping me in the face before skidding across the kitchen floor and coming to stop under the oven. No, I would not be opening that bag of gravy goodies. 

After tossing the bag into the trash can, Betty and I clumsily danced our way from the sink back to our workstation. Feeling like she and I were in this thing together...I mean we were really getting to know each other..I looked at Betty and with all the confidence in Ina's recipe, I simply said, "Let's do this."

"Remove any excess fat and leftover pin feathers and pat the outside dry." Okay, I could handle this part although who was I to judge Betty's fat as excessive? So there she was, Betty with her newly performed lipo all waxed and dried. Betty was ready for either a day at the beach or an afternoon in my oven. Unfortunately for Betty, the rest of the recipe was simple enough to handle (though I did not relish the task of stuffing her with a whole lemon sliced in half, a bunch of thyme, and a head of garlic) so she spent the afternoon working on her tan in my roasting pan. 

I'll have to say, and not pridefully so because after all it was Ina's recipe, that was the best tasting chicken I have ever had. My family enjoyed it but I don't think they tasted as much love and goo I as I did. I have made that recipe a few times but I usually make George prep the bird or I use pieces. I just can't allow myself to get so involved with another bird. In the end, there could never be another Betty.

The Old Lady at the Club

I have a secret to share with you tonight. It's something that only a few of my closest friends and family members...and several Costco employees...know. I don't photograph well. Not only that, but I especially don't photograph well for IDs. I truly seem to lose all sense of myself just before the photographer snaps the picture. I start overthinking the whole situation. Seriously. My mind starts racing. Should I smile? Should I look seductively into the camera? Should I go for that studiously serious look? Should I make duck lips?...I kid...no one should ever make duck lips. The obvious answer, at least for me, is smile. It's as simple as that. Just smile. No doubt about it, always smile. Otherwise, my ID will look like a pocket-sized mug shot. No lie. So you're probably wondering if I know I should always smile, what exactly is the problem? Again, let me remind you that I overthink these ID photos. I can't seem to help myself.

Allow me to give you a case in point. When I went back to school a few years ago to work on my master's degree, I had to get a new student ID, much to my chagrin. While standing in line behind a bunch of tight skinned pimply faced 18-year-olds at the campus ID Systems Office, I started to feel like the old lady at the club. In my mind, all those kids were staring at me as I was breaking out in my best Hammer Time moves. So I got nervous, awkwardly nervous, palpably nervous. Then it was my turn, and suddenly, my Always Smile philosophy was hiding behind The Nervous Old Lady with the Moves Like Hammer who was thinking, "I don't want to look too excited about school and have people think I'm a nerdy old lady at the club, so I 'll just look aloof and pretentious...that will make me the cool old lady at the club." Yeah that will indeed make me cool. As it turns out, my Aloof and Pretentious Cool Look strongly resembles the Deer in the Headlights Look or more accurately the Drunk Squirrel in the Headlights Look. Judge for yourself.

I suppose when the student employee asked if I would like to try that again, I should have said yes, but alas, I have years of ID photo experience to know that the second shot would not have been any better, after all, I now had his What the Heck Was That expression seared on my brain causing the Nervous Old Lady to bust out the in-case-of-emergency tootsie roll move. And that, my friends, would have been all the more embarrassing. 

No, aloof and pretentious is not better than smiling.

Going back a few years from my student ID photo shoot, I had a very similar experience at Costco. Oh, how I love Costco but oh, how I loathe my Costco ID. The photo was taken about 8 years ago, when I was at the peak of my not brief enough frumpy phase in which I looked older than I actually am now. Apparently, I thought 30 was the new 50. My Costco ID is so bad that the cashiers routinely ask if the person on my ID is shopping with me. When I inform them that the old woman in the photo and I are actually one in the same, I get some surprising and somewhat rude reactions, like asking what work I had done. One particular cashier always seems a little too excited to check my driver's license to verify my identity. I call her Deputy Fife because I know she's expecting to bust me on some gross misuse of someone else's Costco membership. I wonder, does she get a bonus for unmasking fraudulent shoppers? Does she really want to deal with the bulk size toiletries, juice boxes, and snacks that I would leave on her conveyor belt should I not actually be the Costco member? I wonder if she has really thought this through or if all the power of her handheld scanner has just gone straight to her head. The real quandary is that my driver's license doesn't look like me or my Costco ID. I seem to always leave Deputy Fife with a baffled look of disappointment on her face. I just may be the Roadrunner to her Wylie Coyote. With a little ingenuity, she just may drop that anvil on me yet.

I should get a new card made, I know, but then again, I don't need that kind of pressure in my life.

Nate the Great

Tomorrow, my baby boy turns nine. Did you hear me? Nine. How can that be? It seems like just yesterday I was trying to convince George that although we already had two beautiful boys, we really needed a third. He wasn't so sure. Not that he didn't want Nathan, but the prospect of the financial commitment to raise even one child, let alone three, is quite daunting. I had George on the fence about another baby when I threw my winning blow. You see, I had two previous C-sections (really wish I had elected for my ob/gyn to install that zipper upgrade with the first), so we knew a third delivery would mean a third C-section, and since I would be there on the table anyway, why not go ahead and have that tubal to just close that chapter titled "Birthing Babies" or if we chose not to have any more children, the less invasive choice for permanent birth control would be for George to have a vasectomy. Well, I didn't even have to finish that sentence before George asked if I had any names picked out for our next little guy...and so began the life of Nathan Connor, aptly named as Hawthorne would say, Nathan meaning gift from God. Yes, the Lord gives.

God has amazing timing. You see, just as I learned that I was pregnant with Nathan, my favorite great aunt passed away. The Lord gives and He takes away. A few more months into my pregnancy, as this big headed beautiful baby was doing somersaults in utero, we learned that my granddad's cancer was reaching it's final stages. Our days were numbered. The Lord takes away. My granddad was overjoyed to be going home but he was my person. He had always been my person. I couldn't imagine how I was going to survive his passing but God knew. God gave me that precious baby growing inside of me to keep me together not only for myself, but  for my boys as well. You see, I am married to a wonderful man who has no qualms about stepping up and filling any voids that may arise due to me not feeling up to it that day, and I really could have allowed myself to wallow in my grief knowing that George was taking care of our boys, but because Nathan was depending on my well being for his impending grand entrance into this world, I knew I couldn't wholly give in to that all consuming grief and frankly, Nathan brought about so much joy that he assuaged my sadness. Nathan, gift from God. The Lord gives.

Now, I have this head strong and determined boy who is my fiercest warrior. He is a lover of all creatures, especially blue whales and wolves. Connor, lover of wolves, aptly named indeed. He is all knowing when it comes to the likes of Legos and Clone Troopers.  He loves his bestie with all his heart that he would have gladly given him every single one of his toys if we would have allowed it. He is a mama's boy through and through but has the countenance of his papa. He will battle with his big brothers over the smallest of things but have their backs in a split second should someone else try to do them wrong. His baby sister is the apple of his eye and probably not one of her boyfriends will he ever deem worthy to be in her presence. He cried the night he invited Jesus into his heart, feeling so much concern that he would never be able to show his God just how great his love is for Him. To say that I am lucky to have this beautiful blue-eyed boy would not be accurate. You see, there was no luck involved here. Nathan, gift from God. I am blessed. Blessed beyond measure. Yes, The Lord gives.

Holy Moly, Green Anole!

When Gorgeous George and I announced we wanted to adopt a baby girl, we received all kinds of advice and insight on what we could anticipate while raising a precious little girl. Little girls like to sit and read books, play with puzzles, and rock their baby dolls to sleep. As the mother of three rowdy, noisy, made of puppy dogs' tails kind of boys, I drank that pink Kool-Aid as quickly as it was being doled out in bone china teacups adorned with delicate floral patterns. Make no mistake, I love my boys. As a matter of fact, I always wanted to be a boy mom...you know the kind that is at every baseball game cheering them on to victory, the kind that is out in the garage helping them build a skate ramp, the kind that dotes on them in the form of fresh baked cookies and clean laundry, and the kind that loves them so wholeheartedly that it takes a very special woman to steal their hearts away. Yes, I love my boys, but I found myself hoping for a little pink to balance the blue.

Fast forward a few years, and we have our Princess Vivie, who just turned 3. Let me just tell all of you boy moms out there, if you are under the impression that raising a daughter is quieter and slower paced than raising boys, well then, I am afraid you have been grossly misled. Here is where I tell you that I love my girl. She is my precious princess sent from the Lord. She is, just like my boys, an answered prayer and nothing short of a light in my life. What Vivie is not is still and quiet and content to just play with puzzles and host the most serene of tea parties. No, not my girl. While she is a girly girl who can appreciate a hot pink tutu and sparkly silver shoes, she is a wild little pistol of a girl who in her tender preschool years can out climb the most spirited of monkeys. No lie. By the time she was 2, one of her favorite places to be was on top of our refrigerator...of course, that's where we kept the chocolate. When she first started climbing up there, Vivie's method was somewhat conventional what with hoisting herself up onto the adjacent counter top and then pulling herself up the side of the refrigerator, but it wasn't much later on that she discovered she could just scale the front of the refrigerator using only her upper body strength and the suction cups that are her hands and feet.

Yes, Vivie is my little wild warrior princess. 

One of her favorite things to do during the day is watch the family of little green anoles that live in the lamb's ear in our flowerbed. Every time she and I are out in the yard she says, "I pet lizard!" and heads straight for the anoles' favorite spot. One afternoon this summer, Vivie and I had gone out to check the mail and were heading back toward the house. We were just about to the door when all of a sudden, Vivie bolted toward the flowerbed to look for our little green friends, shouting, "I pet lizard!" Well let me just say, it was the heat of the day, the temperature was in the triple digits, and I really didn't want to look for our friends. I wanted to get back inside and have some ice tea all the while appreciating the a/c., so I kept walking toward the door optimistically thinking that Vivie would turn around and follow suit, which she did. I got to the door and I looked over my shoulder to make certain that she was still with me but I couldn't see her as one of our craftsman style columns was blocking my view. All of a sudden, I heard thud thud thud...just like that...thud thud thud in a matter of 3 seconds flat. I ran to the other side of the column because I couldn't imagine what had made that noise and there right before my very eyes, I saw Miss Capuchin herself almost 6 feet up from the ground clinging to the downspout of our rain gutter. She was smiling from ear to ear and just about a foot above her head, I spotted the most panicked looking green anole, red dewlap and all. "I pet lizard, Mommy," she said with all the pride she could muster. "Yes, Sweetie, I believe you did."

The Little Green Anole                    

(a poem written for my Princess Vivie)

                  

Holy moly!

It’s a little green anole

Hiding in my flowerbed.

Watch his dewlap glowing red!

Holy moly!

“My little green anole,

Don’t you worry your tiny head,”

I quickly and quietly said.

Holy moly!

My little green anole

Turning from green to brown instead,

Just like in a book I read.

Holy moly!

My little green anole

Running away to his leafy bed.

He must be a sleepy head.

Holy moly!

Sweet dreams green anole.