Notes to Weird Mothers

Mothers are weird. Not just I-have-barf-on-my-shirt-and-I-don't-care weird, but weird in other ways.

Ways like:

Sacrifice. I don't mean I'm giving up my glamorous day job as a model to stay home and check the newly potty trained toddler's briefs for racing stripes, if you know what I mean, but sacrifice as in, everything I do revolves/involves/is for my kids. Everything I do. That's right. And there's no Bryan Addams or Kevin Costner in tights either. Just me. Even the coffee I drink is for them. For their safety and well being. We sacrifice and dedicate and breathe for them.

And we like it.

Don't you find that weird?

I LIKE working an extra shift so I can buy snow cones at the corner snow cone hut once a week. (Yes, this kind of crazy spending involves strategic planning. Maybe you have jiggle room in your budget for snow cones, Nikes, or paying the utility bill. I do not).

I LIKE not buying myself a gym membership to whip my sorry patooty into shape so that I can afford swim lessons for the little tyke. I'm just going to name my muffin top, Gloria, and learn to love her, for she is squishy and quite dependable, even if she doesn't look good in mid-rise jeans anymore.

I LIKE using Suave shampoo instead of salon brands so that I can afford the organic milk, with which they will use on their organic cereal, leave on the table, and end up washing it down the sink anyway. That milk.

I LIKE spending my only day off sitting in the scorching heat while my pre-teen swims at a meet/middler has a dance recital/toddler takes over the playground.

I LIKE driving the minivan I said I'd never drive back in 2005 because it has room for my kids, plus their rowdy friends, instead of the Jeep Wrangler I only lust after slightly.

I LIKE learning new ways to hide the squash/zucchini/sweet potatoes in the nightly goulash.

I LIKE eating everybody else's leftover crusts of bread and calling it my breakfast.

I LIKE playing Star Wars Go-Fish twenty times a day and letting him win only sometimes.

I LIKE the sound of Spongebob Square Pants in the background while I cook dinner. For Sponge Bob is light hearted and makes me smile in spite of myself.

I LIKE pickles and cheese for lunch because there's only enough lunch meat left for one sandwich and someone will probably graciously save me the crusts anyway.

I LIKE knowing that someday my house will be clean and white and spotless, but also quiet and boring, and at the same time, hopefully not too miles away, my grandkids will be pooping and shouting and barfing and throwing fits in the craft aisle. I LIKE knowing that at those moments, my kids will be thinking, "I love my mom - how did she DO this? I'm going nuts!" and I will send them silent prayers of support and understanding, while I eat croissants and chocolate.

I LIKE that while my days are long and sometimes the same over and over, like Groundhog Day, but without the humor sometimes, the years are long and these child raising times are like childhood: gone all too quickly, never to come back.

So while I can, I sacrifice a little, Gloria and I. All too soon, we'll be alone and have plenty of time to go to the gym, eat a whole sandwich, and plate the zucchini lovingly on a crystal platter instead of hiding it in the creamy chicken casserole.

Until then, I'll just be weird.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

Why? Why do the Road Trips God curse me every time? Is it something I said? Have I wronged them somehow?

Though not as mind-numbingly terrifying, white-knucklingly awful, brain-meltingly horrifying, as some I've been through and lived to tell the tale, this kind of driving is not my idea of a good time. I now understand why people retire in Florida. If it weren't for my dislike of 'gators and bugs bigger than my bread box, I'd be there now. 

On the plus side, I now need all two hands and two feet to count the number of highways I've shut down over the years. That's an accomplishment not many can boast. I barely make it through the White Witch's Winter Wonderland, my eyes blood shot from the force of the defroster melting my face, finger nail scratches on the windows, small children hyped up on the emergency candy supply (chewing makes them talk less which is a bonus when you are scared beyond belief and need quiet to plan your own funeral), blocks of ice eerily similar in size to the one that sunk the Titanic stuck to the windshield wipers, bladders about to burst, and the Lord's Prayer bursting forth out of my mouth in intermittent gasps, when I see friendly state troopers turning everyone back from the Mountain of Death and Dismemberment. Where are such friendly troopers when I attempt to go up the mountain, huh? Why are they always waiting at the bottom for me? Are they biding their time in order to judge my state of mind when I finally slide down on the black ice?

Hey, Roger Roger, here comes the Mommobile now. Gettin' a good look as she fishtails by...yeppers, by golly, her hair is white and there's a Twizzler stuck to her ear. That calls it for me: shut this mountain down, boys.

Roger that, over and out.

It really doesn't matter what time of year I plan a road trip. It doesn't matter what state lines I plan to cross. It doesn't matter what the weather men say. If your crops are in a drought, dear readers, I can save them. Either that, or bury them forever in snow: potAYto, potAHto. 

Now no more silliness. I must go unpack my suitcase; I'm fairly certain there's a small child in there somewhere eating all my Twizzlers.

Do you have a talent/gift for disaster that rivals mine? My shattered nerves would love to hear it.

Michigan

Several years of daydreaming and whining have finally come to fruition with the Williams' girls: they got to ride an airplane. The countdown started when the tickets were bought approximately 5 weeks ago. Gianni however got stuck on the phrase, 'I'm going on a big airplane in two weeks!' so that was his answer (and will continue to be) for the past, present, and future of air travel. As anyone knows, getting there is half the fun. Unless you're the parents and then getting there is a headache of logistics, luggage, directions, time, tickets, hunger, expense, pockets stuffed with items bribery, and the occasional wet underpants. The take-off was everything their fevered imaginations had concocted and we did well until we all remembered Anna has a tendency to get car sick. 'Nuff said. Moving on.


We were very pleasantly surprised to learn that Michigan (which I may or may not had to learn both to spell correctly and to find on a map) is quite loverly. Everyone I told our destination to only had this to say about it,

'It's flat.'

People there however have this to say about Idaho,

'Isn't that the potato place? Are there any cities there?'

So, I guess I learned we all need to get out more.

I also may or may not have offended the locals when I snapped a photo of not one, but two, tractors getting gas at the Quicki-Mart. Sorry about that, locals, I couldn't help but find it funny.

Gianni discovered a fierce loathing of vans. Odd, since we in fact own a said minivan. But you never heard so much howling in your life as every time we switched vehicles. 'I don't like the green van! I wanna get out!' Since his future involves a lot of vans packed full of a lot of kids, we are hoping to get past this mental block of rectangular shaped automobiles without full-on head-shrinking help. I'm thinking tapes played at night on a continuous loop encouraging him to love the vans, embrace the vans, find joy in the vans...

The humidity and the mosquitoes are something for an Western-er to reckon with. Suddenly my husband looked like Harrison Ford in The Mosquito Coast and I couldn't help but worry that he was going to go bonkers and our tale would take a tragic turn for the worst. Then I remembered Harrison Ford is a looker and so it couldn't be all bad. Which made me think of River Phoenix. Which in turn made me think of Corey Haim, whose death I am still not completely over. Please wait here while I go grab some Cheezits for comforting.

Our entire week was a bit of an audition and we felt like we were in a fish bowl. A parenting fish bowl. One where the guppies were alternating between various degrees of naughtiness. There was a lot of saying the right things while simultaneously shooting laser beams out of our eyeballs and whispering threats to shorten their life spans considerably. In spite of that, we enjoyed our trip immensely and look forward to moving forward in this adventure that is life.

We got to spend time with all the group home kids. At first I was terrified to think of being Mom to teenage boys whose feet are bigger than my legs, but after meeting them, most fears diminished. Teenagers kinda crack me up actually. Mostly they wanted to know if I can cook. That seems to be the only prerequisite for mothering in their book.

Our move there will consist of driving exactly 1952 miles which I had cheerfully been complaining about until the person I was speaking with casually mentioned his missionary son who lives on the Amazon with his wife and four tiny adopted children and recently traveled 1000 miles in a wooden canoe, killing deadly snakes along the way and fearing for their lives, and loving every minute of it. And probably not complaining. So I gather from that no one will feel sorry for me in my air-conditioned minivan complete with snacks and dvd players. I will still complain and beg for sympathy. Naturally. And you will give it to me, my loyal readers. All four of you. 'Cause that's how you roll.

As far as the certainties and for-sures and the whens and the whys, the directors are not in a rush to hire people in a business where turn-over is high. So, we wait. Waiting on the Lord. Much like the waiting room in Beetlejuice...hmmm, first The Mosquito Coast and now Beetlejuice. I need slightly less off the wall movies to parallel my life. So for the next few days we are once again at the mercy of friends and family for floor space, table space, and showers. It's amazing and amusing what you learn when you live with people and I considered writing a whole blog post on just that, but then I was afraid that my muses would rebel and write their own blogs on having me as a house guest. And no one needs to read about my weirdness. They might learn about my ninja skills when you put a dirty dish in the sink I just cleaned (sorry, Ike, I feel I may have wounded you for life and also given you a tic when you approach your own sink), or my frightening bed-head in the morning, or my knack for canceling your dvr recordings behind your back (sorry, Sadie). I also may or may not, snore. I do wonder if our respective hosts and hostesses are secretly starting a support group behind my back...

'Hello. My name is (insert your name here). And I'm a recovering Williams' family host.'

There probably should be a 12 step program.