Halloween Lion

Ava's Birthday

Ava turned 9 this November.  I can't believe it.  She made me a mother and everyday I'm still learning from her on how to do that exactly.  The oldest kid is just like a lab rat.  I remember driving home from the hospital feeling like we had just held up a bank or something...really?  They're letting us take this helpless infant home...but we know nothing!

She was an angel baby.  Too bad I couldn't just chill out.  I was too busy logging all her bowel movements and checking if she was still breathing every five minutes.

I think this was the first time I'd really gotten gussied up after having her, i.e., a shower, makeup and hair - the trifecta.  Apparently I'd spent the previous nine months in a cave.  Casper is that you?!

She loved her binky.

She was a good eater...

So she grew...

Did I mention she was a good eater?  Look at those rolls!

At about 9 months her hair had an identity crisis.  It went curly.

Ava and her Dad.

And then when she was 4 she wanted a haircut.  And her curls never came back.

Along came little sister.  I think her face says it all.

But she learned to love her.

Our relationship is not always easy.  She's a very strong willed girl, and it's tough to come up against iron all the time.  But she is also so smart, and really intuitive when it comes to kindness.  In fact she's always doing things to surprise me, whether it's setting up an art gallery in the basement or selling fruit I just brought home from the grocery store on the sidewalk in front of our apartment, she has great ideas and goes after what she wants.  Happy 9th Ava Katie!

On Forgiveness

There are so many things I love about my calling in the Young Women's program...hanging out with enthusiastic, optimistic and all around funny girls, fast Sundays where the gospel is compared to Frodo and Sam's relationship in The Lord of the Rings during the last ten minutes of class set aside for testimony bearing and well, learning with the girls as I prepare lessons every other Sunday. 

Today we talked a little bit about forgiveness.  Recently I got to know a woman in her early twenties who had been sexually abused by a relative when she was in her teens.  This brave woman had somehow managed to overcome addiction and an apathetic nuclear family to find a young man, who also had been through some pretty heavy stuff and together they were recently sealed in the temple to their toddler. 

Her mother essentially told her she was asking for it.  That she wore inappropriate clothing.  Over the past few years her mother and this relative have intimidated and guilt tripped her into keeping quiet about what happened. 

She shared with me that after her family was sealed, her mother approached her while still in the temple and told her she wasn't even sure if this woman was worthy to be there since she had not forgiven the offender relative for what he had done. 

If your head's not exploding with anger right now the way mine was when she told me this then you must have had your heart removed at some point. 

You could tell that this comment had really bothered this woman.  That she had begun to question whether she had been worthy to be there since she had not forgiven her offender. 

I think so often in this church, or maybe just in the Mormon culture we have an all or nothing view on forgiveness.  If we want to be forgiven of our trespasses, we must forgive others.  This is true.  But no one said it had to happen overnight, or next month or in a decade. 

The fact is, most hurts that are done to us are inflicted by people who should love and cherish us the most.  These hurts cut the most deeply because the person wounding you is someone you love.  Confusion and self-blame follow.  It's hard to wrap your head around being so misguided in your judgement. 

The thing about these wounds...they leave scars.  But what I've been learning is that sometimes the changes that come from hard experiences make you into the person Heavenly Father wants you to become.  Someone with stripes hidden and sometimes not so hidden on their hearts.  Someone with reserves of empathy and love for other imperfect humankind.  Each of us have a story to tell. 

Forgiveness is a process, and sometimes just when we believe ourselves free from the bitter pill we find ourselves swallowing it once more as we relive the offense.  As I get older, the more I see all the gray in the world.  Nothing is black and white.  Judgement is for God.  Empathy and love are for us.

I'm sure it's hard for the fifteen and sixteen year-olds sitting there to comprehend that there may be a time where they are faced with holding onto or letting go of the pain and the anger that comes from being betrayed or mistreated by a loved one, and I hope that everything is smooth sailing in their lives, but I know that it won't always be.  I hope that they remember that the Savior has felt every one of our darkest feelings, the anguish and the sorrow of our entire life, and that He is always there waiting for us to give over our pain to Him.  Because whether we wrap it inside of ourselves and try to contain the damage to only ourselves, the fact remains that He has already been through it with us. 

And that is what is truly wonderful about the atonement...there is hope for those who have suffered at the hands of somebody else, and there is hope for that somebody that has made the suffering happen in the first place. 

And that's all I really have to say about that. 

Happy

I feel so grateful to be where I am, and for all the love in my life.  Our situation is not perfect.  It's hard and messy but like a good bra I feel supported from all sides.  (and it always comes back to the bosoms) I feel more capable than ever to face challenges and cope with them.  And then there is this place -




I spent a lot of time on the four wheeler this summer, flying down dirt roads, sometimes trying to escape the sadness, frustration or grief that comes with divorce.  Other times I just wanted to feel the sun on my face and the wind racing over my skin and feel happy just to be.  Usually I'd get to a place out in the middle of nowhere and turn off the machine.  I'd lay back on the four wheeler and close my eyes and listen to the wind scouring the farmers' crops - the lonely sound the rustling of wheat stalks makes filling up my ears.  Other times I'd watch pairs of hawks circle overhead.  Without thinking too much I just observed what was happening around me in the moment.  It was incredibly healing.  I can't wait for the snow to cover the ground so I can go snowshoeing out into those same fields. 

I love my savior.  I know He personally atoned for my sins and felt every little agony that would happen in my life.  When I feel as if my heart is breaking I feel comforted that I am not alone.  I know He called my name in Gethsemane and walked beside me through the twisting paths my life would take.  He knows me.  He loves me and I know He loves you and has done the same redeeming ordinance for each one of us.

Life is beautiful, and it's meant to be, even when the beauty is laced with pain and sorrow. 

Freckles

My oldest daughter, Ava is nearly nine.  She's in that stage where she's still so much a little girl, but is inching ever closer to tweenhood.  She's sassy and moody, yet sweet and incredibly helpful at times.  She's gone from believing I know everything to being suspicious of me knowing anything at all. 

I've made a conscious effort to not talk about my physical hangups in front of her.  I don't want her to remember me hating on myself.  I want her to remember me for the way I loved her and for the way I respected myself enough to know my own worth.  I've been working so hard on loving myself, not for who I might become, or who I once was...but me, right now, imperfections and all. 

The message to be beautiful and desirable and blah, blah, blah is all around us every single day.  So recently after a session with my therapist she challenged me to focus on what is great about the thing I dislike the most on my body.  It was really like a buffet of criticisms to choose from each and every time I look in the mirror, but the thing I loathe the most is my stomach.  So I had to think something good about it every time I looked in the mirror or noticed it and started to think negatively in my head. 

Yeah, I know it sounds crazy and the fact that it seems revolutionary to love something that we are taught to find undesirable about ourselves underlines the sickness within society and ourselves.  My youngest daughter, being three and brutally honest said something to me the very next day about my fat tummy.  I said, "Fat is not a nice word.  We don't ever tell someone they are fat."  She said, "Well it's only your tummy, Mom."  I nodded and I said, "Yes, but I just love my tummy.  Isn't it so nice that when you cuddle with me that I am soft and warm..."  "You are, mommy!" she agreed as she laid her dark head on my tummy in love.  I shook my head, because I didn't quite believe it although I had just proclaimed my love for something I used to affectionately call the gelatinous mass. 

So yes, I'm not quite there yet, but it's okay and I'm learning to quiet that critical voice as I peer at myself in the cold glass at the physical shell that houses who I really am. 

Tonight Ava, the almost nine year-old, told me she didn't like her freckles, or her teeth.  I took a deep breath and I told her that our bodies are constantly changing.  She'll have braces on in January, but you know those freckles...they may always be there and I love each and every one of them.  I know this may work for now.  But in the future the viewpoint of a mother who loves you is not at the top of your list for a real life assessment of if you are beautiful and desirable and all that crap.  Before I left her room tonight I laid down next to her, rubbed her back and studied her face as her eyes fluttered sleepily open and close.  The words left my lips and as I said them to her I felt the weight and the truth of each one, "Ava, I know you may not like your freckles, but the Lord makes us in a certain way and nothing that God creates is ugly in any way.  You are beautiful to Him, and you are beautiful to me not for how you look but for the most important part of your self...your soul." 

For my part when I look in the mirror I smile, although I still may notice the things that bother me about my appearance, I also love that which God has created.  This body will break down, but the spirit...the most important part of any one of us, if nurtured and cherished, only thrives from the living and loving of this one incredible life we have been given. 

The Mandarin made me Cry

I was on my lunch break.  I drove past the Chinese place that my husband and I used to eat at before the kids came along.  And just like that I felt that sinking feeling.  I drove to a parking lot and turned on NPR and tried to focus on the Ebola crisis, or all the road checks that people in the south of Mexico have to pass through because of the influx of immigration from central America, but all I kept thinking about was he and I sitting across from one another reading the Chinese horoscopes on the back of the laminated menu. 

We were just starting out.  I wonder if our fortunes had predicted we'd be divorcing two kids and twelve years later if we could have even comprehended it.  Could we have done anything to prevent it?  I'd like to think so because there are so many regrets and should haves, but maybe it was because we barely knew each other, or because we didn't have a whole lot in common, or because we married so young.  I don't know.

Finding meaning in a trial is tricky.  I think it's essential though.  If no insight is gained from something so hideously painful then isn't it all for naught?  Aren't you doomed to repeat the same scenario over again?

I'm in a lot of therapy right now and I liken it to vivisection.  You're exposing every tender part of yourself and holding it up to the light.  The dark places you hid away so you didn't have to feel the pain is like trying to hold a hungry tiger in your arms without it consuming you. 

My daughter was assigned to talk in church this past Sunday and the topic was - The Family: A Proclamation to the World blesses my family.  I put the girls to bed and started looking for some talks on the topic.  It became glaringly obvious to me that reading any of these things would hurt and it did.  It hurt like Hell.  There beneath the liquidized crystal in black and white were the things we did not do, the things we tried to do and the things we won't ever do again.  I cried.  So I put on my robe and went upstairs and cried some more to my parents. 

I wanted so much for my children to have the blessings mentioned in that document.  But I had failed them, and he had failed them and none of it was any of their fault. 

So today while I sat in my car in an empty parking lot, heart sore and vulnerable I dialed his number.  I wanted to talk to someone who knew how bad it hurt, because he was hurting too.  I wanted to say, "What happened?  Why?  Why didn't we make it?"  And to a large degree I have those answers, but on the other hand I wanted the comfort of a familiar voice, a voice that might take me back to that lost girl sitting on a vinyl bench across from a lost boy and the two people they were that used to love each other. 

But he didn't answer, and even if he did he wouldn't want to talk to me because it's painful and far too fresh and raw to pretend to be friends after so much damage has been done. 

So I went back to work and cried silently at my desk as I did paper work and prayed to God that one day the pain will end and I'll be able to drive past a restaurant without feeling like bawling my eyes out, that I'll be able to read and teach about eternal marriage even if I never enjoy that blessing while on earth, that I'll be able to call him and talk like two people who care about each other do.  Because I do care and I always will, damn it, even though I wish I didn't. 

Feast on your life

Love After Love

“The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.”
― Derek Walcott

I really don't know what to blog lately.  I'm kind of a drag right now really.  I read this poem the other day and loved it.  I know poetry is not for everyone but words have always held power for me and this one rang true.  I'm not sure I've ever truly known myself, much less loved myself.  I do know how it feels though, to see someone walking toward you whom you love.  That rush of joy.  To feel that about yourself would be quite extraordinary.  I think the point of this poem is that to love yourself is the first step in loving others.  To love yourself just as you are, long nose, flintstone toes, a witchy laugh and thighs for days.  How can we expect someone else to love us unconditionally if we don't practice that same kind of love on ourselves? 

"A woman's strength isn't just about how much she can handle before she breaks.  It's also about how much she must handle after she's broken."

My marriage is over.  I'm doing my best to handle things.  I pray a dozen times a day for strength, for healing, for wisdom.  I cry in the shower, and in the car after a job interview, or late at night when my girls won't see me.  I hurt.  I hope.  I try to believe it when people tell me that I'll be happy again.  I take comfort in the love of my friends and family.  I thank my Heavenly Father for the parents I was fortunate enough to be born to, for them giving me a soft place to fall, a shoulder to cry on and encouragement when things look bleak.  I falter when we sing Love At Home, because it's such a beautiful fantasy...one that I couldn't breathe life into even though I tried.

And now I move forward...wherever that may lead.

Crossing the Line

I sat in the dark turquoise chair and squeezed the red ball in my hand repeatedly.  "Your veins are just tricky.  Deep and tiny.  Let's try the other arm," the middle aged woman in the scrubs told me.

I cringe inwardly every time a doctor asks for a blood draw.  This time she wanted to do a Vitamin D panel and general health panel because I'd told her about how I'd been in a depression deeper than I'd ever known for the last six months.  She upped my Zoloft dosage and recommended I get outside more. 

Two weeks later I felt better than I had in years.  The house was spotless, the girls were happy and I was singing in the shower again.  Now here I sat at the clinic trying to be chatty and upbeat as I was on my second phlebotomist and the fifth attempt at getting a vein to elicit some blood. 

This one kept slapping my arm.  My youngest came close and watched with big blue eyes as the woman abused her mother for no reason in particular.  I started to wonder if I should ask for the woman who finally got a vein last year while she talked about her love for Vampire Diaries, the irony of which was not lost on me as I tried to curb my grin.  This woman was all business though.  Slap, slap, slap.  She seemed to be enjoying it a little too much. 

The silence loomed and I started to get uncomfortable.  Torture me with needles all you want, just keep up a stream of conversation so things don't get awkward.  I've kept up ridiculous conversations in the past to simply keep the moment from crossing into the inelegant.  Probably overshared things I shouldn't have all in a bid to keep things light. 

Like some salt and pepper haired savior a man in slacks and a dress shirt and tie came walking down the hall towards us.  His stethoscope was slung around his neck and he was in very good physical condition if I might be so bold, and I was feeling pretty bold at the moment.  He smiled and said hello before entering a room with the name Dr. Weir on a placard adjacent to the door. 

The thought came to my mind.  I have thoughts like this all the time, but usually I keep them to myself.  But the silence was stretching on like an unremitting strand of taffy on a mechanical taffy stretching machine.  I cleared my throat.

"Uh.  What kind of sick do you have to be to see that Dr. Weir?" I said apprehensively trying to keep the lecherous tone from my voice.  

The phlebotomist looked me full in the face, trying to determine if I was being funny or just creepy.  I blushed.  She decided to stick to her professionalism and answered, "Any kind of sick."

But I couldn't let it go.  The joke had to play out.  I had already committed to it when I opened my mouth.  "Because he's cute!  I think I'm coming down with something," I finished wanting to cover my face with my hands. 

This time the phlebotomist cracked a small smile.  "Pete's a good man.  In it for the right reasons.  I've worked with a lot of doctors and he's one of the best," she said. 

I  nodded and bit my lip as she slid the needle into my arm for the sixth and final time.  The vein refused to be found and the weary phlebotomist suggested coming back at a different date after hydrating myself properly.  I nodded.  Thanked her for sticking me three more times and made a beeline for the door before that dashing Dr. Weir could exit and have me arrested for sexual harassment. 

Distillation

The sun gleamed on the smooth snow.  My daughter raised a ski pole at me and bravely angled her skis down slope.  Slowly she pushes off, angling across the run one way, then back the other way.  That's my girl, I think to myself.

Nana is at the bottom of the run capturing the moment with her camera.  Ava angled sharply toward her and toppled a couple of feet away, distracted by the audience.  Papa chuckled next to me as I likened Nana's camera to a magnet pulling Ava straight for it. 

The wind bursted suddenly through the aspens and pines.  Stole my breath with it's iciness.  Even the sun couldn't warm my skin in the gale.  I breathed in and out.  In and out.  I looked at my father-in-law, my babies' papa.  He breathed in and out, his skin somewhat ashen.  I listened for some clue, some hitch in his breathing that would give away the devouring sickness within.  He is dying.

It's been two years since we received a text message from my mother-in-law with the diagnosis.  Lung cancer.  Inoperable.  My husband crumpled into his pillow next to me.  He quietly sobbed as he said, "I knew it.  I knew it." 

David is not my father.  But I love him.  I can't help but think at moments like these that it could be the last time he watches his granddaughters accomplish something.  Will they remember how much joy they brought him?  How much he loved cradling them as infants, turning a hard stoic exterior into a mushy baby-talking grandpa? 

Watching the men in my life has shown me one thing - the fathers we might have known - strict, stressful or too busy - all of that is scoured away with grandfatherhood.  They are no match for the generation that came after their own children.  Easily manipulated and a willful partner in crime they become a grown man child with thinning salt and pepper hair. 

Ice cream? Sure.  Wear your pink feather boa? Absolutely.  Bedtime?  Who cares, we'll let your parents worry about that when they get home at midnight. 

How do you wrap up a person - a complicated being - and store them away as a memory?  How do you document the love of father, a grandfather and accurately portray the way their eyes crinkled when you walked on chubby legs for the first time, or when their hand encircled your smaller one in theirs on a Sunday walk?  How do you distill the essence of a person after they are gone? 

For now Ava clips out of her bindings and steps into Papa's waiting embrace as he fusses over her.  She smiles up into his face, and he smiles back. 

Confessional

Item 1: When I was pregnant with my second daughter I'd keep a fresh loaf of French bread between the files in one of the drawers of my desk at work.  I'd slide that drawer out every so often, reach down and tear off a hunk of the pillowy soft bread, slink down in my seat and chow down behind the computer screen.  Mama was hungry.

Item 2: My friends liked to tell people it was my birthday every time we went out to a public place together...usually with boys on dates like the wagon ride up sardine canyon culminating in Lefty the singing cowboy forcing me up on stage and tricking me into kissing him - On.  The.  Lips.  What if that had been my first kiss?  How disappointing.  Far more disappointing than my actual first kiss in sixth grade with the boy I was "going with" by the pop machine at lunch in a mock wedding ceremony. 

Item 3: I often let people call me and my family by the wrong names instead of the awkward business of correcting them.  For example the manager at Lowe's referring to my husband as Greg the entire two years he worked there, or my neighbor/friend assuming Brielle's full name was Gabrielle and letting her call her that for a good six months before Ava corrected her while on a play date at her house.  Ava gets Eva sometimes while I'll gladly answer to Lisa, Darcie or Dawn. 

Item 4: In the early days of Facebook I decided I wanted to look up people from high school without actually joining so I set up a fake account with the exotic name I'd always desired - Monique.  Of course not wanting to go the full crazy I decided to use my last name Cooper.  Because that's just reasonable.  Not being very savvy I also put down my true hometown and birth date.  Boy was I surprised when I started getting friend requests from people I knew.  How did they know it was me???  Imagining them snickering behind their computer screens still makes me blush.  Remember that girl from high school?  Denise Cooper?  Her name's Monique now.

Item 5: David Copperfield magically switched my panties onstage with another girl about 14 years ago.  He never switched them back.

Item 6: I've read Scarlett - the sequel to Gone with the Wind about six times.  Written by a different author and peppered with a few naughty bits some say the sequel's not up to snuff.  Some people think too much.

Item 7: When I'm passionate about something I can get very single-minded to the neglect of everything else.  I'm looking at you Familysearch.org.  Damn you for making my kids eat off of the lids of Tupperware bowls because all the other dishes in the house were dirty because Mama spent a week trying to find Grandpa Craig in the Irish census of 1830. 

Item 8: I've thrown down a towel over the spot where my infant daughter peed on my sheets during a 2 AM feeding, laid down and gone directly back to sleep. 

Item 9: Most nights dinner consists of jelly sandwiches, mac and cheese, or spaghetti because my husband works evenings and really - what's the point?

Item 10: I watch Honey Boo Boo.  I know they are crude and an embarrassment to the good state of Georgia but I'll be danged if Sugar Bear and Mama June aren't a love story for the ages.

The Timeless Art of Seduction

I was sixteen.  He was eighteen.  I used to stare at him on the bus ride home.  Not like a stalker stare...I'd like to think.  More like I'm-pining-for-you stare.  There were a few things I knew for certain about him: He loved Depeche Mode.  He wore preppy clothing.  He was far too cool to live in our small town, thus he was far too cool for me. 

He was my crush of the moment.  I'd transfer my ardent pining from one hometown boy to the next as the weather changed.  They never knew of course.  I'd just admire from my front step as he passed by in the cab of his john deere tractor wildly flipping cow poop all over the road like a Jackson Pollock painting.  Oh, but that was a different boy.  Let's focus on B. 

It started with my friend Jill.  She started dating a guy from the next town over.  A drummer in a band.  It sucked our little group of friends into our emo phase.  We'd watch Dead Poet's Society and contemplate the futility of youth.  Eventually I even dated a smelly friend of theirs that was of German descent and was not of my faith.  I was a rebel.  Rebelling against the truth of the odor signals traveling from my nostrils to my brain.  But that was after B.

I was always looking for somebody to love me as teenage girls do - to prove to yourself that you are loveable.  I had had a thing for B. for a very long time.  Although he wasn't in the band, he hung out with the guys from time to time.

That summer the stars aligned and on Pony Express Day I was finally held in B's willowy arms.  Pony Express Day is the day our small town celebrates...ponies...antiquated postal services...oh I don't know but it's an excuse to congregate on the town square and eyeball the neighbors anyway.

In recent years I've noticed the live band/dance on the crumbling tennis court that caps the end of the day's events has really fizzled.  But back in the day - your know the late 90's - blankets filled the slope directly adjacent to the tennis court.  Couples two-stepped while tweens separated themselves into boys and girls and would occasionally work up the nerve to dance together. 

We were there pretending we were too cool for the music, for the neighbors, for the whole affair really.  The band from one town over was there too.  The lead singer did the worm under the stars and we squealed in admiration.  B. was there giving off the vibes that he was too old for this.  But he smiled and laughed with us anyway. 

A slow song started and people paired up.  In a bold move very unlike myself I looked at B. and suggested we dance.  He shrugged and said sure.  I always thought of myself as a great conversationalist.  Sure maybe my curly hair wasn't your thing.  My mayonnaise skin in the middle of Summer didn't exactly give off the "healthy" glow.  My smile was too gummy and my laugh too abrupt and loud, but dog-gone it I was smart and I could prove it.  All I had to do was open my mouth and B. would look past everything else and fall in love with my mind...like 18 year-old boys do. 

So I opened my mouth and nothing.  "Ahhhh," I began.

"What?" B. asked.

"Nothing," I stammered flushing red.

"Oh." B. said. 

I knew B. wasn't religious but he must have really respected my values because there was at least two triple combination scripture widths between our torsos.  A real gentleman, I thought dreamily to myself. 

I searched aimlessly in my head for a coherent sentence that would really intrigue B.  I've known this girl my whole life and never saw her for the shining jewel that she so clearly is - B. would be compelled to admit to himself, and then to me of course that he had always been in love with me.  He just hadn't known it.  After a quicky marriage...in the temple of course, I'm not that rebellious...we'd ditch this small town and head for the open road.

I tried again.  "Ahhhhhh..."

"What did you say?" B. shouted over the band playing. 

I stared into his deep brown eyes.  Eyes I could figuratively swim in for days if he'd let me.  He looked back at me with growing concern.  Oh how sweet.  He's worried about my mental health, I thought to myself.  (And probably for his own safety.) 

Slowing, gently, caressingly I reached up, up, up.  My thumb and pointer finger opened like a lobster anticipating being pulled from the tank at a fancy restaurant.  They closed firmly, inexplicably, annoyingly on B.'s nostrils. 

"Honk!" I exclaimed.

"Ow!  Why did you do that?" B. demanded releasing me from his chaste embrace, scorn forming in his eyes. 

I stared at him dumbfounded because I didn't know.  Why had I just honked the nose of the coolest boy in town?  He shook his head as the romantic strains of music died behind us. 

I stood glued to the spot of my ultimate mortification staring, my mouth agape as B. walked over to his friends and told them he was leaving. 

I learned a valuable lesson that night.  There is no place for nose honking in seduction.  It exists strictly within the confines of an annoying sibling context.  That was the night B. forever slipped through my fingers.  Er...that is his nose slipped through my fingers. 

Hostage Negotiations

We were in the Maverick, making a pitstop on our 2 mile journey to Cinderella Park.  Mama needed a soda refill.  Yes it's come to this.  I'm one of those people.  I'm one step short of donning the holey sweat pants and Disney character t-shirt, but I've got the big mug.  My girlfriends staged a croc intervention last winter or else I'd be wearing my electric blue spinster makers as well. 

Ava perused the juice section while Brielle wailed on the candy aisle thoroughly put out that I told her we couldn't buy the $5.99 helicopter candy that the merchandising geniuses who truly must hate parents put right by the check-out in every store. 

Already people are giving me the looks.  Control your kid lady.  I desperately try to negotiate with the little tyrant.  "Look, look an airhead.  Let's buy the airhead.  Maybe you can ask Santa for the helicopter candy."  I pull out the Santa card all the time in hopes that they'll forget about all the items currently on the Santa list.  I'm pretty sure Ava's list comprises every infomercial item she's ever laid eyes on.  But Brielle, she doesn't get it.  She's not going to put off her need for this cool helicopter toy til December 25th, no sir and she's got the lungs to prove it. 

In my mind I'm thinking how to best handle the situation.  See it's tricky being a parent, especially when you care about appearances...parenting style appearances, I clearly don't care about appearances appearances given my penchant for comfortable ugly shoes. 

You can take the hard-arse approach and jerk the kid's arm and tear them bodily from the desired object that's suddenly become the center of the kid's entire universe.  This pleases the jerkiest people.  Way to go mom.  That kid's a brat and needs to be put in it's place, plus hearing a kid cry puckers my unused uterus even more.  Childless adults always assume they could do it way better.  If they had a kid they'd be a complete polite angel because of their theoretical brilliant parenting skills.  Yeah.  I don't care about those kind of people because they're living a complete fantasy life in which they can actually do whatever they WANT in their spare time.  But I'm not bitter.

Or you can take the nothing-ruffles-my-feathers approach.  Bend down and get on the kid's level and talk in your best Relief Society General President voice.  "Oh my little darling, I can see that you're distressed.  Maybe we can all go back to the stake house and tie a quilt for the less fortunate, er, I mean go back home and sing primary songs until our hearts overflow with scripture power."  The kindest people like this approach because it proves to them you won't beat your kid as soon as you're away from prying eyes unlike the last tactic. 

Or else you can do what I normally do.  I'm a people-pleaser so I use a mixture of the techniques.  I bend down and say menacingly so people can't hear, "I'm going to kick your butt if you don't put that back on the shelf."  Then in a loud voice I say, "That's enough.  We don't throw fits in the store or else mama's not going to take you into any more stores."  Firm but fair.  If someone gives me a sympathetic smile I shake my head and give a long-suffering shrug.  "She's not usually like this.  Must be tired."  She does this in every store and that's the truth.  Then I bend back down and give my best Mommy Dearest glare.  "No more Dora - ever!"  This results in a loud police siren wail and I have to pick her up and carry her to the register so I can purchase my soda so I can slip some gin in there to blunt the harsh realities of motherhood.  Well no.  I don't drink alcohol and to be quite honest soda is failing miserably at blunting anything except for my mental acuity.  But I digress. 

"Nope.  Nope.  No candy for you because you threw a fit," I say loudly while slipping the airhead onto the counter and daring the clerk to say a word about it.  The people behind me are praying my debit card isn't declined so they can be free of the howling child as soon as possible.  Fearing that I'm sounding too harsh I say, "We'll be at the park soon.  I'll push you in the swing.  You love that."  Best.  Parent.  Ever.  I turn and give my best lipstick-free smile to the person behind me.  "Just another day in paradise," I comment breezily as if I can handle anything and still have a sense of humor about it. 

The clerk bags up the candy and I try to keep my grip on the thrashing toddler underneath my plump arm like a football while also grabbing for the handle of the big mug like it's a lifeline in a stormy sea.  On the way out I apologize profusely, "Sorry.  Sorry about all that.  Let me just get out of your way.  Mommy's VERY disappointed in you." 

As soon as the child in question is ensconced in her flower print car seat I turn around and say, "Are you alright honey?  Mama's sorry.  Here's your treat.  We can watch Dora when we get home."  Then I turn around take a deep long pull on the straw of my mug and mutter to myself, "I need a REAL drink." 

An Unshared Poem

The Giving

I am a mother, young, determined, doubting

Who am I?  Who have I become?

I’ve grown apart from the girl I was

A girl with a laughing heart and a hopeful spirit

Slender at my waist, hips and breasts curving

Idealistic and full of romance for the world

I was first a wife

And then I was a mother

Trying to fit together the puzzle of my parts

There is a tugging that I am certain

Every mother before me has known

The mourning of one’s own self

Separate, possibilities to the left and right

Now are gone forever

My hips and breasts are wider and a little too full

My waist seems lost

 My eyes are tired, I feel old sometimes

Then there is my daughter, my heart

I carry her on my solid hips as I once did in my womb

My arms encircle her, she fills up my eyes

Here. Take them. I offer, for they are all for her

My hands always working for her - have them

I carry her in my soul - this is for you also I say

This is the secret of motherhood –- the giving.

The giving of all you have to your own blood

A sacred sacrifice most mothers do from the first breath

Where is that girl I once was?

In another life she’d be traveling, tossing her curls

And her inhibitions to the four winds

In my life I am a woman watching my daughter

With heart-stretching love I’ve never known

She presses her forehead to mine and giggles

I smell the milk on her sweet breath and giggle back

A secret just for us –- this giving

The gentle spring sun lights up her face

She tosses her curls and her inhibitions to the four winds

And runs free and laughing, arms outstretched to me

And this girl, this woman

This Mother opens her arms.

- Denise Cooper Smith -

Blog Neglect...

Call the blog protective services...if anyone is even still reading this.  I'm afraid my blog is going the way of the dinosaur.  Which is a real shame because from time to time I have thoughts and stories I'd like to share...that so many are just clamoring to read I'm sure.  Instagram has taken over and is so much faster than sitting down and trying to compose a blog post while my two girls take turns interrupting me and  asking for chocolate milk, or food, or a hug - you know, vital mom stuff. 

But here I am anyway. 

Things that have made me laugh lately:

Ava telling me yesterday that she has lots of boyfriends at school I didn't know about last year.  I asked her if they knew they were her boyfriend.  She gave me a withering you-are-so-dumb look, worthy of Antoine Dodson and then replied, "No!  I always keep that a secret."  Haha!  I told her I thought she needed to focus on learning at school because boys will always be around and she can't date until she finishes college anyway and she then gave me a cold look and said, "It's my private life mom!"  Okay.  I guess I'll just leave her to her seven year-old private life then.  But when she's eight I'm definitely butting back in. 

Brielle bossing me around.  If I do something that displeases my little cha-cha she says in a stern voice, "Don't do that again, mom!"  One thing that doesn't have me laughing is her sleeping with us every other night.  I'll hear her little foot steps running down the hall and roll over and reach my arms down to her.  I love her so much and I really like to snuggle with her, but for the life of me I just can't sleep when someone is touching me and she's like velcro on my back the whole night.  What did make me smile is one night after she climbed in, I started to drift back to sleep with her little body curled up next to mind and right before I closed my eyes she said, "Love you, mom."  I'd become more aware and tell her I loved her too and then started to try to fall asleep again.  We repeated this scenario four or five times before she finally fell asleep and I could too. 

A couple of nights ago Brig and I were sitting on the bed talking after he got home from work.  The girls came in and got on the bed too.  Brig started tickling Ava and putting her in wrestling moves.  Brielle was unaware they were just playing and so she stuck her sharp nails on Brig's forearm and squeezed and said, "Don't do that, Daddy.  She my big sister!"  It was the sweetest thing ever. 

This little gem that came on t.v. late one night when I was waiting for my pants to finish washing so I could throw them in the dryer.  I couldn't believe it was real.  You know perfect pet polly looks just like a real bird except for the robotic head movement and extremely repetitive chirping.  Oh man.  It makes me laugh watching it again.  Weirdos everywhere were reaching for their wallets. 

In the same vein, this infomercial makes me giggle everytime.  I LOVE the guy's overacting when he's trying to groom without the micro trimmer.  Who's dumb enough to take full sized scissors to their nose hair forest?  I know I like my guy groomed to the max!  Do you? 

Well, I have Brielle begging me for 2nd lunch so I better run along.  See you in another couple of months!

End of School Year Photos Etc, etc, etc,

This isn't an end of school year picture.  It's just a picture I really love.  There's not much I like more than to retreat to my bedroom with a book or a good text conversation in progress while sipping on the hard stuff. 

 

Labor Day weekend was Brig's company party at Lagoon.  We had a great time!  First time we've been to Lagoon without getting into an argument or having a child meltdown.  

Freaky sky ride.  It makes my knees weak and the bottom of my feet sweaty.  I passed and just pushed Brielle in the stroller to the other side of the park. 

Ava had her first grade program a couple of weeks before school let out.  They sang Beatles' songs and did choreographed dances all to the theme of Funky Fish Party.  I really love this girl. 

Why I can never fold clothes why Bree is awake.  She likes to snuggle her clothing possessively.  It's cute but makes for a prolonged laundry day. 

The girls were drinking their orange julius's snuggled up on the couch with a blanket shielding their delicate hands from the cold beverage.  If you look closely you'll see Ava has zombie eyes, I think. 

End of school fun run.  Ava begged Brig to run with her and then promptly left him for her friends.  Don't worry.  Apparently her friends decided to run the whole way and she said she had to preserve her energy for recess.  So Brig got to walk with her.  When she saw me waiting for her she began to run.  I've been doing this the whole time mom! Right. 

 Ava and Emilie enjoying a day in the sun. 

 Sunday afternoon nap.  I love when my kids cuddle up on me when we nap. 

 Ava and Brielle at the softball diamond.  Twice weekly you'll find us there. 

Taken at 10:30 at night.  Summer is so hard for me to keep the kids on schedule.  But I was dealing with this...

 

The end of school blues.  Ava's the only kid I've ever known to be sad for summer vacation.  She cried the night before...and five minutes after school let out...and later that night thinking about her teacher.   My Ava, loves with her whole soul she does. 

 Brielle wasn't sad.  It was time to party!

 Another funky fish party pic.

Donna, Ava and Emilie.  The three Amigos.  Ava is still bummed she wasn't born in China like her friends, but hey you've got to play the hand you're dealt. 

 Well at least one of us was smiling.

 

Worn out.  Lagoon will do that to you, either that or Lay's Potato Chips have some magical sleep property I was not aware of.  

 I never noticed my flintstone foot in the picture.  It seems to be enjoying itself though, so carry on. 

 Life can be really rough when you're 2 1/2.  Especially when your mom snaps a photo instead of actually solving your problems.

 One day I'll sleep through the night.  That day hasn't come yet. 

 Play hard...

 Crash hard!

This is what I wear when I don't want anyone to recognize me.  The mustache looks totally authentic.