"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.
Wednesday, July 23, 2014
Saturday, March 8, 2014
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.
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.
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
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.
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.
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
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.
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.
Thursday, January 16, 2014
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.
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.
Tuesday, November 5, 2013
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."
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."
Wednesday, August 7, 2013
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 -
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