When we first moved to West Virginia, I was determined to soak in all that this state had to offer culturally. And you should know, dear Reader, that West Virginia does have a civic center, state ballet, symphony, and all of the other cultural staples that a state should indeed have. I am sure that we will get around to checking out those lovely things one of these days. But not until I attend the Rough N’ Rowdy Brawl one more time.
I realize that most places have a competition that involves boxing/fighting/organized violence. Las Vegas has the Ultimate Fighting Championship, and a host of other places showcase boxing and amateur fight nights. But no one, I mean NO ONE, does a fight night quite like West Virginia can. After what I witnessed last year at the Charleston Civic Center, I can no more skip this event more than I can skip Christmas.
As with most activities in my life, I didn’t really intend on going to the Rough N’ Rowdy Brawl. But we had just moved to West Virginia, and we didn’t have much else to do. My sister-in-law and her boyfriend invited us to go. I suppose boredom won over my usual revulsion for fighting competitions and interacting with the armpit of humankind in general. In spite of this, we go downtown, get to the Civic Center, and walk in to get our tickets. I look around at the crowd and notice an eerie similarity to the line that I would normally see at the DMV office. The thing that struck me as most interesting was how many kids were waiting to get into this event. Wait, this was amateur boxing, right? Not Disney on Ice? The little boys all had one of two haircuts: a mullet or mohawk. And most of them wore some form of hunting camouflage. Come to think of it, that is how most of the dads looked, too. Except for the more stylish set who decided to wear their Affliction shirts, which were in such abundance that my husband actually turned to me and asked if those were the new thing and should he get one.
Anyhow, we got in and were lucky enough to score the “kickass seats”, according to the guy at the ticket counter. These seats were on the floor right by the ring. Whatever body fluids were going to be flung, we might actually get a piece of it. Everyone was really excited for the whole thing, and apparently there was even a contest for the best ring girl. Fantastic. I was not only going to get to see a bunch of rednecks wail on each other, but I was going to see a little soft porn, too.
Apparently, the attendees of such an event do not come empty-handed. I discovered this fact as I spied a mason jar of what looked like water being passed down the aisle in front of us. Everyone in the row took a drink. Yup, you guessed it. The “water” was actually moonshine. And those people drinking it? They all just met that evening when they sat down.
The fights finally start. And I realize that the term “boxing” was a grossly inaccurate term for what they were actually doing. The movements more closely resembled a windmill that had drunk a lot of that moonshine and now is really, really drunk, angry and may or may not need some glasses. Each round was much the same as the first, except that the guys got bigger. But not the good kind of big, mind you. And apparently shirts were an unspoken taboo.
I felt like I had gotten my twelve dollars worth of entertainment at this point, but then things got better. Apparently, in an attempt to give women their rightful place in society, the women were also slated to fight following the men. Right away, I knew who my favorite contender would be: MOMMA MIA. Momma Mia, a 30-year old mother of seven, had dreamed of being in this competition most of her life, according to the newspaper. She just was pregnant for most of it and couldn’t. I just love it when women aim high in their aspirations. Another 39-year old woman who was 5’4” and 220 pounds was particularly entertaining. And then there was the 18-year old girl the size of a linebacker with her own airbrushed-designed t-shirt. There was actually one 20-year-old girl, Hannah, “The Silencer”, from West Virginia State University who really and truly boxed. But I was nervous for her. I was putting my bets on Momma Mia. Any woman with seven kids has already been through enough fighting already making an event like this literally child’s play to her. And the other women were so large and big and mean that all of the professional coaching in the world wasn’t going to save poor Hannah.
In all, the Rough N' Rowdy Brawl didn’t disappoint. In particular, I think that it was a proud day for women everywhere. And if it weren’t for all of the moonshine-swilling fans producing their own fights in the stands, I am sure that they would have agreed, too. I simply cannot wait to get back and cheer for Momma Mia again, if she isn’t pregnant again.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Pest Control
by CityMom: Leanza Cornett Steines
Growing up in the Appalachian mountains, I somehow escaped the inevitable. Actually, now that I think about it, I escaped it no matter where I grew up since it seems that Head Lice is a universal, indiscriminating issue. As far as I know, and as far as my parents tell me, I never had lice. They could be sparing my pride on this one, since the highlight of my career thus far has had a lot to do with wearing a crown and that would just be ironic, wouldn't it? Anyway, the subject and concern of lice has eluded me in my own life, luckily. However, as the mother of two boys I have been schooled on the fact that it can happen anytime, anywhere, to anyone.
Case in point: a few years ago, when Youngest was still in pre-school, I received a rather upsetting email from the school's director saying that there had been an "outbreak" of lice with a few of the other students. Envisioning a movie-style Andromeda Strain kind of pandemic, I went into full panic mode and bought not one, not two, but THREE kits which promised to rid us of any and all bugs. There were explicit instructions, of course...combing, washing, drying, conditioning, combing again, washing again, anti-lice solution. On top of that, I was supposed to wash pillows, sheets, stuffed animals, clothes...wipe down my car, and virtually anything my child's head may or may not have touched. Not to mention going through the entire routine with Oldest, lest he be infected as well. I felt like I was in the middle of that scene from E.T. The Extra Terrestrial where the guys in the suits and vacuum sealed vans come to examine the alien.
As it turned out, Youngest didn't have "The Lice" as my friend Sue's mom liked to say, God rest her soul. However, I DID have the heebie-jeebies and have never quite gotten over the compulsive itching anytime I see a fleck of dandruff. Oh dear...chills down my spine just writing about it.
I bring this little story up because today, in an odd conversation with a friend of mine, the subject of lice came up. I know...very odd. Seems her kid got The Lice and she, like me, was in panic mode over the whole thing. So she did what every good mom living in Los Angeles does. She called the HAIR WHISPERERS. Oh yes...there is such a thing. Look it up. Go ahead. Google it...Hair Whisperers, Los Angeles, Lice. Those are your key words.
That's not all. The Hair Whisperers have competition. There is yet another rid-your-kid-of-lice place in LA called the HAIR FAIRIES. I'm sure there are others but these are the two I've been made aware of. Both boast of being the best at "nit-picking" and getting rid of any and all critters in your kid's head and your household. I'm not sure of the cost, because it isn't posted on the website, but they also offer a mobile service, just in case you happen to be the type of person who doesn't want to be seen walking into such a place. I imagine no one does, but in LA that can be a deal-breaker, I'm sure.
Funny thing is this: my friend ended up using the services of her very own nanny, who'd seen and experienced this problem many times before and got rid of the lice with her own solutions, routines and potions. And then, you know what? My friend saw a wonderful opportunity for her nanny and went for it. So now her nanny has a little side business...HAIR TODAY GONE TOMORROW. For half the price of those other places, she goes and gets those bugs and everyone is critter-free.
If the you-know-what hits the fan and I find myself or my loved ones itching, I know who to call. Gotta love Los Angeles.
Growing up in the Appalachian mountains, I somehow escaped the inevitable. Actually, now that I think about it, I escaped it no matter where I grew up since it seems that Head Lice is a universal, indiscriminating issue. As far as I know, and as far as my parents tell me, I never had lice. They could be sparing my pride on this one, since the highlight of my career thus far has had a lot to do with wearing a crown and that would just be ironic, wouldn't it? Anyway, the subject and concern of lice has eluded me in my own life, luckily. However, as the mother of two boys I have been schooled on the fact that it can happen anytime, anywhere, to anyone.
Case in point: a few years ago, when Youngest was still in pre-school, I received a rather upsetting email from the school's director saying that there had been an "outbreak" of lice with a few of the other students. Envisioning a movie-style Andromeda Strain kind of pandemic, I went into full panic mode and bought not one, not two, but THREE kits which promised to rid us of any and all bugs. There were explicit instructions, of course...combing, washing, drying, conditioning, combing again, washing again, anti-lice solution. On top of that, I was supposed to wash pillows, sheets, stuffed animals, clothes...wipe down my car, and virtually anything my child's head may or may not have touched. Not to mention going through the entire routine with Oldest, lest he be infected as well. I felt like I was in the middle of that scene from E.T. The Extra Terrestrial where the guys in the suits and vacuum sealed vans come to examine the alien.
As it turned out, Youngest didn't have "The Lice" as my friend Sue's mom liked to say, God rest her soul. However, I DID have the heebie-jeebies and have never quite gotten over the compulsive itching anytime I see a fleck of dandruff. Oh dear...chills down my spine just writing about it.
I bring this little story up because today, in an odd conversation with a friend of mine, the subject of lice came up. I know...very odd. Seems her kid got The Lice and she, like me, was in panic mode over the whole thing. So she did what every good mom living in Los Angeles does. She called the HAIR WHISPERERS. Oh yes...there is such a thing. Look it up. Go ahead. Google it...Hair Whisperers, Los Angeles, Lice. Those are your key words.
That's not all. The Hair Whisperers have competition. There is yet another rid-your-kid-of-lice place in LA called the HAIR FAIRIES. I'm sure there are others but these are the two I've been made aware of. Both boast of being the best at "nit-picking" and getting rid of any and all critters in your kid's head and your household. I'm not sure of the cost, because it isn't posted on the website, but they also offer a mobile service, just in case you happen to be the type of person who doesn't want to be seen walking into such a place. I imagine no one does, but in LA that can be a deal-breaker, I'm sure.
Funny thing is this: my friend ended up using the services of her very own nanny, who'd seen and experienced this problem many times before and got rid of the lice with her own solutions, routines and potions. And then, you know what? My friend saw a wonderful opportunity for her nanny and went for it. So now her nanny has a little side business...HAIR TODAY GONE TOMORROW. For half the price of those other places, she goes and gets those bugs and everyone is critter-free.
If the you-know-what hits the fan and I find myself or my loved ones itching, I know who to call. Gotta love Los Angeles.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Color Wheel
Lately Mountain Child has been unnaturally preoccupied with color. Couple this development with the fact that she is nearly three and absolutely must have everything exactly the way that she envisions it and we have a real problem on her hands.
“What would you like for breakfast?” (Yes. I know. I should never ask a two year old a question that is so open-ended. But it’s 7 a.m., for God’s sake.)
“I WANT CANDY.”
“You can’t have candy. How about some cereal and milk?”
“NOOOOOOOO. WANT CANDY!”
I sigh heavily. “You may have cereal and milk or an egg. Or both. “
“WANT TOAST! “
“Okay, fine. Toast. I’ll put some peanut butter and honey on it. Maybe some raisins or banana…” (I am now retreating into a fantasy world where I am Top Chef and my child eagerly eats whatever concoction I give her.)
“NOOOOO. WANT JELLY!! JELLY!!!!! NO HONEY!!!! NO BANANA!!!!!!!!!!!”
It is now 7:05 a.m. And I am already wondering if it isn’t too early for a nap for the both of us. I compromise: she gets a bit of jelly on her toast and I smoosh up the banana so that she won’t really notice that I am trying to subject her to proper nutrition. She takes one look at my breakfast offering and pushes it away. “WANT ORANGE JELLY,” she demands.
“But you always like the purple jelly.”
“NOOOOOOOOO!!! ORANGE JELLY!!! WANT ORANGE JELLY! AND BANANA! PINK BANANA!”
“You want a pink banana? “
YES!!!!!!!!!!! She is getting frustrated at me—I have clearly missed the boat on how to properly feed a child. But there are no pink bananas that exist as far as I know. So I tell her so. She weeps bitterly at this fact as if I had just informed that there would be no Christmas this year. She keeps on calling out for the pink banana and now my headache that was just a little pinprick at my temples is a thumping drum. I decide to change the subject.
“Today we are going to go to the museum.”
She stops crying and is now almost placated. “ZOO?”
“No, the museum.”
“RIDE IN THE PURPLE CAR?”
We, of course, do not have a purple car. But she has decided that she has to order the colors of things all day. She has known and enjoyed learning colors very much, so it is little wonder that her days lately have been revolving around the color wheel. Her snacks must be orange or pink—unless it is cheese, which in that case it must be white although sometimes she asks for pink cheese. She wants her toes to be red. She wants my toes to be red. And there absolutely, must be at all times some form of pink in her clothes. Her towel that she dries off with at night has to be green. The list goes on and on. Unfortunately, many of the things that she wants to be specific color are impossible. And Mountain Child is therefore enraged at this injustice.
Somehow, by the grace of the Lord God Almighty, we get to the museum, and her obsession with specific colors is forgotten for the moment. Until, that is, we go to eat lunch.
We had chosen to visit the museum on a day that there was an elementary school visiting as well. So when we get to the café area, there are hoards of kids swarming around. Mountain Child is so interested in the crowds that she barely notices her lunch at all, which I suppose I should be thankful for, given her current color needs.
Now, I haven’t been around a lot of school-aged kids for a while. I used to work at a school, but now I just tutor a few. I rarely see them in huge groups like this. One thing that I noticed about many of these kids is that there seemed to be a fashion motif—if you can call it that—of camouflage. It is everywhere: in their shirts, jackets, pants, and even shoes. One of the little girls even had a little camo-patterned purse. I am bewildered. Have I stumbled upon a convention for young hunters of America? No, I am just in West Virginia.
Speaking of which, I went the other day to this little children’s boutique that I liked in town. I noticed that they had these poufy princess-type skirts that had a camouflage print. They also had hairbows of the same. And in the local Rite-Aid, they had on display some camouflage nighties—a little camisole and shorts. That’s right. Lingerie in the Rite-Aid. I really, really want to know who that person is who happens upon that little ensemble and decides that this is the PERFECT Valentine’s Day outfit for the honey. But I digress.
Mountain Child, points to a kid near me and says, “WHAT’S THAT?” I say, “It’s a kid, sweetie.” She stares at the kid again and says, pointing, “GREEN!” Oh, she is playing the color game again. “Well, that color isn’t really green…it’s camouflage.”
“CAMFLAZ”
“Yes, that’s right.”
Oh, great. Now she has another color to demand. I am going to have to find a camouflage banana, pronto. This is a section of the color wheel that I wasn’t really anticipating. But West Virginia in hunting season has opened my eyes to something new.
“What would you like for breakfast?” (Yes. I know. I should never ask a two year old a question that is so open-ended. But it’s 7 a.m., for God’s sake.)
“I WANT CANDY.”
“You can’t have candy. How about some cereal and milk?”
“NOOOOOOOO. WANT CANDY!”
I sigh heavily. “You may have cereal and milk or an egg. Or both. “
“WANT TOAST! “
“Okay, fine. Toast. I’ll put some peanut butter and honey on it. Maybe some raisins or banana…” (I am now retreating into a fantasy world where I am Top Chef and my child eagerly eats whatever concoction I give her.)
“NOOOOO. WANT JELLY!! JELLY!!!!! NO HONEY!!!! NO BANANA!!!!!!!!!!!”
It is now 7:05 a.m. And I am already wondering if it isn’t too early for a nap for the both of us. I compromise: she gets a bit of jelly on her toast and I smoosh up the banana so that she won’t really notice that I am trying to subject her to proper nutrition. She takes one look at my breakfast offering and pushes it away. “WANT ORANGE JELLY,” she demands.
“But you always like the purple jelly.”
“NOOOOOOOOO!!! ORANGE JELLY!!! WANT ORANGE JELLY! AND BANANA! PINK BANANA!”
“You want a pink banana? “
YES!!!!!!!!!!! She is getting frustrated at me—I have clearly missed the boat on how to properly feed a child. But there are no pink bananas that exist as far as I know. So I tell her so. She weeps bitterly at this fact as if I had just informed that there would be no Christmas this year. She keeps on calling out for the pink banana and now my headache that was just a little pinprick at my temples is a thumping drum. I decide to change the subject.
“Today we are going to go to the museum.”
She stops crying and is now almost placated. “ZOO?”
“No, the museum.”
“RIDE IN THE PURPLE CAR?”
We, of course, do not have a purple car. But she has decided that she has to order the colors of things all day. She has known and enjoyed learning colors very much, so it is little wonder that her days lately have been revolving around the color wheel. Her snacks must be orange or pink—unless it is cheese, which in that case it must be white although sometimes she asks for pink cheese. She wants her toes to be red. She wants my toes to be red. And there absolutely, must be at all times some form of pink in her clothes. Her towel that she dries off with at night has to be green. The list goes on and on. Unfortunately, many of the things that she wants to be specific color are impossible. And Mountain Child is therefore enraged at this injustice.
Somehow, by the grace of the Lord God Almighty, we get to the museum, and her obsession with specific colors is forgotten for the moment. Until, that is, we go to eat lunch.
We had chosen to visit the museum on a day that there was an elementary school visiting as well. So when we get to the café area, there are hoards of kids swarming around. Mountain Child is so interested in the crowds that she barely notices her lunch at all, which I suppose I should be thankful for, given her current color needs.
Now, I haven’t been around a lot of school-aged kids for a while. I used to work at a school, but now I just tutor a few. I rarely see them in huge groups like this. One thing that I noticed about many of these kids is that there seemed to be a fashion motif—if you can call it that—of camouflage. It is everywhere: in their shirts, jackets, pants, and even shoes. One of the little girls even had a little camo-patterned purse. I am bewildered. Have I stumbled upon a convention for young hunters of America? No, I am just in West Virginia.
Speaking of which, I went the other day to this little children’s boutique that I liked in town. I noticed that they had these poufy princess-type skirts that had a camouflage print. They also had hairbows of the same. And in the local Rite-Aid, they had on display some camouflage nighties—a little camisole and shorts. That’s right. Lingerie in the Rite-Aid. I really, really want to know who that person is who happens upon that little ensemble and decides that this is the PERFECT Valentine’s Day outfit for the honey. But I digress.
Mountain Child, points to a kid near me and says, “WHAT’S THAT?” I say, “It’s a kid, sweetie.” She stares at the kid again and says, pointing, “GREEN!” Oh, she is playing the color game again. “Well, that color isn’t really green…it’s camouflage.”
“CAMFLAZ”
“Yes, that’s right.”
Oh, great. Now she has another color to demand. I am going to have to find a camouflage banana, pronto. This is a section of the color wheel that I wasn’t really anticipating. But West Virginia in hunting season has opened my eyes to something new.
Friday, November 20, 2009
CityMom....Making Impressions
Note: I am not CityMom. CityMom is Leanza Cornett Steines. Which I am sure you will be able to very obviously tell by reading her first entry. Enjoy!
First, let me make it perfectly clear that I never intended on raising children in Los Angeles. Actually, I'm not sure where I thought I'd be raising children if at all. But here I am, in Los Angeles, with two children. Cards dealt...I'm playin' em.
So, LA is a land of celebrity, red carpet, valet parking, traffic, homeless people and general craziness. We are the town magazines love and people love to hate. Not only do I live here, but I am a part of the insanity because of the career that brought me here in the first place. My husband and I work in the "Entertainment Industry," which could mean that we wait tables as we wait for our "big break" but alas...we are actually WORKING in said industry. This effects our parenting only because we're raising our children in a world that, in my opinion is not realistic. People do not generally go to school with the kid whose Dad starred in the latest "Indiana Jones" movie. My kids do.
And speaking of Indiana Jones...
Every year, there is a parent's breakfast at the school Oldest and Youngest attend. I decided to make a delicious breakfast casserole and drive it down to the breakfast in hopes of impressing everyone with my culinary talents and home skills. A few minutes into the ride to school, Youngest had decided that the smell of the casserole was making him sick. The kid has some serious olfactory issues. So, I rolled down the windows in the car, which inspired complaints of too much wind, too cold, too loud. Seriously, it's a 4 minute car ride, and I was ready to pull over and start crying. By the time we were physically walking into the crowded breakfast, I was having a nervous breakdown and all I really wanted to do is put the casserole down and leave. Youngest was all for that (he hadn't started school at this point), and as we made our way out of the courtyard, a mom-friend stopped me to chat for a minute, which Youngest interpreted as total betrayal on my part to get him the heck out of this horrible place and back into our stinky, cold car. I mean, how dare I have an adult conversation in his presence when he is so clearly upset?
He proceeded to have a complete and total melt down. Arms flailing, he threw himself to the ground, screaming and crying that no one EVER listened to him, that he just KNEW everyone hated him and no one single person CARED about him. He was, at this point, about 3 feet away from me, laying on the ground and quickly gathering the attention of all who stood near him. It was at this moment, I looked up and realized that he was lying at the feet....almost ON TOP OF THE FEET of Steven Spielberg and Kate Capshaw. You might have heard of them. He directed and produced a little film called E.T., Star Wars and all the Indiana Jones movies among others. She is ravishing...at 8am, she looks as if she has stepped out of the pages of Vogue. They are looking at my kid with great horror, not because they can't imagine a child acting this way but because they probably can't understand why there isn't some caring, nurturing parent swooping in to save the day.
I had options. I considered them. And here is what I did.
I walked right by Youngest, looked at him, looked around at the adults who were watching him, and mouthed the words "Does anyone know who he belongs to? Is he okay? Poor thing..."
And I rounded the corner and waited for him to realize that Mommy ain't playin' no games with the tantrums. As soon as he saw that I was gone, the show was over and he came looking for me. Didn't win any Mom of the Year Awards that day, but if I'd really thought it through, I could have handed over a headshot and resume and hoped Steven would call my agent.
I just hope everyone enjoyed the casserole.
First, let me make it perfectly clear that I never intended on raising children in Los Angeles. Actually, I'm not sure where I thought I'd be raising children if at all. But here I am, in Los Angeles, with two children. Cards dealt...I'm playin' em.
So, LA is a land of celebrity, red carpet, valet parking, traffic, homeless people and general craziness. We are the town magazines love and people love to hate. Not only do I live here, but I am a part of the insanity because of the career that brought me here in the first place. My husband and I work in the "Entertainment Industry," which could mean that we wait tables as we wait for our "big break" but alas...we are actually WORKING in said industry. This effects our parenting only because we're raising our children in a world that, in my opinion is not realistic. People do not generally go to school with the kid whose Dad starred in the latest "Indiana Jones" movie. My kids do.
And speaking of Indiana Jones...
Every year, there is a parent's breakfast at the school Oldest and Youngest attend. I decided to make a delicious breakfast casserole and drive it down to the breakfast in hopes of impressing everyone with my culinary talents and home skills. A few minutes into the ride to school, Youngest had decided that the smell of the casserole was making him sick. The kid has some serious olfactory issues. So, I rolled down the windows in the car, which inspired complaints of too much wind, too cold, too loud. Seriously, it's a 4 minute car ride, and I was ready to pull over and start crying. By the time we were physically walking into the crowded breakfast, I was having a nervous breakdown and all I really wanted to do is put the casserole down and leave. Youngest was all for that (he hadn't started school at this point), and as we made our way out of the courtyard, a mom-friend stopped me to chat for a minute, which Youngest interpreted as total betrayal on my part to get him the heck out of this horrible place and back into our stinky, cold car. I mean, how dare I have an adult conversation in his presence when he is so clearly upset?
He proceeded to have a complete and total melt down. Arms flailing, he threw himself to the ground, screaming and crying that no one EVER listened to him, that he just KNEW everyone hated him and no one single person CARED about him. He was, at this point, about 3 feet away from me, laying on the ground and quickly gathering the attention of all who stood near him. It was at this moment, I looked up and realized that he was lying at the feet....almost ON TOP OF THE FEET of Steven Spielberg and Kate Capshaw. You might have heard of them. He directed and produced a little film called E.T., Star Wars and all the Indiana Jones movies among others. She is ravishing...at 8am, she looks as if she has stepped out of the pages of Vogue. They are looking at my kid with great horror, not because they can't imagine a child acting this way but because they probably can't understand why there isn't some caring, nurturing parent swooping in to save the day.
I had options. I considered them. And here is what I did.
I walked right by Youngest, looked at him, looked around at the adults who were watching him, and mouthed the words "Does anyone know who he belongs to? Is he okay? Poor thing..."
And I rounded the corner and waited for him to realize that Mommy ain't playin' no games with the tantrums. As soon as he saw that I was gone, the show was over and he came looking for me. Didn't win any Mom of the Year Awards that day, but if I'd really thought it through, I could have handed over a headshot and resume and hoped Steven would call my agent.
I just hope everyone enjoyed the casserole.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
A Quick Announcement
I have an exciting little twist on the usual MMD protocol: I will have a guest very soon! My cousin Leanza will be posting some of her experiences in her little corner of the world--LA. We think of it as a great experiment of the paradox of motherhood: there is really no normal place to raise your kids. And there are really no normal mommies. But somehow, we relentlessly seek normalcy to find that it's pretty fun to just be a bunch of freaks in a even freakier world.
Keep your eyes open...more fun things soon...
Keep your eyes open...more fun things soon...
Mother Nature Helping the Mountain Mamma
There are ideas that I have in my head about how a child’s day should go and then there is reality. I really want to be able to say that I do A and B on a consistent basis with Mountain Child, but sometimes it is actually X and Y although I hate to admit it.
DELUSION: Mountain Child has a lunch with all the food groups that is low in sugar and, of course, organic.
REALITY: Wendy’s Chicken Nuggets and fries. Yes, I know that you can sub the fries with mandarin oranges, but you can’t dip those nearly as well into a Frosty.
DELUSION: Playtime with learning-based toys, preferably with some fine arts and multicultural exposure thrown in.
REALITY: Dora the Explorer’s Puppy Power on repeat. Hey, Dora speaks Spanish, right?
DELUSION: Lots of outdoor time to develop mind and muscle along with an appreciation for the environment.
REALITY: I ask Mountain Child if she wants to go outside. She says no. I make her go with me anyway. We walk in the grass and she trips and falls. Mountain Child then has a meltdown over a blade of grass sticking to her hand.
Of course, I have my days when Mommy Power is in full effect. But I have equal doses of Mommy Slakerdom Days where I just can’t get it together. And reading Parents magazine just highlights all the more the sad fact that I am woefully mediocre.
But lately my husband and I have been taking Mountain Child with us to go hiking in the Kanawha State Forest, which simply epitomizes my idea of the We-Are-Having-An-ldeal-Granolaized-My-Kids-Is-Having-A-Really-Amazing-Experience-Rockin sort of day. For anyone that isn’t familiar with the Kanawha State Forest, it is located just outside of the Charleston, West Virginia limits and is a most wonderful place. Especially since it is fall right now, and the mountains are truly at their most impressive, with the trees waving all of their flamboyantly dressed branches and the forest floor crunching deliciously under our feet.
Anyway, this weekend we were driving around the grounds, looking for a trailhead. That’s when we spied a rather interesting rite of passage being recorded. A man, presumably a professional photographer, was standing on a ladder taking a picture of a boy in an open field. But this wasn’t just any fall photo session. The boy, who at a glance couldn’t have been more than eight, was posing with his bow with his freshly killed deer in front of him. Then the father, with a smile huge enough for us to see it from the road, posed beside him. I can imagine many life experiences where you would hire a photographer to capture the moment; I just never knew a child, his weapon, and a deer carcass being one of them. Later my husband tells me that there are sections of the forest-thankfully away from our trails-that people can hunt. I resist the urge to give in to my paranoia of an errant bullet or arrow hitting Mountain Child while we are trying to have Fun Family Memories.
But back to us and our own first moments. Out here, Mountain Child suddenly doesn’t care about getting dirty so much. She even climbed up on a huge log and tried to balance on it, a feat that our grumpy/cautious little one would never have considered otherwise. And for the first time in a veryvery long time, Mountain Child didn’t cry or whine for at least three hours. We scramble up mountainsides over rocks, logs, and moss in air as crisp as a Granny Smith apple. Now that we have gone the past three weekends, I am actually starting to get sad at the mere thought of when it is too cold for us to do this any more. But for now, we will go as long as the weather lets us and mingle among the hikers and child hunters.
DELUSION: Mountain Child has a lunch with all the food groups that is low in sugar and, of course, organic.
REALITY: Wendy’s Chicken Nuggets and fries. Yes, I know that you can sub the fries with mandarin oranges, but you can’t dip those nearly as well into a Frosty.
DELUSION: Playtime with learning-based toys, preferably with some fine arts and multicultural exposure thrown in.
REALITY: Dora the Explorer’s Puppy Power on repeat. Hey, Dora speaks Spanish, right?
DELUSION: Lots of outdoor time to develop mind and muscle along with an appreciation for the environment.
REALITY: I ask Mountain Child if she wants to go outside. She says no. I make her go with me anyway. We walk in the grass and she trips and falls. Mountain Child then has a meltdown over a blade of grass sticking to her hand.
Of course, I have my days when Mommy Power is in full effect. But I have equal doses of Mommy Slakerdom Days where I just can’t get it together. And reading Parents magazine just highlights all the more the sad fact that I am woefully mediocre.
But lately my husband and I have been taking Mountain Child with us to go hiking in the Kanawha State Forest, which simply epitomizes my idea of the We-Are-Having-An-ldeal-Granolaized-My-Kids-Is-Having-A-Really-Amazing-Experience-Rockin sort of day. For anyone that isn’t familiar with the Kanawha State Forest, it is located just outside of the Charleston, West Virginia limits and is a most wonderful place. Especially since it is fall right now, and the mountains are truly at their most impressive, with the trees waving all of their flamboyantly dressed branches and the forest floor crunching deliciously under our feet.
Anyway, this weekend we were driving around the grounds, looking for a trailhead. That’s when we spied a rather interesting rite of passage being recorded. A man, presumably a professional photographer, was standing on a ladder taking a picture of a boy in an open field. But this wasn’t just any fall photo session. The boy, who at a glance couldn’t have been more than eight, was posing with his bow with his freshly killed deer in front of him. Then the father, with a smile huge enough for us to see it from the road, posed beside him. I can imagine many life experiences where you would hire a photographer to capture the moment; I just never knew a child, his weapon, and a deer carcass being one of them. Later my husband tells me that there are sections of the forest-thankfully away from our trails-that people can hunt. I resist the urge to give in to my paranoia of an errant bullet or arrow hitting Mountain Child while we are trying to have Fun Family Memories.
But back to us and our own first moments. Out here, Mountain Child suddenly doesn’t care about getting dirty so much. She even climbed up on a huge log and tried to balance on it, a feat that our grumpy/cautious little one would never have considered otherwise. And for the first time in a veryvery long time, Mountain Child didn’t cry or whine for at least three hours. We scramble up mountainsides over rocks, logs, and moss in air as crisp as a Granny Smith apple. Now that we have gone the past three weekends, I am actually starting to get sad at the mere thought of when it is too cold for us to do this any more. But for now, we will go as long as the weather lets us and mingle among the hikers and child hunters.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Cupcakes, Candy and Zebras, Oh My!
As a person that loves to celebrate each holiday to the fullest, I was most excited about Halloween. Mountain Child would be old enough to better understand Trick or Treat Night, and we would actually be living in a place that really looked and felt like fall. I was so excited, in fact, that I purchased Mountain Child’s Halloween costume on September 4th, the day after I got the Pottery Barn Kids catalogue in the mail.
Whoever puts together the Pottery Barn Kids catalogue should get some kind of award for evil genius in advertising. When I look at those things, I actually can imagine my kid right there in those pages, playing on her pink 100% wool rug, fluffy comforter on her perfectly made bed, room completely organized with cubbies and shelves and bins everywhere. Her hair is neatly fixed. And there is no food from breakfast on her shirt while she plays very nicely with her age-appropriate, eco-friendly, educational toys. I start believing that it is possible to enter this beautiful parallel universe. The section on their Halloween costumes is no exception.
I spied the Cupcake Costume last year in the PB Kids catalogue. It is a felt costume that is a dress but in the shape of a huge cupcake. The bottom is the wrapper of the cake, and the top is pink icing with polka dots. It even had a headband with a strawberry on top. I wanted to get it, but I waited too long and they were sold out. I was determined to get it this year. My daughter was going to have the cutest costume ever. No fairy or princess costume for her! So I ordered it as soon as the costumes came out. I will not even tell you how much I paid for it because it is embarrassing how much I did.
The Cupcake Costume comes in the mail and I joyfully tell Mountain Child that she gets to go trick or treating very soon and she gets to be a cupcake! She gets very excited over the idea of a cupcake given her undying affection for all things sugary sweet. But when I took the costume out of the box to show her the Cupcake Costume, she gives me a dirty look and throws the thing on the floor. “WANT CUPCAKE,” she demands. Oh, great. I forget that two-year olds are such literal creatures and she probably thought she was getting a real cupcake. I hang the costume in her closet and decide to let her try it on later.
Later on, I try again. But she apparently has remembered the big disappointment of her costume not being a real cupcake, and she still refuses to try it on. So I decide to just give it a few days. The days turn into weeks and still Mountain Child refuses to try it on, even if I bribe her and tell her that we can “practice” trick or treating and get candy. She just would cry for the candy and wouldn’t go near the costume. Finally, I decide to just put it on her, and hopefully she will get over it. I take out the costume and somehow wrestle her into it. She is writhing, kicking and screaming and I can’t get her head through the top of the costume. She runs around with her head still somewhere in the costume as if she is the Headless Cupcake Girl. It took me an hour and about ten storybooks with her blankie for her calm down again. She is probably going to need some therapy later for this childhood experience.
It was clear that my fantasy about my daughter becoming a Pottery Barn Kids model with her Halloween costume wasn’t going to come true. But it is now only about two days before it is time to trick or treat and I have nothing. It figures. I try to plan ahead, but I am still in the exact same position as if I were to have done nothing and spent nothing. I ignored a simple fact about my child: if it doesn’t resemble pajamas, she isn’t going to wear it without a fight. I head to Target and get some plain black “cozy” pants and a black t-shirt. I throw some white duct tape in. Out of sheer hopefulness, I add a headband with zebra ears and a zebra tail. And I proceed to create a zebra costume. To my surprise, the finished product looked very zebra-ish and the whole thing cost me under $20. I was ecstatic for my craftiness, although I will tell you to cut duct tape into zebra stripe shapes is no easy task.
Meanwhile, I called a friend to see if her daughter wanted to perhaps borrow the costume. She stopped by, and I handed over the Cupcake Costume. Mountain Child, wept bitterly over us lending out the costume and wails, “MY COSTUME! WANT CUPCAKE COSTUME!!”
But, honey, you didn’t like it. Remember when you cried when Mommy tried to get you to wear it?
“MY COSTUME, MY CUPCAKE COSTUME! IT’S MINE!” Mountain Child is sobbing.
“We will get it back. We are just sharing it for a little bit. Will you wear it when we get it back?”
“GET CANDY?”
“Yes and get candy.”
Mountain Child seems satisfied with this. I then show her the zebra costume. She is mildly interested and begins to make zebra noises. “ZEBRAS GO LIKE THIS: NEIIIIIIGHHHHHHH! ZEBRAS HAVE STRIPES!”
Okay, we might have a hope now. However, predictably, when it is time to get dressed for Trick or Treat Night, she cries again for the Cupcake Costume and doesn’t want to be a zebra. And the headband with the zebra ears and the tail? Forget it. Somehow, I get that damn zebra outfit on her and put her hair in pigtails. We get her pumpkin pail and go out on the front porch to see the other kids who have eagerly started to trick or treat. She didn’t want to go. Of course. I carry her to three houses to see if the act of getting the candy would be enough to convince her that this was indeed fun. That doesn't work either. Then Grandpa Dennis offers to walk with her. Suddenly, she is as cheery as can be and happily walks off with him. And as I watch my two-year old skip off with grandpa, her zebra stripes peeling off, giving her a look that is now more mummy than zebra, her crooked pigtails, and her trying to dig into her pumpkin pail for more candy, I am reminded once again that planning ahead with preschoolers isn’t as effective as it should be. Unless you live in a Pottery Barn Kids catalogue.
Whoever puts together the Pottery Barn Kids catalogue should get some kind of award for evil genius in advertising. When I look at those things, I actually can imagine my kid right there in those pages, playing on her pink 100% wool rug, fluffy comforter on her perfectly made bed, room completely organized with cubbies and shelves and bins everywhere. Her hair is neatly fixed. And there is no food from breakfast on her shirt while she plays very nicely with her age-appropriate, eco-friendly, educational toys. I start believing that it is possible to enter this beautiful parallel universe. The section on their Halloween costumes is no exception.
I spied the Cupcake Costume last year in the PB Kids catalogue. It is a felt costume that is a dress but in the shape of a huge cupcake. The bottom is the wrapper of the cake, and the top is pink icing with polka dots. It even had a headband with a strawberry on top. I wanted to get it, but I waited too long and they were sold out. I was determined to get it this year. My daughter was going to have the cutest costume ever. No fairy or princess costume for her! So I ordered it as soon as the costumes came out. I will not even tell you how much I paid for it because it is embarrassing how much I did.
The Cupcake Costume comes in the mail and I joyfully tell Mountain Child that she gets to go trick or treating very soon and she gets to be a cupcake! She gets very excited over the idea of a cupcake given her undying affection for all things sugary sweet. But when I took the costume out of the box to show her the Cupcake Costume, she gives me a dirty look and throws the thing on the floor. “WANT CUPCAKE,” she demands. Oh, great. I forget that two-year olds are such literal creatures and she probably thought she was getting a real cupcake. I hang the costume in her closet and decide to let her try it on later.
Later on, I try again. But she apparently has remembered the big disappointment of her costume not being a real cupcake, and she still refuses to try it on. So I decide to just give it a few days. The days turn into weeks and still Mountain Child refuses to try it on, even if I bribe her and tell her that we can “practice” trick or treating and get candy. She just would cry for the candy and wouldn’t go near the costume. Finally, I decide to just put it on her, and hopefully she will get over it. I take out the costume and somehow wrestle her into it. She is writhing, kicking and screaming and I can’t get her head through the top of the costume. She runs around with her head still somewhere in the costume as if she is the Headless Cupcake Girl. It took me an hour and about ten storybooks with her blankie for her calm down again. She is probably going to need some therapy later for this childhood experience.
It was clear that my fantasy about my daughter becoming a Pottery Barn Kids model with her Halloween costume wasn’t going to come true. But it is now only about two days before it is time to trick or treat and I have nothing. It figures. I try to plan ahead, but I am still in the exact same position as if I were to have done nothing and spent nothing. I ignored a simple fact about my child: if it doesn’t resemble pajamas, she isn’t going to wear it without a fight. I head to Target and get some plain black “cozy” pants and a black t-shirt. I throw some white duct tape in. Out of sheer hopefulness, I add a headband with zebra ears and a zebra tail. And I proceed to create a zebra costume. To my surprise, the finished product looked very zebra-ish and the whole thing cost me under $20. I was ecstatic for my craftiness, although I will tell you to cut duct tape into zebra stripe shapes is no easy task.
Meanwhile, I called a friend to see if her daughter wanted to perhaps borrow the costume. She stopped by, and I handed over the Cupcake Costume. Mountain Child, wept bitterly over us lending out the costume and wails, “MY COSTUME! WANT CUPCAKE COSTUME!!”
But, honey, you didn’t like it. Remember when you cried when Mommy tried to get you to wear it?
“MY COSTUME, MY CUPCAKE COSTUME! IT’S MINE!” Mountain Child is sobbing.
“We will get it back. We are just sharing it for a little bit. Will you wear it when we get it back?”
“GET CANDY?”
“Yes and get candy.”
Mountain Child seems satisfied with this. I then show her the zebra costume. She is mildly interested and begins to make zebra noises. “ZEBRAS GO LIKE THIS: NEIIIIIIGHHHHHHH! ZEBRAS HAVE STRIPES!”
Okay, we might have a hope now. However, predictably, when it is time to get dressed for Trick or Treat Night, she cries again for the Cupcake Costume and doesn’t want to be a zebra. And the headband with the zebra ears and the tail? Forget it. Somehow, I get that damn zebra outfit on her and put her hair in pigtails. We get her pumpkin pail and go out on the front porch to see the other kids who have eagerly started to trick or treat. She didn’t want to go. Of course. I carry her to three houses to see if the act of getting the candy would be enough to convince her that this was indeed fun. That doesn't work either. Then Grandpa Dennis offers to walk with her. Suddenly, she is as cheery as can be and happily walks off with him. And as I watch my two-year old skip off with grandpa, her zebra stripes peeling off, giving her a look that is now more mummy than zebra, her crooked pigtails, and her trying to dig into her pumpkin pail for more candy, I am reminded once again that planning ahead with preschoolers isn’t as effective as it should be. Unless you live in a Pottery Barn Kids catalogue.
Friday, October 9, 2009
Football
I watched the big West Virginia vs. Colorado game at the local Quaker Steak—a wing and beer place which also happens to have largest concentration of bikers in the state due to their weekly Bike Night. This peculiar cocktail of people promised to be a perfect night for people watching and perhaps me becoming a more football literate person. My husband was actually AT this game, having scored some great tickets. So I went with my sister-in-law.
After about twenty minutes into the game, I am bored. It’s not that I don’t like football, there is just too much activity around me, and I am feeling a bit overwhelmed. So I begin to look around. I notice a few things:
1. Everyone, EVERYONE in West Virginia are either WVU fans or Marshall fans. The craze here is absolutely inexplicable. I realize that everyone can probably say that about where they live regarding the devotion of their home team fans, but here is a little story to illustrate what I mean: When one of my friends first moved here from New York, her neighborhood was going to paint the house numbers on the curb. You had a choice of two colors—WVU (blue and gold) or Marshall (green and white). They had just arrived and the choice was too much like choosing Democrat or Republican, Protestant or Catholic. Feeling very pressured and weirded-out, they opted out of the house numbers altogether. They are now probably officially the losers of the neighborhood.
2. According to most of the people in this sports bar, if you are not a WVU or Marshall fan, you must be queer. Or stupid. Which are synonymous terms in the minds of most people around here.
3. If you aren’t wearing WVU gear during a WVU game, then your face must be painted. If your face isn’t painted and you aren’t wearing WVU gear, then dear Lord, at least wear the colors. Note: I was wearing a denim skirt and pink sweater.
4. When WVU does anything—and I repeat ANYTHING—remotely good, you must yell as if you are an Apache about to scalp a pioneer. Mountaineer Fans are apparently notorious for their yelling, which is to my estimation a perfect hybrid of yodeling and screaming.
5. Just about everyone here is reallyreally drunk.
I find that when going out, I am about a hundred times more entertained being sober than I could ever be drunk. Take the prime example of the woman that is sitting next to me. We are sitting at an outside bar where there is a huge plasma television playing the game. She is smoking and sleeping sitting up. She is trying to stay awake, but she keeps on rolling her eyes in the back of her head, her cigarette burning precariously close to her fingers. Her head bobs a few times, and I swear that I hear snoring. I begin to worry that this woman will fall off her chair, burning herself and then getting stomped by all of the gold and blue-clad fans, yodeling and hollering. But then it gets better. Her better half comes over and puts her arm around her. I look at him, and he has the most perfect mullet that I have ever seen. It was cropped straight across in the front, like some mod go-go girl’s bob, but then the back hung down to his butt. He even had a bit of cascading curl to the whole thing. Sigh. Now my night is nearly complete.
What made the night even better was the staff’s repeated problem of people trying to smuggle out beers. One such woman tried to do so but got caught when she tripped and her beer bottle leaked out of her purse. Fantastic!
Oh, and the bikers. The dear, sweet bikers bedecked in leather. They are simply a wonderous breed of their own. The men usually have rather large beer bellies and strut around like peacocks in heat. The women usually are stuffed into their leather gear like sausage casing and wearing enough makeup to make Sephora's stock soar. There is enough hairspray and boots to last one a lifetime. Oh, dear—I am sounding like I don’t like these people. Yes, I do. Just please don’t hurt me.
In all, I can’t say that I was too into the game. I did look for my husband in the stands on television, but that truly paled to all of the wonderful people-watching that evening. The last image that I had in my mind as I was leaving was actually in the women’s bathroom. If it weren’t such an unpleasantly nasty place, I could just stay there and watch people. Anyway, this one woman comes in, high heel boots, tight leather pants, skimpy top, lots and lots of makeup…pushing about 45 or so…you get the idea. She was checking herself out in the mirror and then walked out—with toilet paper attached to BOTH feet. I considered running out and telling her, but I was laughing too hard to myself to go.
I just love football season in West Virginia.
...my next new 'do.
After about twenty minutes into the game, I am bored. It’s not that I don’t like football, there is just too much activity around me, and I am feeling a bit overwhelmed. So I begin to look around. I notice a few things:
1. Everyone, EVERYONE in West Virginia are either WVU fans or Marshall fans. The craze here is absolutely inexplicable. I realize that everyone can probably say that about where they live regarding the devotion of their home team fans, but here is a little story to illustrate what I mean: When one of my friends first moved here from New York, her neighborhood was going to paint the house numbers on the curb. You had a choice of two colors—WVU (blue and gold) or Marshall (green and white). They had just arrived and the choice was too much like choosing Democrat or Republican, Protestant or Catholic. Feeling very pressured and weirded-out, they opted out of the house numbers altogether. They are now probably officially the losers of the neighborhood.
2. According to most of the people in this sports bar, if you are not a WVU or Marshall fan, you must be queer. Or stupid. Which are synonymous terms in the minds of most people around here.
3. If you aren’t wearing WVU gear during a WVU game, then your face must be painted. If your face isn’t painted and you aren’t wearing WVU gear, then dear Lord, at least wear the colors. Note: I was wearing a denim skirt and pink sweater.
4. When WVU does anything—and I repeat ANYTHING—remotely good, you must yell as if you are an Apache about to scalp a pioneer. Mountaineer Fans are apparently notorious for their yelling, which is to my estimation a perfect hybrid of yodeling and screaming.
5. Just about everyone here is reallyreally drunk.
I find that when going out, I am about a hundred times more entertained being sober than I could ever be drunk. Take the prime example of the woman that is sitting next to me. We are sitting at an outside bar where there is a huge plasma television playing the game. She is smoking and sleeping sitting up. She is trying to stay awake, but she keeps on rolling her eyes in the back of her head, her cigarette burning precariously close to her fingers. Her head bobs a few times, and I swear that I hear snoring. I begin to worry that this woman will fall off her chair, burning herself and then getting stomped by all of the gold and blue-clad fans, yodeling and hollering. But then it gets better. Her better half comes over and puts her arm around her. I look at him, and he has the most perfect mullet that I have ever seen. It was cropped straight across in the front, like some mod go-go girl’s bob, but then the back hung down to his butt. He even had a bit of cascading curl to the whole thing. Sigh. Now my night is nearly complete.
What made the night even better was the staff’s repeated problem of people trying to smuggle out beers. One such woman tried to do so but got caught when she tripped and her beer bottle leaked out of her purse. Fantastic!
Oh, and the bikers. The dear, sweet bikers bedecked in leather. They are simply a wonderous breed of their own. The men usually have rather large beer bellies and strut around like peacocks in heat. The women usually are stuffed into their leather gear like sausage casing and wearing enough makeup to make Sephora's stock soar. There is enough hairspray and boots to last one a lifetime. Oh, dear—I am sounding like I don’t like these people. Yes, I do. Just please don’t hurt me.
In all, I can’t say that I was too into the game. I did look for my husband in the stands on television, but that truly paled to all of the wonderful people-watching that evening. The last image that I had in my mind as I was leaving was actually in the women’s bathroom. If it weren’t such an unpleasantly nasty place, I could just stay there and watch people. Anyway, this one woman comes in, high heel boots, tight leather pants, skimpy top, lots and lots of makeup…pushing about 45 or so…you get the idea. She was checking herself out in the mirror and then walked out—with toilet paper attached to BOTH feet. I considered running out and telling her, but I was laughing too hard to myself to go.
I just love football season in West Virginia.
...my next new 'do.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
House Hunting
After nine months of living with my in-laws, we now feel ready to go and get a place of our own here. Just so you know, that is about seven months past my internal deadline that I had for something to happen with the Florida house and for us to have the freedom to get something here.
I keep on saying that living in one room at your in-laws’ is character building. And that is all that I can say. If I dwell on it too long, I will most definitely fall into a depressive state and pitch a tent somewhere in the Kanawha State Forest to live or something.
If one can make a baby in nine months, surely one can make a firm decision about where she wants to live. You would think that, but we are no closer to knowing what in the world what we want to do than the day that we arrived to West Virginia. Like most women, I have that mental checklist of must-have aspects to my new home. Here was my original list when moving here:
1. at least an acre of land on top of a mountain
2. architectural details that make the home charming/unique/not too stuffy
3. a huge gourmet kitchen with granite countertops, quality cabinetry, industrial-strength appliances
4. a playroom/bonus room for the kiddies to play
5. hardwood flooring throughout
6. a spa-like atmosphere in the bathroom
7. large windows
8. an outdoor living space, complete with an outdoor kitchen
9. and of course, a fantastically established neighborhood
I am not kidding. I really thought that I could get all of that. We quickly enlisted ourselves with a realtor as soon as we got here to start looking. I told him my list. And then I told him my price range.
“Well,” he said, trying to be tactful, “I am not sure how long it will take for that combination of wishes to come together with your desired price point.”
That is fancy talk for it’s a cold day in hell before you get all that. Come back to Earth, sister.
Okay, so I was dreaming big. That is my way. So I adjusted my wish list:
1. a good-sized yard
2. charming architectural details
3. a kitchen with potential to be my dream kitchen
4. hardwood floors
5. good neighborhood and good schools
We settled on two areas in the Charleston region. One in the city and one suburb right outside of it. After looking at about fifty or so houses and hours of looking on line at realtor.com, I came to realization that the idea of a yard is absolutely relative to who you’re talking to. If you are talking to a Floridian about yards, one with a beach in the back is the ideal situation. But we never think in terms of phrases such as “usable land”. All of it is pretty much usable. If you are talking about yards to a West Virginian, anything that you can stand on without fear of falling off the side of a mountain is “usable land”. Additionally, driveways in West Virginia usually require the help of some climbing gear to make it up the hill, especially in the winter. That is, if you even have a driveway. Usually, the owners of these houses are so delighted that they have found a way to engineer their houses to hang precariously off the side of a mountain, a driveway would have been just too much to figure out.
Meanwhile, I have been watching way too much HGTV. My husband and I currently love the show, House Hunters. They make is seem so easy, you just pick a price, three houses, and poof! You have your home and sipping cocktails five months later with all of your home improvement projects completed. But we don’t just stop that that show; we watch pretty much all of them. And after prolonged exposure to that sort of can-do brainwashing, you start to really think that you are just like all of these experts, ready to take on any mess of a house and turn it into something that belongs to the cover of Southern Living.
This is not a good mindset to be in when you are on the hunt for a house.
We saw a house that “needs updating” and that “has potential”. This means in Realtorese that the house doesn’t cost much because no one would live there. Now this house was in a great neighborhood. Too bad all of the neighbors wanted to bulldoze the house down. I see it and begin to imagine all of the things that you can do with it. We can knock down walls! It is no big deal to replace electrical wiring. Refinishing hardwood floors? No problem! It got to where I didn’t even see the actual house; I just saw the finished product.
This happened again and again. We would say that we were fine with a house that needed work. But we would forget how much of a pain in the you-know-where it is to actually do that. Our first house needed an updated bathroom. So my husband took out the old vanities and put in new ones. That little switch-out resulted in four days without water and me showering at the YMCA.
So back to my list. I don’t know if I finally realized through a series of disappointments of realizing that we, in fact, are not destined to be an HGTV series. All of my fantasizing has exhausted me. As a result, my list has diminished to two items:
1. a place where I can move in with minimal work, and
2. be able to walk around naked in my own house
One forgets the luxury of being able to walk around naked in your own house until you live with others. It has been a huge fear of mine that I would exit the shower and have the door wide open and me on display for the in-laws because Mountain Child has opened it and not closed it. It’s not that I am even the type to walk around naked a lot. It is just the fact that I can’t and I want to have that option.
And if you really think about it, home way be where the heart is, but more importantly, it is where you can be naked.
I keep on saying that living in one room at your in-laws’ is character building. And that is all that I can say. If I dwell on it too long, I will most definitely fall into a depressive state and pitch a tent somewhere in the Kanawha State Forest to live or something.
If one can make a baby in nine months, surely one can make a firm decision about where she wants to live. You would think that, but we are no closer to knowing what in the world what we want to do than the day that we arrived to West Virginia. Like most women, I have that mental checklist of must-have aspects to my new home. Here was my original list when moving here:
1. at least an acre of land on top of a mountain
2. architectural details that make the home charming/unique/not too stuffy
3. a huge gourmet kitchen with granite countertops, quality cabinetry, industrial-strength appliances
4. a playroom/bonus room for the kiddies to play
5. hardwood flooring throughout
6. a spa-like atmosphere in the bathroom
7. large windows
8. an outdoor living space, complete with an outdoor kitchen
9. and of course, a fantastically established neighborhood
I am not kidding. I really thought that I could get all of that. We quickly enlisted ourselves with a realtor as soon as we got here to start looking. I told him my list. And then I told him my price range.
“Well,” he said, trying to be tactful, “I am not sure how long it will take for that combination of wishes to come together with your desired price point.”
That is fancy talk for it’s a cold day in hell before you get all that. Come back to Earth, sister.
Okay, so I was dreaming big. That is my way. So I adjusted my wish list:
1. a good-sized yard
2. charming architectural details
3. a kitchen with potential to be my dream kitchen
4. hardwood floors
5. good neighborhood and good schools
We settled on two areas in the Charleston region. One in the city and one suburb right outside of it. After looking at about fifty or so houses and hours of looking on line at realtor.com, I came to realization that the idea of a yard is absolutely relative to who you’re talking to. If you are talking to a Floridian about yards, one with a beach in the back is the ideal situation. But we never think in terms of phrases such as “usable land”. All of it is pretty much usable. If you are talking about yards to a West Virginian, anything that you can stand on without fear of falling off the side of a mountain is “usable land”. Additionally, driveways in West Virginia usually require the help of some climbing gear to make it up the hill, especially in the winter. That is, if you even have a driveway. Usually, the owners of these houses are so delighted that they have found a way to engineer their houses to hang precariously off the side of a mountain, a driveway would have been just too much to figure out.
Meanwhile, I have been watching way too much HGTV. My husband and I currently love the show, House Hunters. They make is seem so easy, you just pick a price, three houses, and poof! You have your home and sipping cocktails five months later with all of your home improvement projects completed. But we don’t just stop that that show; we watch pretty much all of them. And after prolonged exposure to that sort of can-do brainwashing, you start to really think that you are just like all of these experts, ready to take on any mess of a house and turn it into something that belongs to the cover of Southern Living.
This is not a good mindset to be in when you are on the hunt for a house.
We saw a house that “needs updating” and that “has potential”. This means in Realtorese that the house doesn’t cost much because no one would live there. Now this house was in a great neighborhood. Too bad all of the neighbors wanted to bulldoze the house down. I see it and begin to imagine all of the things that you can do with it. We can knock down walls! It is no big deal to replace electrical wiring. Refinishing hardwood floors? No problem! It got to where I didn’t even see the actual house; I just saw the finished product.
This happened again and again. We would say that we were fine with a house that needed work. But we would forget how much of a pain in the you-know-where it is to actually do that. Our first house needed an updated bathroom. So my husband took out the old vanities and put in new ones. That little switch-out resulted in four days without water and me showering at the YMCA.
So back to my list. I don’t know if I finally realized through a series of disappointments of realizing that we, in fact, are not destined to be an HGTV series. All of my fantasizing has exhausted me. As a result, my list has diminished to two items:
1. a place where I can move in with minimal work, and
2. be able to walk around naked in my own house
One forgets the luxury of being able to walk around naked in your own house until you live with others. It has been a huge fear of mine that I would exit the shower and have the door wide open and me on display for the in-laws because Mountain Child has opened it and not closed it. It’s not that I am even the type to walk around naked a lot. It is just the fact that I can’t and I want to have that option.
And if you really think about it, home way be where the heart is, but more importantly, it is where you can be naked.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
A Formula for Parenting
We have had a triumphant moment in the Mountain household in the past week. Mountain Child has officially ditched the pacifier!
She decided on her own, which is just absolutely typical Mountain Child fashion. When I tried to take it away, I had a carefully constructed plan backed by expert opinion, advice of moms, and every parenting magazine tidbit that I could find about pacifiers. As a result, I had nightmares about my kids having buck teeth and a lisp because she sucked on one too long. Or that she would get some sort of nasty bacterial infection because of the germyness of her pacifiers. Another common obsessive thought that I had was that she would bit off the pacifier nipple and choke on it in her sleep. I actually dreamed the other night that Mountain Child had about a hundred pacifiers hidden in her sheets and I couldn’t get rid of them all because she kept popping up with more. It was Alfred Hitchcock creepy.
I put a plan into action. I decided to prep her for the big cutoff by talking about it for a week. She humored me with the conversation, which went a bit like this:
Me: “Next week, you are going to have to say bye-bye to your pacifier. You are a big girl and you don’t need it.”
Mountain Child: “NO BIG GIRL. WATCH DORA?”
Me: “No, you can watch Dora later (by the way, I have decided that I hate Dora. My child likes her better than me.). We are going to say bye-bye to your pacifier next week.”
Mountain Child: “NOOOOOOOOOOO!!! I LOVE PACI.” She then hugs it and kisses it.
Me: “Okay, that’s fine. Just put it in your bed for now.”
Mountain Child then tucks it into bed and kisses it goodnight. I am really thinking that I am just stupid for even trying this.
I posted my status on Facebook about our pacifier situation. I got 22 comments about the issue, more than any other status that I have ever posted. It seems that this is a point of great debate in the world. An overhaul of our health care system? No, way! Pacifiers are waaaaayyyyyyy more interesting. I’m not kidding. At least I understand them a little better.
That day I decided to tempt fate and the Universe’s equilibrium and take away the pacifier for naptime. Mountain Child put up such a fight and screamed so long and loud that I decided that I had two options: 1) I would either have to search for a service to come in and break her of her pacifier addiction or 2) just give up the whole idea altogether. I actually decided on secret option #3 which was just cutting the top off of it, which was the most popular bit of advice that I got. Mountain Child gave it a funny look when I handed her the “new” pacifier and proceeded to suck on it as if it were a Popsicle. So much for that little tip that practically a hundred people gave me.
But the next morning, Mountain Child walked into her room, picked up the pacifier and said, “PACI BROKEN. I THROW AWAY.”
Me: “Are you sure that you want to throw it away? You can’t get it back. It will be bye-bye pacifier…”
Mountain Child: “I THROW AWAY.”
She then marched downstairs into the kitchen and threw it in the trash can. She said, “BYE-BYE PACI!!!!” And that was it. She slept that night as if nothing happened.
It was dreamfully easy. Which just further proves my formula for parenting:
The more you stress over it, the more likely it will work out fine despite your mental gymnastics. However, if you don’t worry about it, something really terrible/embarrassing/pain in the ass will happen.
If could have saved a lot of money in child rearing books if I would have gotten that from the beginning. In the end, it has not as much to do with all of my efforts.
So our next hurdle will be the potty. I have decided to continue obsessing over it but I will let her decide when she is ready. However, I must freak out over it because the energy expended over this is contingent with the success that we have in the end even though it isn’t my worrying that does it—that is just the universe laughing at me and confounding my every attempt at logic in parenting.
Perhaps I should make up a mathematical formula. But I am too inept in math to come up with one. Plus math means that there is logical outcome to your problem. Parenting is not logical at all. It is precisely the opposite, more like tromping around in SeussLand, experimenting with magical spells.
However, if any of my mathematically savvy friends want to take a go at making this into a formula, have at it. We can write a book and split the profit.
She decided on her own, which is just absolutely typical Mountain Child fashion. When I tried to take it away, I had a carefully constructed plan backed by expert opinion, advice of moms, and every parenting magazine tidbit that I could find about pacifiers. As a result, I had nightmares about my kids having buck teeth and a lisp because she sucked on one too long. Or that she would get some sort of nasty bacterial infection because of the germyness of her pacifiers. Another common obsessive thought that I had was that she would bit off the pacifier nipple and choke on it in her sleep. I actually dreamed the other night that Mountain Child had about a hundred pacifiers hidden in her sheets and I couldn’t get rid of them all because she kept popping up with more. It was Alfred Hitchcock creepy.
I put a plan into action. I decided to prep her for the big cutoff by talking about it for a week. She humored me with the conversation, which went a bit like this:
Me: “Next week, you are going to have to say bye-bye to your pacifier. You are a big girl and you don’t need it.”
Mountain Child: “NO BIG GIRL. WATCH DORA?”
Me: “No, you can watch Dora later (by the way, I have decided that I hate Dora. My child likes her better than me.). We are going to say bye-bye to your pacifier next week.”
Mountain Child: “NOOOOOOOOOOO!!! I LOVE PACI.” She then hugs it and kisses it.
Me: “Okay, that’s fine. Just put it in your bed for now.”
Mountain Child then tucks it into bed and kisses it goodnight. I am really thinking that I am just stupid for even trying this.
I posted my status on Facebook about our pacifier situation. I got 22 comments about the issue, more than any other status that I have ever posted. It seems that this is a point of great debate in the world. An overhaul of our health care system? No, way! Pacifiers are waaaaayyyyyyy more interesting. I’m not kidding. At least I understand them a little better.
That day I decided to tempt fate and the Universe’s equilibrium and take away the pacifier for naptime. Mountain Child put up such a fight and screamed so long and loud that I decided that I had two options: 1) I would either have to search for a service to come in and break her of her pacifier addiction or 2) just give up the whole idea altogether. I actually decided on secret option #3 which was just cutting the top off of it, which was the most popular bit of advice that I got. Mountain Child gave it a funny look when I handed her the “new” pacifier and proceeded to suck on it as if it were a Popsicle. So much for that little tip that practically a hundred people gave me.
But the next morning, Mountain Child walked into her room, picked up the pacifier and said, “PACI BROKEN. I THROW AWAY.”
Me: “Are you sure that you want to throw it away? You can’t get it back. It will be bye-bye pacifier…”
Mountain Child: “I THROW AWAY.”
She then marched downstairs into the kitchen and threw it in the trash can. She said, “BYE-BYE PACI!!!!” And that was it. She slept that night as if nothing happened.
It was dreamfully easy. Which just further proves my formula for parenting:
The more you stress over it, the more likely it will work out fine despite your mental gymnastics. However, if you don’t worry about it, something really terrible/embarrassing/pain in the ass will happen.
If could have saved a lot of money in child rearing books if I would have gotten that from the beginning. In the end, it has not as much to do with all of my efforts.
So our next hurdle will be the potty. I have decided to continue obsessing over it but I will let her decide when she is ready. However, I must freak out over it because the energy expended over this is contingent with the success that we have in the end even though it isn’t my worrying that does it—that is just the universe laughing at me and confounding my every attempt at logic in parenting.
Perhaps I should make up a mathematical formula. But I am too inept in math to come up with one. Plus math means that there is logical outcome to your problem. Parenting is not logical at all. It is precisely the opposite, more like tromping around in SeussLand, experimenting with magical spells.
However, if any of my mathematically savvy friends want to take a go at making this into a formula, have at it. We can write a book and split the profit.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Sugar and Spice and Really Not That Nice
Recently I have had an important realization about Mountain Child. She just isn’t very nice. I have suspected this for a while. I think that I got tipped off when a typical social scenario goes like this:
Innocent Victim: My what a cute little girl you are!
Mountain Child: NOOOOOO!!!!
Innocent Victim: Oh, what is on your shirt? Is that a flower? Look at your little bow and your curls!
Mountain Child: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Mountain Mamma: I am really sorry. I am trying to teach her to be nice. It's just not working at the moment.
Innocent Victim: Oh, it's okay (looking rather offended), she's just two.
Mountain Child: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! GO AWAYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!
This has happened to everyone, from strangers to my husband's boss at the company picnic to family members. People have told me that she will grow out of it once she gets a little older. People just think that she is just so cute that she couldn’t possibly be that mean. I guess it may be true, perhaps she will grow out of it, but our most recent experience just proves that, for the moment, Mountain Child has one long, black mean streak in her and there is nothing Sugar and Spice about this girl at all.
I was visiting Florida for about the hundredth time since we have moved to West Virginia. We were meeting up at the St. John’s Town Center with a dear friend of mine and her son that is almost exactly Mountain Child’s age. They always played so well together from the time they were able to walk, and I just adore his mom. We have been friends for over ten years.
The day promised to be just perfect. The weather wasn’t too hot, it wasn’t raining, and there was a children’s concert at the Town Center. Plus I just love that place. It is my version of commerce heaven. It has everything, and I mean EVERYTHING in one place: high end designers, great restaurants, a Target, and resort-like grounds complete with a koi fish and turtle pond right in the middle of everything. The concert was right by the pond area which I thought would be nice since Mountain Child loved the fish and turtles, although the utter lack of safety railing around the area always freaked me out. I guess aesthetics wins over safety.
Anyhow, we all meet and settle into our spots for the children’s concert. My friend is very pregnant, and we luckily scored a place to sit. I was wearing a very cute dress and shoes outfit and was quite proud of my self of how cute yet casual I was looking rather than my usual yoga pant getup that I have been wearing these days. The kids were watching the concert and playing with each other by one the smaller ponds. It was almost relaxing.
In hindsight, I realize now that that moment that I relax with Mountain Child is the precise moment when catastrophe will backhand me in a really, really ugly way.
So we are chatting and decide to get up and let the kids get a better look at the turtles and then get some lunch. Friend of Mountain Child is a sweet, energetic little boy, and, in typical little boy fashion, found it amusing to run up to Mountain Child and stand right on top of wherever she was standing. Mountain Child did not find it fun at all. She likes a very large circumference of space for herself, preferably an entire zip code. Every once in a while, Mountain Child would scream, NOOOOOOOO! And then my friend would say, “Give her some space!” Friend of Mountain Child would then run off smiling, do a lap around the little pond and do it again. I figured that this was a good exercise for Mountain Child to build a little character and tolerance.
This is part that gets a little fuzzy. We are standing by the larger pond and talking. We are watching the kids but we honestly aren’t completely in tune with what they were doing. And this is the moment where Friend of Mountain Child falls into the koi and turtle pond.
The water wasn’t deep but the edges around the pond were quite tall, and there really wasn’t any way for anyone to just reach over and help him out. Couple this with the fact that my friend is eight months pregnant or so, and guess who ends up getting him out—ME. In my cute dress and shoes. With the turtles and fish and all the pond scum and poop that was in there. But at that moment I supposed I went into Lifeguard Mode, remembering some of my long-gone YMCA lifeguarding days. I yelled, “I have him!” and jumped into that nasty pond and fished Friend of Mountain Child out of the pond. As all of the St. John Town Center shoppers looked on, horrified and whispering.
He was crying, soaked from head to toe, and screaming, “SHE PUSH ME!!!!”
Oh, crap. Did he just say that my kid pushed him in?????
I look over to Mountain Child. She is standing with a surprised yet sheepish look on her face, the exact same look she gets when she gets into something she shouldn’t and ends up dropping or breaking something. After we calm down Friend of Mountain child, change his clothes (yes, my friend is way more prepared for disasters than I ever would have thought to be), and attempted to disinfect him of the pond bacteria, my daughter says, “HE ALL WET! HE CRY. HE SAD.” She seemed very amused by the whole display.
“Did you push him into the pond?”
Mountain Child gives me a blank stare.
“Did he fall in the pond or did you push him?”
“NOOOO…..”
But Friend of Mountain Child was already convinced as to what happened. As soon as he could wiggle free from his mother, he ran over to Mountain Child and pushed her. I am pretty sure that he was warming up for a good, old-fashioned beat down until his mom grabbed him and scolded him. She then apologizes to me, embarrassed that her son got so angry and violent about the whole thing.
But I am thinking that Mountain Child had it coming to her since she more than likely was the one to push him in. And I tell my friend so. Then she jokingly says, “Well, there were no witnesses and it probably wouldn’t hold up in a court of law anyway.”
Oh, that’s right. I forgot to mention that my friend AND her husband are both attorneys. Way to pick your victims, Mountain Child.
In the end, my friend wasn’t upset with Mountain Child but very frazzled, so we did what anyone would do in that situation. We went to Panera to get some lunch. As we were walking, me sloshing along with my half-soaked dress and shoes, Mountain Child calmly riding in her stroller, and Friend of Mountain Child keeping his distance from her with his bare feet since his shoes were soaked, I decided that she definitely pushed him in. The diabolically calm look on her face right now absolutely proves it.
Mountain Child is cute and sometimes sweet but be warned: watch your back around her and open water.
Innocent Victim: My what a cute little girl you are!
Mountain Child: NOOOOOO!!!!
Innocent Victim: Oh, what is on your shirt? Is that a flower? Look at your little bow and your curls!
Mountain Child: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Mountain Mamma: I am really sorry. I am trying to teach her to be nice. It's just not working at the moment.
Innocent Victim: Oh, it's okay (looking rather offended), she's just two.
Mountain Child: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! GO AWAYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!
This has happened to everyone, from strangers to my husband's boss at the company picnic to family members. People have told me that she will grow out of it once she gets a little older. People just think that she is just so cute that she couldn’t possibly be that mean. I guess it may be true, perhaps she will grow out of it, but our most recent experience just proves that, for the moment, Mountain Child has one long, black mean streak in her and there is nothing Sugar and Spice about this girl at all.
I was visiting Florida for about the hundredth time since we have moved to West Virginia. We were meeting up at the St. John’s Town Center with a dear friend of mine and her son that is almost exactly Mountain Child’s age. They always played so well together from the time they were able to walk, and I just adore his mom. We have been friends for over ten years.
The day promised to be just perfect. The weather wasn’t too hot, it wasn’t raining, and there was a children’s concert at the Town Center. Plus I just love that place. It is my version of commerce heaven. It has everything, and I mean EVERYTHING in one place: high end designers, great restaurants, a Target, and resort-like grounds complete with a koi fish and turtle pond right in the middle of everything. The concert was right by the pond area which I thought would be nice since Mountain Child loved the fish and turtles, although the utter lack of safety railing around the area always freaked me out. I guess aesthetics wins over safety.
Anyhow, we all meet and settle into our spots for the children’s concert. My friend is very pregnant, and we luckily scored a place to sit. I was wearing a very cute dress and shoes outfit and was quite proud of my self of how cute yet casual I was looking rather than my usual yoga pant getup that I have been wearing these days. The kids were watching the concert and playing with each other by one the smaller ponds. It was almost relaxing.
In hindsight, I realize now that that moment that I relax with Mountain Child is the precise moment when catastrophe will backhand me in a really, really ugly way.
So we are chatting and decide to get up and let the kids get a better look at the turtles and then get some lunch. Friend of Mountain Child is a sweet, energetic little boy, and, in typical little boy fashion, found it amusing to run up to Mountain Child and stand right on top of wherever she was standing. Mountain Child did not find it fun at all. She likes a very large circumference of space for herself, preferably an entire zip code. Every once in a while, Mountain Child would scream, NOOOOOOOO! And then my friend would say, “Give her some space!” Friend of Mountain Child would then run off smiling, do a lap around the little pond and do it again. I figured that this was a good exercise for Mountain Child to build a little character and tolerance.
This is part that gets a little fuzzy. We are standing by the larger pond and talking. We are watching the kids but we honestly aren’t completely in tune with what they were doing. And this is the moment where Friend of Mountain Child falls into the koi and turtle pond.
The water wasn’t deep but the edges around the pond were quite tall, and there really wasn’t any way for anyone to just reach over and help him out. Couple this with the fact that my friend is eight months pregnant or so, and guess who ends up getting him out—ME. In my cute dress and shoes. With the turtles and fish and all the pond scum and poop that was in there. But at that moment I supposed I went into Lifeguard Mode, remembering some of my long-gone YMCA lifeguarding days. I yelled, “I have him!” and jumped into that nasty pond and fished Friend of Mountain Child out of the pond. As all of the St. John Town Center shoppers looked on, horrified and whispering.
He was crying, soaked from head to toe, and screaming, “SHE PUSH ME!!!!”
Oh, crap. Did he just say that my kid pushed him in?????
I look over to Mountain Child. She is standing with a surprised yet sheepish look on her face, the exact same look she gets when she gets into something she shouldn’t and ends up dropping or breaking something. After we calm down Friend of Mountain child, change his clothes (yes, my friend is way more prepared for disasters than I ever would have thought to be), and attempted to disinfect him of the pond bacteria, my daughter says, “HE ALL WET! HE CRY. HE SAD.” She seemed very amused by the whole display.
“Did you push him into the pond?”
Mountain Child gives me a blank stare.
“Did he fall in the pond or did you push him?”
“NOOOO…..”
But Friend of Mountain Child was already convinced as to what happened. As soon as he could wiggle free from his mother, he ran over to Mountain Child and pushed her. I am pretty sure that he was warming up for a good, old-fashioned beat down until his mom grabbed him and scolded him. She then apologizes to me, embarrassed that her son got so angry and violent about the whole thing.
But I am thinking that Mountain Child had it coming to her since she more than likely was the one to push him in. And I tell my friend so. Then she jokingly says, “Well, there were no witnesses and it probably wouldn’t hold up in a court of law anyway.”
Oh, that’s right. I forgot to mention that my friend AND her husband are both attorneys. Way to pick your victims, Mountain Child.
In the end, my friend wasn’t upset with Mountain Child but very frazzled, so we did what anyone would do in that situation. We went to Panera to get some lunch. As we were walking, me sloshing along with my half-soaked dress and shoes, Mountain Child calmly riding in her stroller, and Friend of Mountain Child keeping his distance from her with his bare feet since his shoes were soaked, I decided that she definitely pushed him in. The diabolically calm look on her face right now absolutely proves it.
Mountain Child is cute and sometimes sweet but be warned: watch your back around her and open water.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
A Letter to the Man with the Yellow Hat
Dear Mr. Man with the Yellow Hat,
My family is a huge fan of the Curious George stories. In fact, my daughter just can’t get enough of them. I think that I have personally read the story, George Rides a Bike, at least a thousand times. And there really is no end in sight of my child’s obsession with George.
Which brings me to the reason that I am writing you this letter. After reading all of the George stories many, many times, I have some pressing unresolved questions that I must ask you. If you could just give me a bit of insight on my queries, I would be grateful.
1. I realize that everyone has differing parenting styles, and that you really aren’t technically a parent since George is a monkey, but have you ever considered a caregiver for George while you are away? You seem to leave George alone quite a bit, and, as you well know, George tends to roam away from home every time. Please understand that all of his adventures when he wanders off are just delightful, but I do worry for poor George’s safety. Take the time that he flew that kite and the wind carried him off into the air. I imagine that securing a helicopter to rescue George was quite difficult and costly, not to mention incredibly risky.
2. Do you have any other outfits to wear besides that ghastly yellow one? Please don’t take this the wrong way, dear Mr. Man with the Yellow Hat. The Hat is a fashion icon. But the rest of the getup really needs to go. A nice navy suit or even just some jeans would not take away from the fabulousness of that Yellow Hat.
3. Are you ever going to find someone to be with instead of staying single? I know, I am prodding into your personal life now. But you seem like an interesting, kind person that could use some company and possibly some help with little George. My daughter has asked me before, where is George’s mommy? And I really don’t know what to tell her. Which brings me to question number 4.
4. Please forgive me that I am asking some pervasive questions. But I just have to ask: do you ever wonder if you bring George here from Africa was kidnapping? Or that you broke some sort of law bringing foreign livestock into our country? Don’t get me wrong: I think George is just darling and I would have been tempted to keep him, too. But honestly, Mr. Man with the Yellow Hat, you do realize that you took him from his mommy, right? And then you made him star in a movie? Did you know that child stars usually turn out to be a total mess? But perhaps I am getting too harsh with you. Like I said, we really do like you and your stories.
5. Did it disturb you like it did me that George went to prison for calling the fire department? Did you try to get an attorney and fight it? Also, when George escaped from prison, did you find it even more disturbing that he got the bunch of balloons that carried him away from a man selling the balloons right outside the prison? Someone should really speak to him about that—it is an awful location for balloon selling.
6. Additionally, in your first story with George, you allowed him to smoke a pipe after he came from Africa. I think you should be ashamed for such an irresponsible act. But then again, I don’t want to be too hard on you. I am sure that coming home with a curious monkey is a really confusing time in anyone’s life.
7. And finally, Mr. Man with the Yellow Hat, I have one more question. Can you give me some advice about how to potty train? I am in the middle of potty training right now, and it is really becoming difficult. I know that monkeys are notorious for going all over the place and even throwing their, ahem, stuff at others. What was your secret? It seems George was trained like a champ.
Thank you very much for taking the time to consider my questions. I am eager to hear your answers. It will greatly enhance our story times with your stories.
Respectfully,
The Mountain Mamma
My family is a huge fan of the Curious George stories. In fact, my daughter just can’t get enough of them. I think that I have personally read the story, George Rides a Bike, at least a thousand times. And there really is no end in sight of my child’s obsession with George.
Which brings me to the reason that I am writing you this letter. After reading all of the George stories many, many times, I have some pressing unresolved questions that I must ask you. If you could just give me a bit of insight on my queries, I would be grateful.
1. I realize that everyone has differing parenting styles, and that you really aren’t technically a parent since George is a monkey, but have you ever considered a caregiver for George while you are away? You seem to leave George alone quite a bit, and, as you well know, George tends to roam away from home every time. Please understand that all of his adventures when he wanders off are just delightful, but I do worry for poor George’s safety. Take the time that he flew that kite and the wind carried him off into the air. I imagine that securing a helicopter to rescue George was quite difficult and costly, not to mention incredibly risky.
2. Do you have any other outfits to wear besides that ghastly yellow one? Please don’t take this the wrong way, dear Mr. Man with the Yellow Hat. The Hat is a fashion icon. But the rest of the getup really needs to go. A nice navy suit or even just some jeans would not take away from the fabulousness of that Yellow Hat.
3. Are you ever going to find someone to be with instead of staying single? I know, I am prodding into your personal life now. But you seem like an interesting, kind person that could use some company and possibly some help with little George. My daughter has asked me before, where is George’s mommy? And I really don’t know what to tell her. Which brings me to question number 4.
4. Please forgive me that I am asking some pervasive questions. But I just have to ask: do you ever wonder if you bring George here from Africa was kidnapping? Or that you broke some sort of law bringing foreign livestock into our country? Don’t get me wrong: I think George is just darling and I would have been tempted to keep him, too. But honestly, Mr. Man with the Yellow Hat, you do realize that you took him from his mommy, right? And then you made him star in a movie? Did you know that child stars usually turn out to be a total mess? But perhaps I am getting too harsh with you. Like I said, we really do like you and your stories.
5. Did it disturb you like it did me that George went to prison for calling the fire department? Did you try to get an attorney and fight it? Also, when George escaped from prison, did you find it even more disturbing that he got the bunch of balloons that carried him away from a man selling the balloons right outside the prison? Someone should really speak to him about that—it is an awful location for balloon selling.
6. Additionally, in your first story with George, you allowed him to smoke a pipe after he came from Africa. I think you should be ashamed for such an irresponsible act. But then again, I don’t want to be too hard on you. I am sure that coming home with a curious monkey is a really confusing time in anyone’s life.
7. And finally, Mr. Man with the Yellow Hat, I have one more question. Can you give me some advice about how to potty train? I am in the middle of potty training right now, and it is really becoming difficult. I know that monkeys are notorious for going all over the place and even throwing their, ahem, stuff at others. What was your secret? It seems George was trained like a champ.
Thank you very much for taking the time to consider my questions. I am eager to hear your answers. It will greatly enhance our story times with your stories.
Respectfully,
The Mountain Mamma
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Yes, There Is Luxury in Sickness
In motherhood, there are so many little pleasures that you don't appreciate until they are gone. Being able recuperate in bed from a sickness is one of them.
I have to sleep off my illnesses. For me, it is the only way to really get over stuff. Oh, and a good cup of tea. So when I got my yearly bout of bronchitis, all I wanted was some green tea in my favorite duck mug and sleep for at least a weekend. Sidenote: since when did illnesses become a yearly event to expect? There's Christmas, birthdays, Easter, vacations, and now...bronchitis? That tops the list of lame life experiences.
Anyhow, I am feeling horrible. I am coughing up unimaginably gross things, my head feels like a jackhammer is inside, and I cough non-stop. I know I need to go to the doctor to get drugs--and lots of them--but all I really want to do right now is to sleep. Sweet, sweet, dreamless sleep. I look horrible, too. My fever has alternated me from uncontrollably sweating to shivering, and I haven't changed out of my pajamas for a couple of days. My hair? Grotesque. And it is one of the rare times in my life where my vanity doesn't win out. I just don't care.
My husband, alarmed at how disgusting I was in every way, coaxed me into a bath and gave me some tea and got my bed ready. He promised to watch Mountain Child all day so I could sleep. My Mountain Man can really be sweet sometimes. I will have to remember that next time I get irritated with him. I was beyond happy: now my current fantasy can come true. I take a shot of NyQuil and not have do a thing else. This was a fantasy, mind you. And a fantasy it stayed:
8:30 a.m.: "Where are the diapers? I think that we're out!" I roll out of bed, glad that I am not yet asleep and get my husband set up with where the diaper supply is. I make a mental note that he needs to do more of these activities because it is sad that he doesn't even know where diapers are. I also give him a rundown of what the day's schedule should be and give him a chance for more questions. I am getttinnnnngggg...slllleeeeeepyyyyyy...
9:00 a.m.: I am asleep. For about thirty seconds. I hear Mountain Child screaming downstairs. I pull the covers over my head and decide that earplugs must be purchased at first available moment.
9:30 a.m.: Somehow, I manage to doze off even though Mountain Child is still throwing a fit. I now hear Mountain Man yelling at Mountain Child to quit doing something. I hate everyone.
9:45 a.m.: Things have quietened down and I sleep. Thank you, Jesus.
10:30 a.m.: They NyQuil is in full effect and I groggily notice that my door keeps on opening and closing. I don't care.
11:00 a.m.: I feel as if something is laying on my legs. I don't open my eyes.
11:05 a.m.: I can sense someone staring at me. I peel open one eye and see a pair of bright blue eyes smiling about a centimeter from my face. "HI!!! HIGH FIVE!!!" I then open both eyes and see that Mountain Child has decided to play the game, Empty My Whole Room Onto Mommy's Bed. There are toys, books, shoes, diapers, musical instruments, and God knows what else all over my bed. I heave myself out of bed, spilling half of the stuff on the floor. I stumble out the door and see Mountain Man downstairs, eating a sandwich and reading a book, as content as can be.
I walk down. Mountain Man puts down his book. "Hey. Did you have a nice nap? Are you hungry?" For a breif moment I had this vision of smashing his plate against his head and taking off to the nearest motel to sleep. Instead, I got some water, went back upstairs, and told my husband to take Mountain Child to the park...forever.
But now I can't sleep because the room is a mess. So I get up and put everything back in Mountain Child's room. I realize as I started to straighten the bookcases that being sick--or rather, being in bed sick--just isn't a luxury that I have anymore.
Life Observation: When men get sick, we make the house as quiet as a tomb. We clean up and fix them chicken soup with tea. We fluff their pillows. And it takes them forever to really get better and quit their whining. When we get sick, house gets messier, children are screaming, and there is always someone asking where the--fill in the blank--is. And we get better within hours because it is just not worth wallowing in our sickness because we will pay for it later.
Keep well, mommies.
I have to sleep off my illnesses. For me, it is the only way to really get over stuff. Oh, and a good cup of tea. So when I got my yearly bout of bronchitis, all I wanted was some green tea in my favorite duck mug and sleep for at least a weekend. Sidenote: since when did illnesses become a yearly event to expect? There's Christmas, birthdays, Easter, vacations, and now...bronchitis? That tops the list of lame life experiences.
Anyhow, I am feeling horrible. I am coughing up unimaginably gross things, my head feels like a jackhammer is inside, and I cough non-stop. I know I need to go to the doctor to get drugs--and lots of them--but all I really want to do right now is to sleep. Sweet, sweet, dreamless sleep. I look horrible, too. My fever has alternated me from uncontrollably sweating to shivering, and I haven't changed out of my pajamas for a couple of days. My hair? Grotesque. And it is one of the rare times in my life where my vanity doesn't win out. I just don't care.
My husband, alarmed at how disgusting I was in every way, coaxed me into a bath and gave me some tea and got my bed ready. He promised to watch Mountain Child all day so I could sleep. My Mountain Man can really be sweet sometimes. I will have to remember that next time I get irritated with him. I was beyond happy: now my current fantasy can come true. I take a shot of NyQuil and not have do a thing else. This was a fantasy, mind you. And a fantasy it stayed:
8:30 a.m.: "Where are the diapers? I think that we're out!" I roll out of bed, glad that I am not yet asleep and get my husband set up with where the diaper supply is. I make a mental note that he needs to do more of these activities because it is sad that he doesn't even know where diapers are. I also give him a rundown of what the day's schedule should be and give him a chance for more questions. I am getttinnnnngggg...slllleeeeeepyyyyyy...
9:00 a.m.: I am asleep. For about thirty seconds. I hear Mountain Child screaming downstairs. I pull the covers over my head and decide that earplugs must be purchased at first available moment.
9:30 a.m.: Somehow, I manage to doze off even though Mountain Child is still throwing a fit. I now hear Mountain Man yelling at Mountain Child to quit doing something. I hate everyone.
9:45 a.m.: Things have quietened down and I sleep. Thank you, Jesus.
10:30 a.m.: They NyQuil is in full effect and I groggily notice that my door keeps on opening and closing. I don't care.
11:00 a.m.: I feel as if something is laying on my legs. I don't open my eyes.
11:05 a.m.: I can sense someone staring at me. I peel open one eye and see a pair of bright blue eyes smiling about a centimeter from my face. "HI!!! HIGH FIVE!!!" I then open both eyes and see that Mountain Child has decided to play the game, Empty My Whole Room Onto Mommy's Bed. There are toys, books, shoes, diapers, musical instruments, and God knows what else all over my bed. I heave myself out of bed, spilling half of the stuff on the floor. I stumble out the door and see Mountain Man downstairs, eating a sandwich and reading a book, as content as can be.
I walk down. Mountain Man puts down his book. "Hey. Did you have a nice nap? Are you hungry?" For a breif moment I had this vision of smashing his plate against his head and taking off to the nearest motel to sleep. Instead, I got some water, went back upstairs, and told my husband to take Mountain Child to the park...forever.
But now I can't sleep because the room is a mess. So I get up and put everything back in Mountain Child's room. I realize as I started to straighten the bookcases that being sick--or rather, being in bed sick--just isn't a luxury that I have anymore.
Life Observation: When men get sick, we make the house as quiet as a tomb. We clean up and fix them chicken soup with tea. We fluff their pillows. And it takes them forever to really get better and quit their whining. When we get sick, house gets messier, children are screaming, and there is always someone asking where the--fill in the blank--is. And we get better within hours because it is just not worth wallowing in our sickness because we will pay for it later.
Keep well, mommies.
Hurricanes and Weddings Aren't So Different
When my husband and I happily accepted to be in Stephanie and Rodney’s wedding, we forgot about one little twenty-seven pound detail: Mountain Child. Of course she would come. But what in the world were we supposed to do with her during one of the most meaningful moments of my sister-in-law’s life? Nearly every single person that we knew that could take care of her during the wedding was attending it. So we did what any organized, sane parent would do: we totally winged it.
Winging it is not my nature. I am the absolute opposite of “winging it”—I usually like to…well, walk it out with my feet planted firmly on the ground, preferably with a GPS system in hand. Life, of course, in its nature is as chaotic as a hurricane. So I usually get a little twitchy around the eyes when that happens. Weddings are the epitome of this universal rule of life. And if weddings are stress/chaos level equivalent of a hurricane, then being in a wedding with no one to watch your two-year old in the ceremony is probably a lot like getting caught in that hurricane in a little rowboat. When it was looking like that was our reality, I began to secretly wonder if Stephanie would notice if I just sat in the audience during the wedding and give this whole notion of mommy and daddy being in a wedding.
But I pressed on. I had loosely arranged for a couple of very kind and unsuspecting family members to “keep an eye” on Mountain Child, knowing full well that a toddler explosion could occur at any minute. A serious occasion where everyone must be quiet right before dinnertime? It takes a special kind of insane to attempt something like that.
I decided to just have a little talk with Mountain Child about weddings a few days beforehand. “Stephie and Rodney are getting married! And we are going to have a party for them.”
“OHHHH MARRY! CAKE! BALLOONS!” Mountain Child is getting quite excited about this now.
“Yes. There will be cake. But no balloons. But there will be pretty flowers and bubbles.”
“BUBBLES?!?!” Now Mountain Child is beside herself with excitement. “STEFFY AND RAHREE GETTING MARRY!!” She claps her hands and decides to sing a song for the occasion.
A while later, I bring up the wedding again. “Listen—during the wedding, there is a part where you have to stay in your seat and be quiet. If you do a good job of doing that, you’ll get cake and bubbles.”
Mountain Child is now a little suspicious. “STAY IN SEAT?”
“Yes, you have to stay in your seat and be really really quiet. Like a butterfly.”
“OHHHHH! BUTTERFLIES!! MARRY BUTTERFLIES??”
“No, there won’t be butterflies at the wedding. Just cake and bubbles and pretty flowers. But you have to be good and quiet so you can get cake and bubbles.”
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!! WANT CAKE!!!!! LOOONS!!! HAPPY TO YOU, HAPPY TO YOU!” Mountain Child proceeds to march around the house yelling this at the top of her lungs for the next half hour.
Oh, never mind. What happens will happen. Thank goodness we can practice at this during the wedding rehearsal.
We arrive at the wedding rehearsal and I try to give Mountain Child another pep talk. By this time, she is hungry and excited and about a volatile as a tornado. To restrain her means that it will be nuclear meltdown and I would miss the rehearsal. I decide to leave her alone and pray that she doesn’t tear down the place. Surprisingly, her blood sugar never dipped to cause any meltdowns and she was extremely happy the whole time. The only problem was that she was under the impression that the wedding was somehow her stage to debut herself.
My husband and I made the decision a while ago that Mountain Child wouldn’t be in the wedding because she was at an age that was too unpredictable for being a flower girl. But apparently we should have conferred this decision with Mountain Child. She marched right down the aisle after the real flower girls and took her place right up front. When the pastor talked, she talked louder. And to top it off, she went down the row of everyone in the wedding and ran through their legs. Everyone thought it was just adorable…except for me.
I tried my best to get her sit down. But she was having none of that. Plus by the end of the rehearsal, she was REALLY hungry which meant that she REALLY grumpy. To make her do anything was going to be showdown. Trust me; I am the type that will woman up to any showdown that my kid will give me. But the end result isn’t pretty and weddings are supposed to pretty, right? Oh, great, tomorrow is going to be an absolute fiasco.
The next day was the wedding. Stephanie looks absolutely gorgeous. Mountain Child looks just delectable in her flowered poufy dress and huge flower barrette in her hair. In fact, everything was just lovely, even despite the fact that there was one of the worst storms of the summer approaching the country club and we had to move everything inside. I am so terrified that my kid is going to be “that kid” that ruins the most significant moment of the whole evening that my eye uncontrollably twitches and I barely care about the huge storm and all of the stress associated with that. I am pretty sure that in most of the wedding photos I look like I am winking at the camera, my eye was twitching so badly.
My husband’s aunt takes Mountain Child to go sit down with her a bit before the wedding begins. We are fluffing Stephanie’s dress and primping in the mirror. And my head is pounding and my eye muscles are doing the meringue. It is completely out of my hands now. Mountain Child is just…out there, a hurricane ready to approach shore at any time. I begin to regret that I didn’t take advantage of the bar that was just outside of the dressing room at the country club.
When the big moment comes, I do the bridesmaid thing, smile pretty and walk down the aisle. I see Mountain Child sitting so still and quiet in her great aunt’s lap that I wonder if she had been drugged. When Mountain Child sees me, she smiles a huge grin and says, “HI MOMMY!” I smile back and put my finger to my lips. She settles back and remains quiet for the rest of the ceremony.
I can’t believe it. Yet I can. The amount of stress energy that I put into this whole event and it all turns out fine. It just figures that sometimes you prepare yourself for the hurricane and it somehow just dissipates into thin air.
And yes, Mountain Child did get her cake and bubbles.
Winging it is not my nature. I am the absolute opposite of “winging it”—I usually like to…well, walk it out with my feet planted firmly on the ground, preferably with a GPS system in hand. Life, of course, in its nature is as chaotic as a hurricane. So I usually get a little twitchy around the eyes when that happens. Weddings are the epitome of this universal rule of life. And if weddings are stress/chaos level equivalent of a hurricane, then being in a wedding with no one to watch your two-year old in the ceremony is probably a lot like getting caught in that hurricane in a little rowboat. When it was looking like that was our reality, I began to secretly wonder if Stephanie would notice if I just sat in the audience during the wedding and give this whole notion of mommy and daddy being in a wedding.
But I pressed on. I had loosely arranged for a couple of very kind and unsuspecting family members to “keep an eye” on Mountain Child, knowing full well that a toddler explosion could occur at any minute. A serious occasion where everyone must be quiet right before dinnertime? It takes a special kind of insane to attempt something like that.
I decided to just have a little talk with Mountain Child about weddings a few days beforehand. “Stephie and Rodney are getting married! And we are going to have a party for them.”
“OHHHH MARRY! CAKE! BALLOONS!” Mountain Child is getting quite excited about this now.
“Yes. There will be cake. But no balloons. But there will be pretty flowers and bubbles.”
“BUBBLES?!?!” Now Mountain Child is beside herself with excitement. “STEFFY AND RAHREE GETTING MARRY!!” She claps her hands and decides to sing a song for the occasion.
A while later, I bring up the wedding again. “Listen—during the wedding, there is a part where you have to stay in your seat and be quiet. If you do a good job of doing that, you’ll get cake and bubbles.”
Mountain Child is now a little suspicious. “STAY IN SEAT?”
“Yes, you have to stay in your seat and be really really quiet. Like a butterfly.”
“OHHHHH! BUTTERFLIES!! MARRY BUTTERFLIES??”
“No, there won’t be butterflies at the wedding. Just cake and bubbles and pretty flowers. But you have to be good and quiet so you can get cake and bubbles.”
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!! WANT CAKE!!!!! LOOONS!!! HAPPY TO YOU, HAPPY TO YOU!” Mountain Child proceeds to march around the house yelling this at the top of her lungs for the next half hour.
Oh, never mind. What happens will happen. Thank goodness we can practice at this during the wedding rehearsal.
We arrive at the wedding rehearsal and I try to give Mountain Child another pep talk. By this time, she is hungry and excited and about a volatile as a tornado. To restrain her means that it will be nuclear meltdown and I would miss the rehearsal. I decide to leave her alone and pray that she doesn’t tear down the place. Surprisingly, her blood sugar never dipped to cause any meltdowns and she was extremely happy the whole time. The only problem was that she was under the impression that the wedding was somehow her stage to debut herself.
My husband and I made the decision a while ago that Mountain Child wouldn’t be in the wedding because she was at an age that was too unpredictable for being a flower girl. But apparently we should have conferred this decision with Mountain Child. She marched right down the aisle after the real flower girls and took her place right up front. When the pastor talked, she talked louder. And to top it off, she went down the row of everyone in the wedding and ran through their legs. Everyone thought it was just adorable…except for me.
I tried my best to get her sit down. But she was having none of that. Plus by the end of the rehearsal, she was REALLY hungry which meant that she REALLY grumpy. To make her do anything was going to be showdown. Trust me; I am the type that will woman up to any showdown that my kid will give me. But the end result isn’t pretty and weddings are supposed to pretty, right? Oh, great, tomorrow is going to be an absolute fiasco.
The next day was the wedding. Stephanie looks absolutely gorgeous. Mountain Child looks just delectable in her flowered poufy dress and huge flower barrette in her hair. In fact, everything was just lovely, even despite the fact that there was one of the worst storms of the summer approaching the country club and we had to move everything inside. I am so terrified that my kid is going to be “that kid” that ruins the most significant moment of the whole evening that my eye uncontrollably twitches and I barely care about the huge storm and all of the stress associated with that. I am pretty sure that in most of the wedding photos I look like I am winking at the camera, my eye was twitching so badly.
My husband’s aunt takes Mountain Child to go sit down with her a bit before the wedding begins. We are fluffing Stephanie’s dress and primping in the mirror. And my head is pounding and my eye muscles are doing the meringue. It is completely out of my hands now. Mountain Child is just…out there, a hurricane ready to approach shore at any time. I begin to regret that I didn’t take advantage of the bar that was just outside of the dressing room at the country club.
When the big moment comes, I do the bridesmaid thing, smile pretty and walk down the aisle. I see Mountain Child sitting so still and quiet in her great aunt’s lap that I wonder if she had been drugged. When Mountain Child sees me, she smiles a huge grin and says, “HI MOMMY!” I smile back and put my finger to my lips. She settles back and remains quiet for the rest of the ceremony.
I can’t believe it. Yet I can. The amount of stress energy that I put into this whole event and it all turns out fine. It just figures that sometimes you prepare yourself for the hurricane and it somehow just dissipates into thin air.
And yes, Mountain Child did get her cake and bubbles.
Princess Tea Parties
There are certain milestones in a child's life that one should celebrate: first steps, first pee pee in the potty, first lost tooth...first trip to juvi...no, seriously--I am all about making a big deal about major events. Apparently, in the area that I live, the Annual Princess Tea Party ranks right up there with the rest of them.
Call it boredom, curiosity, a serious lapse in judgement, whatever, but Mountain Man and Mountain Mamma decided to dress up Mountain Child like a little princess and experience the Princess Tea Party.
But let me back up a moment. I am not the type to get excited over such events. In fact, I am the one that makes fun of them. I don't want to say that I am a feminist, because there is too much about me that is just not--but something inside of me feels very wrong to go around calling little girls princesses. I would rather call them presidents or doctors or circus performers. Perhaps it is because to me a princess is just someone who gets born into ridiculous amount of luxury and privilege. And I want my daughter to go for what she wants without it getting handed to her. But wait--I really am letting all of that women's studies 101 crap get me thinking too deeply--princesses are fun for little girls, bottom line. So I suppose this was my line of thinking when I went.
My attitude was really good at the beginning. Like I said, I even dressed Mountain Child in her filliest little dress and sparkly shoes. She really did look darling. We arrived and went ahead and got into line for the big Picture with Cinderella in Her Carriage. I couldn't believe the length of the line. It was about as long as it would be to get on Space Mountain at Disney World. There were people everywhere. And not one little boy was to be found anywhere. The thing that I noticed right away was how UNDERDRESSED Mountain Child was. The other little girls had the most elaborate princess dresses that I have ever seen. There were even girls with HAIR PIECES in their hair. Other girls had on makeup, and I swear that I saw at least two moms in princess costumes of their own. Seriously? I had just entered a frilly, pink and really creepy Princess Twilight Zone.
But dressing up is fun. So why not? The kids love it, right? I decided to hold off on the rolling of the eyes and remember that I am not here to score cool points (because I have lost all of mine I accumlated over a lifetime in this one little outing anyway), I am here so Mountain Child can have a fun time. And she was having a reasonably fun time until she saw the Frog Prince. The Frog Prince was this huge green frog creature in a cape. He was Cinderella's footman. And Mountain Child was positively terrified of him.
After the Frog Prince sighting, it was all downhill from there. We tried to get her to take a picture with Cinderella or some of the other Disney Princesses, but she just gave them all a dirty look and even tried to swat poor Sleeping Beauty. And to top it all off, that stupid Frog Prince was everywhere we were. It was like he was trying to put my kid in therapy. We gave up and headed home.
Mountain Child did, however, acquire a magic wand while we were there. She thought it made a great weapon/fly swatter/hair brush. It kept her busy long after all of the glued-on glitter wore off. And looking back on the outing, it makes me proud of my kid. She isn't obsessed with princeses. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Call it boredom, curiosity, a serious lapse in judgement, whatever, but Mountain Man and Mountain Mamma decided to dress up Mountain Child like a little princess and experience the Princess Tea Party.
But let me back up a moment. I am not the type to get excited over such events. In fact, I am the one that makes fun of them. I don't want to say that I am a feminist, because there is too much about me that is just not--but something inside of me feels very wrong to go around calling little girls princesses. I would rather call them presidents or doctors or circus performers. Perhaps it is because to me a princess is just someone who gets born into ridiculous amount of luxury and privilege. And I want my daughter to go for what she wants without it getting handed to her. But wait--I really am letting all of that women's studies 101 crap get me thinking too deeply--princesses are fun for little girls, bottom line. So I suppose this was my line of thinking when I went.
My attitude was really good at the beginning. Like I said, I even dressed Mountain Child in her filliest little dress and sparkly shoes. She really did look darling. We arrived and went ahead and got into line for the big Picture with Cinderella in Her Carriage. I couldn't believe the length of the line. It was about as long as it would be to get on Space Mountain at Disney World. There were people everywhere. And not one little boy was to be found anywhere. The thing that I noticed right away was how UNDERDRESSED Mountain Child was. The other little girls had the most elaborate princess dresses that I have ever seen. There were even girls with HAIR PIECES in their hair. Other girls had on makeup, and I swear that I saw at least two moms in princess costumes of their own. Seriously? I had just entered a frilly, pink and really creepy Princess Twilight Zone.
But dressing up is fun. So why not? The kids love it, right? I decided to hold off on the rolling of the eyes and remember that I am not here to score cool points (because I have lost all of mine I accumlated over a lifetime in this one little outing anyway), I am here so Mountain Child can have a fun time. And she was having a reasonably fun time until she saw the Frog Prince. The Frog Prince was this huge green frog creature in a cape. He was Cinderella's footman. And Mountain Child was positively terrified of him.
After the Frog Prince sighting, it was all downhill from there. We tried to get her to take a picture with Cinderella or some of the other Disney Princesses, but she just gave them all a dirty look and even tried to swat poor Sleeping Beauty. And to top it all off, that stupid Frog Prince was everywhere we were. It was like he was trying to put my kid in therapy. We gave up and headed home.
Mountain Child did, however, acquire a magic wand while we were there. She thought it made a great weapon/fly swatter/hair brush. It kept her busy long after all of the glued-on glitter wore off. And looking back on the outing, it makes me proud of my kid. She isn't obsessed with princeses. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Potty Animal
I didn't set out to be the mom that pushes her child unecessarily. But it still happened anyway. This is a particularly disappointing turn of events for myself because I actually prided myself for not being uptight about all of the milestones that kids go through in baby/preschool years. Of course, now looking at myself objectively, I realize that I was deluding myself. I am pretty much a perfectionist-type A-stressball all the way.
I decided that we would engage in the Great Potty Experiment because Mountain Child was showing all of the signs of potty readiness according to the wise authors of What to Expect In the Toddler Years. Aware of bodily functions? Check. Letting you know when she pees or poops? Check. Interested in what you do on potty? Unfortunately--check. I waited until she exhibited all the signs before I even considered the big Going Shopping for the Potty Trip.
The book suggested that I allow Mountain Child to go with me to pick out the potty. But the book apparently doesn't really have to parent a two-year old and experience all of the joys of a Target meltdown over something as stupid as walking past the popcorn or book aisle. No, I would go at it alone. I wandered up and down the potty aisle of Target (I never in a million years would have even considered that as a primary destination until Mountain Child came along) and marveled at all of the potty choices there were. There were choo-choo train potties, princess potties, potties that sing and light up when your...stuff goes in, and on and on and on. Frankly, I was mortified. This was capitalism at its lowest. I mean, since when did a kid's crap become such a industry? I just wanted the simplest, cheapest potty I could find. Making a Broadway production out of taking a poop just didn't seem right to me. I finally found one that wasn't 30+ dollars and didn't look like it belonged in a mental institution. It was a cute one in the shape of a froggy. There. A nice balance between potty-time fun and getting your business done.
The book also suggested that we read books and videos in order to get your child into the mode of pottying. So, for good measure, I throw in Elmo's Potty video and set home. Oh, yes, and the Pull-Ups. It was beginnig to get expensive.
Anyway, I brought home the potty and showed it to Mountain Child. I even sat on it myself to show her what it looked like. The book suggested that you also allow your child to decorate the potty with their own stickers and stuff--but I skipped that. I just think that we should have a more accurate picture of what a potty does, and the sticker thing just seemed a little unsanitary. Besides, my husband was at this point totally freaked out by the froggy potty as it was. He about had a heart attack when he saw it early in the morning. He claimed that it was giving him the evil eye.
The book pointed out that I needed to make sure that my child was comfortable with the potty and to make it a welcome member of our household. Mountain Child went a step further: she thought it made a fantastic toy and decided that was her new play spot. She brought her toys and books in there and sat on the thing for at least a half hour, singing and chattering while parked on the potty. On top of that, she loved the Elmo video and talked about it nonstop. Things were going so by the book, I decided that potty training would be easy.
I learned in my book that I needed to ease my child into the idea of potty training and explain to her what she should do. After a week or so of playing with the potty chair with her pants on, I then put the Pull-Ups on her and explained to her that she was going to be like Elmo and mommy and put her pee pee and poo poo in the potty. She would have to sit down with her pants and diaper off to do it. If she did it, I would give her jellybeans. As exciting thought as this was to her, she completely freaked out when I went to help her pull down her pants--which, by the way, she is pro at and usually does at the most inopportune time.
Okay, so the book didn't mention this. I decided to table the issue until bathtime when Mountain Child would be naked anyway. But when bathtime rolled around she gleefully took off her clothes, did a few naked laps around the bathroom, and proceded to scream when I tried to steer her onto the potty. She got so worked up that I had to give up the bathtime altogether and put her straight to bed.
So Mountain Child clearly is not ready to potty train. And I have decided that these books on pottying are definitely not to be counted on.
I decided that we would engage in the Great Potty Experiment because Mountain Child was showing all of the signs of potty readiness according to the wise authors of What to Expect In the Toddler Years. Aware of bodily functions? Check. Letting you know when she pees or poops? Check. Interested in what you do on potty? Unfortunately--check. I waited until she exhibited all the signs before I even considered the big Going Shopping for the Potty Trip.
The book suggested that I allow Mountain Child to go with me to pick out the potty. But the book apparently doesn't really have to parent a two-year old and experience all of the joys of a Target meltdown over something as stupid as walking past the popcorn or book aisle. No, I would go at it alone. I wandered up and down the potty aisle of Target (I never in a million years would have even considered that as a primary destination until Mountain Child came along) and marveled at all of the potty choices there were. There were choo-choo train potties, princess potties, potties that sing and light up when your...stuff goes in, and on and on and on. Frankly, I was mortified. This was capitalism at its lowest. I mean, since when did a kid's crap become such a industry? I just wanted the simplest, cheapest potty I could find. Making a Broadway production out of taking a poop just didn't seem right to me. I finally found one that wasn't 30+ dollars and didn't look like it belonged in a mental institution. It was a cute one in the shape of a froggy. There. A nice balance between potty-time fun and getting your business done.
The book also suggested that we read books and videos in order to get your child into the mode of pottying. So, for good measure, I throw in Elmo's Potty video and set home. Oh, yes, and the Pull-Ups. It was beginnig to get expensive.
Anyway, I brought home the potty and showed it to Mountain Child. I even sat on it myself to show her what it looked like. The book suggested that you also allow your child to decorate the potty with their own stickers and stuff--but I skipped that. I just think that we should have a more accurate picture of what a potty does, and the sticker thing just seemed a little unsanitary. Besides, my husband was at this point totally freaked out by the froggy potty as it was. He about had a heart attack when he saw it early in the morning. He claimed that it was giving him the evil eye.
The book pointed out that I needed to make sure that my child was comfortable with the potty and to make it a welcome member of our household. Mountain Child went a step further: she thought it made a fantastic toy and decided that was her new play spot. She brought her toys and books in there and sat on the thing for at least a half hour, singing and chattering while parked on the potty. On top of that, she loved the Elmo video and talked about it nonstop. Things were going so by the book, I decided that potty training would be easy.
I learned in my book that I needed to ease my child into the idea of potty training and explain to her what she should do. After a week or so of playing with the potty chair with her pants on, I then put the Pull-Ups on her and explained to her that she was going to be like Elmo and mommy and put her pee pee and poo poo in the potty. She would have to sit down with her pants and diaper off to do it. If she did it, I would give her jellybeans. As exciting thought as this was to her, she completely freaked out when I went to help her pull down her pants--which, by the way, she is pro at and usually does at the most inopportune time.
Okay, so the book didn't mention this. I decided to table the issue until bathtime when Mountain Child would be naked anyway. But when bathtime rolled around she gleefully took off her clothes, did a few naked laps around the bathroom, and proceded to scream when I tried to steer her onto the potty. She got so worked up that I had to give up the bathtime altogether and put her straight to bed.
So Mountain Child clearly is not ready to potty train. And I have decided that these books on pottying are definitely not to be counted on.
Balloon Battle
Eating out just isn't how it used to be.
I recently returned from a trip to TN to see my grandmom and aunt, and my mom also came in from FL so she could get in some quality time with the Mountain Child. My mom, aunt and I decided to go eat at a trendy Asian fusion-type place with Mountain Child. That was a fatal mistake.
It all started okay enough. I had settled Mountain Child to the table with some chopsticks and was letting her play with the tiny soy sauce dishes. It was nearly...pleasant. Let me stop here to say that anyone thinking that going to a restaurant with a kid is actually pleasant either has some cyborg for a child or they just don't have kids. It is work, exhausting work, from the time you get ready to go until you get home. There is nearly always crying and parents are almost always uptight and annoyed. But I still do it because 1) sometimes it is my only choice if I want to go out, and 2) it is a valuable learning tool for...well, I am sure that we all learn lessons along the way.
Anyway, back to my evening. Things were going tolerably until the PARTY came in. They all came prancing in with a huge bouquet of balloons and birthday cake. Mountain Child's entire face lit up. PARRY? PARRY!?! OOOOOHHHHHHH!!!! LOONS! LOONS!!!!!!
Oh, God, here we go.
I say to Mountain Child, "Yes, Balloons! Aren't they pretty? What color are they?"
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! LOONS!!!!!!!!" She is now reaching for them.
"No, sweetie, those aren't yours.""NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!" She proceeds to try and get out of the high chair. I make her sit down. She then screams and cries. I begin formulating an exit strategy and wonder if they would make an exception about taking alcohol to go. I mistakenly thought if I just took over to the balloons, she could see and touch them and then it would be over. Of course, that was a complete fantasy.
I then take her outside. She continues to scream and now she is pulling my hair. I try to act like a calm and collected mommy that is totally in control despite the fact that a screaming two year old is using my hair like Tarzan's Vine. I realize now that I will have to go home. Mountain Child is 25 pounds of rage and fury. I walk into the restaurant to tell my mom and aunt that I won't be enjoying my sushi with them and get my things. My mom and aunt start to pepper in some suggestions:
"What about coloring?"
"I don't think that she will do that right now. She wants to kill someone."
"How about some ice cream?""Maybe...but she needs dinner..."
"Here, let me hold her; she just needs her Nana."
Then my aunt takes matters into her own hands and marches over to the party, blissfully unaware of the personal hell that I am experiencing just a few feet away. She offers them ten dollars for one of the balloons. They, of course, look over to me with my screeching mess of a child, and, of course, refuse the money and just hand over a balloon.
Mountain Child immediately stops crying. She is now in heaven. "OOOOHHH! LOON! TANK YOOO!" I am not in heaven. I am mortified.
I know that I should expect brattiness and psychosis from two-year old. I am hardly surprised. But now I am faced with a difficult choice: a) I refuse to give in to Mountain Child's domestic terrorism and still take her home without that stupid balloon, or b) thank the people, let it go, and enjoy my sushi. I chose b. I imagine that a child development expert would have tsk tsked me, but by then I was just spent. And reallyreally hungry.
I recently returned from a trip to TN to see my grandmom and aunt, and my mom also came in from FL so she could get in some quality time with the Mountain Child. My mom, aunt and I decided to go eat at a trendy Asian fusion-type place with Mountain Child. That was a fatal mistake.
It all started okay enough. I had settled Mountain Child to the table with some chopsticks and was letting her play with the tiny soy sauce dishes. It was nearly...pleasant. Let me stop here to say that anyone thinking that going to a restaurant with a kid is actually pleasant either has some cyborg for a child or they just don't have kids. It is work, exhausting work, from the time you get ready to go until you get home. There is nearly always crying and parents are almost always uptight and annoyed. But I still do it because 1) sometimes it is my only choice if I want to go out, and 2) it is a valuable learning tool for...well, I am sure that we all learn lessons along the way.
Anyway, back to my evening. Things were going tolerably until the PARTY came in. They all came prancing in with a huge bouquet of balloons and birthday cake. Mountain Child's entire face lit up. PARRY? PARRY!?! OOOOOHHHHHHH!!!! LOONS! LOONS!!!!!!
Oh, God, here we go.
I say to Mountain Child, "Yes, Balloons! Aren't they pretty? What color are they?"
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! LOONS!!!!!!!!" She is now reaching for them.
"No, sweetie, those aren't yours.""NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!" She proceeds to try and get out of the high chair. I make her sit down. She then screams and cries. I begin formulating an exit strategy and wonder if they would make an exception about taking alcohol to go. I mistakenly thought if I just took over to the balloons, she could see and touch them and then it would be over. Of course, that was a complete fantasy.
I then take her outside. She continues to scream and now she is pulling my hair. I try to act like a calm and collected mommy that is totally in control despite the fact that a screaming two year old is using my hair like Tarzan's Vine. I realize now that I will have to go home. Mountain Child is 25 pounds of rage and fury. I walk into the restaurant to tell my mom and aunt that I won't be enjoying my sushi with them and get my things. My mom and aunt start to pepper in some suggestions:
"What about coloring?"
"I don't think that she will do that right now. She wants to kill someone."
"How about some ice cream?""Maybe...but she needs dinner..."
"Here, let me hold her; she just needs her Nana."
Then my aunt takes matters into her own hands and marches over to the party, blissfully unaware of the personal hell that I am experiencing just a few feet away. She offers them ten dollars for one of the balloons. They, of course, look over to me with my screeching mess of a child, and, of course, refuse the money and just hand over a balloon.
Mountain Child immediately stops crying. She is now in heaven. "OOOOHHH! LOON! TANK YOOO!" I am not in heaven. I am mortified.
I know that I should expect brattiness and psychosis from two-year old. I am hardly surprised. But now I am faced with a difficult choice: a) I refuse to give in to Mountain Child's domestic terrorism and still take her home without that stupid balloon, or b) thank the people, let it go, and enjoy my sushi. I chose b. I imagine that a child development expert would have tsk tsked me, but by then I was just spent. And reallyreally hungry.
Jerky Baccy, Anyone?
There are certain significant moments in life where you know that your life has completely, irrevocably changed. Strangely enough, my most recent You-Are-No-Longer-in-Kansas-Anymore Moment came while tutoring this week.
I decided to tutor at a reading center part-time to have some extra money and to keep my resume from growing cobwebs while being a full-time mommy. And it is a perfect fit for me right now. Plus I get to tell stories to you like the following:
A student of mine, a cute little second grader I will call Country Boy, has been coming to me for months now. Country Boy has absolutely no interest in being near a classroom at any time unless you count him perhaps taking his dad’s John Deer Tractor and mowing one down. He regularly comes to tutoring with grubby fingernails, bruises, camouflage, and whopper stories about catching snakes or shooting rifles at animals. Surprisingly, he is a good sport about taking time out of his busy schedule of riding four-wheelers to come and see me. I am never bored when he comes in, and this week was no exception.
As is our custom, I give Country Boy a snack and a cup of water before our lesson. He asks, “May I have another cup?”
“Sure!” I say. “For what?”
“To spit in.”
“Huh?”
Country Boy then proceeds to take out a small round can that looks exactly like chewing tobacco. Oh, crap. I think. I have visions of Country Boy’s entire family sitting around a dinner table all spitting into their personal tobacco cups. I ask if I can see it. After a closer look, I am relieved to discover that it isn’t tobacco at all—it is beef jerky, finely ground to look and feel just like the real stuff. Seriously? This stuff exists? For who????
“It’s my Jerky Baccy.”
“Jerky Baccy? Oh, okay…well, here is your cup. Let’s get started.”
We sit down, and Country Boy carefully arranges his cups and pretzels on the table, takes a pinch of the Jerky Baccy, and puts the whole wad in his lip like some seasoned pro. He then takes a sip of water and spits it out into his empty cup. It was an odd scene, me coaching him on his vowel sounds, the seven year old happily spitting in his cup like some old man on a porch somewhere in a mountain holler.
Okay, so it’s not exactly orthodox classroom behavior, but I go with it. He is still able to tell me all of words on his cards and spell on the magnet board. Why rock the boat? But the prudish teacher in me kept on wanting to say something about his Jerky Baccy. Is he just pushing his luck with me, or is it really that normal of an activity for him? Finally, at the end of lesson, I decide to ask him.
“May I ask you a question about your…?” I point to his can of jerky.
“My Jerky Baccy?”
“Yes, your Jerky Baccy.”
“Want some?”
“No, I’m good for now. I wanted to ask you—did you know that it looks a lot like real tobacco?”
“Yeah!”
“Oh. Do you know anyone that uses real tobacco?”
“Yeah, my daddy. His jaw is probably going to rot right off.” He thoughtfully spits into his cup. “That stuff is BAD for you.”
“Yes, you’re right. Good thing you have your Jerky Baccy, right?”
“Yup.”
It was at that moment I knew that I was DEFINITELY not in my hometown anymore. Not that no kid ever had play tobacco products. And not that every kid here does. But still…I am not sure what to think about this one.
I decided to tutor at a reading center part-time to have some extra money and to keep my resume from growing cobwebs while being a full-time mommy. And it is a perfect fit for me right now. Plus I get to tell stories to you like the following:
A student of mine, a cute little second grader I will call Country Boy, has been coming to me for months now. Country Boy has absolutely no interest in being near a classroom at any time unless you count him perhaps taking his dad’s John Deer Tractor and mowing one down. He regularly comes to tutoring with grubby fingernails, bruises, camouflage, and whopper stories about catching snakes or shooting rifles at animals. Surprisingly, he is a good sport about taking time out of his busy schedule of riding four-wheelers to come and see me. I am never bored when he comes in, and this week was no exception.
As is our custom, I give Country Boy a snack and a cup of water before our lesson. He asks, “May I have another cup?”
“Sure!” I say. “For what?”
“To spit in.”
“Huh?”
Country Boy then proceeds to take out a small round can that looks exactly like chewing tobacco. Oh, crap. I think. I have visions of Country Boy’s entire family sitting around a dinner table all spitting into their personal tobacco cups. I ask if I can see it. After a closer look, I am relieved to discover that it isn’t tobacco at all—it is beef jerky, finely ground to look and feel just like the real stuff. Seriously? This stuff exists? For who????
“It’s my Jerky Baccy.”
“Jerky Baccy? Oh, okay…well, here is your cup. Let’s get started.”
We sit down, and Country Boy carefully arranges his cups and pretzels on the table, takes a pinch of the Jerky Baccy, and puts the whole wad in his lip like some seasoned pro. He then takes a sip of water and spits it out into his empty cup. It was an odd scene, me coaching him on his vowel sounds, the seven year old happily spitting in his cup like some old man on a porch somewhere in a mountain holler.
Okay, so it’s not exactly orthodox classroom behavior, but I go with it. He is still able to tell me all of words on his cards and spell on the magnet board. Why rock the boat? But the prudish teacher in me kept on wanting to say something about his Jerky Baccy. Is he just pushing his luck with me, or is it really that normal of an activity for him? Finally, at the end of lesson, I decide to ask him.
“May I ask you a question about your…?” I point to his can of jerky.
“My Jerky Baccy?”
“Yes, your Jerky Baccy.”
“Want some?”
“No, I’m good for now. I wanted to ask you—did you know that it looks a lot like real tobacco?”
“Yeah!”
“Oh. Do you know anyone that uses real tobacco?”
“Yeah, my daddy. His jaw is probably going to rot right off.” He thoughtfully spits into his cup. “That stuff is BAD for you.”
“Yes, you’re right. Good thing you have your Jerky Baccy, right?”
“Yup.”
It was at that moment I knew that I was DEFINITELY not in my hometown anymore. Not that no kid ever had play tobacco products. And not that every kid here does. But still…I am not sure what to think about this one.
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