Traveling in Style

I am pretty sure that my ass is posted on Facebook. Some girls I don’t know from somewhere in South Carolina did it, I am sure.


Allow me to explain.

For quite a while, I have had an on and off again case of van envy. It usually comes on when I am traveling with the girls. Traveling brings out the problem solver in me—usually because traveling is really nothing but an endless string of issues and indignities that I have to endure to get to the destination to have Fun Family Memories. I have long wished that I would be That Mom that has a calm look on her face while her kids are happily sitting in their comfy captain’s chairs, riding down the road in happy anticipation for the next wholesome family trip that will surely include nature and crafts in some way. All the space! The safety features and stowaway seating! The built-in TV screens in the ceiling of the van.

Go ahead and judge, granola mommies. Go ahead and judge while you stuff your kids full of gluten-free, organic food and happily play with your darlings with your handmade toys, talking about how you breast fed your children until they were two and made all your own baby food, deodorant and laundry detergent. I used to be like you. Sort of. I at least used to sneer at the poor, out-of-control mothers that had to resort to letting their kids watch television in the car. I was so smug about the fact that I was waaaayyyy more enlightened about the dangers of too much television and that kids needed to stimulate their minds doing active, creative things, even when traveling. I was self-righteous up until the point that I realized I probably needed anti-anxiety medication on any journey longer than a half hour. And since I used to have an hour-long commute to work every day…well, you get the picture.

Now I am not sure if I could ever travel without televisions. I don’t care if my children’s development is stunted while traveling. I just want there to be quiet, blessed quiet, where not one soul asks me for one thing while we are getting where we are going. Not one snack, not one drink, not fixing one twisted seat belt, not one dropped toy—nothing. It is a dream right up there with getting to go on vacation to French Polynesia for a month. My husband asserts that he has the hardest job as he must safely get us to our destination and locate a radio station for us to listen to without interruption because he refuses to use my iTunes. But we all know the truth. He drives because he has witnessed the contortionist act that the passenger must perform in our SUV every time we go anywhere more than five miles down the road. And I am certain owning a minivan will solve all of these issues and more.

Okay, back to why my ass is on Facebook.

So we are driving down the road, and Little Mountain Goat is crying because she has thrown her bottle on the floor of the SUV for probably the hundredth time. And I am searching desperately for it because it is the only thing that will induce a bit of peace while we drive to Florida. Never mind that she is nearly TWO and STILL is very much attached to her bottle. I am starting to wonder if I need to look into some sort of rehab facility for her bottle addiction. We are going to Disney for Thanksgiving because we like to put ourselves in the most ridiculous stressful situations possible during holiday times. Only I put my foot down and said that we were NOT going to the theme parks during one of the most crowded times of the year with a nearly-six-year-old and nearly-two-year-old. So there. I am not as crazy as those people. While I am nearly on my head in the back seat yet still somehow have my lower half of the body in the front seat, I notice not for the first time the disgusting mess that the floor of our Explorer is. There are bits of cereal, French fries, fruit snacks, dried milk and juice and a myriad of unidentifiable grossness down there. I am pretty sure that if were ever in a situation where we had to live in this vehicle, we could live for at least several days on what we find. That is, if we don’t catch some sort of rare bacterial infection in the process.

I am doing a move that could either pass as some advanced yoga pose, and it just so happens that my jeans are, of course, drooping down just enough that you see my butt crack. I barely even notice this is happening because I am constantly stretching and bending and nearly losing my pants anyhow. The other day Little Mountain Goat actually pantsed me. I was wearing comfy pants and doing dishes. Little Mountain Goat prefers that I to hold her while I am doing everything, but I couldn’t at that moment because I was elbow-deep in suds. So Little Mountain Goat attempted to climb up my leg like a tree. She starts climbing, my pants fell, leaving me in the middle of the kitchen with no pants and Little Mountain Goat indignantly crying because her attempt at ascending Mount Mommy failed. Mountain Man walks in at this moment and laughs hysterically. If I weren’t so used to scenes like this, I would have probably either cried or thrown something in sheer rage. But I just pulled up my pants and went on washing the dishes, tuning out the growing shrieks of Little Mountain Goat.

Oh, right. Back to me searching for the bottle in the back seat with my disappearing pants. Suddenly, Mountain Man yells, “Hey!” and begins swerving to the other lane. This move makes me fall over on Mountain Man, and he is laughing and pushing me off of him, saying, “Honey, I think those girls just took a picture of you.” It didn’t even register at first why they would bother taking one of me. I heaved myself up off of the floor of the backseat, uncurling myself from my newly discovered yoga pose, and take a look at the car that is in the other lane now slightly behind us. They girls in it were young, likely in college. The one in the passenger seat is holding up her phone and all three of them are laughing hysterically. And then it hits me: They just took at picture of me. They just took a picture of my ass. And they are now posting it on Facebook.

I’ve got it hand it to my Mountain Man. He really did try to elude those bitches. The situation brought out his inner Nascar driver and had him accelerating and swerving as he tried to obscure the girls' view of my posterior. It was a sweet, protective gesture that likely gave me a hernia and a concussion, but it's the thought that counts. It reminds me of the time I was on my way to the hospital to have Mountain Child. I was prancing to the entrance of the hospital in my I Am Really Cute In My Having a Baby Today Outfit. It was a pair of dark brown cargo pants with a pale pink maternity shirt. My hair was straightened and legs were shaved. My makeup even looked good. I had on an adorable brown and pink polka-dotted headband and leather flip flops. I was ready to look radiant and beautiful for all of the pictures after my easy, uneventful delivery. All these thoughts were floating through my head like frilly little kites when I slipped crossing the wet street going into the hospital. Mountain Man, in his attempt to catch me, tried to break my fall by throwing my pillow in the street. It was a valiant, chivalrous effort. However, I was fuming because my  favorite pillow along with my outift was soggy and dirty and my hair was getting frizzy.  A crowd of concerned people swarmed around me as if I were a beached whale, insisting that I needed a wheelchair with my favorite pillow soggy and dirty. And likewise his attempt to out drive the college chicks was indeed appreciated but still ended in humiliation.

Oh, college girls. I understand why you took a picture of my ass. I get why it is likely on Facebook. It really is funny. It is hilarious, actually. But hear me now, college girls: there will be a day where this will be you. Your ass or some other body part will be digitally archived in some stranger’s phone to be presented the next time she is with her friends, perhaps while having a drink at some trendy bar. She’ll pull out her phone and say, “Oh, my God! You will never guess what we saw today! LOOK!” Everyone will peer around the phone looking faint image documenting your discrace. The group will laugh hysterically. And one of the girls in the group will surely say, “Oh, that just SAD. I don’t EVER want to be lame like that.” Meanwhile, you will for the first time in your life actually yearn for a minivan.

Taking a Stand Against Childhood Obesity

Now that I am pregnant again, I am trying to do certain things better/different this time around. For one, I have absolutely, definitely decided that I WILL NOT gain 60 pounds during this pregnancy. That’s right. I gained 60 pounds with the Mountain Child. I weighed as much as my husband when it was all said and done. I would step on the scale, and we would both marvel at the hugeness of the number. It was like it wasn’t even real, so I could therefore have another strawberry milkshake if I wanted. Which, by the way, I needed them so badly I would routinely leave work and go get one. Chick-Fil-A had such delicious ones that the employees would just get the thing ready as soon as they saw my car pull up to the drive-through.

Come to think of it, I was pretty much hungry for whatever I could get my hands on all of the time. And if I didn’t get food RIGHT AT THE EXACT MOMENT that I decided that I was hungry, I was angry. Yes, very, very angry indeed. Two of my dearest friends know and understand what this was like all too well. I venture that they still need a bit of therapy each time they recall the time we were in Chicago for a school counseling conference. We were all excited to be able to eat our way through that town. I am surprised that we somehow squeezed in some of the educational sessions. Anyhow, one morning we set out to check out a little breakfast place that was supposed to be really good. We bounced out the door, me forgetting that I needed something to eat before I attempted to walk several blocks on an empty stomach. By the time that we arrived at this little café, it was clear from the line that most of the Chicago Metro Area also had the same breakfast plans. Perhaps I am exaggerating a little. But if you were as hungry as I was at the time, it wouldn’t have mattered. One person in front of you is just too much to bear when you smell eggs and bacon.

Anyway, I was pissed. How DARE they make a PREGNANT WOMAN wait like this? Doesn’t anyone care?? I hate you, Chicago!!!! I walked five blocks for this crap?!? Someone bring me a muffin RIGHT NOW!!!!!! I was becoming unglued and the walls were starting to close in on me.
My friends tried to calm me down. One of them helpfully added that I needed to bring snacks with me so I wouldn’t feel this way. I then told her to shove that advice straight up her ass. There was a tense silence among us at that point. I can’t imagine why. I almost started crying because I hated everyone in the entire world right then and no one cared.

It was at this moment that a kind-hearted elderly lady tried to offer me a mint. “Here, dear. I remember mints settled my stomach when I was pregnant.” I looked distastefully at the mint as if she just tried to offer me dog feces and said, “I DON’T NEED A MINT. I NEED FOOD.” The lady looked at me and then to my friends as if to say, Good luck with that piece of work. My friends then chastised me for being so rude. I felt that it was an insult to offer a starving pregnant lady a crappy mint when what she clearly needed was a comfortable chair, toast, and some sort of meat—QUICKLY. Actually, she was lucky I didn’t punch her in the face.

Mercifully, our seats became available and we all settled into breakfast. I happily tore into my order, which was, of course, half the menu. I was so jolly about how delicious the food was that I had completely forgotten what a sociopath I was about twenty minutes earlier. My friends, however, were still horrified at my behavior and didn’t say much during the whole breakfast. Not that I noticed. I was too busy scarfing down eggs benedict and hash browns.

Anyhow, that was then. I made a very conscious decision that I could not allow that to happen to me again. It took me over a year to get off all that weight. Besides, I don’t have too many friends here in the Hills, so I need to mind my behavior. And so far, I have been a bit more normal. Up until my third trimester, I only gained 19 pounds. Up until the third trimester is the key thing to remember. It is a sick coincidence that my third trimester fell during Halloween, which then landslides into Thanksgiving and Christmas. It’s hopeless, really.

I am not proud of it, but I stole almost all of Mountain Child’s Halloween candy. At least the good stuff. And the saddest part is that my daughter is smart enough to know that I am taking her stash and that means that I have to lie to her.

Mommy, are you eating MY Halloween candy?

No, sweetie, this is my candy.

NO, IT’S NOT! THAT WAS IN MY TRICK OR TREAT PUMPKIN! GIVE IT BACK!!!!!

This is my treat. You have your own. Now go and play.

Mommy, that is MY chocolate! I WANT MY CHOCOLATE!!!!! She runs to her room and cries. And I continue eating that delicious Twix bar. She shouldn’t be eating this junk anyway.

My doctor assured me that I would not gain nearly as much weight this time, but I am pretty sure that he hasn’t taken into account the amount of chocolate that kids get in their Trick or Treat haul or my obvious commitment to protecting my daughter from childhood obesity.

Not An Existential Crisis, Just A Little Confusion

I swore that I wouldn’t start off any of my blog entries apologizing about how I have neglected my poor little blogspot. So I won’t. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, right?

Plus I have perfectly good reasons that I haven’t written in a long time. We have been living in a tornado for the past month and half and I am just now emerging from it. What has been happening, lately, you ask? The better question is what hasn’t been going on?

Oh, just a horrible stomach virus, back-to-back catering jobs, finding out that I am pregnant again, deciding that my husband and I will start a kids’ camp for foster kids, attending the training to become proper camp directors for said foster kids, squeezing in a random weekend jaunt down to Hilton Head, revamping a deck, working extra at the reading center and entertaining family that come into town. Just in case you were really curious.

Which brings me to the actual point of my little mini-blog today: is being busy just some people’s destiny in life or is something that we choose? And if we choose it, is it bad? I remember that I desperately wanted to be less busy when we lived in Florida. It was such a mental burden to have such a crazy, cluttered life—kind of like that out-of-control closet that you just would rather throw out the entire contents of rather than organizing it.

And when I moved to West Virginia, things really were much simpler for a good while—months, actually--I had little more to do than to hang out with Mountain Child and update my blog occasionally. It was lovely indeed, but it really was more like a pause as if I were drawing in a deep breath before the next sprint. It was a state that I couldn’t keep constant.

So is that a bad thing? Do I fight the busyness of life that seems to be so attracted to me, or do I ride with it because it is more like waves of an ocean that you can’t make still?

I have no idea.

Funerals + Silly Putty = Trouble

Hopefully reading my blog has the benefit of making you feel better about your own child's behavior after reading about mine. And the thing that makes my own daughter's behavior so horrid--or any child's behavior--is that it is so unpredictable. I mean, one minute you are having a quiet moment in your head that says something like, "Gee, this day isn't so bad. At least my kid is being good." And the next, you are either mortified or calling the emergency room.

My most recent Unviverse-Really-Sticking-It-To-You Moment came at a most inopportune time: Grandma Lee's viewing at the funeral home. And this is why this post is so hard to write--because Grandma Lee was such an extraordinary woman that it is almost disrespectful to not focus on her. But then again, maybe Grandma would have chuckled at my daughter's antics. Or maybe not. Perhaps she would have told me to look up a Bible verse about disciplining your children or something.

Anyway, we were at the funeral home. As with any funeral, it is an emotionally charged time. You see family you haven't seen in forever--which is great. You have the memories of this person who has passed away--which is both great and sad. And, of course, you have the body of your loved one right up at the front of the room for you to say your final goodbyes to--which for me, at least, has always been a very confusing time. I mean, I know she's in Heaven. I know that she is in an infinitely better place. But do I still need to say something to her? How long do I stay up there? How much do I cry? Obviously, these things are quite personal and varied among people, and that it is just the nature of going to a furneral. And since Grandma Lee was such an anchor in so many peoples' lives, it was really hard to even know how to act sometimes at this particular juncture. Even more tricky for me, is how to deal with Mountain Child on an occasion like this. Children and furnerals are an interesting combination. They can lighten the mood of even the most meloncholy of occasions. They can also cause a great deal of havoc. My husband and I decided that she didn't need to go up and see Grandma Lee. She is only three, and we felt that it might be too confusing and upsetting. We did tell her that Grandma Lee, or "Maga Lee" went to Heaven. She understood this--sort of, and she replied, "JUST LIKE ROXY." Oh, yes. Just like Roxy. Roxy was our dear German shepherd that died last July.

Anyhow, most of my time at the funeral home was a balancing act of me keeping Mountain Child away from the front of the room and out of everyone's way, along with playing Gracious Wife, introducing myself to family members that I hadn't yet met and greet those whom I had not seen in several years. It's funny. Mountain Man and I have been married nearly eight years and I still feel like such a newcomer to his family. I wonder if this feeling will ever wear off.

Some other kids were there, and after a while, they got into games of hide-and-seek and tag in the lobby. They were being pretty good, and it had the side benefit of Mountain Child forgetting to whine. She has made whining into a sort of art form/sport. And the more important it is for her not to whine is in reverse proportion to how much she will cry and complain. So I was grateful for at least a few moments to not be climbed upon and tugged on, with constant wheedlings of "I'M HUNGRY. I WANT WHITE CHEESE. I NEED MY BABY DOLL. WHERE'S MY BOOKS? WHERE'S DADDY? WHERE'S THE OTHER KIDS? WHERE'S MY BLANKY? I DON'T WANT TO BE QUIET!!!! I DON'T WANT TO BE HAPPY!!!!!" And so on and on and on...

So I am sitting next to one of Mountain Man's second? third? cousins and chatting. Then Mountain Man's aunt calls over to me and says, "I think you need to get her...she's got something in her hair." She points to the front of the chapel. The part of the chapel that was the one spotI am afraid to look, but I start walking over there anyway. And what do I see? My child with two other kids happily playing inches from Grandma Lee's casket with Silly Putty everywhere: in her hair, on the floor, laced with the flowers, and....the casket.

There are many disconnected thoughts running through my head: Who in God's name has Silly Putty? Who would be insane enough to give it to her?? It's amazing how this stuff grows and spreads everywhere. Oh, no--who was trying to have a private moment with Grandma while this was happening? Why am I not with-it enough to pay attention to my one kid? Why can't I even have a five-minute conversation with a person? Is this a good time to leave?

I turn around and see lots lots of people smiling that Please-Get-Your-Delinquent-Child-Out-of-Here smile at me. All of the kids freeze and have a guilty look of their faces, and the older ones try to explain to me what they were doing with the desperation that only kids that are caught red-handed can do--but at that point I hardly cared. I just told them to go to the lobby. I scooped up Mountain Child and wondered if Silly Putty in the hair meant a new haircut for her. Luckily, it's not like gum and comes right out.

So on a scale of one to ten, one being Dream Child and ten being Sociopath Kid, where does your kid throwing Silly Putty around by your husband's grandmother's casket fall? Just wondering.

Worms

Today my husband and I cleaned out our flower beds. The beds were in such bad shape that we have had to plan out the project in phases. Phase I is the Digging Phase. We had such an infestation of dandelions that we just decided it was easier to dig everything out and start over. And, as a result of completing Phase I today, I have decided that dandelions are the Devil's flower. They are awful. They are impossible to pull up so you have to dig them out. And this means that I have to touch dirt and worms. In case you don't know me, I am not fond of worms.

But Mountain Child is apparently incredibly fond of them. I am surprised by this because normally Mountain Child doesn't like getting anything dirty on her hands, and she thinks everything is gross. But worms are the exception in her PinkSparklyPrincess world.

"Oh, look! I have dug up some worms! Wanna see them?"

"WORMS?!?! YES. I WANT TO SEE THEM."

I show her the worms, which I do not touch. Our dirt is full of them, and they are crawling all over the soil that I have just freshly dug up. She gingerly touches one and pulls her hand away quickly. She looks thoughtfully at the worms and decides to pick it up.

"I WANT TO TAKE CARE OF HIM."

"Like as your pet?"

"I WANT TO SLEEP WITH HIM."

"You can't sleep with a worm. You'll squish him."

"I WANT TO SLEEP WITH HIM, MOMMY! HE IS MY BABY!"

"Oh, what is his name?"

She doesn't answer and walks off talking her new worm friend. I continue working on digging out dandelions. A few moments later, she returns.

"I WANT TO EAT THE WORM."

"We don't eat worms. We just look at them. In fact, put him back in the dirt. That is his home."

"MOMMY! THIS WORM IS MINE!!!! THIS WORM IS A GIRL WORM!!!!" Mountain Child begins to cry and runs inside the house. In the confusion, she has dropped the worm on the sidewalk. I take a stick and transport him back into the dirt.

Oh, and where was the Mountain Man in this whole scenario? Well, he actually went to hit golf balls and then returned to pick up the next digging shift. The worm incident happens when he was gone, of course. I tell him later and he doesn't even believe me.

After everything calmed down, Montain Child asks if she can play with the worms tomorrow. I guess we will bring the ketchup, too.

Desperately Seeking Cooldom

It appears that I have reached that point in my life where I am no longer cool. I now do really lame Mommythings. No, I am not being too hard on myself. I mean, I have moments of cooldom; but in general, I am forced to do things that just embarrass my former cool self.

Case in point: I actually got up in the middle of the night to go wait in line to get into…no, not a concert or show of some sort. I did it to get Mountain Child into a preschool. That’s right. I woke up at 4 a.m. to get in line by 5:30 a.m. downtown to get my daughter into one of the only viable preschools around.

Perhaps you remember my last incident with preschools. I had plenty of time to lay low about the whole thing and mentally recover from it. A few weeks ago, I started the search again, this time armed with lots more recommendations and lists of questions to ask my prospects. The list, it turns out, was pretty short. There isn’t just much to pick from around here. I don’t blame the fact that we are the middle of West Virginia and somehow inferior when it comes to preschools—it’s just the rule of population. Not as many people live around here, so therefore there aren’t as many preschools. I settled on a preschool downtown which had been around for, about 75 years and also included a music and Spanish language program. I was about as excited as I used to be about myself going on a weekend trip with the girls. Like I said—my cool points are being lost by the minute.

But there was one little hitch with this particular preschool. It had exactly one morning that it opened itself up to the community for new people to register. And that was at 7:00 in the morning.

“So should I arrive a bit early that day? Are there a lot of people that try to get in?”

“Oh, I would get here early if I were you,” the preschool director said mildly.

“Like how early?”

“Oh, I have noticed people coming as early as around 6 a.m.”

Six?!? What is this, anyway? Now, my competitive radar is up. Right then and there I decided that Mountain Child must get into this school. If people are lining up at such an ungodly hour of the day, then it has to be worth it, right? And I will get there before anyone else.

I talk to other friends about the preschool. Apparently this place is notorious for parents camping out on the sidewalk practically in the middle of the night waiting for the doors to open to get their kids in this place. And once you’re in, you have to do it every year—and you have to come even earlier. One person told me that she knew of parents going at 4:30 in the morning. Luckily, that isn’t quite the case with the day that I was going—only the crazy parents that actually got their kids into this place had to do that. But still. I figured that I had to get there at 5:30 a.m. to beat the rush.

At that hour, it is still really cold at the beginning of March in West Virginia. Like still in the 30’s. I woke up at 4 a.m. I layered up, packed at hot tea to go, and headed out.

When I arrived, there were already two parents waiting. I decided that I was the Most Awesome Mother Ever because now I was #3 in line and was most definitely getting Mountain Child in. If I could survive the cold and boredom. I brought nothing to read and the only place to sit was on a cold metal bench. I suppose this is why people brought tents and chairs and practically had a campout for these things. It is cold and you need shelter.

Other parents trickled in. To my surprise, they were mostly dads on their way to work. I hadn’t even considered asking my husband to come. I think that is because he would have laughed hysterically in my face if I would have suggested that he get up and come. I don’t hold that against him. I am laughing at myself hysterically in the face for doing this.

We all chat and joke that we all probably used to wait in lines like this for concerts or something way more with it than doing this. I nod my head in agreement, but then I remember the last time I waited in line for like. We waited for over an hour to see Jesco White, the Dancing Outlaw, at the Charleston Power Park before a minor league baseball game. Another time, when I was pregnant, the celebrity chef Paula Deen was coming to the Williams Sonoma in my old hometown. And honestly, friends, I was so excited to meet her that you would have thought I was waiting in line to see the Dave Matthews Band or Brad Pitt—anyone more fashionable than the Queen of Southern Cooking and Butter. And before that? It was at a university when I was studying in my English graduate program—I waited in line to hear Rita Dove read poetry. Before that, I am not even sure. But it had to be something that the Cool Kids would have done, right….?

I realize now that I perhaps never had many cool points in the first place. I can’t blame my dorkiness on the Mountain Child.

Neighborhood Watch

Since we have moved into our new home, I have not met many of the neighbors. We have been busy getting unpacked, and the snow has made most people hibernate. And truthfully, I don’t really care much about getting to know the neighbors. It’s not that I don’t like people. It’s just that I am not really used to that. In Florida, we barely knew anyone on our street except for our next door neighbor who got drunk on a regular basis and would fall into our hedges. I guess we were all just too busy and self-absorbed to really get interested in any extra people, with the exception being getting the mail for Drunk-in-The-Hedges Neighbor when he went to rehab for a couple of months. The more I thought about it, the idea of having neighbors I know and like seems really nice. However, weeks have literally gone by where I haven’t seen a soul outside unless they were in their cars driving to work. Snow appears to breed antisocial behavior.

Actually, that is not completely accurate. One lady came by one snowy afternoon that was, strangely enough, our street’s welcome committee representative for the homeowner’s association. I only say that it was strange because, 1) we had been living in the townhouse for two months with no one even looking in our direction, and 2), she exclaimed, “I have been trying to get a hold of you for weeks!” You have? I stay home. How hard can it be? And furthermore, can’t you just mail the papers to me? I actually casually suggested that she could have left the papers at my door or just mailed them. She looked at me as if I had just suggested that we all commit pagan acts in the common areas at dusk. She peered nosily inside the house from the front porch and then, rather than just handing me the “Welcome Packet”, she asked to come in. I didn’t really want her to come in. Everything was a huge mess, with boxes and and breakfast dishes and laundry everywhere, not to mention that Mountain Child was actually taking a nice nap for once. But I was stuck in one of those social quandaries where I may have been rude by not being more gracious, but then again she may have been the rude one since she was sort of barging in. So I invited her in and offered her a drink. She declined, and then launched right in on a complete account on everyone that lives on our street: what they do, who is divorced or dying, and how the people at the other end just sold their place in only fourteen days. She didn’t know how much it went for, but it must have been good because it was one of the first offers and that place was really done up nice….and on, and on, and on. She let me know that everyone around here knew each other and were friends, play tennis and walk together. And that she and I should get together sometime, wouldn’t that be great? Oh, the whole exchange was just exhausting. Of course, the conversation eventually turned to my unit and how much we paid for it, for which I just said, “We got a really good deal,” and left it at that. She kept on hinting to see if I would tell her, but I wouldn’t budge.

This is something that I just cannot understand about people around here. They have no problem asking you the most personal of questions, how much do you weigh, your yearly salary, home purchase prices, cholesterol level, your marital problems, etc, etc, etc. Conversely, they don’t mind at all to share the exact same information about themselves and everyone else they know. I don’t know how many times I have been in the Kroger line or sitting in a waiting room somewhere and suddenly have become 1) privy to some random person’s most personal information that I never wanted to know, and 2) someone’s new best friend. There is a trade-off to the friendliness that is in West Virginia. The people here are the types that will listen to you all day long and really care. They will give you their last dollar. But they also expect that you don’t mind to share your most intimate details of your latest domestic battle or visit to the doctor for hemorrhoids. Which makes me an outcast because I simply can’t do it.

But I still want to be a Good Neighbor and a Gracious Person, so I decided that I would at least try to get to know the guy right next door to us. We are an end unit, so I actually just have one right beside us. I can do that. Small steps: I can be nice and be interested in one person. But he seemed to work mostly night hours, and my husband met him once and found out that he, along with his brother, run one of the nicest restaurants in town, Laury’s. Mmmmmmm…I had visions of us being great friends and free meals. But I never really saw him to even get in a hello. And the only holiday coming up is St. Patrick’s Day. Do I send him a card and a green beer on his doorstep? Or is that stalkerish and pathetic? I figured I was off the hook, that is until Wednesday of last week when I was forced to introduce myself.

On this morning, Mountain Child had locked me out of the house. I ran out to the car for under a minute and when I returned to the door, it was locked. I look down at my feet. I am wearing house slippers. I have on just a thin long-sleeved t-shirt. It is snowing. I then make a very concentrated effort to not completely freak out, and I calmly say through the door, “Honey, open the door for Mommy.” There is a lot of doorknob jiggling, and Mountain Child says, “I NEED HELP.”

“All you need to do is turn the lock the other way that you locked it.”

More jiggling. “MOMMY, YOU DO IT.”

“Sweetie, I can’t. You have to. I am very cold and you need to let me in.”

The doorknob jiggles some more, but nothing happens. “MOMMY! GET THE KEY!”

“I don’t have the key. It is inside. So you have to try hard to unlock the door and let me in.” I then attempt to explain how to unlock a door. This turns out to be difficult to do. “Just grab the little gold (Does she know what the color gold is?) knob and turn it to the right (She doesn’t know right and left yet. I need to get on that.). There is silence. And then Mountain Child starts to cry.

“I’M HUNGRY. MOMMY COME BACK.”

“I would love to, sweetie, but you have to let me in.”

“GO THROUGH THE GARAGE.”

“The garage doesn’t work. Please try to unlock the door.”

“CALL DADDY, MOMMY.”

Since when does she know what to do? I just love the helpfulness and knowledge of a three-year old. Of course, I don’t have my cell phone on me, either. I survey the row of townhomes on our street and realize that I will have to find a neighbor to help me. I walk next door to my neighbor, the one that I am supposed to try and become friends with anyway. I see his SUV in the garage and decide that now is as good of a time as any. I ring the doorbell and survey his porch area. It is swept clean, no doormat. There is nothing in the flowerbed, but there is a “WELCOME” sign made out of stone stuck in it. No one answers the door. I ring it again and then realize that he is probably sleeping. I start to walk away, and, with much dread, realize that I may have to just start going to each door down the line until I find someone. I am now imagining Mountain Child playing with the knives and stove. Just then, the door slowly opened. My neighbor peers outside, looking very sleepy and is wearing pajama pants.

Oh, I am not so sure that I am going to be invited to his very fancy restaurant now for that complimentary meal. “Oh, hi…um, I live next door. I am so sorry to wake you.”

“Oh, it is okay. It was time to wake up anyway.” He had a Middle Eastern accent and was tall and slim. I could tell that he was a heavy smoker because the smell almost knocked me down when he opened the door. He tried to smile, but I could tell that he wasn’t really even awake yet.

“I am so sorry to bother you. But I am locked out of my house. My three-year did it and she is still inside.”

“Hold on; I will be right back.” He disappears into the house and I can hear a toilet flushing a moment later. After a bit more, he returns to the door with jeans on, a cigarette, and an extra jacket for me. I am absolutely mortified but grateful for the gesture. We walk next door, and he jiggles the doorknob, which of course, doesn’t move. He leaves again, and this time returns with a hotel key card. He slips it in the door and nothing happens. He asks, “Where is your baby?”

“Well, actually, she is three and she was just at the door. Sweetie! Are you there? Try to help Mommy!”

“Helllooooo, little girl! You need to help your Mommy and let her in! Are you there? Are you okay?” I figure that anyone watching this little scene is probably pretty amused. A flaky mom in her slippers, a Middle Eastern man, both in the freezing snow, yelling at a door.

Mountain Child replies, “MOMMY, WHO IS THAT?”

I say, “That is our friend from next door….”

“My name is Fazi,” he volunteers.

“It’s Mr. Fazi,” I tell her. “Please help us get the door open.”

“NOOOOOOOOOOOO…”

Fazi seems amused. “Is she usually a good baby?”

I didn’t occur to me until that moment that a three-year old more than likely knows when she has locked her mommy outside and that this is, indeed, very bad behavior. There just wasn’t any warning. We were having a perfectly fine morning until, bam! I am outside shivering with my neighbor and my feet turning numb. “She hasn’t done this ever before. I guess she will be in trouble once I get back in.” I also realize that have inadvertently told a lie. She did this when she was around a year old by accident. However, she mysteriously unlocked it before I panicked.

“You need to get a key and hide it,” Fazi adds helpfully.

I borrow his cell phone to call my husband. He sighs and promises to be there in ten minutes. At that moment, I look up and there is Mountain Child, looking out her bedroom window at us as if we are putting on a show for her. She is laughing and waving at us. “HI MOMMY! IT’S SNOWING!!!!” I can hear her yelling this through her window.

And so we wait. Fazi stays with me outside, which I told him over and over, that he didn’t have to do that. But he insisted, saying that something may happen to the baby. I thought that this was both sweet and absolutely useless since we couldn’t get in anyway. Unless, of course, we broke a window. We chat about where we are from (he is from Iran), siblings (he has nine brothers), and the very cold winter. If it weren’t so cold, it was actually a nice chat.

My husband eventually pulls up and lets me in the door. I scold Mountain Child vehemently and put her in time-out. I think that at that point she could have cared less. The excitement of mommy outside, the neighbor, snow, and now daddy coming home was totally worth it.

After we have lunch and I hurriedly get dressed for work at the Reading Center, Mountain Child says, “MOMMY GOT LOCKED OUT.”

“Yes, you locked mommy out. Don’t ever do that again.”

“WHO WAS THAT MAN?”

“That was our neighbor. Fazi. He was nice and let me use his phone.”

“FAZI IS OUR FRIEND.”

Yes, I suppose so. Maybe I will give him something for St. Patrick’s Day.