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.
Friday, November 20, 2009
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.
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