Retail Therapy

What I love about shopping at thrift stores (especially Value Village) is the almost-unconscious rhythm of the search.  Today, I arrived at Value Village fifteen minutes after it opened for it’s Memorial Day half-off sale. 

The parking lot was packed and every aisle was full of carts and kids and harried mothers and the occasional man.  The children’s clothing area was unusually treacherous, traffic-jammed with ruthless women slapping clothing into their carts which were stuffed full, stacks and stacks of clothing with a toy stashed here and there for good measure.

I watched a mother try to talk her pre-teen daughter into a costume for Halloween.  The daughter wanted to believe–I could see hope yearning to smile in her face–but I knew she thought her mother was deranged.  I did, too, but don’t tell her that.  She went on and on in a falsely cheerful voice:  “And you could wear your boots and you would look so cute!”

I heard a mother threatening to “beat yer butt,” and I heard countless children whining and crying and yelling.  I was just glad that none of those children or mothers were related to me.

The hours glide by while I am shopping, swishing and clicking the hangers, checking for brand names, stopping occasionally to examine a shirt or a dress.  If the price is right (fifty-percent off a thrift store price is always right), the condition is near-perfect, and the tag shows a brand-name, I buy it.  I examine quickly, I decide quickly, I walk quickly, and yet, the time slips away. 

I don’t really think while I shop.  Sometimes, the annoying tune of the background music worms its way into my skull and repeats on an endless loop, but usually my mind drifts free.  Thrift-shopping is as close as I come to meditating.  I’m in an altered state, one keen to find bargains, particularly those from The Gap, Lands End, Hanna Andersson, Healthtex, Eddie Bauer, Tommy Hilfiger, and Carter’s.

Today, I found three heavy pottery pots which will be perfect for the “Fiesta!”, our Vacation Bible School.  It doesn’t get much better than that. 

I returned home in time to lay down with my daughter for nap-time.  She slept and I crept out of the room to de-clutter and start laundry and clean the kitchen.  When she woke, I took the kids to the pool which just opened.  I wore jeans and long sleeves and took a fleece jacket just in case.  They wore swimsuits, even though the high temperature was below sixty degrees today.  (The pools are heated, but still!)

Now that the pool is open, I feel like school should be over, but we still have three weeks to go.  I dread slogging through these final weeks, but slog we must.  At least we’re getting close to the finish line.

And now, tomorrow has almost arrived, so I will hurry upstairs to catch David Letterman’s monologue before falling to sleep.  The mornings will be early again this week.  I dread that, too.

When the Tide Ebbs

After church today, we met some friends at a local beach to explore during an unusually low tide. We hurried down to the edge of the water, past the rocks covered with slimy seaweed and meandered right for awhile. We came upon a few sea-stars, crabs and snails before deciding to turn the other direction.

Our friends arrived and while the children ran ahead, she and I strolled and caught up on the news. She used to live in my town, but then they moved to Hawaii, then to North Carolina and recently back again–but now, on the other side of The Bridge.

We went under a pier and came out on the other side. The boys were having a fine time looking under rocks and digging.

And then my 3-year old daughter stepped back, bumped into a rock, lost her balance and fell. She braced her fall with her hands.  

I quickly lifted her to her feet and checked her hands and sure enough, she cut the edge of one on a barnacle-encrusted rock. I had a tissue in my purse and when a small circle of blood appeared, she asked for a new tissue. She clamped it on her injury and then, it must have started to sting because finally, she started to cry.  

She’s so much like me.  She refuses to be comforted.  She wouldn’t let me hold her, wouldn’t accept a hug, wouldn’t talk.  Only cried and cried.  I used to think that my parents must have really screwed up because I never remembered being comforted as a child.  I remember having deep slivers embedded in toes and scraped knees and a bitten tongue, once, but I don’t remember hugs and wiped tears and comfort.  Once, I worked myself into an emotional lather, thinking of how this lack of comfort had scarred me forever, blaming my parents.

But watching my daughter today as she handled this pain made me realize that I probably did the same as a child.  I refused hugs, refused sympathy, refused tender ministrations.  I’m like that now.  When I’m sick, I prefer to be left alone in my agony.  I don’t want to talk about it.  I just want solitude.  I will die in peace, thank you very much.

When I see something in my children that is clearly a genetic response to a situation, I see again that so much of behavior is nature, not nurture.  This makes me feel so much better about my mothering–on one hand, I’m shaping the future.  On the other, I’m just along for the ride, keeping them alive until they are adults.

We left the beach soon after my daughter cut her hand.  She cried all the way home, then fell promptly to sleep on my bed.  She still wore her hot pink jacket.  The tissue stuck to her injured palm, even without being held.  It stayed there until bath-time when I poured water over it, dislodged it before she could protest and bandaged it again.

She asked me, a few minutes ago, if the sea creature had scissors.  I explained about barnacles and their hard shells and off she ran to report the news to her daddy.  “I’m going to go tell Daddy about the barnacles!”

(Mr. Safety, my husband, would like you to know that this sort of thing wouldn’t happen if he’d been in charge.  And I say to that, fractured collarbone.  I am so happy that he was in charge when our then-3 year old fractured his collarbone in a tumble off the couch.  I will use that information for the rest of my natural life to remind Mr. Safety that Accidents Happen.)

Rainy Days and Fridays Never Get Me Down

Last night, my husband and I went with another couple to see United 93.  When it first opened a few weeks ago, I wanted to see it, but I just never found myself in the right frame of mind.  Yet, I knew it was an important movie, and reading this review by Susan Nielsen reminded me again that I ought to see it.

So we went.  I give high marks to the technical aspects of the film.  In fact, one of our companions is a retired military pilot and currently teaches commerical airline pilots.  (I think I have that right.)  I asked afterward if the depiction of the airline cockpit, the air traffic controllers and military personnel was accurate.  He said it was all exactly right.

You know the story of September 11, 2001.  But if you’re like me, you don’t think much about that day, where you were, what you saw, how you felt.  But as Memorial Day approaches, I embrace the memories.  The movie was exactly the right way to start the Memorial Day weekend for me.  We must remember the heroes who died defending our country, the ones who never wore military uniforms and the ones who did.

*  *  * 

In other news, I accomplished great things today:

1)  I cleaned off my desk. 

2)  I arranged to return unwanted items from Oriental Trading Company.

3)  I figured out how we will finish our school lessons in the next three weeks.

4)  I completed my order for Vacation Bible School.

5)  I remained sane, even though it won’t stop raining.  See? 

*  *  * 

Don’t forget to visit my other blog over at ClubMom.  I update it daily, too.

Irreconcilable Differences

I must have the smartest, most thoughtful readers on the internet.  Did you read all those great comments on the post below?  (And I’m not just talking about the ones who complimented me, though that was great.  Thanks!)

I pity those who discard a marriage after such brief attempts.  (Yes, Jessica Simpson, I’m talking to you.  And Tori Spelling?  What is wrong with you women?!)  Do these people not know that joy comes in faithfulness and in long-term commitment?  Whatever happened to delayed gratification?

Judy understands what it’s like to be in a marriage chock full of irreconcilable differences.  When I read Judy’s blog last night, I knew I had to share it here . . . it’s the perfect accompaniment to my last post, kind of like Diet Coke with Lime is the perfect drink with fat-free popcorn.  

So, go read.  Laugh and nod.  Thank me later.

Making a Happy List versus Keeping Your Vows

Do you remember when I wrote about Lance Armstrong’s divorce?  Way back when he was in the news for winning the Tour de France for the seventh time, I announced my dismay at his inability to keep his marriage together.  (And I was taken to task by some of my more judgmental readers about my judgmentalism.  Ha.  Good times.  I loved the irony.)

And now, his ex-wife speaks out.  Kristin Armstrong has written about what she wishes she’d known about marriage before she tied the knot.  (Go ahead and read that article published in “Glamour” magazine.  I’ll wait.)  

She explains, “Here is the truth as I see it: Marriage has the potential to erode the very fiber of your identity.”

(I wish I could stop rolling my eyes long enough to respond.  Let’s just move on to the next excerpt.)  

She says: 

“If I were to do things over again, I wouldn’t have thrown myself so irrevocably into my new life. I would have guarded the things that made me feel like me —the places, the friends —and above all I would have spoken up about my needs. Instead, I will leave you with a lesson about how a woman can hold on to the bright, hard flame of who she is.

If your husband asks what you think, tell him. If you have a preference, voice it. If you have a question, ask it. If you want to cry, bawl. If you need help, raise your hand and jump up and down. I spent five years juggling kids, travel, cooking, smoothing. I never once said that I couldn’t do it on my own, or that I was just plain tired. I became a prisoner to my own inability to say uncle when life squeezed me too hard. The warden was pride, and I remained in maximum security.”

When she appeared on “Oprah,” Oprah intoned solemnly that this was the exact reason she never married.  She didn’t want to lose any part of herself.  I was shaking my head.   

While I can understand this struggle to maintain the vestiges of a former life and the grief over loss (loss of freedom, loss of identity, loss of car, loss of dog, as Kristin explains), I cannot understand the wholesale disposal of a family in the personal quest to “hold onto the bright, hard flame of who she is.”

When you have a husband, your life is no longer all about you.  And when you have children?  And you describe how you gave up your dog?  And your car?  And about how hard it was to live in France with your superstar husband?  I’m not feeling the sympathy.  I mean, if she sat here in my living room on my old tattered couch, I might nod and murmur sympathetic noises, but I’d be wondering how you just break apart a family like a loaf of bread.  A big piece for me, a little piece for you.   

No one is to blame for Kristin’s five-year agony of losing herself in servanthood, but Kristin.  (Come to think of it, isn’t serving one another a large part of being a follower of Christ?  Aren’t we called to serve our spouses and our families?)  But I have to ask . . . five years?  She gave it a shot for five years?  That’s it?  That’s only a year longer than high school, hardly a drop in the bucket when you consider the scheme of things. 

I have no idea what really happened in the Armstrong marriage.  But I still find it disappointing that two intelligent, accomplished, attractive, people who are old enough to know better couldn’t manage to keep their marriage intact.  Their kids will forever pay the price for that failure, as all children of divorce pay for their parents’ mistakes in one way or another.

I hear the protests now:  “That’s not fair!  My sister/ aunt/ friend/ acquaintance divorced and her kids are doing grrrreat!”  Or, “I’m so glad my parents divorced!  Life was horrible while they argued!”  And, “My ex-husband and I are better parents now that we’re no longer married.”  And all that may well be true.

So, you throw a child from the roof and the child survives with only a scratch.  Another child ends up paralyzed.  Many break their bones.  Occasionally, one dies.  Most develop a fear of heights and refuse to even climb a set of stairs.

Divorce isn’t much different.  Sure, some kids survive unscathed.  Most only have scars.  Some bear life-long injury and paralysis.  A lot develop fears, fear of abandonment, fear of commitment, fear of love itself.  Why take a chance? 

Clearly, I have a bias, one shaped by my own parents’ divorce, by my Christian worldview.  I am unapologetic for that.  Some would say that I’m not “over” my parents’ divorce.  That’s the point, isn’t it?  Divorce is the “gift” that keeps on giving long after the pain has faded.  I’m high-functioning, successful, happy, and yet, I was damaged by divorce.  

I believe marriages are not meant to be crumpled up and tossed away so you can start over, especially when you’ve brought children into the world.  (Sometimes, certainly, divorce is the only reasonable choice, but fifty percent of the time?)

Marriage has the potential to shape you into the person you were meant to be, if you stop complaining long enough about injustice of your life and let it.  But servanthood, truly putting other people before ourselves, is more outdated then my twenty-year old stone-washed denim “skinny” jeans.  It’s completely unfashionable to choose to be last, to be least, to serve.

More than once, I’ve heard women exclaim, “I wash the laundry and I fold it.  He can put it away!  I will not!” as if their servanthood has legal limitations and conditions.  No one wants to serve.  No one wants to be last.  No one wants to lose themselves.  We all think we deserve fifteen minutes of fame and a winning Lotto ticket and a flattering hairstyle, besides.  We all want to be Happy all the time.

I think being faithful matters a lot more.   

So, Kristin can rattle off her list of “Things That Make Me Happy.”  That’s got to be some consolation to her children who are now growing up in a broken home.  (Can you not figure out what makes you happy even while you are married?  That’s all I’m saying.  Well, that and five years?)

Wasting Time

It’s 3:00 p.m. and I have nothing to show for my day.  The couch cushions are scattered on the floor, instead of being in their fully upright and locked positions.  Goldfish cracker crumbs cover the kitchen floor.  (Who designed these crackers to fall into half a million pieces when crushed?)  I put laundry in the washer and dryer only once today.  I haven’t updated our school records for the day. 

Another nap-time squandered!  I read the newspaper, thought of several topics I could write about (divorce and Lance Armstrong’s ex-wife, the increasing rate of incarcerated women, for instance), ate lunch, answered the phone four times and wondered what to make for dinner.

You know when you’re moving and you have a bunch of stuff that doesn’t easily fit into boxes and furthermore, you might need it before you move so you wait until the last minute?  And then you circle the rooms again and again until you’re dizzy and sweaty, trying to figure out how to cram this here and that there?  No?  Well, maybe it’s just me, then, but that’s how I’m feeling now.

Too many things vie for my attention and it leaves me twirling, trying to decide where to start.  Instead, I do nothing productive.  (But hey, at least I haven’t been reproductive because then I really wouldn’t get anything done.)

I’m a Hoot with a Mom Purse, Kind of Like Jack Bauer

My 3-year old daughter raises a finger for each dream.  “There’s the puppy dream.  The spider dream.  The robot dream.  And the dream where you were a hoot!” 

Every time she says “you were a hoot!” she raises her eyebrows, points at me and emphasizes “hoot,” which makes me want to laugh, except that she is so serious.  Apparently, in her dream-life, her mother is a hoot!  And “hoot” is the same thing as an “owl.”  The nuance between the two is too subtle for me to understand, but I take her word for it.  A hoot is scary.  And I’m a hoot.  You heard it here first. 

*  *  * 

I devoted the morning to Vacation Bible School planning.  Before I knew it, the boys were home from P.E., so I switched gears and we did some math lessons, followed up by some history.  At 2:00 p.m., with some exasperation, I dismissed them for the day.  Their brains had shut off but their mouths were still running and they could not stop pinching each other.

So, I resumed my Vacation Bible School ponderings.  The theme is “Fiesta!” and I grew distracted by various options for making maracas and tambourines.  I spent quite a long time fiddling with paper, folding it accordion-style in attempts to make flowers.  (Easier said than done.)  I settled on instructions for tissue paper flowers.  I’m going to ask people in our church to make a few . . . hundred. 

What is remarkable is how a day can slip away while you search for directions to decorate for a fiesta and feed orange segments to a baby and run bath water for your already extra-clean girl. 

Oh, and your night will vanish when you watch the season finale of “24.”  I realized tonight that Jack has been carrying a Mom Purse all season long.  Not that his bag lessens my admiration for a man who can single-handedly save the world in twenty-four hours.  It’s because of that purse, I’m telling you.  Without his purse and his cell phone, he’d be just another mom man.

Come to think of it, I have a Mom Purse and a cell phone.  I bet I could vanquish terrorists, too.  Oh wait!  I already have . . . until tomorrow.

Sleep tight, kids.  Tomorrow, I’ll be waiting for you.  (Excuse me while I dig in my purse to find a few things.  Now where did I put that taser?  And the digital listening device shaped like a pencil eraser?  And my fax machine disguised as a playing card?)

Impatience Is Making Me Wait

I am impatient.  You’d think I would be patient given my long history of infertility, dizzying stint wandering through the maze of adoption resulting in twins . . . and then the unexpected appearance of a baby boy, followed by an even more unexpected girl.  (My youngest son not only arrived nine days late, but then he dilly-dallied through a forty-three hour labor before finally putting in an appearance.)  Have I learned nothing from all these waiting days?

Well, I’m still impatient.  I realized that (again) today while huffing a long-suffering exaggerated sigh at church.  My daughter–she’s three and a half–is driving me nuts with her demands and her pace (s-l-o-w) and her new trick of having to be in front of me wherever we go.  (I’ll be heading down the stairs and she’ll exclaim, “Wait!  I want to be in front!” and I’ll have to stop and wait while she positions herself the perfect distance in front of me so that I am poised to trip and land on my head.)  I’m impatient for her to get through this phase.

I’m impatient for the school year to end. 

I’m impatient for the day when I will no longer be responsible for wiping other people’s noses and bottoms.

I’m impatient for free time, long, luxurious stretches of thought-time, during which no one interrupts me for a drink of water or a snack of “peeling cheese” (aka string cheese) or Coco-Puffs cereal.

I’m antsy these days, unable to focus.  In addition to getting the boys through the final four weeks of school (or die trying!), I am coordinating our church’s Vacation Bible School (VBS) again this year and I haven’t yet ordered the materials.  It begins in less than two months.  I need to recruit, to plan, to order, to organize, to decorate–did I mention recruiting?  

I thought this weekend I’d get my school-at-home records up to date and my order ready for VBS, but the distractions of dirty dishes and sandy floors and six extra boys in the back yard have blocked my accomplishments.

I’m so unfocused that I can’t even seem to get through a book.  I started To Kill a Mockingbird weeks ago.  My daughter absconded with it and I couldn’t find it for several days, but even when it reappeared, I didn’t resume reading.  In the meantime, I started three or four other books and can’t keep reading them.  It’s as if my brain can’t get any traction on all those words organized on all those pages.  I can’t concentrate.

Tomorrow, I say to myself.  Tomorrow.  I’ll get the stuff done that must be done.  The boys will be at P.E. at the YMCA and I’ll sit right down and not read blogs.  No.  Instead, I’ll get my VBS order ready and update my school records.  (Name it and claim it! she says in faith.) 

Time speeds by and yet, I’m still impatient.  I think it’s a character trait I have, the flaw of hurrying time along, of wishing this moment was over so I can unwrap what comes next. 

Slow down, brain.  (I will.  As soon as I hurry and finish the tasks I am avoiding.  Really.) 

Extra Clean Teeth

When my husband came home last night, he was wearing a lei.  I said, “Hey, how was it?” and he said, “Oh, it was all right.”  I turned to look him in the eye and he shrugged and said, “I feel like on Survivor when the winner returns from a reward.  I don’t want to rub it in.”

Ah, well.  That good, huh? 

He reported that the dinner was fantastic.  Salmon, tiny potatoes, steak of some sort, blah-blah-blah (I didn’t hear that part) and five desserts to chose from.  The carrot cake was this high (and he spread his hands six inches apart), but he chose . . . I can’t remember.  But I would have chosen creme brulee’ and eaten three bites.  “I had egg whites and asparagus,” I told him, bidding for sympathy.

The conversation was terrific: college kids who actually turned to him (“the old guy” he called himself) and conversed.  He didn’t even mention the view of the Puget Sound.

So, I finally crawled under the covers, eyes burning from wearing my contact lenses way too long.  He was still reliving the night.  And then abruptly, I said, “I think someone put soap on my toothbrush!”  Which is clearly a ludicrous idea.  Who would put soap on my toothbrush?  At first I thought maybe the towel had a residual spray of cologne or something on it which I transferred to my mouth when I wiped my mouth after brushing my teeth.  

But then, in a flash, I remembered that day I rubbed my own toothbrush on a bar of soap until it was foamy and then brushed my teeth.  I was just a child, but I never forgot.  That taste was soap!

So, when I said with wonder, “I think someone put soap on my toothbrush,” he said, “Oh!  I did that!”

Hey, what?  He launched into this story about the soap squirting from the dispenser onto my toothbrush (which I leave on the edge of the sink to dry) and how he thought to himself that he needed to rinse it off and then . . . poof!  Vanished thoughts.  He left it all soapy.

I jumped up and attempted to rinse the soap from my mouth, but really, it’s not possible.  If only I had a taste of cream cheese frosting to cleanse my palate.  That would do the trick!  Alas, I went to sleep with the bitter taste of soap on my tongue–but laughter on my lips.  For some reason, that “Oh, I did that!” amused me.

(I posted again on my ClubMom blog.  Head on over and see.  But first, click on that red ClubMom banner over there, sign up for a FREE membership and then go read my deep dark secret.)

Some Answers With a Side of Rambling

    


Play structureOriginally uploaded by Mel 128.

Here is a photograph of our new play structure, taken at dusk.  (Which happens to be my favorite time of day.)  You can’t really tell, but along the white beam are three swings:  two regular swings and a tire swing.  To the left of the ladder are a set of swinging rings.  At the bottom of the “fort” is a giant sandbox where even the big kids sit and play.

Now, someone asked, so I will tell you that the ACT is a test, sort of like the SAT. My ACT score was comparatively better than my SAT score, so I like to remind myself of exactly how high it was on occasion. After all, look where it got me!

My husband is gone tonight tonight at a wedding rehearsal and dinner.  I desperately wanted to go (free food!), but couldn’t find a babysitter.  My mother had the nerve to have a life of her own and was unavailable.  And the teenage sitter I love is busy having a life of her own, too.  I will miss the wedding tomorrow, too, which is a big bummer.  I love attending weddings–I like everything from seeing the wedding dress to choking up over the vows to watching the other guests.  And the reception?  (Free food!) 

Alas, no free food for me.  (I know.  What is this talk of free food?  Aren’t you blogging about losing weight over at The Amazing Shrinking Mom?  (By the way, I suggested the title “The Shrinking Mom.”  They added the “Amazing” part, just in case you thought I was narcissistic and all.)  Yes!  I am blogging about dieting.  And I am dieting.  But I won’t be talking about that over here . . . no.  For that scintillating talk, you must click and go.