designation: crazy mom

We are leaving our eldest son with his grandparents for the week and they brainstormed a long list of activities from which to choose.   While reviewing the list with us, my father-in-law says:

"Oh, do you think he will enjoy riding the tractor?"

"Are the mower blades installed yet?" I reply.

"Well, yeah, of course."

"Then I'd prefer you not take him on the tractor," I hear myself say.

 {SILENCE}

{mother-in-law and father-in-law exchange a look; i feel my ears burning}

I know they will respect my wishes but it is clear they aren't convinced I am making a rational request.  

To be fair: I am not sure it's rational either.

I have a thing about lawnmowers.

When I was younger I would mow the lawn and the whole time I would be planning out the steps I would need to take in the event I accidentally ran over my foot - or another person's foot -  knowing the habit my siblings had of darting across the lawn right in front of me.  So it seems reasonable that I would not feel excited to seek out opportunities for our kids to ride lawn-mowing capable tractors 

{despite the sentimental attraction to the childhood event}

Added to my own internal neurosis is an external factor:

as an ER social worker,  

I have had to  sit alongside grandparents and parents as they wait for their kiddo who is in the operating room for surgery following a partial amputation from an incident with a riding lawnmower...

on which the mower blades were NOT engaged!

{a couple of cases came in just in the past 2 months}

So, yes.

I can appreciate how much fun our sons' cousins had on the tractor last week 

{the pictures and videos are totally adorable, i bet. and p.s. did you really think peer pressure would work?!?}

but I am not down with it.  This is one part of my crazy I can't tamp down - despite best efforts.

I will accept the paper plate award on this decision:

Crazy Mom

punctuality

When I was 16, my grandparents gifted me a watch.

The accompanying card said something about the 

importance of being punctual and 

maybe now that I have a watch, I'd be able to be "more on time."

{ouch}

Here's the thing:

Tardiness was our family culture.

{I mean, honestly, at age 16 I was barely able to get myself from point a to point b without a chauffeur}

Who am I kidding? 

Tardiness remains a notorious way of being when my family of origin gets together.

But as I gave myself high marks for punctuality on a recent self-evaluation at work, 

I felt a great sense of pride and satisfaction and wanted to say "So there!" to my grandparents.

{Obviously, I have taken their suggestion to heart}

As further evidence, last week, in an attempt to pull off a major surprise for my mother, I was significantly late for her celebration event.  In later conversation, she confided to me that she had started getting worried about me because
"that's so unlike you to be late..."

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED:

Importance of punctuality: Internalized.

SO THERE, Grandma and Grandpa!

happy anniversary

6 . 17 . 2011

{it's eleven years today}

{i came across this piece of goodness last month, written by my friend Jill - back in the day...}

"Why wouldn't he wait for you?"

I asked my friend who was leaving the love of her life behind in the states to study for a semester in Hungary. Her eyes had sparkled before when she spoke of other guys but never like this. 

I remembered S, the Q-tip-headed sophomore whose blue eyes cooled pangs of college freshman awkwardness like a good back rub. She liked S, though I doubt she'll admit it now. He would pick her up from behind and pretend to throw her into the puddles in the walkways. I tended to trip into them all on my very own. Still, I always envied her pick-up-able-ness and the way she could hold a straight face when she teased him. And oh, he was easy to tease. Frankly, I found him annoying and was glad when this year she told me with waving arms that "church-boy" had spoken to her.

Now, flaky-ness was neither a characteristic of her, nor I, but I saw what being looped can do to a person. She was geeked - as we said back then - and I was wired from the second pot of coffee we'd just finished off.  That was when I looked up from the napkin holder I was fiddling with and glanced at her face.  I knew that is was a man's eyes that attracted her but I'm not sure she realized the effect Trevor's eyes had on her own.  

Or TJ, as she later called him in all playful affection.  She made me swear not to call him "church-boy" though that's where she first saw his eyes--at church.  I should know what color they are after all the times she would mention them and let her head fall dreamily to her shoulder.  She did.
But like I was saying, his eyes affected hers and I don't know if she even realized it.  

Her face was her trademark.
Her laugh, her smile, the way she could cross her eyes, and the way she listened to my deepest fears and joys.  She was, from the start, one of the most enjoyable people to talk with and I could hardly blame Trevor for his attraction to her.
Besides the fact that they both picked their feet, their eyes bonded them.

Now Daphne, that is her name in case I forgot to mention it, could look at Trevor and read his thoughts.  After all, they were often hers. She called him on his mistakes with her eyes and watched to see if they were in fact laughing about the same thing...or person.  

Now, when she was just about to leave, her eyes were alive.  Perhaps there was an inkling of doubt about their relationship in her mind, for as far as I knew they'd spoken of "companionship" but the words "I dig you" were never said, but her eyes shone with one-hundred percent pure life.

To any outside viewer their eyes seemed perfectly normal - I mean, they weren't bug-eyed or anything - and each of them had two per nose, one per ear.  I don't want them ot come off as super-human, although I had seen Daphne's eyes bug out once in our reflection in the bathroom mirror when we filled the sink with toilet paper and lit it on fire.  Normally her eyes were fine.  This time they were lined with a little but of worry.  In steps turbo-friend. That's right, me the puddle-stomper.

In all seriousness, I did not see a reason why he wouldn't wait.  After all, not everyone graduates and gets married to the first person they meet on the street and Trevor had met Daphne in church.  Trevor seemed to be a good lad and loyal to the core.  I wondered if I had to put to rest her self-esteem doubts again but she had to see how beautiful she was when the mirror reflected healthy brown hair and a tan body.  She once said she didn't like the way she look much.  "Same way you wouldn't like child's tousled hair," I wanted to say.  I think Daphne is very beautiful and she's fortunate enough to have a hilarity about her to enhance it even more.  But I think she was more concerned about the wait.

Trevor is kindred.  She knows this.  

I also happen to know that she would wait for him forever and two days; two because he has two nice eyes. (Three because she's seen more than she'll ever let on).  That is a long time and, if I know anything about Daphne, she's been hurt before and would only wait if she knew TJ would wait for her.  And he would, for forever and four days--two because she has two nice eyes.  He would only not wait if he was sub-human but you will not find a worm with eyes like his and I told her that.  I think she may have taken that one wrong so I spread the butter out flat.

"Daph, Trevor will wait because he knows you wait for him as no one else does."

And I looked at her face and something clear and round and salty washed the life right back into her eyes.

{happy anniversary}

park hater

I am a park hater.

Although, that designation probably doesn't really capture the truth about how I feel.

I really believe in parks and public play spaces.

Especially in contrast to everyone having their own private play spaces in the backyard.

I mostly just hate taking my kids to the park.

That doesn't quite capture the hater in me either.

The hater in me hates:

that the park doesn't have anything for me to do...

except chase my kids around or

sit on a bench feeling pressure to play with them but wishing I could read my book or magazine

{meanwhile other parents chase their kids around and I sit there feeling like a bad parent - sounds like a personal issue, eh?}

The hater in me hates:

that most play equipment is simultaneously too big and too small for my kids

and most definitely is too little for me...to play or to assist my kids' play.

The hater in me hates:

standing around in the presence of other parents, 

not sure if it is proper etiquette to make small talk

while my kids have no trouble establishing one-afternoon stand friendships with their kids.

The hater in me hates:

how lonely and boring it feels to go to the park with my kids.

But it is easier to say "park hater" than to say

A-person-who-prefers-not-to-go-to-the-park-for-a-variety-of-selfish-reasons.

Ultimately, though, my hater status doesn't matter because

my kids love the park.