K-I-S-S-I-N-G

I haven’t posted anything in some time. I guess I just haven’t been properly inspired. Today is no different I regret to inform you. Nothing out of the ordinary has happened that I felt like I needed to write about. I did jot down some thoughts the other day about things that bother me (For example, that people seem to almost universally misuse apostrophes when really all they are trying to do is make a word plural. It’s not No Shirt, No Shoe’s, No Service [which I actually saw on a sign last weekend]. It’s No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service. No shit.). But it came off sounding not only very negative but also extremely arrogant. Who am I to get all upset when people do these things? I’m sure there is a whole laundry list of things I do that bug people. I need to be more tolerant. I’m not planning to be, of course. But I still need to be.

So, if nothing has happened lately worth writing about, why am I writing? Well, the other day in the car, I was thinking about something from several years ago that was still so humiliating, so embarrassingly painful to think about that I actually said , “Oh God”, out loud. To no one. It was then that I decided that you might enjoy reliving this excruciating moment in my history. At best, it may give you something to chuckle about. At the very least it’ll just make you thankful that you are not me. You probably already are – abundantly so - but this should most certainly make you realize what a gift it is not to be saddled with these kinds of horrors from your own adolescence.

Here it is. The story of my first kiss.

Growing up, I was very skinny. I hated the word “skinny” and preferred to be called “thin” or “lean”, when in actuality, I should have been called “anorexic” or “emaciated”. I wasn’t unhealthy; I just could not gain weight. I didn’t break 100 pounds until college when I discovered wine and beer. Because of this, I was extremely self-conscious. I felt ugly and I knew if I thought I was ugly that it was likely that the boys did too. So I became even more self-conscious when I was in their company which, let’s face it, I rarely was.

It was sophomore year (in high school – please give me some credit). Yes, I was fifteen years old. To this day, it infuriates me when someone talks about their first kiss being in sixth grade or something. I was WAY behind that. There was no way in hell I would ever have been capable of speaking to a boy in sixth grade much less allowing their tongue in my mouth. I had crushes on boys as early as kindergarten but I certainly would have NEVER even conceived of a. letting them know and b. well, there is no “B”. I just wouldn’t have gone near any of them! The closest I came to bodily contact with a crush was in second grade when Jay Waggoner got up in class to use the pencil sharpener and I went up there afterward so my hand could touch where his had just been. If our bodies had accidentally brushed by each other and touched I probably would have collapsed. Luckily there was no such contact or I might have forever been in a vegetative state.

Anyway, I had seen all kinds of teen movies that played to all of those school girl dreams of having the really hot guy fall in love with you despite the fact that you were horribly awkward. I studied those movies – watched when the characters hands would brush each other accidentally and my stomach would explode with butterflies. There would be several awkward exchanges between the boy and girl but it would all build to the end-all-be-all moment of that first kiss. Because I had watched so many of these movies three things happened. I became very aware of my body during any contact I had with a boy; I lived in a fantasy world where I believed the lies these movies tell young girls about how the guys are just as awkward in the moments leading up to a kiss; and I believed that a kiss was the pinnacle of any relationship and I placed a lot of importance over how it would go. Because I had envisioned this enigma as the most important thing that could possibly ever happen to me, I became extremely fearful of it.

(Actually, a fourth thing happened – I also started making out with a stuffed dog that had a big mouth that my grandfather had gotten for us kids at the bank when he opened a savings account for us. My brother, who was a baby at the time we got these dogs, in his inability to articulate because of his young age, called him “Dawddie” [as in “doggie”], so really I should probably credit Dawddie as being my first kiss. And before you start assuming that I was fifteen and making out with a stuffed animal, it’s actually not quite that sad.  I was probably eight or ten. I realize that is still WAY too old, but, if you’ll recall, I was quite weird. I’m just saying that for the record, Dawddie was instrumental in me beginning to practice the art of the kiss. Or, at least, the art of me rubbing my mouth all over a toy. But I digress…)

I've always been a little bit inept at meeting people and it takes me a while to warm up to people I don’t really know. Once I do, I am very comfortable acting silly and joking around. In fact, if I first meet you among a group of people I am comfortable with, I will be a completely different person than if you meet me one-on-one. It’s gotten better as I’ve aged, but to this day I am still clumsy at meeting new people. So, if I’m awkward now, I’d say that twenty five years ago, I was a raging ass-hammer.

Anyway, the Homecoming dance was coming up and, (oddly I’m sure you’re thinking), I found myself without a date. There was a guy I had a crush on whom I had gotten to know when he started hanging out with my group of friends. He was hilarious – the funniest guy I had ever met. Because I had gotten to know him among people I was already at ease with, I probably came off as a lot of fun. I was silly and joked around quite a bit in his presence. I felt like he’d like me if he really knew me. But you see, he didn’t really know me. He knew the “me” who was with her friends inside her comfort zone. I had never been alone with him. If I had been, I would have been a bumbling mess and he never would have given me a second look. But this was not the case and he very stupidly asked me to the dance. I was so excited! And petrified.

The good news was that I was going with a group that included my friend, Jenny, who was going to spend the night after the dance. And to be honest, I don’t really remember who else was there or what all we did. I think we went to someone’s house afterwards and watched a movie. I know we did in fact because I remember the way we were seated and that our shoulders kept moving closer and closer to each other and that I was sweating and breathing heavy at the very thought of it. Touching shoulders! Can you imagine?! How HOT!!! But to me, it was. I was so nervous that I worried if I opened my mouth to speak, a butterfly might come flying out – directly from my stomach. Speaking of my stomach, I also remember very vividly that it was growling audibly. I had been so nervous leading up to the date that I couldn’t eat for all of the knots in my stomach. Probably hadn’t eaten much for a couple of weeks and couldn’t force anything down at dinner the night of Homecoming. (Is it shameful to admit that the same thing happened when I first met my husband? I lost a good eight pounds before our first date. Probably is shameful. I’ll leave that out.)

So, my stomach was growling and exploding with nerves for the duration of the evening. I wore a frumpy sweater dress (WHAT?) and did my own hair (my God, no!). The very thought of my appearance and how nervous and awkward I was that night still embarrasses me. In fact, typing this makes me instinctively bury my head in my hands to shield myself from public view. And I have the pictures somewhere in my parents’ house if I ever become too confident in my present-day appearance. I am only one flashcard away from ever being allowed to get too cocky. There will always be proof of what I allowed myself to look like ON A DATE lurking around. And my siblings are just cruel enough to whip those out at any moment.

Speaking of sibling cruelty – I can’t believe I’m just now remembering this! I’m positive that the date started out with my sister ringing the doorbell ten minutes early so I could freak out that my date had arrived before I was adequately prepared. On the (very) rare occasion I had a date, she would always do that so I would panic. And my dates must have been so infrequent that I would always forget that she would do it so I would go to pieces every time it happened. She never had the burden of being so spastic on her own dates so she would use my idiocy as her entertainment. I would get my revenge, however, by digging up and then placing strategically about the house pictures of her from her middle school years – a decidedly homely time in her appearance – when her boyfriends would come over.

Anyway, the evening must have gone on without incident. I don’t remember much about what happened and what we did. I’m sure that I was fine when I was surrounded by my girl friends and then a silent, peculiar jumble of nerves when he and I found ourselves alone. At some point, the time came for my date and Jenny’s date to take us home. We were all 15 so none of us could drive. My date – we’ll call him Jason (Actually, his real name is Jason. As you might imagine, he and I did not stay in touch so there’s no fear of him reading this.) - had his father drive us. I was fairly relaxed on the way home because I knew I wouldn’t be faced with the pressure of a kiss since his father was driving us home. It was probably the most relaxed I had been all evening. Crisis averted! The ride to my house was fine. I can’t remember how many couples there were, but we were in a big van and I believe we were the second stop in the off-loading process.

Jason’s father pulled the car to the curb in front of my well-lit house. I thanked him for the ride and Jenny and I walked up the sidewalk toward the house with our dates following behind us (with Jason most likely trying to see if he could detect any kind of a figure underneath that shapeless, horrid dress). We made our way up the stairs and I turned to thank Jason and tell him it had been fun. I noticed that he had stopped on the step below mine so we were now at eye level. I have no idea how it happened, but the next thing I knew, it felt like someone had released a goldfish into my mouth and it was desperately trying to find its way out as I chased it with a goldfish of my own. All I could see was the porch light and the cypress tree that was next to my house. That image is forever burned into my memory. I think my eyes must have flown open at the shock of what was happening. And over my shoulder I heard my friend Jenny, whose face was not buried in the mouth of her date shout, “WHOA!!!!”.

Whoa indeed. This moment; this milestone in my life. Let’s make sure we’re clear about what was happening here. I was making out with this person right next to one couple while several others AS WELL AS MY DATE’S FATHER looked on from the van. The couple that exited before us didn’t do this. Why were we?! I was pretty sure my first kiss would be a disaster, but I certainly didn’t imagine that it would be public. This had never happened in any movie I had seen. The guy was supposed to shyly approach with a glazed look on his face and hem and haw while the girl smiles sweetly and prepare for him to make his move. There was no move that I witnessed. He just dove in.

For what seemed like an eternity, I was standing there in shocked, kissing this person with my neck awkwardly bent to one side staring at the porch light. I have no recollection of doing anything with my arms. I don’t know if I put my arms around him or just stood there with them dangling at my sides. If I had to guess, I’d say they were at my sides. I think my entire body except for my tongue was simply frozen. I remember being very aware that we had an audience and shocked that this was on display. I was fearful that people would accuse me of being slutty since I was “the type of girl who would make out in public”.  Can you imagine that thought now? Girls are sending nude selfies to people on SnapChat and I was worried about a harmless kiss. But to me, a kiss was the biggest deal in the world as you’ll recall.

I have no idea how long it lasted, who pulled away or what the hell I must have said as I went into my house. But I remember Jenny laughing hysterically and me thinking that I needed to brush my teeth for, like, an hour and a half. You’d think I would have felt relief at the thought that I now had this big, mysterious thing over with and no longer had to worry about it. But you’d be wrong. I was actually more terrified than ever since nothing about the experience had been comfortable or enjoyable. I worried about it for the rest of the weekend. That next Monday in school, I was still reeling with embarrassment. He and I saw each other in the hall where our group normally hung out and I

Did.

Not.

Say.

A.

Word.

Sensing things might be a little weird (since he could tell I was avoiding him); he walked up to me sheepishly and said “Hey”. And I

Did.

Not.

Say.

A.

Word.

And so it went. So you see, I actually made an already horrifyingly awkward experience even more so by not even acknowledging him that day. Quite a feat. It’s possible that my odd behavior following the kiss was even weirder than my poor kissing prowess.  What a complete and total jackass.  Even as I type today, I am completely humiliated. I keep putting my hands to my forehead as though I might be able to just wipe the memory away. I can’t really tell you whose memory I’d rather erase – mine or his.

I have no idea at what point I actually did resume speaking to him. I wasn’t angry. I was just so embarrassed that I wanted to pretend as though it had never happened. I know that we became friendly (but not too friendly) again the next year when I went on a youth group ski trip to West Virginia. I actually was able to once again enjoy being around him and not be constantly reminded of our well-lit, public, spitty encounter on my front porch steps. Mostly because there was never any danger that he might be dumb enough to ever try to kiss me again.

So that’s it. Utter humiliation - no big deal. I think I’ll go crawl under a table now. The only thing worse was the time I thought a guy was going to kiss me and he really wasn’t and I ended up smearing my lip across his cheek. God, that was awful. Haven’t spoken to that guy in years, thank goodness. Hopefully something blog-worthy will happen in the coming days/weeks so I won’t have to go back in time and relive any more of these childhood calamities. I’d hate to think I’d have to unearth the story of when I lost my virginity.  By the end of that one, we’d all want to crawl under the table.

Slumber Party

What do you get when you combine 10 girls ages six through eight, a trampoline, lots of sugar in the form of cupcakes and M&Ms, at a slumber party? Well, you get a massive nap the following day. I am not a great hostess whether I’m entertaining children or adults. It stresses me out. I also end up cleaning the house right before guests come over and so when they inevitably track in grass and dirt and things get spilled, etc., it gets on my nerves because now I have to clean again! What good is that? As with a lot of things, entertaining is just not my strength. So agreeing to host this many children was, in retrospect, a bad, bad idea.

I have to say that I didn’t initially consider 10 girls to be too many. I had recently been empowered by helping a friend of mine host 22 thirteen year-old girls at a sleepover. Other than it being extremely loud (and reminding me of my pimply-faced, boobless, permed 13 year-old self which is never a positive experience), it was fairly easy. We tag-teamed it which limited the messes and the chaos. So, it was deceptively, as I would learn, easy. How was it deceptive? Well, there is a big difference between eight year-olds and 13 year-olds.

Last year, I let Kate have her first slumber party for her birthday. She has had people spend the night before, but just one at a time. Or we’ve had cousins over but their parents were present and I wasn’t necessarily the one in charge of anything. So, for her eighth birthday, I let her invite her best friend who is in another class, her cousin, and all of the girls in her class. Meg was not invited to attend her sister’s party last year, so I let her come this year and invite a friend of her own. All of that equaled ten girls. Which, in turn, equaled bedlam.

All of the slumber parties she’s attended before have had fun little activities.  For example, at one party, they had a “spa” and did make-up and painted nails. At another, they decorated pillow cases that served as their party favor. At her party last year, I had a few games – pin the tail on the donkey, fluffy bunny, and a few others. I found in that experience that it is exhausting to be responsible for the flow of the party so I knew I had to do something different this year. I hired a traveling art teacher to come and do an art class for the kids. It was scheduled to take up two hours – which were two hours that I didn’t have to be in charge of anything. Sold! The party started at 5:00. The art class started at 5:30. Then would be dinner, presents and cupcakes, which left time for a movie and popcorn and then bedtime. Easy Peasy.

The art class was great. The kids really seemed to enjoy it and seemed to be really proud of their owl renderings. For the most part, they listened intently to the instructor. And save for the mystery farter in the room, it was a low-key, relatively quiet, enjoyable couple of hours. As the painting portion came to a close, my sister-in-law arrived with my niece. They live two hours away so the plan was for them both to spend the night. Thank goodness for this fact. Had she (my sister-in-law) not been there, I might not have survived and would likely still be cleaning up. She helped me get dinner together for everyone which was a fairly simple process given that pizza was what was on the menu.

At this point I should back up and let you know that at various points throughout the art class, the kids got to take breaks while the instructor and I used hair dryers to dry the coats of paint. The breaks actually started calmly enough but got progressively wilder as the class went on. At the first break, they ate much of the M&Ms, Chex mix, and Goldfish I had laid out for them. By the last break, those items were used in combat in a hearty game of “hurl them at your friends”. Since I was in the other room with a hair dryer drowning out the sounds of food being thrown, I had no idea this was going on. It didn’t take me long to discover it, though, when I was finished as everywhere I stepped provided a new crunching sound.  All I could think of with each crunch was how I had swept and vacuumed mere hours before.

Kids, as it turns out, are very much like dogs. If there is food out, they will eat it. They don’t have any internal wiring to tell them that they are full. They had eaten enough of the snacks that now that it was dinner time, no one was hungry. This was troubling to me for a couple of reasons. One, we had four pizzas that someone needed to consume. Two, I knew they’d get hungry later and I’d have to get everything out a second time. I had kind of planned to simply shove them down the stairs and lock the door and then go downstairs the next morning to see who had survived. I knew this would now not be possible. Miraculously, even though no one was hungry, they ALL managed to force down a very sugary cupcake which was becoming more and more obvious that several of them did not need given their current state of hyperactivity.

All in all, dinner went off without incident. After cupcakes it was time for Kate to open her gifts. During this time, I did noticed that a few of the girls had brought their tablets. Tablets to a party? Really? All of the 13 year-olds had brought their phones to the party a few weeks ago, but I understood that. They’re 13. They needed to Instagram the event at every interval. But eight year olds?! At one point, one of the girls announced that they could all sit on the couch and watch The Croods. One girl sat by herself and played a game. I was losing control of the party quickly as well as becoming annoyed. I glanced over at my sister-in-law who, mercifully, is a teacher. We gave each other a WHAT THE HELL? look. She quickly announced that the electronic devices needed to be put away.

I was grateful for her being there for a lot of reasons but the main one was that she could step in and be the bad guy when I needed her to be. I struggle sometimes with not really knowing how to direct/discipline children who aren’t mine. I didn’t want to embarrass Kate by being too lame (although this will most certainly be inevitable) but I also thought the presence of the tablets was a little rude. These are sweet kids, don’t get me wrong. But there were things Kate wanted to do at her party that couldn’t be done if everyone was pairing off and doing their own thing on their I-Pads. The exorbitant use of these items is a soapbox issue for me anyway, but I really felt like they needed to interact as a group instead of burying their noses in their apps. Of course, if I had just let technology rule the agenda, it probably would have been much quieter.

Once the electronics went away, the kids went out to the trampoline. I had instructed them not to have more than four girls jumping at a time. I didn’t need girls slamming into each other and getting hurt. Of course, one girl for whom this was her first slumber party, immediately did a flip and somehow managed to align herself perfectly to go right through the unzipped door and land on the ground. Catastrophe! Again, I know how to deal with my child when they are hurt, but someone else’s child with their own set of quirks with which I am unfamiliar is another story. She was fine, but a little sore. I did not want to call her mother because I didn’t want to worry her or for this girl to leave. I knew she was okay, but she didn’t know she was okay. I can give my kids a pep talk and force them to face their fear and get back on the trampoline, but I have to approach someone else’s child differently. In the end, she was fine and she stayed. But it was a traumatic few minutes for us both.

When I would look out the window to check on them, I would see that no one was heeding my command to only have four people jumping at a time. I would go out and remind them of this fact and they would comply for about 3.67 seconds. This was my first clue that no one was planning to listen to me for the duration of the party. I sent my sister-in-law – “the Gestapo” - to lay down the law. There were a couple of girls who began to emerge as the ones we were going to have problems with. I began making mental notes of things that I needed to discuss with my children about what they needed to do or not do when they went to someone else’s house. First on the list was to actually do what the parent(s) asked them to do.

I’m not so naïve as to think or even suggest that my children always mind me. They don’t. But when I use a certain tone they know I’m serious and they will get in trouble if they don’t comply. Through this party, I discovered that there are some children that are simply not made to mind. What their parents may not realize is that it then becomes the problem of the parent who is hosting them. I want my children to be the type of kids that the parents want to invite back. I’m not saying that they always are; but that is certainly my expectation. If they are not, it is not due to a lack of me drilling it into their heads. My sister-in-law and I both remarked that if we ever witnessed our child(ren) doing or saying some of the things that some of these kids did and said, there would be serious consequences. And I am comfortable using a tone with my kids to get their attention. Your kids; not so much.

I was grateful to note that Kate seemed to realize some of the things I have taught her. She began coming to me to tell me of things her friends were doing that she knew they shouldn’t be doing. For instance, some of them had opened a closed door and let themselves into our workout room. In no time at all, our elliptical machine had been destroyed. We have had this machine for probably eight years. My husband and I use it with some frequency. Somehow one eight year old girl managed to rip one of the arms off in less than five minutes. (This is another item on the list of not-to-dos – never open a closed door at someone else’s house. If it is closed, they don’t want you in there.)

I thought that planning the party on a Friday night was smart – the kids would be tired from a week of school. Instead of them being tired and it making them sleepy, they were the kind of tired that made them slap-ass-happy wild. I managed to corral them upstairs to get their jammies on in preparation for the movie. I know none of them brushed their teeth at this point because no one quit talking at 500 decibels the entire time they were up there. I heard from a neighbor the next day that, although they live two houses down, they could hear the noise from INSIDE THEIR HOUSE. At this point, I began thinking about where I had gone so wrong in making this decision to have this many girls over. I thought about that party of 13 year-olds. Thirteen year-olds are self-sufficient. Their manners have set in and been reinforced for a longer period. They can practice self-control. Yep. That’s the difference. That’s where it all went of the rails for me.

They gathered downstairs for the movie. The next trial was to get them to agree on a movie. When we turned on the Apple TV to browse available selections, the first graphic that came up was for the movie Frozen. All. Ten. Girls. Went. Bananas. I was reminded of footage from when the Beatles came to the US. People were screaming. People were crying. A few people had to be resuscitated. But it was a tease. The movie isn’t available yet. It was an ad to pre-order it. Epic party fail. No movie choice would now even come close to being a good one since the Frozen rug had been yanked out from under them.

They settled instead for Soul Surfer. My kids have seen the movie multiple times and really like it. They go to a Christian school so I know that the other children’s parents would appreciate the positive message of faith that is present in the movie. What I wasn’t sure the parents would appreciate was the shark attack scene that, while brief, could still bring on nightmares for their children. I let the girls know that there is a scary scene in the movie but they all wanted to see it. They said they could handle it, so I acquiesced.

As I was leaving to take Meg and her friend upstairs for a different movie, one of the girls who had not eaten dinner announced that she was hungry. Had this been my child, I would have simply said that she should have eaten her dinner and waltzed up the stairs. Given that I supposed to be a gracious hostess, I offered to pop popcorn which I had planned to do for them anyway. We have a big popper like the ones that you see in concession stands which is good for a bigger group. However, it takes a long time for it to warm up to the point that anything is actually popped. I turned it on to warm it up and went upstairs to get the other movie going.

I got Meg and her friend situated with a tamer movie in my bedroom and returned downstairs to assess the popcorn situation. One girl asked when it would ever be ready in a tone that indicated that she is not often made to wait for anything. I explained that this popper takes a long time to heat up. She would ask me this question three more times before I was able to produce popcorn. (Another item for my list – don’t make demands of your friends’ parents.) The girls settled in with their popcorn and waters and were relatively quiet during the movie. Aaaaahhhhhhh.

You are likely reading this and thinking what a horrible, mean person I am. I was actually very nice to all of these kids even when they were doing or saying things I didn’t like. Nicer, in fact, than I can be with my own children (poor things). I merely was making mental notes as all parents do. Taking stock of behaviors I either did or did not want to see repeated in my own children.

During the movie, two girls came up the stairs and sheepishly asked where we keep our markers. I don’t allow markers downstairs so I asked them why they needed them. They didn’t want to tell me. I asked, “Is someone asleep?”. They answered affirmatively. I asked, “Is it Kate?”. They nodded. I said, “They are in the top drawer in the table behind me. Do your worst.”. Poor Kate. She requires a lot of sleep.  Always has. These girls aren’t yet old enough for the bra in the freezer routine, so markers-on-the-face would have to do. When I went down the stairs to check on them, many of the girls – although awake - had orange moustaches and beards. Kate had some doodles but was still blissfully sleeping, sitting up in her chair.

By the time the movie ended, there were two more girls who were tired and ready for bed. Everyone had already assembled their sleeping bags in the playroom. The tired girls got in theirs and worked on falling asleep (or, in Kate’s case, falling back to sleep). I told the remaining girls that they needed to be respectful of their tired friends and not be too loud. I let them know they could continue to talk/whisper, but it was time to wind down. As it turns out, these girls did not yet know the definition of the words “respectful” and “wind down”.

When the noise level became something I could no longer ignore, I went downstairs and was greeted by one girl who was so sweaty from dancing and farting that she had taken off her pants. (Mystery farter revealed!) The other girls were not amused but were expressing their displeasure just as loudly as she was yelling during her dance. I told them all to quiet down again. There were five of them awake; four who were being wild and one who was begging the others to let her go to sleep. They got quiet, so I went back upstairs. By the time I reached the top stair, all hell had broken loose downstairs again. I gave it a couple of minutes hoping they’d hush on their own – again, not wanting to stifle them too much since it was supposed to be a fun party. They didn’t, so I sent in the big guns, my sister-in-law.

It was hilarious. Every time one of us went downstairs, they played the blame game as to whose fault it was that they were being so loud. The poor girl who was experiencing her first slumber party was the one who wanted desperately to go to sleep. She had not been as lucky as the three who were asleep and blissfully, inexplicably unaware of the noise around them. I explained to the wild ones – the Final Four as I named them since they were the last to go to sleep - that they needed to be respectful of their friend who was trying to fall asleep and to please be quiet. I told them I did not want to have to come down to tell them this again. I’m not sure what might happen when I say that I don’t want to have to “do this again”, but to my kids, it means disaster.  When I say that, whatever they are doing stops. I was confident the Final Four would sense this as their final warning as well. Yeah…no.

It was after midnight. Literally as I was turning to leave the room, they began raising their voices again. I would end up having to go down one more time before the roaring finally stopped – sometime after 1:30. I had to be more direct than I had wanted to be, but this poor girl could not go to sleep and neither could anyone else in the house. Well, the little girls and my sister-in-law actually managed to go to sleep around 12:30, but I was still awake. And Mama needs her sleep.

Miraculously, they all woke up bright-eyed and bushy tailed the next morning. The first person to rouse was Kate followed by one of the Final Four. They woke and ate breakfast at various times and were surprisingly pleasant and perky for kids who had had so little sleep. I, on the other hand, was knee deep in coffee all morning. No one seemed to remember my grouchiness from the previous evening or, at least, all was forgiven. They played and jumped on the trampoline until it was time to pack up and go. I had them come in the house in shifts to gather their belongings. As it turns out, eight year-olds should not be relied on to be solely responsible for getting their things together. The number of items left at my house was in the double digits. One girl actually left her entire bag – her bag! It was the mystery farter, too. And although they were enclosed in the suitcase, I needed those pants out of my house.

I have to say that I did survive and once it was over it felt a lot easier than it had during the experience. I do think it is key to have a buddy there who can help you. I don’t recommend having that number of girls in that age group. There’s just not a lot of self-control at age eight. In fact, the six year olds were not as wild as some of the older girls. If you do have that number, make sure it’s a group of kids you know fairly well so you know what to expect in terms of their behavior. As I mentioned already, these girls are all very good individually. (Well, there’s one who kind of isn’t.) But as a group, I felt like I should have had some type of tranquilizer gun at my disposal. I’m just too old and require too much sleep to be game for this kind of thing. I should have known better. It’s my own fault.

It will be a long time before I have that many people sleep over at one time again. It was too rowdy and I don’t deal well with chaos. I learned a lot from the experience and have had some good conversations with my children about my expectations about their behavior that I’m not sure I would have had before. I would have assumed they already knew these things. But, some of their friends didn’t seem to know them, so I made it a point to have that talk. I had it in a way to not make Kate think I had not enjoyed having her friends over. Now that I’ve had a good amount of sleep, I can say that they are all sweet, good, silly girls and I like them all.

The good news is that the party is now behind me and I don’t have to do another until Meg’s birthday in October. The better news is that I now have a perfectly reasonable excuse not to get on the elliptical machine. The culprit, Kate later told me, was the mystery farter. So, we’ve discovered that she can leave her mark on our exercise room as well as in her pants. Thank you, mystery farter.

Old Yeller

My poor children. They had no control over their lot in life. Sure, they have a roof over their heads, food, and clothing. And love. Lots and lots of love. But what they don’t have is a patient mother. And when their mother, charming though she may be, loses her temper, there is a lot of yelling. A lot. So much so that they may lose sight of the love part.

I can go from zero to screaming at lightning speed. I feel like I’ve shown my girls this phenomenon enough times that they should know how to avoid these ugly situations altogether but, surprisingly, they still give me reasons to do it. I’m not proud of it.  (I’ve typed that sentence in almost every blog post I’ve ever done. I need to go in search of something I am proud of so I don’t always come off as a gigantic loser.) When I’m around parents who don’t yell at the first sign of trouble, I marvel at their restraint. My inner monologue tells me what a horrible mother I am. And yet, when I am in the middle of an irrational rant, that same inner monologue is telling me that I should proceed with guns blazing.

I have noticed that I can’t always predict when I will take complete leave of my mental faculties. For example, one kid can spill a full glass of milk all over the table and floor and I can calmly mop it up without incident. I’ll even let them off the hook by telling them that it happens and it’s not a big deal. After all, the child feels bad enough that they have made this mess, why make it worse? But, at other times; times that don’t create messes like these and are ostensibly less calamitous; I can become a crazy, uncontrollable hothead. It’s shameful really. I’m old enough to know better. I know that yelling doesn’t solve anything and, in fact, makes everything worse. Yet it continues. I guess I want to shock them. Really make them understand my anger in order to prevent whatever it is from happening again. But in reality there’s probably not that much thought that goes into it. I just get mad and blow up. End of story.

A recent example of this is - again – “something I am not proud of”. It happened in the car line as I was dropping my kids off at school.  The drive to school had been pleasant enough.  We didn’t have the radio on.  We were just talking – Me, Kate and Meg. Kate had asked if I would play her a song on my IPod that they are forbidden from listening to. The song in question is Starships by Nicki Minaj (something I am also not proud of) and even though it’s the edited version, it’s still AWFUL. It’s on there because it’s a good song to run to. But there are all kinds of bad words in it and I won’t let my kids hear it.

I have plenty of songs on my IPod that have bad words in them. The difference is that most of the time, I only have to turn the volume down at one point in the song. With Starships, I have to really be on my toes and turn it down every two seconds. That’s too much work and it’s too risky, so they can’t listen to it. Period. But Kate really wants to know what’s so bad about it. She was trying to reason with me by putting it this way:

I need to know what the bad words are because what if I’m making up words and I accidentally make up one of the bad words from this song and then I get in trouble?

I explained that if she was unlucky enough to actually make up a word that lo and behold is a bad word from this particular song, we would discuss it then. But, until that time, I was okay with her not knowing what they were. Then Meg piped in from the backseat,

Is one of them the bad word that Kate taught me?

Now I’m intrigued. 

What word did Kate teach you?

Kate immediately became defensive and begged her sister not to tell me. Meg said,

I don’t want to tell you because if I say it, I’ll get in trouble.

Kate quickly let me know that it was a word that she and I had talked about before.  I asked her what it started with.

“A”.

Ass.  Okay, I can deal with ass.  I then said the word out loud and said that yes, “ass” is an ugly word for bottom and that they should not use it. Incidentally, the movie A Christmas Story has the word in it a few times when one character calls another a “smartass”. So, they’ve definitely heard it used and know that it is not a nice word and they are not to use it. I reiterated this fact.

If I had just stopped there, that might have been the end of it. But no, I thought about the fact that they go to a Christian school and have a Bible class a few times a week. The word “ass” is in the Bible in reference to donkeys.  It’s even in the traditional version of The Little Drummer Boy at Christmastime. I was afraid that they would be confused if they read it or heard it come out of their Bible teacher’s mouth. So, I explained that there is, in fact, a use for the word that isn’t ugly that they might hear. After I explained that it was another word for a donkey and that it appears in the Bible, one of them said inquisitively,

God said ass?

I knew what they were thinking. If God can say ass then so could they. And of course, like clockwork, all I began hearing from the backseat was ass.  Ass. Ass. Ass. I knew I had to put a stop to all of the assery going on, so I very firmly said this:

You know what girls, forget what I said. You should just refer to a donkey as a donkey and not even use that word. There is never a good reason to say “ass”. Do you understand? There’s just not ever a situation where that word is an appropriate one to use. It’s just an ugly word and it’s never a good idea to use it. Do you understand?

They said they understood and ass was seemingly put to bed.

But Maggie, you’re thinking, that sounded like a focused, reasoned response. Where was the yelling you’ve told us about?

I’m glad you asked.

We arrived at the school and got in line with the other cars full of children. As we slowly approached the drop-off zone, the girls unbuckled themselves and began gathering their backpacks and lunch boxes. I opened the minivan door with the push of a button (which I love) and Kate hopped out. I told her to have a good day and I turned to Meg in anticipation for the kiss she always gives me on her way out. She was still sitting in her seat, pouting.

Unfortunately, I had seen this look SEVERAL times before. On some days - and there’s no way to determine when it will happen - Meg makes a very deliberate decision that she is not going to get out of the car willingly. I have to beg, threaten, pull on her, etc. to get her out and into the school. On this day, I had to get to work and there was a very long line of cars behind me full of people who could not progress without me getting out of the way. I never enjoy having to deal with this kind of behavior but I was absolutely not having it on this particular morning.

I told her very calmly but very firmly that we were not going to do this today and that she needed to get out of the car. She told me she was scared that I wouldn’t remember to pick her up from school. I told her that such a thing had never happened and would never happen.  She told me she was still scared.  I responded that she should be far more scared of what would happen to her if she didn’t get out of the car this instant.  Realizing her options, she slowly made her way over to the still open door with her head hung low. She hopped out and then immediately hopped back in.  With that, she had very firmly pressed her finger on the button that is my temper.

I began to become short of breath. My forehead began to sweat. Not only did I have a ton of cars behind me, but they had all now witnessed my child’s bratty behavior. I immediately raised my voice.

Meg, GET out of this car!

NOW!

She was shaking her head no.

NOW!!

I was getting louder and louder. She tucked her head again and made her big, sad eyes at me.

Meg, I’m not going to tell you again. DO NOT do this. Get OUT of the car!!!

She hopped out and hopped back in. One time she hopped out and just as she turned to face the school and I began closing the door and driving off, she ran back. I was stuck. I couldn’t drive off because I was scared I’d hit her.

MEG!!

MEG!!

STOP THIS!!!

Mama, I don’t want to go to school. I don’t want you to leave me. I’m scared.

MEG!!! YOU ARE NOT SCARED! You come here every day!

Nothing.

I’ve got tons of cars behind me and I’ve got to go to work! You’re making me and everyone else late!!!

Meg hops out and hops back in.

MEG!! QUIT ACTING LIKE THIS! YOU ARE TOO OLD TO BE ACTING LIKE THIS!

Meg hopped out and in a surprising reversal, didn't immediately hop back in. Was I making progress? Nope. Instead, she held onto door frame so that I still could not close the door or drive off.

MEG, GET IN THE SCHOOL RIGHT THIS MINUTE!!!

Hops back in the car.

MEG!!! GET YOUR ASS OUT OF THIS CAR!!!

Wow. 

This is bad parenting on so many levels; it’s hard to know where to begin. Yes, I lost my temper. Yes, I yelled. And yes, I cussed at my six year old in anger - and using a word I had not ten minutes before said was “ugly” and “never appropriate”. I could see the fear on her face when that word came out of my mouth; all of the sweet moments that pass between us destroyed in a 15 second exchange because I couldn’t maintain my cool. She knows how to push my buttons and I know how to let it get the better of me. I yelled. I yelled and I cussed at my sweet baby who was scared I would forget her. I am the worst parent I know. And now I had created the added problem of having to explain to her later that even though I had used the word, it is not a nice word and she is never to use it. Kind of a “do as I say not as I do” kind of a thing; which does nothing but highlight what an enormous hypocrite I am.

You may be wondering if my outburst actually achieved anything. Did she get out of the car?  Well, yes, she did.

So then, yelling must work, right?  Has this kind of behavior in the carpool line happened again? 

You bet your ass it has.

Mall Massage

If there’s one thing that sets man apart from beast, I think it’s one’s willingness to receive a massage in the mall.  I’ve had a growing concern in recent months that my husband has taken too much of a liking to this practice and it is getting worse. He has made his disdain for shopping well known to me in our years together and generally I don’t make him accompany me.  But sometimes it is unavoidable.  The way he has chosen to put up with having to be dragged inside a shopping mall is to stop at those little dog-and-pony stands in the middle of the mall where they have a series of massage chairs set up. 

The problem with these set-ups is that you have no idea what kind of sweaty, obese person has drooled all over the chair prior to your arrival.  Sure, the workers place what I’m sure is a very sanitary paper towel over the cushion where you insert your face, but germs have a way of creeping.  Plus, it’s all so public.  The passersby can glance over and wonder who the weirdo is who is willing to plop down in the middle of a shopping mall and get a rubdown on a chair in which countless similar weirdoes have plopped.  And if you are, in fact, able to relax in such an environment, your face is all smushed up against the cushion so that when you are finished and sit up, you have the problem of a tell-tale red mark on your face.  Possibly your eyebrows are now misshapen due to the way you were positioned.  You look ridiculous and you then have to walk the length of the mall to get back to the parking lot.  

So the past few times we have had to go to the mall, I have suggested that he drop me off and go run an errand of his own.  There is a golf shop very close by and even a Lowes and Home Depot.  Where he used to jump all over an arrangement like that, he’s begun changing his tune and saying he’ll just get a massage while he waits for me.  It used to embarrass me to have to retrieve him from that area once my shopping was complete.  Now, there is a new problem.  While there is still that massage area in the mall, there is a new “store” that you can walk into discreetly.  A backroom if you will.  He can disappear behind a curtain and get a chair massage, foot massage and who knows what else. 

You’d think I would be appreciative of not having to publicly approach the idiot in the massage chair and claim him as my husband, and I am.  But now he’s getting 30-45 minute massages and I usually have an errand which takes about 10 minutes.  I am now having to wait for HIM at the mall.  What’s worse; I too, am a sucker for a massage.  I, too, have received a middle-of-the-mall chair massage that I am not proud of.  I happened past one on a day when I had a crick in my neck.  I made a hasty decision to stop and before I could come to my senses and run away, I was in a chair with a burly Asian woman pounding on my neck and shoulders.

I never could relax during that experience.  For one, these mall massages are not the relaxing, aromatherapy, hot stone massages that I am used to.  They use some Asian torture techniques that I am unfamiliar with to beat away your pain and cause a new, different pain.  And two, I knew that I would have to eventually stand up from the chair and be seen by whomever happened to be around at that moment.  What if it was a coworker who thought I was smarter than that?  What if it was a neighbor who thought I was more refined than that?  What if it was a total stranger who just thought I was weird and gross?  I did manage to get up, pay, and make my mortified escape without running into to anyone I knew, but it was humiliating nonetheless.

So now that it is in a more discreet location, I will be more apt to succumb to its beckoning seduction.  Let’s face it.  I love massages.  Some people are creeped out about being rubbed on by a stranger, but not me.  The way I figure it is that it’s just like a doctor’s office.  This is their job.  They’ve seen better bodies.  They’ve seen worse bodies.  They’ve had better groomed people.  They’ve had some gross people.  I’m happily somewhere in the middle.  I have found someone I love that I go to regularly.  If I have forgotten to shave my legs, I just apologize and we move on.  It’s great.  I have no idea if she goes and tells her colleagues how ragged and disgusting I am after I leave but I don’t care.  She gets paid and I get to relax.  

I don’t feel any shame or discomfort in getting a massage.  There’s not much I wouldn’t do to get one.  I always feel like I need one.  If I had an endless supply of money, I would get one at least weekly.  I don’t care if it’s a man or a woman doing it.  I don’t care if my undies have holes in them and they will be seen.  I’m not even that concerned if I haven’t showered yet that day.  Whatever.  Whenever.  Pretty much, I’d stop just short of pleasuring a hobo to get a massage.  But there’s something about the mall.  The fact that you are on display.  The fact that you have no idea what measures are taken to be clean and sanitary.  It makes me a little uneasy.

What I haven’t told you yet about my marriage is that Mike and I are not a competitive couple.  If he has a guys’ trip; if I have a girls’ night out – we don’t compare notes to determine who is somehow getting the short end of the stick.  Unless a massage is involved.  If I get one, he feels owed.  If he gets one, I’m on the phone making my own appointment.  It got to the point several years ago that we had to implement a rule and it is: If you get a massage, you are excused from having to give one to your spouse that day.   It started because the un-massaged party would be resentful and say something like, “Well YOU got a massage today so YOU should have to rub MY feet tonight!”  It began to take the pleasure out of the massage, so we had to do something to preserve the relaxation that should come with that glorious, glorious massage.  We take that rule seriously.  It’s up there with You-Can’t-Ever-Cheat-On-Me rule.  Might even be more important.

I bring all of this up because we were at the mall yesterday.  I had told Mike that the girls and I needed to make one return and get him a gift for his upcoming birthday.  Perfect, he explained. He’d go with us and get a massage.  Immediately I got my back up (if you’ll pardon the pun).  Why should he get a massage?  Maybe I’m stressed out too.  Did he ever think of that?  I don’t like a mall massage but I’ll de damned if I’m not getting one!  So for far too long a time, we carefully laid out our shopping strategy - how many minutes he would get massaged versus how long it would take me to go return an item, buy another item and get back for a 12 minute beat down.  Plus, there was the matter of having our kids with us.  What would they do while we were getting the life pounded out of us?  It didn’t matter.  Kids don’t have to have constant entertainment.  They can sit there and be quiet while their parents smash their faces against the flu virus that has probably been breathed repeatedly into the cushiony face pillow.  

So, we had our plan and we were ready.  I had my reservations about the mall-ssage, sure.  But I had been overtaken by the exuberance one feels when they know one is on the horizon.  I couldn’t get there fast enough.  We dropped Mike off and went about our errands.  It actually took longer than I had planned.  It dawned on me that the girls needed new shoes so we stopped at a couple of stores only to strike out.  After a decent trek around the length of the mall, we returned to the Asian Torture Chamber And Massage Parlor. 

The workers were all too eager to see us coming.  Time to get our aggression out, they thought.  I went back to Mike’s chair and asked him how much time he had left.  For that would determine if I was to get 12 minutes or 25.  He said he was almost done so I opted for 12.  I immediately sat down a planted my face in the disease-ridden pillow.  Then it dawned on me – my kids.  So, I popped back up and asked my masseuse where they could sit.  In very broken English, she said they could sit on a sofa that was stained (Stained?  From what?!!) behind us.  Works for me. 

It began.  The pushing.  The smashing.  The pounding.  It was uncomfortable but I felt like it was something I needed to drive the stress from my body.  A few minutes into it, Mike informed me that he was done and was headed to get a foot massage.  Go ahead and get the 25 minutes, he instructed.  Done and done.  Score!  The beating continued.  A few times, she was rubbing me so hard that it made me cough.  I think she had found and was massaging my lungs.  As she would press, my face would bury itself farther and farther into the tainted pillow.  How is it that these petite Asian women are so powerful?  This person looked like she would float away if the wind blew and here she was about to drive her hand so far into my back that it would pop through my stomach.  I was in pain.  But it was like that John Cougar song – it Hurt So Good. 

As it always happens with these mall-ssages, I couldn’t ever really relax.  What germs are in this pillow and now all over my face?  Who sweated all over this chair before me?  Are my faded, badly-in-need-of-repair granny panties visible?  Why is this woman trying to kill me?  And what is she saying to her coworkers?  That’s always a little disconcerting – the fact that you cannot understand what they are saying to each other.  Halfway through my massage another shameless moron who had made the same ill-advised decision that Mike and I had made ended up in the chair right next to mine.  At that point, my masseuse began speaking, in her native language, to her colleague.  A few times they broke into laughter.  My panties must be visible.  They are laughing because of how huge they are.  God, is my crack exposed?  Who cares – I’m getting a massage, however uncomfortable it may be. 

When it mercifully came to an end, I stood up, tried to comb my eyebrows into place with my fingertips, and walked over to get the girls and make my way to pay.  Mike was still getting his feet rubbed (by a man, I should mention).  I paid for everything – only $75 for essentially an hour and a half of services for us both.  There it is.  That’s the reason we do it.  It’s quick – no appointment needed (because who else does this in a mall?!?!); it’s easy (unless you count the bruising); and it’s relatively inexpensive.  You can slink out of the shop instead of having to stand up from the chair in the middle of the mall in front of everyone.  It works out for everyone.  Of course, I’m very sore today and it remains to be seen what illnesses I’ve contracted.  But it was totally worth it.  And I feel like we have taught our daughters a very valuable lesson – It is always a good idea to have a total stranger in a questionable environment rub on your body IF – and here’s the moral – IF it is reasonably priced.  You should always, ALWAYS take that deal. 

I will leave you with a quote.  Lyrics from American Treasure Johnny Gill from his lovely 80’s ballad Rub You The Right Way:

Can you feel the magic in my hands
When I touch and rub you the right way
Stroke applied with tenderness
When I hold and rub you the right way

Yes I can, Johnny.  Yes I can.

Helloween

It’s that time of year again.  The smell of pumpkin scented candles, the crisp, vibrant leaves, the fact that I weigh ten pounds more than I should from eating candy – Halloween!  Halloween is typically not one of my favorite holidays simply because I’m not much of a dresser-upper.  Also, I’m not crafty or creative so I can’t really do much to help the girls with their costumes.  We always have to go with something store-bought rather than something I piece together or, even less likely, make.

But, as the girls have gotten older, I have enjoyed Halloween more and more.  Our neighborhood always has a get-together and there are always lots of other families to trick-or-treat with.  It’s fun to watch the girls happily race from house to house in their silly costumes with their friends.  There is no shortage of festivities – even for the parents – and I was actually looking forward to it this year.  This was the first of many of the night’s major miscalculations.

To start things off, we had some issues with our costumes this year.  Meg first declared she wanted to go as Satan.  Not a devil – specifically Satan.  I told her that no, she couldn’t do that.  It was inappropriate.  She then went to her back-up – a caterpillar.  I suppose if your mom won’t let you be Satan, the next best thing is a caterpillar…  The trouble is, there aren’t very many caterpillar costumes for six year olds out there.  Most of the ones that are available are bunting-type costumes for infants.  So, we punted that and decided that, given her love of 101 Dalmatians, she should be Cruella DeVille.  The trouble with that one is that Cruella isn’t exactly a current Disney character.  I could not find a single kids’ Cruella costume and I certainly wasn’t capable of making one.  They did have some sexy looking “Naughty Dognapper” costumes for adults, but nothing appropriate for her, so we were back to square one.

We landed on a clown costume – clowns are a good costume.  You know as soon as you see it that you’re looking at a clown.  I’m not wild about those costumes out there that are “Rainbow Fairy” or “Ice Princess”.  What the hell is a rainbow fairy?  What does ice have to do with being a princess?  I don’t like ‘em.  It’s not obvious what they are at first glance.  So, I convinced Meg that she wanted to be a clown.  I didn’t know it at the time, but this would be a horrible, horrible decision.

Meanwhile, for the second year in a row, Kate announced – I’m going to say back in April – that she was going to go as “a little girl on crutches”.  Last year I managed to talk her out of it.  “But Kate”, I reasoned, “How will you trick-or-treat on crutches?  How will you hold your candy bag?”  She acquiesced and went as a black cat last year.  This year, I explained all of this to her again but to no avail.  I found a cheap pair of children’s crutches that I actually had some guilt about buying.  Somewhere there was going to be an injured kid hobbling around without any crutches so that my strange child could pretend to need them.

I also purchased gauze and fake blood spray thinking that I’d wrap her head and other body parts so that people would understand that the crutches were part of a costume and not the result of a playground injury.  It occurred to me that Kate going door to door looking like an accident victim might be offensive to someone but I felt badly about squashing her dreams a second year in a row, so I reluctantly got on board.  She was excited so I didn’t have anything to be concerned about.  Oh how very wrong I was about this, too.

As I was putting the clown make-up on Meg’s face, Mike was “helping out” by wrapping Kate’s leg and foot with gauze.  Mike wanted to be part of getting them ready which is so sweet.  The girls cast him aside sometimes.  He can’t do hair.  He doesn’t know which clothes match.  They just don’t have any confidence in him when it comes to those kinds of things.  So, he was happy that Kate allowed him to wrap up her leg. 

As I would put one part of the make-up on Meg’s face, she’d turn around to the mirror and look at herself.  At every opportunity, she’d catch a glimpse.  She was growing more and more excited as I did her eyes, her mouth, etc.  The more she looked like a clown, the more excited she became.

Kate was excited too.  The gauze was looking more and more like a real cast.  Meg, Mike and I even signed it with get well wishes to make it look authentic.  I wrapped more of the gauze around her head but she decided against the bloody spray.  We were ready to go.

Except… Right when she stood up, Kate began experiencing pain in her wrapped leg.  First it seemed minor.  Then, within seconds of mentioning a slight discomfort, she was bawling.  She was so uncomfortable that she knew she’d never make it trick or treating.  Mike was visibly dejected.  All of his hard work and he still couldn’t get it right.  She was losing feeling in her leg.  I looked and it was wrapped about as tightly as was humanly possible.  Poor Mike.  He can’t win with them sometimes.  We decided he needed to unwrap the gauze and just start over. 

Here’s the funny thing: Mike hadn’t used gauze at all. He had used medical tape.  Therefore, he was going to have to rip it off of her tightly bound leg (which actually might not be that bad given that she didn’t have much feeling left in her leg).  The feeling came back, though, as he began to pull off the first few layers of her skin.  She was screaming and crying throughout the grueling process.  I was standing there DYING to tell her that I told her that this would be a horrible costume choice but of course, I couldn’t do that to her.  I’ll do it later.  Remind me to.

Mike felt terrible that he was hurting her.  She requested that I be the one to re-wrap it and he sunk quietly into the background and took to getting Meg loaded into the car.  Once she was wrapped with gauze instead of medical tape, we got into the car.  Her eyes were red from the crying but we all knew that a fun, festive night was on the horizon.  Or at least for the next 2&1/2 minutes.

We arrived late to the hotdog dinner due to the experience that we’ll now refer to as “Tape-Gate”.  Most families were already there with the children admiring each other’s costumes and the parents looking proudly on.  Almost instantly, one little girl gave Meg a funny look and my precious clown burst into tears and immediately demanded we go home.  What she didn’t know at the time that we found out later was that the little girl’s mother is petrified of clowns.  When her daughter saw Meg, she ran to tell her mother that there was a clown there just to tease her.  All Meg saw was that a girl had a look on her face that indicated something other than what she had wanted and it ruined her entrance to the party.

With the tears flowing, it dawned on me that if I was going to get a picture of the two of them, it was going to have to be soon or she would cry all of her make-up off.  I grabbed her big red nose and shoved it onto her face and told them both emphatically that we were going to get a cute, happy picture.  I let Meg know that she was free to go back to crying once I had captured the staged moment of festive fun.  That poor child literally would bawl and then flash a quick smile for my camera and then cry out again.  What a horrible mother I am. 

 One of many shots like this

And finally a good one!



 

Meanwhile, as soon as the last picture was snapped, Kate ripped off her head wrap saying that it was too uncomfortable.  This left her only with crutches and a wrapped foot.  There was nothing that looked “costumey” about her ensemble.  I didn’t like it, but the more pressing problem was the sobbing clown, so I let it go.

Meg began hiding at the back of the building where everyone was gathering saying over and over again, “I don’t want to be a clown for Halloween!”  I felt awful because it had been my idea for her to be a clown.  She looked adorable to me, of course, but also a little ridiculous.  She had a painted face and a rainbow-colored afro for crying out loud (Crying out loud - that’s exactly what she was doing.)  Normally I can talk some sense into her, but she was clearly embarrassed.  Self-conscious for the first time that I can remember.  She was begging me to take her home.  Begging.  I thought back to that morning when I woke her up and she happily jumped out of bed and shouted, “Happy Halloween!”  She had been so excited and now she was devastated.  She had loved how she looked when we left the house and now she didn’t want to be seen.  It was heartbreaking.

After some begging of my own, I managed to convince her to come inside and eat some dinner.  She and Kate sat together at a table and I had to forcibly extricate my arm from her grasp in order to go fix her a plate.  I was looking around for Mike because I needed him to stay with her in my absence because she was still very upset.  I couldn’t find him so I went about fixing them a plate.  I returned and only saw Kate.  Upon further inspection, I noticed the rainbow-colored scraggles of her wig peeking up from underneath the table.  She was hiding.

I was trying to reason with the despondent clown by telling her not to let someone else make her change how she feels about herself and blah, blah, blah but it wasn’t working.  Her carefully drawn make up was now slowly dripping down her tear-stained face until she began looking like one of those horror movie murderous clowns instead of the cute, silly circus kind.  As I was giving my best parenting “be proud of who you are” speech, I caught a glimpse of Mike outside with his buddies, beer in hand, blissfully unaware of the drama unfolding inside.  He, of course, had no idea she was so upset.  Had he known, he would have been inside helping me.   He didn't; so he wasn't.  I had to go it alone.  I found out later that he was able to enjoy two hotdogs while I only managed to get a few sips of a glass of wine before pouring it all over myself trying to wrestle with the forlorn clown. This was not my night.

Finally, we took off Meg's wig and hat and that seemed to make her less self-conscious.  I told her if she wanted to go home I would take her but that I really didn’t want her to miss out on a fun Halloween.  The lure of candy proved too much for her and she reluctantly decided to stay out and trick or treat.  What I didn’t realize at the time was that she wanted ME to go up to each house with her bag while she hid behind her dad.  I wasn't going to allow that.  Instead, I went with her to the first few houses until she felt more comfortable doing it on her own.  We ran into the mom whose daughter inadvertently started all of this, and once she found out all that had transpired, she had a good conversation with Meg and managed to single-handedly save the evening.  Of course, I had an empty stomach and a now-full glass of wine, so I was happy as well.

As I suspected would be the case, Kate realized at about the third house we went to that she couldn’t get around as quickly as the other children.  She was, as you’ll recall, on crutches.  She began picking them up and sprinting to the houses.  Then she just handed them to Mike and me so that we could carry them to each house along the route.  She also discovered that, lo and behold, it was too cumbersome to carry crutches and her candy bag, so guess who got to tote around her bag?  I felt confident that somewhere along the way I had mentioned all of these things as potential problems, but Kate acted as though this was a new discovery.  Grrrrr. 

Her costume was puzzling to people, too.  They’d see her coming and they’d say, “Oh, we will bring the candy to you.”  Or, “Sweetie, what happened to your leg?"  I’d have to explain that this was, in fact, her costume and then read the “what kind of a weird-ass family ARE you?” expression on their faces.  She was happy, though, so what did it matter?

We did eventually have fun trick or treating.  All of us.  We have great friends/neighbors to go with so once all of the crises were out of the way and my own feelings of embarrassment over the psychotic clown and limping weirdo had subsided, we managed to enjoy ourselves.  We went to a friend’s house toward the end of the evening where I was finally able to get some food – and boy did I eat.  The problem was that we stayed out so long that we only ended up getting three trick-or-treaters once we got home.  That means that I have about 37 pounds of candy still in my house.  Calling me.  Begging me to eat it.

The drama surrounding Halloween really surprised me.  It seemed to come out of nowhere and when it hit, it hit hard.  We have never had a fun event turn into such a stressful experience like that.  Other parents have shared their own stories with me over the years – spoiled holidays, ruined vacations.  I’ve always felt bad for them that their children were not as well-adjusted as mine.  Well, reality has hit the McCallie household and I now have the knowledge that my children are as crazy as everyone else's.  There is some comfort in that, I suppose.  Safety in numbers.  And now that Halloween is successfully behind I us, I can look forward to a nice, peaceful Thanksgiving.  Right?

RIGHT?????!!!

 

 

Duds

About two years ago, I wrote about our dog, Dudley, who was aging and was beginning to play upon my nerves.  He was 14 at the time; a good and loyal friend who was beginning to show his age.  That sweet boy died last month at the age of 16.  Our whole family is a little bit pitiful without our faithful friend and family member.  The house is quieter; vacant without him.

What could I possibly say about dogs that hasn’t already been eloquently said by countless writers?  Quite simply, dogs are better than we are.  Kinder in a lot of ways.  More loving.  More open and inviting.  What you see is what you get.  They don’t judge.  They just love.  They treat you like a rock star when you come home after having only been gone ten minutes.  They are fiercely loyal.  They forgive.  They offer themselves completely.  True, they sometimes offer gifts from their bowels in unexpected places, but it’s a small price to pay for what you get in return.

Dudley became the standard by which Mike and I will forever judge other dogs.  He was in our lives for our most important life events.  Our wedding.  Our move to Chattanooga. The births of our daughters.  The purchase of our lake home (which I still contend Mike bought specifically for Dudley).  He was the constant.

 Our girls loved him very much – he’d been with them their whole lives.  But our next dog will be the one they will more identify their childhood with.  We will get a puppy at some point and the girls will be involved in his or her life from the beginning.  Duds was grumpy in his later years.  He didn’t love the girls as much as they wanted him to.  About a year ago, Kate was talking about the fact that Dudley wouldn’t be here forever and would we get another dog someday.  I told her yes and she suggested that we get the type that “doesn’t bite at me”.  He was simply growing tired and they were rambunctious.  A puppy will LOVE that rambunctiousness and that will bind them to a new puppy to a bigger extent than they were to Dudley.  But Dudley will be the dog Mike and I talk about for the rest of our lives.  Sure, we will love other pets, but not like Dudley.

In his absence, I am finding that we talked about him all the time.  We would give him this elaborate back story on pretty much a daily basis.  We’d be watching a movie and one of us would say, “Remember when Dudley did that?  Remember when he was the head of that drug cartel and killed all of those people?”  Or I’d put his little Christmas jingle bell collar on him at the holidays and Mike would fuss at me: “Maggie, why do you do that every year when you know Dudley is Jewish?”  We did this EVERY DAY.  Our girls did it too.  “Guess who had to go to the principal’s office today.  Dudley.”   If we couldn’t find him inside the house immediately, one of us would suggest that he was outside smoking with his “bad seed” friend, Robert.  I didn’t really realize how much we talked about him or somehow inserted him into a story or event but I find myself about to do it now and I get that little pang of sadness.

He had too many nicknames to count.  He was, of course, Dudley.  Duds.  But early on in our relationship, Mike thought he looked like a goat due to the scruff under his chin, so he became “The Goat”.  Then Goatey.  Then, in some intricate tale I don’t even remember the origin of, Goateres Banderas. He was Buddy Budders.  Buddy Butter Bean.  Smallest Friend.  Señor.  And the list goes on.  In fact, we called him so many things that it has occurred to me that maybe he didn’t lose his hearing as soon as I thought he did.  Maybe he just didn’t have any idea we were talking to him.

 We also incorporated him into songs.  All songs and TV themes could and would be routinely Dudley-ized in our house.  We also had some songs we had written (not written down, mind you - that would be pathetic and not “cool” like the rest of this that I’m sharing) and continued to sing over the years.  I’m not saying they were great songs, but certain occasions called for a good homespun Dudley ballad.  Again, I didn’t realize how often we would do this but now that he’s gone, I catch myself doing it all the time. 

 It makes me profoundly sad that he is not here anymore.  Sixteen years is a long time to have a pet.  I was 24 years old when I got him.  His routines were my routines.  There is a void there now that he’s gone.  I now fix the girls’ lunches for school and expect to hear his little nails scrape across the floor as the scent of the lunch meat proves too hard for him to ignore.  When I roll over in the bed, I expect to hear the tired little grunt he would let out when I was disturbing him.  I feel like I still need to let him out at night before bedtime.  I don’t quite remember life before him and I’m having a hard time adjusting to life without him.

We had known for a while that he was not long for this world.  He had been in decline as you would expect a 16 year old dog to be.  That said, he was very healthy right up until the time he… wasn’t.  It was not a long and dragged out process, thankfully.  It was basically one bad weekend and then I knew.  He wouldn’t eat the scrambled cheese eggs (his favorite) I had put in his bowl on Friday morning and then I cried for the rest of the weekend with the knowledge that he was coming to his end.  On Monday morning, we made an appointment for that afternoon.  I drove him there.  I took him out of his crate.  I carried him in.  There was something so personal about it.  I was the one carrying him to his death.  That’s the worst part about it.  With a dog, you have to determine when it is time.

We had decided to have the doctor examine him just to be sure we were making the right decision.  If he was simply sick and we could give him some meds and get a good 6-12 months out of him, we would do that.  But if there would be no quality to his life, we would not put him through that.  I knew when we took him in that he was more than likely not going to be coming home.  I had prepared the girls and they got to spend some time with him before I left for the vet.  Mike was coming in from out of town and was trying to get me to put off the appointment until Tuesday morning.  I was against that because I didn’t want to go through having a “last night” with him.  I felt like it would be too painful to go through a big production of saying goodbye.  So, he met me there at the vet’s office.

The vet examined him and found several large masses in his intestines and possibly in his liver.  It was bad.  It was time.  That actually made me feel better.  We had no choice but to let him go.  I had always pictured holding him – being there with him in the end.  I wanted to do that, of course, but now he was as much Mike’s dog as he was mine.  I didn’t want to rob Mike of the opportunity to also be a part of it, so he and I held him together.  A few times, Dudley looked around; searched for my eyes.  We told him to relax.  We pet him.  We told him we loved him and would miss him.  I’m not sure what all we said to him, but we just wanted him to feel loved - cuddled - in those last moments.  They first gave him a shot to make him peaceful.  Then they gave him THE shot.  He closed his eyes.  We cried.  The doctor put the stethoscope up to his heart and she looked at us and nodded solemnly.  He was gone. 

People have been very kind since we lost him.  Most of them simply understand what it feels like to lose a beloved pet and can relate to our grief.  But the people who knew him – or us – (to know us was to know him) recognized how quirky and silly he was and what a huge part of our lives he was.  We have been told by many people that it was obvious he lived a good life.  He had a lake house.  He slept in a king-sized bed.  He went to the beach, the mountains, and everywhere in between.  And he had a family who adored him.  In truth, he may have had the best life of any dog ever in the history of pet ownership.  Mike and I were fairly obnoxious about him.  It’s kind of embarrassing.  But we loved that boy.  If you think about it, our family started with Dudley.  We simply added on from there.

Yes, he had a good life, but we were the lucky ones.  He brought so much joy to us.  His sweet little face and his silly little personality – he really brightened our day.  I know he was “just a dog” but to be just a dog is to enhance the lives of the people who take you in.  And he certainly did ours.  Will Rogers said, “If there are no dogs in heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went.”  The girls have heard that dogs don’t go to heaven and so they are sad that they will never see him again.  I told them that I believe that heaven is where you are reunited with the people and things you cared about in life.  That said, I believe he is there, waiting for us.  I picture him in a big expanse of water, swimming after his racquetball.  Snarling at his brother Bailey.  Napping and then waking up only to eat some steak (medium rare, of course). 

Take care, Duds.  And thank you for loving us as you did.  I’ll throw the ball for you when I get there.

 

 Dudley McCallie

1997-2013