I Need to Learn Another Language

The other day I was at my daughter's basketball and I saw a friend of mine there watching her daughter who was on the opposing team.  I really like to have fun social experiences with friends, but I think it's awkward when your daughters are playing against each other.  I should say awkward when there is at least one competitive person (me) who is trying to act like I'm not competitive at all.  I don't know if I pulled it off.  For example, I was probably a little too enthusiastic about her daughter making baskets.  I clapped and smiled and looked at my friend to make sure she knew I was clapping.  The score was too close for comfort for me at one point.  And then after half time, we pulled way ahead.  I noticed there wasn't a lot of conversation going on between me and my friend.  But she did make a comment that our team has some very strong personalities amongst our parents.  There is one dad in particular, who is very vocal, even at practice, and he happened to be sitting right behind her.  But I got self conscious and basically wanted to prove that we weren't one of "strong personalities."  When my husband would yell some advice out to my daughter, like, "Who are you guarding?  Find your person!"  I was like, "Lighten up dude!  It's just a game!  As long as she's having fun…and stuff" and then I looked at my friend and smiled, to reassure her that I don't care what happens in this game.  But I'm secretly totally on board with my hubby.  This is when I realized that I needed to learn another language.  Then I can communicate to my basketball player what I'm really thinking, while pretending to be a chill, easy going, sports parent.  For example, I could yell, "Deplacer!!" with a huge smile, while holding a sign that says, "Just as long as you're having fun!  Everyone's a winner!"  But before the game, I'll teach Susie that "Deplacer!!" is French for "Move!!" And I'm pretty sure I'll get away with it, because I don't know anyone here who speaks French.  

On another note, I mentioned to my friend that we have a set of triplets on the team, which is always good material for an interesting conversation.  But her response was like, "Oh…."  and then I thought, "Now what do I say?"   I know!  I'll ask her if she's a triplet… That could break the ice a little.  Or at least it would distract her from the fact that I was thinking, "I hope we win this game by 100 points!!"

Delusional

I think I'm a little delusional.  For example, sometimes I think I'm still really young and then I find myself  driving home from the store and I feel like I want to pull over and take a nap, because I'm too tired to drive 10 more minutes. That is a moment I realize I'm not so young.  Or I'll be having a conversation with someone about age and I'll ask them to guess mine, and they guess my age right on the dot.   I hate that.  I don't even accept when they take two years off of my age.  Not acceptable.  I want 7 or more years off, or the conversation wasn't even worth it.  I'm also delusional about my agility and gymnastics skills.  But then my two year old came up to me and asked me to help her do a "handspring."  So I picked up that little two year old body and flipped her around and she said, "Thanks Mom."  And I'm thinking, "Anytime, that's what I do! I flip kids around, because I'm young and agile."  And then she said, "Can you do a handspring?"  And I said, "yes" and did my version of a "handspring."  Then she sweetly responded, "You can't?!  I help you!"  And in my mind, I'm like, "I just did one!"  But it's cool.  

Being delusional is kind of sweet.  It gives us a moment of peace, confidence, whatever…until reality hits us.  But we don't need reality hitting us all the time.  We just need it sometimes.  I'll never forget being in a math class in college, and we got our graded tests back and the girl in front of me totally flunked the test, and she said, "I thought I did well on this test."  And I was like, "How could you have thought you did well when you flunked?!" (didn't say it out loud).  I would understand if she had gotten a C and said, "I thought I would at least get a B."  But then I have to think, "What a great attitude she had!"  And she had, like, two days where she was excited about doing well on a test.  That's better than taking the test, being sad about doing a poor job and then getting the test back and remembering you did a poor job.  Who am I to mock her delusional thinking?  We could all use a little delusional thinking once in a while.

So today, I will be delusional:  I am young, and not tired.  I am a gorgeous!  I am brilliant!  I am confident!  And I'll let you know if reality tells me something different.

Classy Trash

Today, I was throwing a birthday party for my daughter.  It’s good for me to host things at my house every once in awhile because it whips me into shape, and I clean my house really well, and I put picture frames on the wall, and I buy a couch for people to sit on, and my kids wear stuff other than PJs for a minute, etc.  So today, before the party I was tidying up the front lawn.  There were a few bits of garbage and items that didn’t belong on a nice front lawn.  I noticed how much rubbish there was (I like to say big words like “rubbish” right before hosting a party, so I can be prepared to sound smart).  And as I’m picking it up, I’m thinking how all this rubbish doesn’t look very classy, so really, it’s a good thing I’m picking it up.  Then I saw a piece of dental floss on our patio, and I was like, “Wait!  Do I remove this?  Because, sure, it belongs in the garbage, but what does it say about us?  It says that we floss and we don’t just casually floss, we floss so much that it even ends up on our front porch sometimes.  How much classier can we be?!  Not much!"  So I concluded that there is such thing as classy trash.  But I threw it away and I just hope that people feel the classy vibe.  And I kind of regret throwing that piece of floss away.  But I am not digging that out of the trash.  I don’t care how much classy trash is in there. 

Burger

The other evening my family (and I) went to my oldest daughter’s softball game.  We enjoyed some burgers and fries from a local joint.  During the game, I was pitching a tennis ball to my middle daughter and some boys from other families joined the fun.  While playing, my five year old approached me with a half eaten burger, handing it to me, letting me know that he was finished.  So I have my moments when I’m not picky with food.  Like I don’t have problem with kid’s goobers, and kid hands touching my food.  My pickiness usually has more to do with the quality of ingredients.  So my five year old hands me his half eaten burger, and before ten seconds pass, I take a bite of that burger.  No problem, it was a good quality burger.  One little kid immediately tells me that he saw that burger fall on the ground.  I was conflicted.  I wanted to look like a responsible adult, who makes responsible decisions, but seriously, it tasted just fine to me.  But, I nodded my head, like, I knew what I had to do.  Of course you throw this burger away!  Whatevs!  As I walked away from him to “throw” the burger away, I kept looking back at him, nodding like I totally agreed with him, and this burger was history, aka, about to be trashed!  But I totally wanted that burger, and I still had a bite in my mouth, so I chewed slowly and savored it.  Then I looked back at the clean-freak kid, and nodded again and then pointed to the burger and gave it a thumbs down!  There was no way I was going to eat a burger that was on the ground.  At least that’s what I hoped this kid would tell his parents and then they would totally think that I was a responsible parent.  Meanwhile, I’m still loving me some burger, secretly.  Then the moment comes, when I’m faced with the trashcan.  I look back and sure enough, this kid is keeping his eye on me.  Good grief, go jump in a puddle, or play tag with a friend, or better yet, find a piece of ABC gum and live a little!   Finally, I swallowed my bite and trashed the rest of the “contaminated” burger, and tried to enjoy the rest of my daughter’s softball game, with the “Clean Burger Police” breathing down my neck!

August 11, 2015

Okay, spoiler alert!  This blog entry will contain material about vomiting.  If you’d rather not read, I totally understand.  I don’t like to offend people, so if a story that includes the word “vomit” is offensive or disagreeable to you, skip it.  Oh, but wait!  I didn’t actually vomit (in the story), which is another spoiler alert, but now that you know vomiting did not actually happen, maybe you’ll read.   But maybe you won’t read, because I’ve included 2 spoiler alerts in the first paragraph…moving on! 

Last weekend I ran a half marathon.  I’m a pretty competitive person, but I can be kind of lazy too.  Like, I will run a race, and I will try to run it hard, but I won’t drink enough water days before the race, because I don’t like the action of getting a cup, putting water in it, and drinking something tasteless, that fills my belly.  That’s boring. 

So race day comes, and I was at the starting line, doing my usual ritual which is thinking about my shoelaces, (if they’re too tight or not tight enough), and then I think about it some more. I also slyly examine other people’s shoelaces.  Occasionally I strike up a conversation with another runner about shoelaces. I wish I could say I was joking, but this is true. 

And then the race began.  Things seemed to be going fine, but towards the end of the race, I decided to push myself some more.  As I did this, my stomach started to hurt, so I backed off.  Hmmm, this was new.  I’ve experienced lots of discomforts while running, but not a stomachache.  Then as I neared the finish line, I started to sprint, like I normally do.  As I crossed the finish line, I had this overwhelming feeling that I would vomit right there and then. 

I hurried to the closest garbage can, and noticed a nice man standing right next to it, just minding his own business, enjoying a beautiful day.  So guess what kicked in?  That’s right, my need to be agreeable.  Sometimes this is good, and sometimes you just need to get the job done.  But here I am worrying about making this fella uncomfortable, and I was seriously on the verge of heaving.  So, I started to walk away and look for a garbage can farther away.  I couldn’t see one at a comfortable enough distance, and I realized that it might happen on the ground, in the crowd, which was even worse!  I needed to get out of there!  If only I wasn’t so agreeable!  I could’ve just used that first garbage can.  Then I could’ve just apologized to the nice man, and offered him my last fuel gel pack (as a prize for being understanding).  And he would’ve given me this funny look, and I’d be like, ‘Hey! That’s all I’ve got!  Beggars can’t be choosers!”  And he’d slowly back away, and I’d be like, “What do you want?!  My medal?!”  And then he’d start to run away from me.  And then I’d yell, “What more can I say?!  Fine, you can have my shoes too!” And then he’d turn and look at my shoes, because maybe he needs a new pair.

But guess what the cool part of this story is, after a few minutes of me trying to figure out what to do with my conflicting feelings (stomachache vs. not wanting to offend), the nauseous feeling subsided, and I went on my merry way.  I wonder if that guy knows what I went through for him. 

Gutters into Waterfalls

I learned a lesson from my two year old daughter today.  We went on a walk and as we were strolling down the sidewalk she looked at the slimy, mossy water in the gutter and said, "Look, a waterfall!"  I realized that we need to see life through the eyes of a child more often.  Sometimes, experience makes us hard and cynical.  But sometimes we just need to remember the smiles of our children, but not my two year old's smile right now, because at this moment she is screaming her head off, but she's not bleeding, and nothing is broken, and it's Mother's Day, so I'm letting my sweet, older daughters take care of this little ball of sunshine. So she is still screaming, but these screaming moments add credibility to the fact that we should be more like little children.  Because they're experiencing life too, and it's not like everything is roses for them.  They have their rough moments too.  But they are still good at turning lemons into lemonade. It's clear, that at this moment, my two year old is struggling, but I bet if I took her to the gutter again she would say, "Look!  A waterfall!"  So if you're having a rough day, or experiencing some "bumps" in life, go ahead, take a walk, and turn that gutter into a waterfall!  Or that bag of sugar into a pan of brownies, or that TV with the blank screen into a TV with Full House playing on it (you know you want to), or that quiet, empty room into a break dance floor (I think you're supposed to have a big piece of cardboard for that one, and parachute pants, and my husband told me that you should have a bandana tied around your knee too).  And right now, my seven year old daughter who is experiencing pain in her ankles (due to a disease she has) is saying, "Mom, can I snuggle with you, I haven't snuggled with you all day.  I really want to snuggle with you!"  So her version of turning gutters into waterfalls is turning pain into snuggle time.  Find your waterfall!!

I Do Believe in Fairies!

May 7, 2015

“I do believe in Fairies!  I do, I do!”  Okay, maybe my five-year old son didn’t say it exactly in this Neverland-like way, but that’s what he meant.  The other day, I was walking up the stairs, taking my two year old to her crib for nap time.  As I approached the top of the stairs I realized that I didn’t have “Blanky” and she does not nap without it.  In fact, she won’t even consider using a different blanket.  In fact, she will not even allow another blanket in her crib, (except for the one that covers her dolls, but that’s another story, and I don’t like to get off topic:)).  Anyway, I looked downstairs and saw my sweet 5 year old son sitting close to the blanket.  I said, “Can you bring me ‘Blanky?’” And he replied, “Ughhhhhhhhhh!!!”  And then he said, “I do everything!” I then put my baby in her crib and told her I would get her blanky.  I went downstairs and got it.  While doing this, my son said, “Mom, do you know why I didn’t get the blanket?  I wanted to see you do it, because you never do anything.”  Seriously?!  I don’t even need to go over all of the things I do, but let’s just say that this child does believe in fairies, and they do his laundry, and pick up after him, and play with him, and read him stories, etc.  Maybe I should’ve been annoyed with this comment.  But it actually made me giggle.  And as I’m writing this blog post, my five year old son picked up a stem that had been broken off of a flower, and said, “Mom, do you know what this is?”  And I said, “No.”  And he said, “Can you guess?”  And I said, “Um a stem?  A stick?”  And he said, “I have a Mother’s Day gift for you. Do you want it now or on Mother’s Day?”  I let him decide and he decided that now was the time.  He went upstairs (He does go upstairs), and came back down with a flower with the stem partially cut off.  He presented me with my gift and I gave him a great big hug!!  So I decided that he must think I do something!  And then after he gave me the flower, I read him a book about fairies, because I really wanted to tie the end of this blog in with the beginning (It feels better when I can do that).  And at the end of the fairy book, I said, “I do believe in fairies!  I do, I do!!”  And he just looked at me weird, and for a brief moment I was glad that he couldn’t read.  I didn’t need him saying, “That’s not what it says!” and ruin the end of this blog for me, when I was tying things up just perfectly.  Oh yeah, and at the end of the book my son was like, “Mom I believe in fairies, because you are a fairy.  You look like a fairy.  And you do a lot, just like fairies do a lot!”  And he didn’t say that with his mouth, but he had a look in his eye, and that’s what he could have been thinking.  I don’t know if that’s exactly what he was thinking…what am I, a mind reader?!  He actually said, "Why did you read that book?" And I was like, "I know, right?"