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Go Nigel, Go!
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Would You Like To Buy My Monkeys?
Aug
28
This Is The Way We Go To School
by Leslie
Julia will begin preschool in less than one week. I only wish I had the talent to illustrate a School House Rock-esque cartoon in which those words would be formed by brick letters that crash on me as they are sung by the guy who did I’m Just A Bill and The Tale of Mr. Morton, because that’s the only thing I can think of that would effectively communicate the enormity of that sentence: Julia will begin preschool in less than one week.
Dave and I attended a parent orientation last night all by ourselves. A few weeks ago the school sent a letter indicating that the orientation was for parents only. They even underlined that part: parents only. So, I bought a breast pump and asked my mom to sit with the girls while we went.
We had to take with us to the parents only preschool orientation some paperwork that included a questionnaire about Julia. It started out fun. We got to circle all the things Julia can do, most of the time. Button. Zip. Put on her coat. Run. Jump. Skip. State her name. Write her name. Then, it got a little harder. From a list of approximately 40 words, we had to choose the 8 that best described our daughter. Dave and I made our selections carefully and as a team. We copied the list and took turns eliminating words until we reached the 8 keepers. Part way through our selections, we noticed that many of the words were similar, but with different connotations. For example, CONFIDENT (positive connotation) and HEADSTRONG (negative connotation). So, we were mindful to choose the most positive form of each quality listed. Finally, we had to explain why we chose a Montessori school and what our immediate goals for Julia were. Dave began quoting lyrics to The Greatest Love Of All. I told him, “You! Don’t talk too much at this thing!”
It felt so weird to be out without the kids. It would have almost been exciting except there was no potential for adult-orientated shenanigans. So, mostly it was weird. Who would I blame for the stains on my shirt? It was the first time in almost five months that I left the house without a diaper bag. I couldn’t even find a purse to put my stuff in, so I used one of the free bags the hospital gave me when Lucy was born. Dave asked what I would possibly need to carry in it. I recited a list of essentials that ended with a pad and pen for taking notes at the orientation. He called me a nerd. I told him his nose hair was too long.
When we arrived at the school, we turned in our paperwork and headed for the meeting room. I wanted to sit in the front, Dave wanted to sit in the back. We compromised and sat in the middle where we fought over the packet of information they gave us until the orientation started. Dave didn’t even really want to read it, he was just keeping it from me because he knew I wanted it so badly. So, I yanked one of his nose hairs out and took the packet while he was still stunned.
We listened to the school director speak, then were released to our respective classrooms to meet the teacher. She remembered us right away from the open house they held last March. Probably because we had stayed there so long, we closed the open house. And I may have cried and hugged a stranger.
We looked around the room. We saw Julia’s name on her circle time spot. She’s right next to the teacher and a girl named Emma. (Emma. Emma sounds nice. Emma’s are friendly, no? I feel good about Julia sitting next to Emma.) Also, her name was listed along with her birthday on a cardboard rainbow on the bulletin board. (She’s not the oldest, not the youngest; she’s right in the middle. Perfect.) We saw her name on a drawer. (There’s already a lollipop in there for her!) The room looked ready for Julia. We were happy. Dave suggested we head out. I felt like we needed to at least say hello to the teacher. So, we skulked around until the teacher was free and then we meandered into her general vicinity.
“Do you have any questions?” she asked.
“I don’t think so,” I said, “I just can’t believe my baby is about to start school. I mean, she’s ready. She’s excited! This is going to be so good for her. I’m the one that’s freaked out.” And I proceeded to talk in such a way that I am certain convinced this woman that I’m a total flake. In fact, I think she may be afraid of me, because when I made a joke about camouflaging my face with green paint and watching class from the shrubs outside the window, she reminded me that they have a drop-off zone each morning, which means I don’t even have to get out of my car to drop Julia off at school.
There was an awkward silence.
Dave looked at me, “Well, you ready to go?”
Still, I kept talking. I volunteered to be the party parent. I offered Dave up as Santa Claus at Christmas.
Dave said with a chuckle, “Okay, well, I think we should go!” and gently pulled me toward the door.
I told a story about the first time Julia took a class I wasn’t allowed to accompany her to and how I laid on the floor, watching her feet under the door. (I vaguely remember telling that story at the Open House.)
“That it? Ready to go?” Dave asked, taking advantage of my need to breathe in some air.
“We’ll see you on Friday at the Meet and Greet,” the teacher said, trying to help Dave get me out of there.
I mentioned that I’d be bringing Lucy along and asked if that would be okay, then went on to tell her about how this was the first time I’d ever left Lucy and I had to pump my breast milk.
Dave squeezed my hand, tugged me toward the door and said, “Well, it looks like it’s time to go!” as he gestured toward the empty classroom next door and the teachers turning out lights, “Lucy’s waiting for you.”
Finally, I yielded and let Dave drag me out.
I’m not sure why I kept talking and talking. I don’t know what response I was hoping for. I don’t know why it was so hard to just walk out of that classroom. Maybe it’s because I know I can’t be there with her when she starts. It’s the first place of Julia’s that’s hers alone, not mine, too. It’s the first place in her life where I don’t belong. That’s not a feeling I’m used to.
The moment we reached the car, I pulled out my cell phone and called my mom to check on my girls. I could hear Lucy screaming. Mom said she’d been screaming for the past hour and was inconsolable. Dave put his foot on the gas. I said we’d be there as fast as we could and hung up. I sat there, in limbo, somewhere between holding on and letting go. Dave put his hand over mine and said, “It’s going to be okay.”
“Yeah,” I sniffled, wiping away tears.
“I just want to know what you’re going to do the day the teacher calls to tell you Julia’s been saying dammit.”
I took out a tissue, dried my face and said, “At least it wasn’t fuck.”
“I think we’re ready for preschool.”
“Yes we are.”
Aug
18
Passing The Torch: A New Haiku Buckaroo
by Leslie
A winner has been chosen.
It was not easy.
haiku verses, but just one
Haiku Buckaroo
by the reigning champion
Mr. Mo-Coffee
along with thoughtful comments
from our champ and judge.
Haiku Buckaroo Honorable Mention
Today seems perfect
to revisit a story
about a haircut.
No, not that long one,
but there is another one
from another time.
I was in Japan
and at my fav’rite haunt,
the Mister Donut.
Free refill coffee
is pretty rare in Japan,
but MisDo has it.
And so I was there,
wondering why I’d gained weight,
blaming it on rice…
A guy came over,
asking me general stuff.
Where from? Use chopsticks?
(Sometimes randomly
people will approach you
to practice English.)
We chatted, and then
he asked me an odd question:
You need a haircut?
Not sure how he guess’d.
My hair prob’ly looked like crap.
Still, I was intrigued.
And I did need one.
See, language barriers
can be really hard.
Even in English,
I have trouble explaining
how I want my hair.
So I’d put it off
waiting for my Japanese
to become fluent.
Turns out that this guy
had a friend with a salon,
down alley, downstairs.
Ever so cautious
but I did follow him there,
and it went just fine.
And he translated,
explaining what I wanted,
the perfect haircut.
Even though I tried,
nobody would let me pay,
and so it was free.
Stuff like this happened
throughout my time in Japan,
so many stories.
But now to this day
when I think about donuts
I think haircuts, too.
Submitted by Maggie’s Mind
Mo-Coffee says: “I was impressed by so many entries that expanded the traditional haiku form into longer narrative poems. This one stood out simply because I found my mind returning to it for three days. The tone and voice is lovely. The story is simple and simply told. And I love the symmetry. Although it might be a touch long, there are two of my favorite haiku’s in this one poem:
No, not that long one,
but there is another one
from another time.
And…
(Sometimes randomly
people will approach you
to practice English.)
The latter one could stand alone, I think. (…and I love the intimacy created by the parenthesis).”
Haiku Buckaroo Honorable Mention
While you are sleeping
I watch your breath rise and fall
And I am content.
Submitted by Jenn in Holland
Mo-Coffee says: “Simple; captures a moment without being sentimental. Also I like that we are left unsure of the relationship and circumstances of the poem.”
Haiku Buckaroo Honorable Mention
Yellow bird sees me
singing at the end of day
perched on a high wire.
Submitted by Elaine at Blog In My Eye
Mo-Coffee says: “This one has a nice tricky ending that adds unexpected tension to the verse.”
Haiku Buckaroo Honorable Mention
Wish there was a word
for that slap-thuk-whoo-whoosh sound~
Boats on water
Submitted by Jenn in Holland
Mo-Coffee says: “Finally I have to give this one a mention. I’m a sucker for onomatopoeia!”
Here, honorable mentions.
Display a button!
And now…
Poor summer garden
Awash in weeds and neglect
Sun dried tomatoes
Submitted by Englishgenie
Mo-Coffee says: “This one recalls some of the history of haiku (at least the way I understand it) in it’s relationship between humanity and nature, and in its witty turn of phrase at the end. That’s a lot to get into 17 syllables. Plus the word “awash,” which is wonderfully descriptive (awash in neglect…ponder that for a second…) and a great contrast to the now not-so juicy tomatoes.”
to Englishgenie! You won!
A Kit! A Mug! Cash!
display your button proudly
on your blog, winner!
and all the participants!
You’re phenomenal!
fourth Haiku Buckaroo game
begins now, my friends.
Aug
13
Dear Readers,
I promise my blog isn’t becoming some virtual notebook for recording every instance in which someone is mean to me. Considering yesterday’s post and what you’re about to read, it may seem like it, but really it’s not.
Thanks for being awesome.
Leslie
Okay. Someone was mean to me. Not just kind of mean, really mean.
It was one of the doctors at the vet’s office. It’s the guy whose name is listed first on the sign, so, I guess maybe he’s in charge. I rarely ever actually deal with him. But, today, as I was dropping off The Evil Cat to be fixed, he approached me to discuss my bill. That is, if discussing my bill means verbally assaulting me until I cried.
(You see, reluctantly and with great shame, I agreed to a payment plan with the vet’s office in order to get all (SEVEN!) of our mature female cats fixed NOW, in order to avoid another cat explosion.)
I bawled all the way home, planning all the ways I was going to get him back for this. But, in reality, all I did was get home and write a strongly worded letter that I intended to send with payment of my bill. Take that Dr. Meanie! This is what I wrote, with the exception of the comments in parentheses. (They were added, for your information.)
Dear Dr. Bowen,
Enclosed you will find payment for the remaining balance due on our account with the Coshocton Veterinary Clinic. (This is likely the only sentence he will care about, but I’ll include the rest, because it will make me feel better.) I’d like to thank you for the care your staff (Your staff, not you. Jerk.) has provided our pets over the past two years. I am especially grateful for the service provided by Gail and your partner Dr. Christy as they have always shown such warmth and sensitivity to my family and our animals, many of whom had been rescued and, therefore, required a tender touch. They have made our experience with the Coshocton Veterinary Clinic a pleasant and positive one.
I am, however, gravely disappointed with the interaction I had with you, particularly when you approached me on Tuesday, August 12th to discuss our outstanding bill.
Our relationship began with the Coshocton Veterinary Clinic in 2006 when we took advantage of your 24 hour emergency service and brought our ailing dog Clyde in for treatment, which we paid for (out the nose) in full at the time of service. You also provided crematory services for Clyde when he passed a year later, which we also paid for in full at the time of service. In 2007, you vaccinated and spayed or neutered seven of our cats, and though you offered us the option to make payments, we paid the bills in full at the time of service. You also performed a very expensive surgery ($800!) to resolve our cat Monet’s mammary hyperplasia, which we paid for in full at the time of service, although another offer of a payment plan had been made.
Recently, when we discussed the time frame and course of care for seven more of our cats that needed to be fixed, and again when we brought our cat Max in for emergency surgery on his maimed tail, the offer to make payments on the impending bill was made. Like most Americans, our financial situation has suffered along with the economy, so we gladly accepted this gracious offer. There were no specific terms to the payment plan agreement. We simply made payments, generally as we brought each animal in for their surgery, and had acknowledged that we would continue to make payments after all seven of the cats were fixed until the bill was paid. For this reason, I was shocked when you approached me on Tuesday, August 12th in the waiting room of your office and demanded immediate payment in full as another customer looked on.
I informed you that I was not able to pay our bill in full that day and reminded you of our agreement to resolve the bill in payments. You demanded half the balance immediately. Again, I informed you that I was not able to make a payment for half the balance that day. You asked, “Do you know how much you owe?” (Yes. It’s around the amount you charged for Monet’s surgery. That number wasn’t so shocking to you then.) and disclosed the balance of our account. (Again, while a customer witnessed it. Awesome!) “You’re gonna have to put it on a credit card or something,” you said. I told you the date of my husband’s next pay and offered to pay as much as I could then. You said, “Fine, pay it off on Friday.” I left your office, with my children, humiliated and in tears. (And you could have cared less. Fuckface.)
Dr. Bowen, if you were displeased with the amounts or the timeliness of the payments on my bill, I wish you would have discussed it with me civilly and in private. I do not believe I deserved the discourteous and venomous treatment I received from you that day. It was hurtful and embarrassing. And it is the reason I will be taking my business elsewhere.
Sincerely,
Leslie Grimmett
This is what I wanted to write.
Dear Dr. Bowen,
Now I know why you’re an animal doctor and not a people doctor, you rude fucking asshole.
Sincerely,
Leslie
When I returned to pick The Evil Cat up later that afternoon, I received an apology. Not from Dr. Bowen, but from the staff in the office. I was assured that it was a misunderstanding, that Dr. Bowen wasn’t aware of the payment plan I had set up with the other doctor, that we’ve always been excellent customers, they appreciate all we were doing for these cats and that I could continue the payment plan as initially arranged. And while that’s very nice, I don’t think I can go back there. Would you?
Also, the letter? It is so being sent.
Aug
12
Fat Is A Feminist Issue
by Leslie
I think my kids are perfect. Most parents do, right? Think their kids are perfect.
It’s not that I think my girls are perfect in that they have no flaws, they certainly do. I recognize those flaws more than anyone. I’m their mother. At this stage in life, I know them better than anyone. But I don’t expect them to be flawless. I expect them to be themselves. And that? They do that perfectly. And I am completely in love with them for who they are.
I think it’s my job as a mother to view my children through a lens of understanding and love, to show them that it’s never wrong to be themselves and to frame them in that way for others. But no matter what I do, there are always people who will look at them and see the superficial.
And then there are just plain rude assholes.
“Your baby is a porker!” That’s what the cleaning lady at the hospital said to me last weekend. Not once. Not twice. THREE TIMES. “Really! It’s a girl? She’s a porker. A real porker!”
Dave stood there, wincing, waiting for the explosion, but it never came. I said nothing. I knew if I opened my mouth, there’d be no stopping what would come out. So, I bit my tongue and told myself that the woman is probably on the low level of intelligent and probably couldn’t comprehend that what she was saying could be construed as insulting. Certainly she didn’t walk her big ass head all the way over to insult my baby and me? I let it go.
But this lady hasn’t been the only one. There have been so many people commenting on how chubby Lucy is. And not in an oh-she’s-so-cute-and-chubby-like-a-baby-is-supposed-to-be kind of way, but a oh-my-freaking-god-I-think-I-saw-your-baby-on-the-cover-of-the-National-Enquirer-come-over-here-Martha-it’s-the-world’s-fattest-baby kind of way.
The thing that’s really disturbing is, one of these people actually said, “My baby was big like that, but I had a boy, so it wasn’t a worry.” Was she suggesting that I should be worried that my baby girl is too fat? SERIOUSLY? Because she’s a girl? I mean, isn’t chub sort of fashionable for all infants? Isn’t that how we like ‘em? With the baby fat and all? She’s not a supermodel, she’s a four month old!
Good Golly.
Maybe my mother’s lens of love and understanding is rose colored, but I think this -
- is beautiful.
Additionally, at this point, Lucy is roughly the same size Julia was at this age and now, at four years old, Julia is spot on height and weight-wise. And, the doctor says, “Keep doing what you’re doing, Leslie. Lucy is perfect.”
In truth, I know I don’t have to worry about Lucy’s size.
What I do worry about is, if perhaps, I’m not doing such a great job of framing her in a positive way. It’s not anything I’m doing or saying. It’s how I look. Would people think Lucy was so HUGE! and FAT! if I weren’t so HUGE! and FAT!? I’ve only had one person suggest that in those actual words, out loud. It was a lady at a nursing home. She told me, “That baby is HUGE! It’s no wonder. Look at you! You’re fat!”
My mother, bless her heart, told me that you can’t necessarily rely on the opinion of a nursing home resident who is likely there because her faculties are failing. I say no one tells the truth like children and the elderly, particularly those on the down hill slide of it all.
Regardless of any of it, I don’t want to make my kids look bad. I don’t want them to be Gilbert Grape. So, I guess I need to start losing weight.
Also because Karly and I have plans to go to BlogHer ‘09.
Aug
10
The Post In Which I Am Most Triumphant
by Leslie
Remember how I ended up with seventeen kittens? Well, I’ve spent the past month or so wrangling the mothers of those kittens and shipping them off to the vet to be fixed. And, just like last time, there has been one I’ve had a difficult time catching.
For two weeks I’ve been trying to get her. Most of my attempts have been a variation of this set up,
with this being the anticipated outcome,
and this being the actual outcome.
Then, my uncle let me borrow a humane trap.
And this happened.
Many, many times.
But I’m no quitter. So, I kept trying. And trying. And trying. Until finally.
I caught the her, and can now rest easy that a cat isn’t smarter than me.
Aug
4
I love haiku. Obviously. I also like winning. So, last year I held the first ever Haiku Buckaroo Contest. Six months later, I did it again. And now, I’d like to do it once more. Won’t you please do it with me?
Alright.
A haiku has 17 syllables:
seven in the second line
five in the third line
Here’s how to enter the contest:
Bloggers: Write a haiku and post it on your blog. Be sure to mention this contest and link back to this entry in your post. Once your post is published, leave a link directly to your entry post at the Mr. Linky below.
Non-Bloggers: Submit your haiku via this entry form. I will provide a page on which all non-blogger haiku submissions will appear. Once your submission is received, it will be included on the non-blogger haiku submission page and a link to it will be added to Mr. Linky under your name.
You may enter more than once. Each haiku will be judged individually.
The contest winner (a.k.a. The Haiku Buckaroo) will receive a Magnetic Poetry Haiku Kit, a Haiku Buckaroo Mug, $25 via PayPal (or a gift card, if you’d rather) and a super-cool button for their blog (in their choice of white or black).
The contest deadline is 11:59 p.m. EST, Friday August 15th. The winner will be announced on Monday August 18th.
Just seventeen syllables
And it could be you
Jul
25
Lucy has a propensity for ginormous poopy explosions. They are truly magnificent, in volume and frequency. Moving her into a bigger size diaper has made no difference. She is simply an extraordinary pooper.
However, I am the only one who can appreciate her special skill, because I am the only one who truly experiences them.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying I’m the only one who changes diapers in our house. I’m not. Dave changes diapers. Wet diapers. Even the occasional poopy diaper, though he tries to avoid it. But poopy explosions? NO WAY.
I explained it like this to my BBF Karly when she asked if Dave cleaned up the poopy explosion that hit on my birthday: The only way Dave would clean up a poopy explosion is if my arms were amputated and, even then, only after I’d proven I couldn’t do it with my feet.
Poopy explosions are Dave’s kryptonite; they render him completely helpless. The moment Lucy shows the slightest inclination that a poopy is in the works, he flees the scene. He happened to be holding her once when the launch sequence began. He immediately pushed her away from him and held her like a bomb. Then he tossed her to me, like a grenade as he ran away saying, “Here’s the baby. I think she needs changed.”
Dave would tell you that I’m overstating the situation. I offer the following incident from last Sunday as evidence to the contrary.
Dave was holding Lucy. I was downstairs in the family room playing Guitar Hero, because if I didn’t get fifteen minutes to blow off some steam, someone was going to have their face ripped off. I knew something was up when I could hear stomping and groaning over the music I had turned up to eleven. And then it started.
Dave: “HONEY? HONEY!”
Me: “Yes?”
Dave: “WHERE ARE THE DIAPERS?”
Me: (to Dave) “In the diaper caddy!” (to myself) “Dumbass.”
Dave: (suddenly sounding like a whiny 12-year-old) “BUT THERE AREN’T ANY IN THERE!!!”
Me: (to Dave) “Then try the changing table!!” (Seriously? Is that so hard to figure out? Think about it: if you were a diaper, where would you be?)
Dave: “AH, BUT…WELL…CAN YOU…? AHHHHHH, NEVERMIND!!!”
Me: “WHAT?!”
Dave: “Nah. You’re busy…”
And so I turned off my game and stomped up the stairs to “help,” but it was too late. He was determined to “do it on his own,” which meant he was hellbent on showing me how incredibly difficult the task was by exaggerating every agonizing step of the diaper changing process.
He held his hands like a surgeon who’d just washed up for an operation and ripped baby wipe after baby wipe out of the container. He groaned and gagged with each wipe, then turned in circles looking for a place to put the soiled items. He finally settled on the table. My dining room table. And when the struggle was over, he left the debris lie and dragged himself to the couch, sat there and sighed. For ten minutes.
I contemplated killing him, but instead, I cleaned up the dining room table and said, “You know, you left the dirty diaper on the table.”
“Oh. Sorry. I was gonna get that.”
“Uh-huh. So, where did you put her poopy outfit? I need to wash it out before it stains.”
“Oh, she didn’t get any on her outfit.”
“So, it wasn’t really a poopy explosion.”
“OH NO IT WAS! It got all over me!!! I had to go and change my shorts and everything!”
“When did you change your shorts?”
“Before I changed the baby.”
“And where was the baby?”
“I gave her to your mom.”
He actually tried to pass off the poopy explosion to my mom, first! The creep.
And then he said, “Yeah, but she was no help. She left it all up to me.”
“Gee Dave, I WONDER HOW THAT FEELS!”
Stinkin’ poop-fearing girly man. It’s a good thing he’s good in bed. Otherwise, he’d be dead. Or at least kicked in the weiner.
Jul
23
Brain Worms
by Leslie
I’ve been bitching around about how little time I’ve had to write, lately. Now, I finally have a chance (translation: the kids are asleep and before I could collapse into bed, I ingested enough caffeine to fuel the space shuttle) and my brain has begun to eat itself while I sit here drooling on my keyboard.
“What happened to all those great ideas I had before?” I ask myself.
“Buuuuurrrrp,” says my brain.
Oh yeah.
But rather than waste the twenty minutes I have left before I crash doing something like housework or sudoku, here are the crumbs that are left after the brainfeast.
- I want to tell you all about my new puppy Lola. I’ve got stories, people. I’m telling you. Stories! (Psst. Remind me of this if I start whining that I have nothing to write about.)
- There are twenty-six reasons I should hate the song This Girl Is A Woman Now by Gary Puckett and The Union Gap. But I don’t. I can’t. Instead, I throw my arms open and sing it out, straight from my heart. Oh, Gary Puckett. I’ve found out what it’s all about and I’m learning, yes, I’m learning. Learning! Learning to live.
- I had a dream about Rick Springfield last night. He had joined The Wiggles. Somehow, this made him even more attractive to me. So, I had become some sort of groupie trying to get me some hot Springfield ass. Which I did. Because I’m super-sexy and a bit slutty in my dreams. Then, I spent the rest of the dream trying to hide it from my husband. Interpret that one, psychic friends!
- I won’t put Lucy in a baby swing to be soothed. I feel like she should be soothed by a human being when she needs that kind of attention rather than a robot. Dave says baby swings aren’t robots. And I say, “That’s what they want you to think.”
- Dave and I spent the ride home from T-ball last night re-writing the words to Loverboy’s Working For The Weekend to express our feelings about mowing the grass, which I’ve written about before. I think we’re gonna have to make a video. Maybe this weekend.
Jul
19
Exercising, Er, Exorcising Demons
by Leslie
I used to have panic attacks.
They started during my junior year in high school and went on for nearly a year. Two or three times a week, about an hour after I’d fall asleep, I’d wake up gasping for air. My chest would hurt and I’d feel dizzy. Once, I even lost consciousness and ended up in the hospital! I still don’t understand why they happened. At the time, my doctor seemed to think it had something to do with stress. So, he helped me devise a relaxation routine that included music, stretching and guided imagery meditation.
I always started my relaxation routine with a song I loved: Book Of Days by Enya. It was the same song I listened to when I went running.
Yes, I used to run.
“Really?” ask the skinny people choking back laughter.
Yes, really.
“Yeah, like when you were 8 and they made you run laps in gym class.”
Um, no. I was 16 and vain and trying to attract boys!
Anyhow. I hadn’t listened to that song in a long, long time. Years, even. Then, I came across the CD last week. I transferred it to my iPod and a few nights later, after everyone else was alseep, I gave it a listen. You know, for old time’s sake.
It was amazing. Within fifteen seconds, my body began to relax. From my feet up to my face, I started to feel all warm and liquid. I closed my eyes and for the next two minutes, I almost believed that if I opened them up, I’d find myself in my old room. I relished the sensation. But when the song ended, so did the feeling. I was back on earth.
The next day, as Julia played and I sat stranded on the couch breastfeeding Lucy, I flipped on What Not To Wear. I’ve caught bits and pieces of a lot of those kind of shows - What Not To Wear, Clean House, Ten Years Younger - while breastfeeding Lucy, because they’re one of the few grown-up shows I can watch without fear of Julia walking in and seeing something inappropriate. Like Mankini.
The woman on the show was talking about some horrible thing she’d gone through and how she’d been hiding out in her body, under unattractive clothes, as a result. And I thought about all the people I’ve watched lately, coming to terms with their bad habits and baggage and how they all answered the question, “How did you get to this point?”
And then I looked down at the fat bubbling up over my pants and asked, “How did I get to this point?”
I thought about the 16 year old me that I’d glimpsed the night before - the girl who was having panic attacks. Over what? My hair and make-up and whether or not I was skinny enough to wear that strapless dress to the homecoming dance. In all fairness, there was more going on than that, but the thought that I was having stress-induced panic attacks then is laughable, because two years later, we learned that my dad was sick and I learned what stress really was.
It was fattening.
When my dad got sick, it was sort of horrific and sudden, so much so that my mom developed post-traumatic stress disorder. I drank my way through college, as you do, and graduated fifty pounds heaver.
Less than a year later, my friend died. I gained twenty more pounds.
Six years after that, my failing marriage finally succeeded in failing and by then I’d gained so much weight, I’d quit counting the pounds. I wouldn’t even get on a scale. In fact, I hadn’t really looked at myself in a mirror in two years.
Now, when I look in the mirror, I can’t help but feel as if I’m wearing my past. My father’s illness, my divorce - they hang on me, literally weighing me down.
I’d always assumed the weight would come off when I reached that “acceptance” stage of grief and got my certificate of completion. Not that I thought that I would wake up one day and, like magic, the extra pounds would be gone. (Athough, that’d be nice considering, in my mind, that’s how I put it all on. I just woke up one morning, looked in the mirror and called my mom, “Hey, did you know I was fat? Yeah? For how long? Because I just now noticed.”) I did, however, think that one day I’d wake up with the will to make them disappear. But that day hasn’t come yet.
I’ve been spending a lot of time, lately, wondering why.
Jul
14
Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes
by Leslie
You may have noticed that My Mommy’s Place looks different.
I’m not even going to try and act coy about it because, people, this is a BIG deal to me. I’m not so great at changing things I’m attached to. And this site? This site was like my baby. My little electronic baby. Boop boop. Beep beep. I love you, electronic baby.
I remember exactly when it was born.
Julia was only a few months old. It was one of those hours you’re not sure whether to call late at night or early in the morning. And she smiled at me for the first time. I knew at that moment that this - being a mother - was what my life was about. It was like I’d experienced a miracle. I never felt so high, and yet so lonely, in my life. Dave and I hadn’t been married long and, frankly, our marriage was pretty rocky at that point, mostly because he wasn’t around much then. My mother lived hours away. There was no one to share this incredible experience with. So, after Julia fell asleep that night, I went to my computer, opened up Microsoft Word and started to write.
I continued to write, creating what would become my website nearly everyday for a year and a half. It kept me sane. I wrote about how I felt and the things I’d learned. I wrote it all to mothers - the mothers I knew had to be out there going through the same things I was going through, feeling the same things I felt.
In April of 2006 - cue the drumroll and cymbal crash -I published it on-line. And there was silence. After four months of trying to promote it, I finally added a blog and found what I’d been looking for - honest interaction with other mothers. Blogging was just about perfect. I could connect with people, even when I was up breastfeeding at 4 a.m. The downside was, I learned that the rest of my site was crude and outdated. But I wasn’t ready to give it up, so I kept trying to improve it and make it grow. All the while I fell more in love with blogging. The result: Sybil the website and a very tired me. My Mommy’s Place had developed a split personality; I was suffering from exhaustion. It just wasn’t healthy. So, I’ve pared it down to the part that is relevant now (including the six phenomenal pieces my favorite people wrote for This Is Motherhood).
Go to mymommysplace.com. You’ll end up right here. This is My Mommy’s Place now, in its entirety. The old stuff is gone. Well, not gone. I still have it on a disk. I get it out and caress it while a single tear trails down my cheek now and then. But, it’s no longer on-line. Something tells me no one will miss it. (That something is my site statistics.) Not even me. It’s time to move on. LIVE IN THE NOW, I say.
So, I hope you enjoy the NEW! My Mommy’s Place. If not, that really sucks because I blew a whole weekend updating it.
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I Write A Haiku Each Day
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Categories
- Daily Haiku
- Mommy’s Stuff
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You Should Do This
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Ooooooh. Aaaaah.
