Mom to the Screaming Masses

A wee bit of inspiration

So, we've come to a very very busy weekend here at Casa de la Masses.  About 100 relatives in from out of town to celebrate a surprise party for my father in law - he's 86 - a birthday party for Emma - she's five - houseguests and parties galore.  I've scarcely got room to breathe the next few days.  I've got brownies to make, towels to launder, cups and napkins to purchase, a cake to decorate, and some sleep to procure.  Oh, and I've got to hit the alcohol store. 

So, what better weekend to take my kids to the dentist? 

Yeah, I'm slick that way.

I thought I'd share with you some of my favorite inspirational quotes.  Let me know what you think of them, and tell me yours.   Please ignore the stars and the thumbs up or down - I cut these quotes from a site, and can't figure out how to remove them.  I'm kinda dense that way. 

       Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us most. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and famous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in all of us. And when we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

Promise me you'll always remember: You're braver than you believe and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.

       I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

      

Anyone can give up, it's the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, that's true strength

The final four, submitted for your approval

Hey, did you check to see if you were one of the winners over at Scrutiny by the Masses?  I gave away three books, and no one has come to claim them yet. If the winners don't email me by tomorrow night, I'll pick new winners.

Without further ado, here are the answers to questions 9-12.

Yes, indeedy, I bought a two piece bathing suit.  Here is the bottom, and here is the top.   I don't look nearly as good as this model, but not as bad as I used to look, so improvements have been made.  Half of you got this answer correct.  I raise my Lemon Drop Martini to you.  Seriously, the best drink evah.

Question #10 had to do with broken bones.  I've never broken a bone.  I did, however, gouge my knee on a bedspring 20 years ago and I sport a fairly impressive scar.  That's really my only defining war mark.

Question #11 - big families.  Hmm, I don't really know how to answer this.  See, my mother says that I always wanted a big family.  I don't have that same memory.  I also don't remember ever being worried that I couldn't have kids, as Nobody suggested.  (Hey, Nobody, do I know you?  Shoot me an email, and let's talk if you do.)  A big family just kind of happened.  When a baby was born, I still felt like someone was missing from our house.  I don't feel that way right now - God's honest truth, I feel like I'M the person missing. 

Question #12 - my favorite city is not San Fran, but, rather, New York.  I LOVE Manhattan - the energy, the people, the lights and sights, everything about it.  It's not a place to raise a family, though,so I don't live there.  Had I done things differently with my life, I would have lived there for a few years.  Just didn't work out that way. 

Fifteen year old boys

Are an entirely different breed from any other people, methinks.

I took my oldest to the pediatrician today for his check up.  Yes, he turned 15 a while ago - I dropped the ball and forgot to schedule the appointment the two to three months ahead that it requires.  My kids doctors are very popular - I puffy heart them. 

Today was apparently teenager day at the office.  When we came in, there were two male teens and one female teen already in there.  I signed in and we were given paperwork to fill out.  My son was handed two forms to answer on his own.  Almost immediately, he began to snigger.  " 'Do you get along with your parents?', What kind of question is that?"  he asked.  I explained that if you wrote "yes", they'd think something was wrong with you - you were expected to answer no.  He laughed at the questions about drugs and alcohol, and laughed like a hyena when he was directed to circle if he was interested in dating boys or girls.  When faced with the question, "Do you have chores?", he answered, "Well, no one asked if I actually DO the chores....".  One of the other mothers caught my eye and smiled ruefully.  "Teenage boys," she said, and rolled her eyes.  Poking me in the side, my son asked if he was expected to answer this question, "Do you carry a weapon?", with information on his shotgun, locked in a gun safe.  I glanced at the mother, and we both laughed.  Apparently, she'd just gone through the same exact scenario with her son. 

The nurse called my son back, and he stood and left me.  Another set of mother and son patients came in, and soon the same scenario with the questions ensued.  Her son decided, though, that he'd circle both boys AND girls on the dating question.  When his mother, laughingly, asked him why, he said, "Why not?  I'd like to just see the doctor's face!"  Why not, indeed.

The entire office was awash in testosterone - literally, pimples and sweat, tall, gangly bodies.  Every mother there was dwarfed by these boys in mens bodies, with shoes the size of boats.

And in walked a mother, carrying a baby seat.  In the seat was a one month old baby boy.  We all ooh'ed and aah'ed over the baby, and the mother looked around the room.  You could almost see the thoughts that were running through her mind.  Yes, indeed, that cute, cuddly baby will grow up to be one of these, I thought.  Your question list, prepared oh so carefully for the doctor, with things like Back to sleep?  and When will he sleep through the night? will be eclipsed by Is he using drugs?  and Will he need a jock strap?  and When is he going to wake up and stop sleeping the day away?

Those days were not that long ago, it seems.  I vividly remember bring my baby to this doctor and wondering when he'd get bigger, my 25th percentile son.  Would he ever grow, I wondered.  He's still in the 25th percentile - 117 pounds, and 5 feet 6 inches.  But, man, how we've both grown.

Catch up

Thanks for the kind thoughts.  It has, indeed, been a trying few weeks.  It seems that every which way I turn, there is something that's gone sideways and needs to be dealt with.  I'm feeling a bit battered over here.  In response to the question asked below by more than a few of you, no, my kids didn't see the accident.  I was running at the time and had made my way halfway across the 8 lane road that I cross to get to the walking park. 

Confidential to Jolie with the fake email - yes, indeed, I do have a large ego.  Feel free to click the red X in the corner if it bothers you, m'kay?  The same message goes for the dozen or so trolls I've had this past month.  You've been great, but your time is up. Buh-bye!

On to the next set of answers:

5 - This one is soooo false.  I canNOT play the piano. Not one lousy note.  I'd love to, but that would mean that I'd have to take lessons, and I don't want to start off with "Mary had a little lamb" over and over, cuz I'm a perfectionist that way.

6 - Sushi is not my favorite food.  In fact, I can't stand it.  Yuck, yuck, yuck.  You can tell me a million ways to midnight how great it is, and how I should try it this way or that way - I have a mental block against fish.  Can't and won't eat it.

7 - Yes, indeed, I did drop out of college.  I never finished my degree.  And, I know that, as Nobody said, if I'm not dead, I can still complete it.  I just don't seem to be getting there. I should.  I know I should.

8 - Yes, I was suspended for public displays of affection in High School.  I was sitting on my boyfriend's lap and refused to get off.  I was so bad, I know. 

This is fun.  Thanks for hanging in there with me, you guys.   Any guesses on the final four?

Mission Monday: The treat version

Your Mission for today is easy peasy.

I'd like everyone to treat yourself.  Ice cream, cookies, a mani/pedi, a new pair of shoes.  A milkshake, a book, a new haircut.  Brownies, a cleaning lady.

What will you choose?

____________________________

I'm feeling very weird right now - I was the eyewitness to a car accident.  It was a horrific one - a pedestrian ran across the street and was hit by a car.  I saw the whole thing - the guy flew through the air at least 10 feet, flipping in a cartwheel motion, and landed on his side.  I called 911 and stayed for the entire time, giving my statement and answering the questions of the police officer. The pedestrian broke his hip, his arm and I think his neck, from what I heard the paramedics say.  It was truly the worst thing I've ever seen in my life, and I can't get the things that happened after out of my head.  I can't really say any more, but I know this will haunt me forever. 

Thus the need for a treat.  Or twelve. 

Answers 1-4

HA. 

You guys are funny.  I can't believe that more of you didn't play along, though!  You've still got time to guess #'s 5-12....

1 - This one is true.  I can't put anything past you guys.  That was an awful summer.  I have vivid memories of my thighs burning as I struggled up a teeny, tiny hill on my three speed bike with the side baskets.  Everyone else had groovy, cool ten speeds.

2 - This one is false. I was engaged to The Hubster for 16 days before we married.  We met on November 16, got engaged on November 30, and married on December 16.  All in the same year.  It makes for a great story, especially if we've had a drink or three.  Next week, I'll dig deeper into this story, and the honeymoon is an even funnier one.

3 - This one is true.  I took five semesters of culinary classes, and to this day, can barely remember a damned thing.  Except to keep my fingers out of the way when I'm chopping.

and 4 - is also true.  I was dumb and climbed up a tree with a boyfriend, although I do not remember a thing about it. Apparently, the branch broke and I plummeted down, and was totally out cold.  He ended up running for a phone and called an ambulance. When the ambulance came, I was semi conscious and proceeded to barf everywhere.  I'd had chocolate ice cream that day, which I wasn't able to remember, and it looked like blood.  The ambulance guys thought I'd ruptured my spleen, so off to the hospital I went.  X-rays were inconclusive, so I stayed in the hospital for two days.  To this day, I remember nothing about that entire day.

Any guesses on 5-12?

_______________________

I won!  I won!  I WON!!!1!!!

Thank you so much to everyone who voted for me over at sk*rt.  I can't believe I won. 

________________________

The winners for the book giveaways are posted over at Scrutiny by the Masses.  Thanks for entering!

True or False?

I'm late to the game.  Karen had this up last week, but I finally got around to joining.  You know the drill.  Tell me which of the following statements are true:

• I signed up to go to summer camp for biking, despite the fact that I did no more than recreational biking from one friends house to another.  The week culminated in a 50 mile bike ride, and I was brought back in the bed of a pick up truck in disgrace.
• I was engaged to The Hubster for only 2 months before we were married.
• I went through the first two years of culinary training at after high school, including sanitation and hotel management.
• I climbed up a willow tree when I was a late teen, falling from the very top and blacking out.  I spent a weekend in the hospital.
• I play the piano moderately well, enough to get along at parties.
• Sushi is one of my favorite foods - in fact, probably my most favorite.
• Ultimately, I ended up dropping out of college.
• I was suspended in school for excessive public displays of affection.  Just the once, but it cured me of ever doing it again.
• I bought a bikini this week.
• I have never broken a bone, but do have a scar on my right knee, thanks to a nasty run in with a bedspring.
• I always wanted to have a big family.
• My favorite city is San Francisco.

Play along with me, and leave me a link to your version over on your site.  I'll come and take my best guesses!

And, won't you pretty please click over to sk*rt and vote for me?  It'll just take a minute - I'd be forever grateful.  I'm in first place right now, thanks to you, and I'd love to keep it that way!

It's a garage sale!

I've never been successful at garage sales.  I look around my house and see so much stuff, stuff that I'm certain other people want for their house.  Other people look at my stuff and say, "What a lot of junk!  She wants us to buy that?  No thanks!"

I once had a woman steal from me at a garage sale.  She tried on a sweater in August and walked away with it still on.  "Hey,"  I called to her.  "That's my sweater.  It's fifty cents if you want it."  She went completely ape on me.  "What you mean, this is MY sweater!  I've been wearing it all day!"  Yeah, right, who wears a black sweater in 100 degree heat?  I let it go - if she needed the sweater that badly, let her have it.

The best purchases I ever made at a yard sale were probably the bunk beds in Nikolas' room and the Gymboree snowsuit I bought when Allegra was a baby.  A coat, hat and snow pants for $7, and all four of my girls have worn it. 

When I was taking ballet, the mother of another student sold all of her old pointe shoes for $5 a pair.  A woman bought them to make a wreath.  I don't have the luck - if I put out old pointe shoes, they'd probably get stolen, or avoided like the plague.

My kids love yard sales, like just about every other kid.  They've been my neighbors best customers, returning home with sports bags that have JUST one hole in the side, stuffed animals in spades, a  crayon mold designed to look and sound like a sports car - you dump your crayon nubs in and melt them down while the engine revs - a spiral potato peeler for me (cuz we all know how much I cook potatoes), and framed pictures too many to count.  I consider it my duty to deliver these items to the thrift store for my neighbors.

Click on over to Scrutiny by the Masses and check out today's post, part of The Parent Blogger Network's Garage Sale America BookTour.  As usual, I'm giving the book away, so leave a comment for your entry.

While you are clicking, won't you pretty please click over to sk*rt and vote for me?  It'll just take a minute - I'd be forever grateful.

It's funny you should ask

When the cool women who run The Parent Bloggers Network asked if I'd be interested in participating in this blog blast, I was all over it like white on rice.

What the heck does that saying mean, anyway?  Probably something offensive, knowing my luck.

To promote the new social networking site Sk*rt, (If you haven't checked out Sk*rt yet, it's a way to bookmark your own and other posts as well as follow cool blog posts, news articles, and really, anything on the web. You can vote on your favorites and leave comments), I'm to answer this question:

What's hiding under my sk*rt? 

This is such a great question.  My answers would be depression, anxiety, feelings of failure, and the most massive juggling act this side of Barnum and Bailey.  Surprised?  Lots of people would be. I hide it well, these (thankfully infrequent) black days and nights of doom. I am frequently complimented on my seeming ability to have it all, to keep the balls in the air and add a new one every so often, swapping out the faded ones with nary a hitch. Most days, the balls travel smoothly through the air, passing each other with just inches to spare, floating along in space, light as gossamer butterfly wings.   Once in a while, though, those balls crash and pound, raining to the ground, heavy as lead bullets, forcing me to hunt for that lost umbrella to protect myself.  That dumb umbrella is probably buried in the van under the sippy cups.

Those crashing days are not that common.  I've discovered that I can keep them at bay with exercise and good food - not the chocolates and ice cream that my spirit craves, but the lean proteins and veggies that my body and mind needs to be strong.  When I feel the blackness encroaching, I try to stay ahead of it with an extra mile or three.  It doesn't always work.

No one sees inside, where I struggle.  On one of those days, if I'm out and about and a friend avoids my glance, it causes an ache deep inside and I obsess for the rest of the day.  Most likely, she was deep in thought, and if questioned, she'd deny even seeing me.  I know that's true - it's happened enough.  On those days, I can't make myself ask the oh-so-humiliating question, but burrow deep into myself like a splinter.  Upon hearing the good news of another person, my self esteem tumbles - what's wrong with me, why wasn't I given the same prize? 

On those days, misbehavior on the part of my children is not shrugged off, and seen as age appropriate, but rather a case as to how I've messed up yet another area of my life.  A job lost, an argument with a spouse, a grocery store out of my favorite peanut butter - 29 days out of the month these are trivial inconsequentials.  No more than a blip on the radar. 

It's just that one day of the month that I'm fragile.  Easily broken. 

I drag myself to bed, defeated, broken and frustrated.  I lay on my back and stare into space, feeling the burning in the back of my eyes.  I will not succumb to my misery.  I will not.  I will NOT feel like I'm less than worthy, just because others are more successful than I, because they are more popular and well liked.  I repeat over and over, "I am a a worthy human being, doing great things in my own way."  Over and over, until I snooze, worn and exhausted from the heavy feelings I've carted around on my shoulders.

And the dawn breaks and I rise and stretch and find that peace has been restored.  My mind is solid, my spirit refreshed.  The day before fades into the distance.  I'm back to my own whole self, happy to be my own best friend and fulfilled with life.

It's just that one day of the month. 

____________________________

This post is my entry into the "What's hiding under your sk*rt?" contest, promoted by The Parent Bloggers.  As Julie says, "If enough people are sufficiently entertained by this secret that I divulge or the manner in which I divulge it that they vote for me on sk*rt and I get more votes than anyone else?  And if I get more votes than anyone else, then I win a ton of goodies, including jewelry and books and tees?

What's not to like about that?  Won't you please go here and vote for me?  Please?  I planto ask you all to vote every day between now and Friday, 11:59 p.m. 

Please?  Go to sk*rt and search for the post called "It's funny you should ask", and just click on the number next to it.  I'd love to win the gift basket.  Click here to vote for me.

Thanks.  I really mean it.

Fear in her eyes and my heart in my throat

Yesterday being Father's Day, we went swimming at a family member's pool.  It was a super fun and relaxing afternoon, complete with laughter, hot dogs, and way too much sun.

It's a policy of ours that children under the age of 9, unless they can swim extremely well - Mackenzie broke that rule last year - wear a life vest.  I don't swim all that often, but sit on the side of the pool, close enough to help out if necessary.  I don't like cold water, and the pool doesn't usually get warm enough for me until mid July.

Yesterday, Riley was wearing her vest and floating around the pool on a raft.  She was laughing and calling out to us, and then she wasn't.  She had tried to stand and slid through the center of the float and fell to the bottom of the pool.  I jumped up as her vest pulled her back to the surface, and could see her eyes wide with panic as she approached the air. The Hubster jumped in and grabbed her vest as she broke through, mouth wide and streaming water.  She coughed and choked as I pulled her from his arms and I pounded her on the back.  I cradled her in my arms as she coughed up some water, and listened to her cry and swear that she was NEVER swimming again.

Five minutes later, she was back in the pool as if nothing had happened, avoiding the float like the plague.

I'm now twenty years older, and more thankful than ever for life vests. It was a long five seconds.

People, be careful out there.  I was maybe five yards away, and it easily could have been one hundred.