Tuesday, February 25, 2014
Love Songs and an Honest Man
Darn Brad Paisley! I don't even like most country music, but I like his. Still, I contend that he is doing the world more harm than good with his special brand of love song.
While listening to "The Mona Lisa" on the way home from one of the kids' activities, I asked my husband, "Do you feel like the frame that gets to hold the Mona Lisa?"
As soon as he paused, I knew I was not going to get what I wanted from that question.
"Uh, I don't know....what does that mean?"
"It's in this song by Brad Paisley. Haven't you heard it?"
Of course he'd heard it. The man, not raised in the south as I was and certainly not born in Dixie, loves his country music nonetheless.
"Yeah, but I haven't really listened to the lyrics. I don't know if it's good or bad."
"It's good, obviously!" I cried. "The Mona Lisa? One of the most beautiful paintings in the world?"
"Okay, but I don't know the lyrics."
"Really? Really? Humph." I crossed my arms, disgusted.
"Mama, I feel like the frame that gets to hold the Mona Lisa," my eldest boy said in sympathy and some fear.
"Thank you, Berto. I'm glad at least you do." I threw a dirty look at my man. "Even he knows it's a good thing."
Of course I should know better. My husband is completely lacking in the ability to dissemble for the mere sake of romance, to whisper sweet nothings. I know that's a good thing. I know. But there are just a few times when I wish he'd talk pretty to me like some hero in an Austen or Bronte novel. Or like a Brad Paisley song.
Way back when our relationship was a long distance one, and I found out he loved that old song The Letter (not the original version but the cover by Joe Cocker, to which I had introduced him), my mom suggested that it probably reminded him of me, and how sweet and romantic! I should have wandered down the primrose path of that suggestion like a lovesick fool, but I decided to ask him about it.
"My mom said you like that song, because it reminds you of us - does it?"
"No, not really," was his immediate reply. "I just like the song."
Once we were engaged I asked him what his favorite feature of mine was. I didn't know. He'd never said, and I'd gotten the suggestion that I should know from some frou-frou ladies' magazine. Poor guy! He'd had a long day at work and probably wanted to say "breasts" or "fanny" but felt he couldn't get away with it, so he remained mute.
I began peppering him with questions, "Is it my silky hair? My cute little ears? My eyes?"
Okay, I've always known I didn't have a single outstanding feature - unless it's the deep purple hollows under my eyes, my eyebrows completely lacking in arch, or my crooked and prominent nose. You kind of have to lump the imperfections together to end up with something surprisingly presentable, but I didn't expect his answer to my query to be, "Well, sometimes you wear pretty eye makeup..."
Oh yeah, he did say that. And I'll never forget the warm and fuzzy urge I felt to hit him over the head with my makeup bag.
I heard another Brad Paisley song recently. It has a beautiful chorus:
To the world/
You may be just another girl/
But to me/
Baby, you are the world!
You can bet I will not be asking Matthew if I'm his world. He would likely say, "You're part of my world. At least Arizona. And maybe a sliver of Texas."
As for that whole Mona Lisa misunderstanding, my husband actually listened to the lyrics and later texted me this:
I am the frame that gets to hold the Mona Lisa, and I don't care if that's all I ever do. ;)
I texted back: That's all I wanted to hear.
And I tried to ignore the wink at the end.
Thursday, February 20, 2014
The Ultimate Challenge
Raising good human beings is challenging.
Children will spill a creamy waterfall of milk from the table to the floor, and then will accuse younger siblings, best friends and pets of the mess. They'll booby-trap your house with Legos, dagger-armed action figures and inhumanely (and unrealistically) pointy cars and then laugh when you step on them, yelling your expletives in code. They'll covet their neighbor's toy, then rip it from their hands and claim they had it first. They'll smack or pinch a sibling who so much as looks at 'em. They'll play dodge ball with bricks and pick-up sticks with knives.
Okay, I exaggerate. My boys played dodge ball with whiffle balls, and they still hurt each other. When something is spilled in this house (once every 4 1/2 seconds), responsibility is usually admitted upon interrogation but no corrective action is taken until parent threatens or laminate floor warps. And full-out-and-out-war between siblings occurs only when my youngest daughter invades her older brother's room or when Mama is writing or reading.
But paper piles have been scattered, toys dumped and books tossed about in tantrums over the tiniest things like not being allowed to get the mail or eat donuts for lunch. And we found our precious wee ones could lie boldly by age 2 with no formal training. Even our most even-tempered, calmest child, our Ana, said the funniest things when she was blessed with a little sister. She came up to me after peering at her baby sis in the crib, her big brown eyes wide and innocent, and said, "Mama, if I hit the baby, like this, that wouldn't be good, would it?"
"No, no, it wouldn't," I assured her, shocked. "We never want to hurt the baby. Never. We have to be gentle."
She nodded her head sagely, but then came back not long after and asked, "If I threw this at the baby..."
"No!" I reiterated.
But the most challenging thing about raising kids isn't the jealousy, brutality or fibbing. It's that they make a hard job radically more difficult by robbing their parents of that basic necessity of life and brain function: sleep.
Now, don't get me wrong. Of course we love the little buggers. It would be nice to remember why, but our brains can only retain information for an average of two minutes. Sometimes less.
If you are not a parent or you're a new one, you may well believe that your sleep will someday be normal again post-kids, and I must say....oh, excuse me....haha...cabn't tyupe weel for laugfhingy...ho!ho!
Where was I? Ah, yes. Normal sleep. Nevermore, quoth the Raven. Nevermore!
Yes, you may not find yourself sleeping in recliners or on Elmo couches as I have, or getting up every hour to nurse on demand. But you will assuredly get to the point where 7am qualifies as a luxurious, miraculous sleep-in if you have not been rudely awakened more than once. You will spend restless nights watching over an ill child, giving lukewarm baths and medicine to bring down fever, administering fluids post-vomiting or diarrhea, and washing sheets. You will wake at 5:30 to the sound of that glass you left by the living room chair shattering or the more startling 12am revelation of, "Mama? Papa? I wet the bed again..." You'll rock fussy babies, sing to demanding toddlers, and spend seemingly hours trying to shoo your adolescent to bed.
On top of all this you will be haunted for years by the midnight visitor. This little schemer just lives in your bed half the night, waking you every 10 minutes, instead of wasting energy creating havoc from his/her own room. He/she will sprawl in the middle of your queen-sized bed and allot you a mere two inches to either side. Your poor husband will routinely curl up in a fetal position on a single square foot of sheet, sheltering his manhood from wild, unpredictable assault by little limbs. And I have found that if this invader is male, he will rip his fingers through his mother's hair at least fifty times an hour to coax himself into Neverland. Why little boys do this, I can't say, unless it's retribution for the male-pattern baldness they expect to inherit from their maternal grandfather.
I've spent a good deal of time trying to build the best contraption and devise the perfect plan to keep this nocturnal, parent-seeking creature out. I'm this far from throwing out the baby gate and gentle incentives and instead attaching a rubber mallet to a spring on a steel door.
But don't be discouraged. I'm here to tell you that if you persevere through the thick fog of uncertainty, the dark clouds of frustration, and the deluge of angst and guilt from pint-sized tyrants on a mere five-six hours of sleep a night you can - yes, you - raise fine upstanding people. You may not know it until they enter school, but if you persist in teaching your little rascals morals and civilized behavior between cat naps, one day you'll hear their teachers say, "I just love your child! She's so kind/helpful/respectful/sweet."
And on the drive back home you'll think to yourself, "We did it!" Then you'll promptly forget what you did.
After all, the drive took longer than two minutes.
Children will spill a creamy waterfall of milk from the table to the floor, and then will accuse younger siblings, best friends and pets of the mess. They'll booby-trap your house with Legos, dagger-armed action figures and inhumanely (and unrealistically) pointy cars and then laugh when you step on them, yelling your expletives in code. They'll covet their neighbor's toy, then rip it from their hands and claim they had it first. They'll smack or pinch a sibling who so much as looks at 'em. They'll play dodge ball with bricks and pick-up sticks with knives.
Okay, I exaggerate. My boys played dodge ball with whiffle balls, and they still hurt each other. When something is spilled in this house (once every 4 1/2 seconds), responsibility is usually admitted upon interrogation but no corrective action is taken until parent threatens or laminate floor warps. And full-out-and-out-war between siblings occurs only when my youngest daughter invades her older brother's room or when Mama is writing or reading.
But paper piles have been scattered, toys dumped and books tossed about in tantrums over the tiniest things like not being allowed to get the mail or eat donuts for lunch. And we found our precious wee ones could lie boldly by age 2 with no formal training. Even our most even-tempered, calmest child, our Ana, said the funniest things when she was blessed with a little sister. She came up to me after peering at her baby sis in the crib, her big brown eyes wide and innocent, and said, "Mama, if I hit the baby, like this, that wouldn't be good, would it?"
"No, no, it wouldn't," I assured her, shocked. "We never want to hurt the baby. Never. We have to be gentle."
She nodded her head sagely, but then came back not long after and asked, "If I threw this at the baby..."
"No!" I reiterated.
But the most challenging thing about raising kids isn't the jealousy, brutality or fibbing. It's that they make a hard job radically more difficult by robbing their parents of that basic necessity of life and brain function: sleep.
Now, don't get me wrong. Of course we love the little buggers. It would be nice to remember why, but our brains can only retain information for an average of two minutes. Sometimes less.
If you are not a parent or you're a new one, you may well believe that your sleep will someday be normal again post-kids, and I must say....oh, excuse me....haha...cabn't tyupe weel for laugfhingy...ho!ho!
Where was I? Ah, yes. Normal sleep. Nevermore, quoth the Raven. Nevermore!
Yes, you may not find yourself sleeping in recliners or on Elmo couches as I have, or getting up every hour to nurse on demand. But you will assuredly get to the point where 7am qualifies as a luxurious, miraculous sleep-in if you have not been rudely awakened more than once. You will spend restless nights watching over an ill child, giving lukewarm baths and medicine to bring down fever, administering fluids post-vomiting or diarrhea, and washing sheets. You will wake at 5:30 to the sound of that glass you left by the living room chair shattering or the more startling 12am revelation of, "Mama? Papa? I wet the bed again..." You'll rock fussy babies, sing to demanding toddlers, and spend seemingly hours trying to shoo your adolescent to bed.
On top of all this you will be haunted for years by the midnight visitor. This little schemer just lives in your bed half the night, waking you every 10 minutes, instead of wasting energy creating havoc from his/her own room. He/she will sprawl in the middle of your queen-sized bed and allot you a mere two inches to either side. Your poor husband will routinely curl up in a fetal position on a single square foot of sheet, sheltering his manhood from wild, unpredictable assault by little limbs. And I have found that if this invader is male, he will rip his fingers through his mother's hair at least fifty times an hour to coax himself into Neverland. Why little boys do this, I can't say, unless it's retribution for the male-pattern baldness they expect to inherit from their maternal grandfather.
I've spent a good deal of time trying to build the best contraption and devise the perfect plan to keep this nocturnal, parent-seeking creature out. I'm this far from throwing out the baby gate and gentle incentives and instead attaching a rubber mallet to a spring on a steel door.
But don't be discouraged. I'm here to tell you that if you persevere through the thick fog of uncertainty, the dark clouds of frustration, and the deluge of angst and guilt from pint-sized tyrants on a mere five-six hours of sleep a night you can - yes, you - raise fine upstanding people. You may not know it until they enter school, but if you persist in teaching your little rascals morals and civilized behavior between cat naps, one day you'll hear their teachers say, "I just love your child! She's so kind/helpful/respectful/sweet."
And on the drive back home you'll think to yourself, "We did it!" Then you'll promptly forget what you did.
After all, the drive took longer than two minutes.
Monday, February 10, 2014
Nowhere (wo)man
Inert.
Yep, that's how I feel, doc.
Why, exactly?
I don't know. A whole lot of reasons! My house is never clean. I hate running errands, so if I don't go somewhere straight after dropping the kids at school, it's a no go. There is always so much to do at home. And I'm trying - repeat, trying - to be a writer, but I don't even feel like writing anymore. AT ALL. Not since Christmas, really. Oh, and I read too much.
Read too much? Interesting. Not sure I've heard that before.
Well, you should have. It can really derail a person's life, their goals and so on.
How, exactly?
What is it with you and that word exactly? I mean is anything in life exactly anything? It's all one great muddle, puddle, fuddle, duddle....wait, that's Dr. Seuss. I think I need to lie down; I'm getting confused.
That's why I have the couch. But let's get back to that reading thing. You don't feel you're improving your mind? Are you reading celebrity gossip magazines, pulp fiction or steamy romances?
Oh, brother! No way. I'm reading G.K. Chesterton, and no offense, but the guy rambles some, you know? Brilliant but you have to be kind of dogged to follow him around sometimes. And a book of Josemaria Escriva's homilies, always beautiful. And I read a book written by a blogging friend, Jennie, who I really admire - great memoir! And my dad's awesome book A Storm Upon the Plain. And a few, very few, posts by bloggers I like....you know, come to think of it, everyone I know is writing 'cept me. Oh, brother.
Well, why aren't you writing?
Huh.
Do you know why you're not writing?
Well, let's see, because the little leprechaun in my head is dancing on all the wrong buttons? No, no. I'm sorry. That's a joke.
So?
Uh, well...I guess because I'm tired. And because my house is really a mess. And the Olympics are on. That's not a good one, but it's true. But, hey, the only thing I watch usually is kids' programming on PBS with my little guy.
You know, I think I would just give up this whole writing thing and try, just try, for once in my child-blessed life to have a clean - I mean a spotlessly clean - abode. My whole life would be easier. I stink at blogging, anyway. Let's face it. I can write, but I fail at every other aspect of the game - design, social media, marketing, building community. But if I didn't give a dang about being a writer now, abandoned ship, theoretically I'd have more time with my kids, playing games and such, and I'd spend a heck of a lot more time in battle with the insane clutter and stickiness and dustiness and gunkiness of my house. I really believe, doctor, that there are people out there doing it all and still looking pretty! I mean how are they doing it? Giving up on sleep? Ignoring their kids? Hiring a housekeeper? I'm doing none of it well myself, and I look like 10 years my senior!! It drives me batty knowing other people are breezing along with some magic formula!
Pauses, and then face falls.
I just realized I haven't been writing for a good while, and my house still looks like a junkyard. Damn. Do you see what I mean about this inertia business? I'm getting nowhere, man!
Let's meet again tomorrow to work out your own special magic formula.
Oh, brother!
Yep, that's how I feel, doc.
Why, exactly?
I don't know. A whole lot of reasons! My house is never clean. I hate running errands, so if I don't go somewhere straight after dropping the kids at school, it's a no go. There is always so much to do at home. And I'm trying - repeat, trying - to be a writer, but I don't even feel like writing anymore. AT ALL. Not since Christmas, really. Oh, and I read too much.
Read too much? Interesting. Not sure I've heard that before.
Well, you should have. It can really derail a person's life, their goals and so on.
How, exactly?
What is it with you and that word exactly? I mean is anything in life exactly anything? It's all one great muddle, puddle, fuddle, duddle....wait, that's Dr. Seuss. I think I need to lie down; I'm getting confused.
That's why I have the couch. But let's get back to that reading thing. You don't feel you're improving your mind? Are you reading celebrity gossip magazines, pulp fiction or steamy romances?
Oh, brother! No way. I'm reading G.K. Chesterton, and no offense, but the guy rambles some, you know? Brilliant but you have to be kind of dogged to follow him around sometimes. And a book of Josemaria Escriva's homilies, always beautiful. And I read a book written by a blogging friend, Jennie, who I really admire - great memoir! And my dad's awesome book A Storm Upon the Plain. And a few, very few, posts by bloggers I like....you know, come to think of it, everyone I know is writing 'cept me. Oh, brother.
Well, why aren't you writing?
Huh.
Do you know why you're not writing?
Well, let's see, because the little leprechaun in my head is dancing on all the wrong buttons? No, no. I'm sorry. That's a joke.
So?
Uh, well...I guess because I'm tired. And because my house is really a mess. And the Olympics are on. That's not a good one, but it's true. But, hey, the only thing I watch usually is kids' programming on PBS with my little guy.
You know, I think I would just give up this whole writing thing and try, just try, for once in my child-blessed life to have a clean - I mean a spotlessly clean - abode. My whole life would be easier. I stink at blogging, anyway. Let's face it. I can write, but I fail at every other aspect of the game - design, social media, marketing, building community. But if I didn't give a dang about being a writer now, abandoned ship, theoretically I'd have more time with my kids, playing games and such, and I'd spend a heck of a lot more time in battle with the insane clutter and stickiness and dustiness and gunkiness of my house. I really believe, doctor, that there are people out there doing it all and still looking pretty! I mean how are they doing it? Giving up on sleep? Ignoring their kids? Hiring a housekeeper? I'm doing none of it well myself, and I look like 10 years my senior!! It drives me batty knowing other people are breezing along with some magic formula!
Pauses, and then face falls.
I just realized I haven't been writing for a good while, and my house still looks like a junkyard. Damn. Do you see what I mean about this inertia business? I'm getting nowhere, man!
Let's meet again tomorrow to work out your own special magic formula.
Oh, brother!
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