Six years ago today I sat in class, learning about this, wondering why my teacher cared about it on that particular morning. Too immature to give him the credit to realize he just hadn’t seen the news yet.
Today, I’m having an all day moment of silence, no blogging or commenting. (I’m sure I’ll still read, because, hello, addict. But I need to be quiet today.) I’m going out with Alex to play in the sun. I’m celebrating that WE CAN, and doing it to honor those who can’t.
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Last night as we were going to sleep, I noticed a familiar photo on Scout’s computer. It was the banner to Alex Year One. I don’t know if he’s ever read it before, I’m thinking not, because he turned the pages and scrolled down the pages and spent time reading it.
As far as I can remember, Scout’s never read anything I’ve written. Save for a very excellent parody of “A Few Good Men” we wrote a few years back called “Some Really Okey Dokey People”.
I didn’t say anything when I noticed him reading, I didn’t ask him what he thought. Mostly I was just really touched that at the end of the day, after hearing me yap on about whatever is on my mind, that he values me enough to then *READ* whatever is on my mind. Months of whatever is on my mind in one sitting.
Like I said, I’m not so hot with the saying I love yous. I hope he also read between the lines of what I’ve written to see the real life love story there, even if it is covered in little boy pee and surrounded by diapers and dirty laundry.
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I met my sister when I was 17.
I was a camp counselor. I had 6 13 year old girls I was in charge of for one week. K. was one of my girls. We shared the same middle name, freckles and tendency to sunburn. After the week was over she sent me letters, I replied.
I ended up going to college in the town she lived in, so I would occasionally pick her up at school and we’d go have frozen custard.
I could always tell when she was up to something, because she would start asking lots of personal questions that would eventually prompt me saying, “Just what are you doing that you need to tell me about?” Then she’d spill and I’d advise and commiserate.
I left the town, the state, and eventually she ended up at the same college I’d attended. She was an RA with Sunday night duty. I had free long distance on Sundays, so we fell in the habit of talking every Sunday night. The conversations were sometimes broken up by all the college joy, but other times we had hours to catch up – advise and commiserate.
Strangely, my girl got married before I did, but I was still older and took the lead in the advice. It’s possible it’s because I’m pushy and mouthy too. Possible. (No comments, Scout.)
We’ve both ended up far from home, but only 3 hours from each other, which is just a randomness that life pleasantly handed us.
It took me longer than it should have to be hit with the awe and gratitude that we will be raising our children together. Once I realized that, I also realized that as soon as her pregnancy was over, that I would have no advice left to give. I would no longer be having an experience years ahead of her, we would be having this whole mommyhood experience together.
Together.
I’m so proud of the woman my little girl grew up to be. I’m grateful she’s still just enough my baby girl to call me way late at night to tell me that her baby girl is in the world. She’s tired, but she’s made it through.
And already, I made the change over. I had no advice, it’s her story and she will write it her way. I’m just glad we can be in this together.
I don’t say I love you easily or often. In fact, I get touchy when I hear it said too often b/c I start believing it less the more I hear it. However, when I got off the phone with her, it came so easily, as it always does with her.
(ps. I love you, too, ITHLaT.)
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Eh. Okay, I tried to be funny.
Guiding truths for my closet, adopted today. 9/8/7 (cool date!)
A) Buying organic, free trade things and throwing out all my perfectly good clothes does not make me a better consumer, it makes me worse. Therefore I will keep everything in my closet until it 1) doesn’t fit 2) is worn out 3) I hate it so much I would go out naked instead.
B) My retail dollars count and send a message.
C) I will have a gameplan for what I buy. (Another post, another day.)
D) At least 50% of the items of clothing I buy in the next 365 days will be organic and free trade. (They seem to go hand in hand but I’m having a bit of trouble finding information on websites promoting their product as free trade – which you think they’d be screaming from the mountaintops – however I’ve found a couple of retailers who seem to have good ethics and free trade is part of their mission, so I will trust that they have done the research (which could always bite me in the ass.))
Links to either actual companies, or quick and dirty lists of many companies. This was a pretty preliminary search so if you find something fishy, please, please post in the comments, if you find something awesome, please, please post in the comments.
http://www.stewartbrown.com/ (I drool here)
http://www.harmonyart.com (fabric)
http://www.nearseanaturals.com/ (fabric and yarn)
http://www.hannaandersson.com/ (unsure about fair trade, I’m just being suspicious really, they seem to be a good company)
http://www.birchclothing.com/merch.asp
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Okay, hard plastic bottles are bad, chemicals in clothing are bad, buy organic, buy free trade, buy local, can, jar, preserve, CFL light bulbs, all toys will kill your baby, water conservation, global warming, rising gas prices, walk more, drive less, drugs are bad mmmkay, cloth or disposable, spit or swallow, attachment parenting, cry it out, exercise more, vaccines – lifesaver or evil, smoke less, who will be president, Iraq war good or bad….
Have you seen “Waiting”? (You should, if for no other reason than the gratuitous Ryan Reynolds showing off his abs and fuck muscles scene). One of the waitresses freaks out and screams “Gooooood-dammiiiiiiiit!” and it brings things to a lull.
That’s what is in my mind right now.
Time to pull back and evaluate.
I talked about changes I want to make before. This week has just shown me that I’m on the right track.
I can’t fix everything at once, but I can try to do a little bit.
I will think about food and what I can do to make responsible choices for my house. (Please note that what is more responsible for my house may not be more responsible for yours, it’s all a definition of terms and I don’t have a definition.)
I stepped on the scale this morning and it was 161.5 for a flash of a moment before flashing to 162.5. It’s better than 164.5. And this fits again (with the extender in the back, FINE, make me go for full admission). So clothes are on my mind.
Today I will ponder clothes, tomorrow I will come back and report what I’ve figured out for me. I’ll try to post links galore so you too, can check it out.
Mmmm… clothes….
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Go mapquest Sugartit, Kentucky.
Yeah. Sugartit.
Look at the red star on the map.
Now look just south of Sugartit.
Yes. Yes.
It’s Beaverlick, Kentucky.
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Yesterday I had that sucky realization that while my baby was laying beside me being cute as a pig in …. that I was more sucked into the computer than paying attention to him.
When I’d read this a bit ago I knew it was striking a chord.
I fell into a bad habit. I read the computer when I pump. A lot of times I pump right after Alex wakes from a nap (usually because he’s been sleeping on me because I will do whatever. it. takes. to get the boy to nap. and you just can’t easily pump while a baby is sleeping on you.)
And I’ve been particularly sucked into the computer trying to get this server switch/name change/blah blah taken care of.
Don’t forget the soul crushing nights of hauling out of bed to pump 3 times in 8 hours.
Yesterday I realized I needed to make a change, so I wrapped up yesterday and started today fresh.
Baby woke me up playing at nine, I pumped, checked the computer briefly, closed it up, and spent the rest of the time making faces at him. We went and had breakfast, got dressed, let the mattress dudes in to deliver …. yes.. mattresses, and then we played till he got cranky and went to sleep.
Now I am sucked into the computer totally guilt free. During nap two (my plan is to) work on the house.
I don’t want to say the word ‘routine’ out loud. So I won’t.
However, from now on, if you see me online, please celebrate with me that the Kaiser is doing this:
(he rolled that way on his own, and yes, I’m still paranoid enough to check that he’s breathing every other moment)
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Mommy wars what? Talk about people sticking together.
Check it
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It’s still fluctuating in the 164.5 area, but typically lower and more like 162.5. So not the stunning weight droppage I was hoping for.
Today I feel okay about this. I’m proud of me for getting out of bed, for having a smoothie instead of potato chips, for Alex letting me do some of mama-baby yoga if not all of it.
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It was Easter season 2002. I had a good circle of friends, a good church, I was back in school and doing well, I had goals, I laughed deeply and really, really meant it for the first time in several years. I had good friends, and needed no dude to fill any of my places.
So CLEARLY, I met a boy. THE boy. I met this boy at church (a change from my priors), he had a good job (a change from my priors), cool parents (a change from my priors), shared my friends (a change from my priors). We’d been in the same circle of 10 or so friends at church for a while, and I’d called him one night for some random nothingness and ended up still on the phone several hours later. For two people who only sort of knew each other, we totally steamed up the phone lines with the double entendres in the midst of the church and politics and college and swapping stories talk.
I saw him at a St. Paddy’s gathering (at NOT Mrs. Tater’s) a couple days after this phone call. The day was full of close touches and that first date sort of breath holding, stomach fluttering, damp parts kind of rapport. This was perfection.
I fessed up to a couple of the girls what was going on, I was flat out commanded to NOT fuck this up with him. That he was SO MUCH BETTER than anyone else I’d ever dated, etc etc.
It was 3-4 weeks of late night phone calls, emails etc. All was well. I was SO happy.
And I prayed, oh how I prayed that God would show me the way, that s/he would help me make good decisions and be with us.
There was this thorn.
NOT Mrs. Tater.
Bitca. (Name that reference.)
She seemed to think she and the Repellican had something something special. She’d asked if I was okay with them going to lunch. I was like, uh, sure. Because I knew he was mine, so whatever. Just keep your hands off, bitca. I wasn’t worried. And why would I be? When I talked to him about it, like the oh, so mature person I was, he told me she had gotten the wrong idea and wouldn’t leave him alone. He was mature about it, and I let it go.
It all blew up the night before Easter. She saw us kissing. She was pissed. I thought she needed to get over it.
Then he dumped me the next day. After Easter Sunday service.
The fuck? (verb, not noun)
My friends were shocked. I was shocked. And man was I bloody pissed that this carrot of a perfect relationship had been put in front of me and made me jump for it, never quite reaching it.
****
Now this is a story of getting played. Later that summer, after many hard feelings had moved past, NOT Mrs. Tater and I sat down with a box o’ wine and one of her friends and we literally. picked. apart. every. day. of. that. month.
We fanatically went over the details and it boiled down to starting St. Paddy’s weekend he started seeing her and talking to me at the same time. He would take her to a movie, take her home, call me and talk dirty for several hours. Or he would see me, I’d go home, he’d call her.
Dating two women from the SAME social circle at the same time? Seriously?
And that whole line of compost about getting the wrong idea and not being left alone had been fed to NOT Mrs. Tater as well.
He dumped me, and went straight to her apartment. He pushed the sex issue, and when she made it abundantly clear that they. were. not. having. sex. He let it go.
And never called her again.
At this point we decided the best course of action was for her to call him from MY phone. If he had any sense of self preservation, the idea of her and I up in the middle of the night, clearly drunk, and with him enough on our minds for us to call him – this should have shriveled his brass balls to the size of raisins in fear.
The next day at church, he seemed nervous. And we giggled.
****
This is also a story of “living well is the best revenge”.
I was so hurt over this, that I swore off men and vowed to have only cats and “rabbits” (you know what I mean) from then on.
It was only this kind of hurt that made me innocently email Scout after a conversation with a friend. I never expected a response from him, much less anything else.
Like, say, getting married four years later.
The end of this tale is that NOT Mrs. Tater met Mr. Tater at our wedding.
and they will exchange wedding rings and become Mr. and Mrs. Tater come next Spring.
Repellican? Moved to the coast and fell off the face of the Earth, never to be heard of again. Never piss off a couple of redheads by choice.
(and the story closes to the strains of The Dixie Chicks’ “Goodbye Earl”)
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I decide to look on the bright side of life and sunshine comes outta my ass what?
But THIS is awesome.
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After the Kaiser slept 90 minutes (unaided by endless patting or bottle and after putting himself to sleep), and I did lots of blog surfing, and had hilarious emails with her, I came downstairs to this:
“I know things are difficult right now. But I really appreciate the job you do every day feeding and taking care of Alex. I know what a drain it is on you.
Hang in there and stay strong. I know you can. I love you.
ps Kitty appreciates you too.”
Now if I could only find a sitter so I can make out with him just a little bit.
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