TMBT: Remember When?

Remember when the worst thing happening in your life was being grounded?  Remember when a bad day meant the person you really liked didn't call when you got home from school?  Remember when an earthquake was just an earthquake, the news was just the news, and homework was the hardest thing you'd ever done?

I remember.  I remember thinking that since the boy I liked didn't like me, life was terrible.  I remember thinking, a few years later, that being grounded from seeing my boyfriend until my grades got better meant I had it worse than anyone else on the planet.  I remember worrying about friends talking behind my back and wanting everyone to like me.  

Then I became an adult, and suddenly, loss of family members, September 11th, tsunamis and earthquakes were worse than all of that stuff put together.  The disasters and sadness put everything in perspective without a moment's notice.  Oh, to be a kid again.  To have someone take care of you, buy what you need when you need it, tell you to appreciate what you have.

The past week or so we've had to deal with more loss on a personal level than we've had to for nine years.  Losing people dear to us, whether family, friends, or family of friends can make you want to go back to the days when grounding and boys were the highest on the terrible scale.  I personally believe there is a higher power, that the people we have lost are in a better place, and though it does cushion the blow a little bit, it still sucks.  

I've been up and down on the emotional roller coaster since all of this has happened, hurting for those hurting, sad for those sad.  Wishing everyone had known what was coming, wishing they had time to prepare, wishing they could have known to say what they needed or wanted to say.  Without wanting it to, attending funerals and seeing people grieving has taken me back to nine years ago when all of that sadness struck our family, and let me tell you, it's hard to get out of that funk once you're in it.

Today is Kid's Day.  For those of you who don't know what Kid's Day is, one day every year our local newspaper donates all sales of a particular issue to the children's hospital.  People and kids volunteer to stand on street corners throughout town all morning, freezing their fingers off with smiles on their faces, in order to sell papers to benefit the hospital.  There's a special cover, a few stories about families going through tough times, sick kids, what the hospital has done for them, ect.  Last year they raised $425,000.  This year their goal  is $400,000, and even though times are touch economically, I have a feeling they'll exceed it again just like last year.  

One of today's Kid's Day cover pictures is about a preemie, a little girl born at just one pound, three ounces - arriving into this world premature at only 23 weeks.  As my oldest gave a fellow student our donation and threw the paper my way before running off to class this morning, I looked at the picture of the card someone was holding, the imprints of the baby girl's hand and foot prints, the dime sitting right next to one of the hand prints (it was almost the exact same size), and my stomach sank.  I even said  "That's so sad." as the girls were getting out of the car. I thought about how terrible it was, how terrible it all is - this life.  How sadness and pain is everywhere, all the time, no matter where we look, or what news we listen to.

The girls had been messing with my husband's ipod, and "What Hurts the Most" by Rascal Flats was playing as I drove home from the school.  I looked over at the paper on the passenger seat, a the other cover picture, a baby boy born premature, with a scar on his little stomach and tubes going into his nose, and right then, I realized I had it all wrong.  How was that sad?  That baby was here!  Alive!  He had made it!  I was seeing everything backwards.  When did that happen?  I didn't used to see things that way.  When did my outlook get so dire, so bogged down, with me concentrating on loss instead of life?  

Tragedies make you sit back and appreciate the little things, those you love and who are dear to you.  They remind you that no one knows when their time to leave this earth is, and that because of that fact, every hour, every moment is special.  Sometimes it takes a while for that reminder to grab hold, to control your thoughts though, because grief has taken over your mind, heart or whole body.  I remember when that was me.  When nothing made sense, and I could think of nothing other than the "Why"s and "What if"s and "I should have"s.   

I also remember how much better I felt when concentrating on the good times.  "Remember when"s are one of the best therapies I know.  

Take Me Back Tuesday - 6

The year is 1982.  It's summertime, and I am four years old.  My mom is single and working her rear off, being the mom she is supposed to be, you know, making sure she brings home the bacon, so to speak.  Summertime means no school (not that I am in school yet, anyway), and it also means mom can't stay home with me.  So, she does what a lot of parents do in my small hometown each summer - she signs me up for day camp at the YMCA.

I love the Y.  Each day we have swim time (sometimes twice a day), crafts, and I'm meeting all kinds of kids who seem to know a lot more about everything (including bad words) than I do.

Fridays are movie days at day camp.  So far I've seen Flight of the Navigator, and this week something happened to one of the counselors or something so the bigger kids are having to sit with the younger ones so we can watch a movie together.

I can't find anyone that I've gotten to know, so I'm just going to sit Indian style on the floor where I don't have look over a bunch of kids' heads and watch the movie.  Cue the counselor turning on the TV, and older boys hooting.  Must be a really good movie.

There's lots of water, and these guys are on a boat.  They're in some kind of gear, swimming, diving or something.  Now there's a leg floating around under water, and people are screaming, running out of the ocean as fast as possible.  The music is scary.  Really scary.  I'm covering my eyes.  

After a while I look again.  Things have gotten quiet.  I think the gross stuff is over.  Then this guy swims over to some shipwreck or something.  He goes underneath the boat and finds a man's body, floating, with one eye ball missing and these root-looking things coming out of his eye socket.  I am now completely freaked out.

I go to an adult, and tell her that I don't think I should be watching this.  She tells me it's fine and sends me back to sit down.  So I do.  And I watch.  Even though it's gross, and freaky.  Because like anyone my age, even when we know we aren't supposed to look, especially when we know we aren't supposed to look, we do.

Fast forward approximately three years.  My mom has met a wonderful guy, and they get married.  He even adopts me.  He is awesome.  And even better?  The house we just moved into has a pool.  

But guess what.  I can't swim.  I mean, I can swim, I swim very well, actually.  I just can't swim alone, in the deep end, at all.  Every time I go down there, down near the drain, I see the man with no eye, the roots wiggling around.  I see Jaws himself, his mouth agape, coming at me with his big shiny teeth.  And guess what else.  I can't swim in a pool, in the deep end, by myself, for the next ten years.  Somehow Jaws knows which pool I am in, no matter where I go, and he's always there, smiling at me, by the drain.

So thanks, YMCA day camp.  Thanks so much.  And while I'm at it, I might as well thank Fort Roosevelt, one lady in particular actually, for reading Rikki-tikki-tavi to me - you have no idea how scared I was of the drain in my bathtub, for years.

Take Me Back Tuesday - Installment #5

Something was in a bush in the backyard.  My doberman pinscher had his head buried deep into the branches, pawing, attempting to get a piece of what he'd found. 

My friend and I walked outside, curious.  We expected to find a bone, a piece of the lounge chair he loved to rip apart. 

"Jordan!  Get away from there!" 

I peered through the leaves.  It definitely wasn't a bone.  

"It's black."

"Black?  Like a trash bag?"

"I dunno.   But it is definitely, most definitely something black."

"Touch it."

"Ew no!  I'm not going to touch it!"

She ran into the house, returning seconds later with a grocery store bag.  I put my hand inside, making the most of my plastic "glove".  

I took a deep breath.  

"Okay.  Here we go." I said, reaching into the bush, my head turned away, grimacing as my fingers came in contact with something hard.

"What is it?"

"I don't know... "

"Pick it up."

And stupid me, I did it.  I picked it up.

 I could feel things moving, popping, like cracking knuckles as I pulled it from the bush.  It dangled limp, inches from my face.

"Oh my - " my friend said.   

The blob of black swung around, the body weight causing it to rotate slowly as it hung from my (not covered even close to enough) hand.  

We screamed - loud, disgusted, horrified screams - when the cat's head completed its rotation.  Screamed at the sight of its eyeball, hard as a rock, protruding from the socket.  Screamed at the cat's tongue, still pink, stuck and pointed, laughing at us in the most deadly way.  Screamed as I dropped it and the cat went falling to the ground.  Then we screamed again as Jordan ran over and tried to lick it.

 

Take Me Back Tuesday - Installment #4

I found a piece of paper on the kitchen table, a small, torn piece, part of an envelope or letter.  A burner was going, the one on the front right-hand side. We didn't have a gas stove at home.  Electric was all I knew, what my mother and I had in our small, homey apartment, what my grandparents had a few towns over. That's what I thought everyone used - the black, circular coils that glowed when hot, sucking down bits of food into its center at every meal.  Until I stayed at Lola's. 

I'd been at the babysitter's house for months, during the summer and when the bus dropped me off there after school, yet I'd never seen the flame peeking around the pot like that before, coming up from the bottom, surrounding it like  wiggling blue fingers.  

I looked around. Lola was gone, in the bathroom putting her hair into a bun, messing with the old radio (she didn't have a TV), or downstairs in the den.  I knew it was hot, it was fire, knew I shouldn't be playing with it.  But I did it anyway.  

The paper curled, its corner turning black as the orange flame crawled toward my fingers.  I stared at it, not knowing what to do.  I hadn't thought that part through, thought past the initial fascination, where to put the paper once it was enveloped with finger-seeking fire, and turned to the screen door behind me, the door leading to Lola's back porch where I'd spent many days dancing, singing into Lola's broom with Janet Jackson.  

I was almost out of time.  The heat was beginning to sting, I couldn't open the door before orange scorched the ends of my fingernails.

The ash fell, down to the linoleum, still burning.  It melted into the white floor, turning it light, then dark yellow, then gray.  I stomped my foot.  I could smell the burnt linoleum, the smoke from what used to be Lola's paper, and stared at the floor, clean and new, one warped dark blob in front of the stove.   

I rushed to the doorway leading into the living room, grabbed the floor mat, and threw it over the melted spot.  Its rainbow-colored weave stood out on the flawless linoleum, shouting silently that it didn't belong there on the kitchen floor. 

Lola walked in, her hair in a bun, long skirt gracing across the tops of her ankles. 

I stared at her, my eyes never leaving her unmade-up face, and pushed the mat into position with my shoe.  

"Would you like soup for lunch?  What's that smell? Do you smell something burning?"

I said I would, that I wasn't sure.  And then, with my foot planted on the mat, raised up slightly by a flaw that wasn't there two minutes before, I told her that I didn't.

Take Me Back Tuesday - Installment #3

Today my oldest daughter turns twelve. Twelve.  One year before the teen years, the crying about hair, boys, and clothes, whining that she can't see this, read that, listen to what "everyone else gets to listen to, Mom".  (Oh wait. She does pretty much all of that now, just not the boy part.)  So I figured it would be appropriate to blog about her birthday today, considering it's Take Me Back Tuesday and all.

Twelve years ago my life changed forever.  I was nineteen, married, and done with being pregnant.  My labor sucked (back labor - if you've had it you know what I'm talking about), and after not sleeping for three nights straight I was brain dead and barely able to fight the pain.  But I made it, we made it, and this kid was born - born to two parents who had no clue just how much their lives were going to change in the next few years.

I have friends, know people, who want babies, think about babies, hold them and say "I miss this stage."  I don't get it.  I don't feel that way at all.  Could it be due to the fact that my girls were all born in less than three years, that they're quick to fight and tattle and break things, and that I will never, no matter how much time goes by, forget how I lost my sanity for a few years there when they were little? Sure. But another reason I don't feel the twinge, that "my biological clock is ticking, I'm 31 and need to have another kid!" feeling, is that I truly enjoy the age they're in.  

I love talking and laughing at the dinner table, our inside jokes about things that know one else knows about.  I appreciate our conversations, real conversations, not explaining why the sky is blue twenty thousand times.  I love to watch them stick up for each other when times are tough, and shoot each other down (in a loving, funny way) when they're at home.  And ratting each other out?  It's the best.  Hilarious.  Just last night they made the rounds, explaining what each other had done, tattling on so and so for saying this or that.  The necessary reprimands were made, and yet, the five of us were laughing like crazy.

The phrase "Kids say the darndest things" means more to me now than ever.  They crack me up with their quick wit and superfluous explanations.  I can't imagine going back to the point where a baby cries, eats all day and doesn't laugh at my jokes or roll its eyes and say "You're such a dork, Mom.".  That's one of the things I love most right now - their reactions to me, my reactions to them, with my oldest especially.  

I love knowing that even though I'm screaming they're grounded or saying "Stop talking to me like that, I'm your Mother!" there's no question in their minds that it's because I love them.  When they clean up a room to be sweet that's exactly what they're doing - being sweet.  When they offer to make dessert, they're doing it because they know I'm tired, and they care enough to do something for me.  And when we laugh in the car at someone strange walking down the street or singing loud like someone on American Idol, we're being ourselves, our family. You can't do any of those things with a baby.  Don't get me wrong - babies are cute, adorable, and cuddly. They have the softest little buns, the squishiest thighs, the sweetest smell ever.  It's not that I don't love them.  But I wouldn't give this age up for anything.  

I'm sure things will change over the next year, and my oldest will call me a dork even more often than she already does.  Maybe I'll start embarrassing her (more than usual), start dressing out of fashion all of a sudden (in her eyes), and have to drop her off without getting out because she won't want me to walk her to the door anymore.  Maybe she'll stop talking to me about the stuff she's going through, even.  Only time will tell.    

Regardless of what the next year holds, I'm going to enjoy this age with my twelve year old daughter.  I won't enjoy the fights or the bossiness, the trying to distract me from chastising her by repeatedly cracking jokes  (which I do usually laugh at, I'll admit), and I especially won't appreciate the fits about bad hair days or not having enough of the right kind of clothes.  That's okay though.  It goes with the territory - love is love.  

Is it 12:55 yet?  Oh well.  I might as well say it now.  Happy birthday daughter.

Take Me Back Tuesday - Installment #2

scat·ter·brain (skāt'ər-brān')  
n.  A person regarded as flighty, thoughtless, or disorganized.

***

I’m not one to keep track of things. The capability of putting something away (and then remembering where I put it later) has eluded me since I was a kid. Just this last weekend Lovemuffin asked what I'd done with a gift card I received at Christmas, and I had no idea where it was. It’s not for lack of trying. I just can’t keep track of where I stuff things. (Step one to addressing the problem - admitting I throw things in random places without thinking.)

I went through my dresser drawers, favorite hiding places ("Hey! An SD card! I've been looking for that!"), the office, my closet.

“Where did you put it?” he asked me. “You lost another one?”

“I didn’t lose it.” (My answer every time.) “It's in a safe place.”

That’s his new joke when I can't find something. “Did you put it where you put everything else? In a ‘safe’ place?”

Ha ha. More jokes. Hardy har har.

When I was a kid, the main things I forgot about had value. Now it's not so bad - a few dollars, the lighter Lovemuffin uses to light the barbeque (found it in my make-up drawer yesterday), candy. Back then, I didn’t misplace things exactly - I simply forgot about their existence for a short while. Forgot long enough that when I did remember where I'd put them, it was too late to do anything about it.

Example 1: I’m seven years old and my parents have just gotten married. My mom and dad give my step-sister and I each a gold ID bracelet with the date of the wedding on it (it probably said something personal on it too, but I can’t remember), to symbolize us all becoming one family. It was special. A special present marking a very special occasion. 

I loved that bracelet. I’d never had anything so nice, shiny and new before. I was told not to wear it anywhere. (Or maybe I just knew I wasn’t supposed to wear it anywhere. I can’t remember. Point being, I should NOT have worn it anywhere. )

There was a large area of asphalt in front of the main part of my school, and to the left of it was a huge ditch. (Huge to a seven year-old kid anyway.) A swing set and monkey bars was to the right of that ditch, and to the right of that was a big, fat-trunked palm tree with a water fountain underneath it. Kids were always finding new reasons to play in the ditch. (The only time I ever played went near it was to play Red Rover. “Red rover, red rover, send Jessica right over!” I didn't play well. Or get picked early in the game too often. But that’s a different story for a different day.)

My parents haven't been back long from their honeymoon when I decide to wear it to school. A friend and I go play in the ditch at recess, digging around in the dirt after a decent rain. The ground is the perfect consistency to work with - soft enough to dig in, but not so moist that it's muddy. We are making huge piles and having a great time.

I’ve gone back to class and then on home from school when I realize the bracelet is no longer on my wrist.

Example 2: I have no clue what grade I'm in - possibly high school . There's some sort of dress-up day, like spirit week - something along those lines. I'm dressed like a hippie (or maybe it was a nerd?), and have asked my mom if I can wear her old 70’s or early 80’s glasses. They're prescription glasses. Not cute ones, no – these are hideously ugly and not even remotely stylish. Kids are laughing at me because of how "true to character" my glasses really are. I'm quite proud of myself. (And doing my best not to admit they came from my own house. My mom still uses them for back-up when she waits for new ones, can’t find her own, ect. But again, not admitting that to anyone.)

Enter recess time. My friends and I decide to go hang out on the swings - a place we haven't hung out in forever. But, that day, someone has a bright idea to go over there, to the other side of campus and sit on the kiddy swings. I set the glasses down on the sand, right out of my swinging feet's reach. I scurry back to class when the bell rings a few minutes later .

Example 3: It's my thirteenth birthday. One of my (four) grandmothers lives in Maine. I don’t see her often - by the time my thirteenth birthday rolls around, I’ve seen her maybe five times. (Incidentally, she's my step-grandmother, not something that is usually relevant to me. You'll see why I pointed out the step-grandmother part very shortly.)

My grandma sends me a diamond ring for my thirteenth birthday. I am floored, even as young as I am. I can’t believe my grandma would give me something so expensive, so meaningful. To a girl technically not even her own grandchild. And she sent it in the mail, no less. From Maine, all the way to California. To add to the compliment, this ring is something she actually used to wear (it said so in the letter she wrote out and folded up to fit in the ring box). So it's is a hand-me-down of the best kind, something special. I am proud.

My parents ask if they should keep it or if they can trust me.

“Oh, you can trust me. Trust me!”

I wear it to school a few days later. This time, though, I realize my mistake, and decide I probably haven’t made the best decision. So I stick it in my backpack, and plan to take it out when I arrive home and put it back away.

I never found the bracelet. I begged everyone in the school office to ask anyone who entered those doors about my bracelet. Day after day I checked to see if someone had “dropped it off” at the lost and found. It wasn’t lost. It was taken. I know this. I ran back to the dirt after school that day and looked all through our piles. Someone found it after my recess and kept it (with the date May 2 and my name on it, no less). Guaranteed.

My mom's glasses were in pieces. One lens was missing, the frame beyond repair. Someone either came along after I went back to class and swung as high as their little legs could propel them into the air before landing on them, or, the possible (and most likely) other scenario is a kid just broke them... on purpose. I'll never know.

Tires and lawn equipment were not my friend. Grandma's ring fell out of my backpack sometime between me getting out of my friend’s car after school, and running into her house. By the time I realized it was missing from my backpack, someone had already driven over it (with a lawn mower or car), and my friend's dad had blown it into the grass with the leaf blower. The diamond was completely gone. Crushed into smithereens probably. We found the band intact but bent, with a worn off darker area where the diamond’s prong had previously been.  At least I still have that.  I've only taken it out of the box a few times in the past (almost)

 twenty years.

After reading those examples, you'd think I would have learned my lesson.  Then again, maybe I did.  Maybe that's why now I only misplace little things, trivial items my brain won't lock into memory for future reference.

I'm sure I'll find the gift card in the next month or so.  But if I don't, I can tell you where it isn't.  It's not in a pile of dirt, or underneath the swings. It didn't get chopped up by a lawn mower, either.   It's around here somewhere in this house, waiting in a safe place until I find it.  And I will find it, eventually.

Take Me Back Tuesday - Installment #1

Welcome to the first installment of "Take Me Back Tuesdays"!  Thought I'd share a little bit about the good ol' days once a week - you know, add a bit of weekly entertainment at my own expense. (I'm great at self-sacrifice.  Whatever it takes to get the job done, my readers.) This week I'll be sharing one of my handful of bad experiences I had while riding a bike.

I was driving the girls home the other day when we passed two boys tossing a football in their front yard.  Being the consistently talkative/reminiscent mother that I am, I immediately felt it necessary to tell the girls a story about the last time I watched boys toss a football in a front yard.  (By the way, my oldest would probably deny this, but I saw her look at them a little longer than usual.  Maybe she was trying to figure out if she knew the boys, but the fact remains that her head was held in their direction longer than my other two.)

So. I had a decent-sized crush on this guy.  Okay, I'm going to be truthful with you, my readers. It was a few guys.  But I was twelve - who was counting?  (Besides me and my boy-crazy friends, and our concerned parents, I mean.)  I'm not going to name names.  Nuh-uh.  I grew up in a very small town.  The process of elimination would take all of thirty seconds. But I will say this: most of us girls in town had a crush on this guy.    

I did have one thing working in my favor when it came to the boy-crazies.  I may have grown up in a small town, but I always went to school out of town.  Most of my peers had no clue who the heck I was, which sucked for the most part, but at times was pretty awesome, because it gave me free reign to ride my bike around town and check everyone out in their usual places.  I could then report even the most trivial information back to my BFFs.  ("He cut his HAIR!  His shirt was GREEN, like his EYES!  He was eating PIZZA!  Of course pepperoni!  What?  I don't know, he either said 'I'd like a Dr. Pepper' or 'Here comes the hot stepper.', I'm not sure." Yes.  We were that. Bad.)

My piano teacher lived about two blocks away from my house, so when the weather was nice I'd ride my bike to her home.  I had a little canvas bag the perfect size to hold three or four piano books, and would hang it on the right handlebar to and from my lesson.

One particularly warm day, as I was riding home from my lesson, my boy crush and another guy  were vigorously tossing a football back and forth in crush boy's front yard.  Shirtless.  Now, I wasn't old enough to fully appreciate their lack of clothing, but I knew that sort of juicy tidbit would make for a great story when I told my friends about it later at our "meeting".  

So there I was, riding my bike on the opposite side of the road, staring at the boys, oblivious to everything around me, when the right handlebar turned toward me suddenly and the corner of my canvas bag jammed into the spokes of the front bicycle tire.  

 My canvas bag fell to the ground, the bike on top of it, and as the truck's alarm rang out loud and clear, saying "Look at me!  Look at me!  I've been hit!  This girl's embarrassed!  Look at her too!" (in car alarm language - I'm convinced of this), both boys looked over at me immediately.  

I was mortified.   I didn't care about the pain in my shin, the dent in the side of some stranger's truck, I almost didn't even care about my bike (the only reason I did was because I had to ride it home - what's more mortifying than crashing your bike into a truck in front of two good looking boys?  Having to walk your bent-up bike home after crashing your bike in front of two good looking boys.)  All I cared about was the possibility that those two boys, who had no clue who I was, would forever see me around town and refer to me as the "weirdo who crashed into the truck across the street".

I finally looked at my leg when I got home.  There was minor damage, at most.  But my pride, oh man, my pride was a different story.  (I don't remember much about the status of my bike, but I know I rode it around for at least another year after that, so it must have survived the crash with minor scrapes and bruises.)  

It didn't take long for me to tell my mom what happened.  And do you know what she said?  She said I should go back down there and tell the truck owner that I was the one who'd crashed into his truck.  That I should apologize for putting a dent in it and taking off without telling them what happened. I mean really.  Did I go?  Heck no.  What if the boys were still out there in the front yard?  Can you imagine how embarrassing that would have been?  No.  I could not ride my bike back over there.

I didn't ride down that block again for months. Going an eensy bit out of my way was just fine by me, long as I didn't have to see either one of them again.  But I did tell that story at our next "meeting", in all it's mortifying glory.  And I told it to my kids (minus the not going back to the truck and apologizing part, of course) almost twenty years later.  The only difference was, my friends thought it was hilarious.  My kids thought I was a dork.