Excitement on the side

When I was a little kid…

Posted on December 16, 2011 | 1 comment

Em pulled this ornament from the box and said “Ohhh, this is the one I made when I was a little kid…” It slayed me. It’s not difficult to reduce me to tears (as I have mentioned at least 800 times of late) but this was a different kind.

The nose tingling, eyes watering “I think I am doing this right” tears. I have heard more than a few parents lament that if you”re “doing it right” they need you less and less.

Our "little girl" made this ornament just last year in pre-school.

In the past few months I have watched as my lap grows smaller and smaller and my “little girl” is literally pushed right out of “the nest.” And it pains me.

I have come to terms with the fact that Love is infinite. That I will find the Love that two children require. But I can not deny that both Time and my lap are finite. I struggle to envision how I will share them with two children. Already I feel I do a less than adequate job sharing my Time with only one child between working and mothering. How does one expect to blend another child in to the family without taking from the first?

And then I look at the face in the ornament. She looks so different than the face I see today.

I see her flounce down the stairs in an “outfit” she has assembled. Skinny jeans and a tshirt, her boots and a high ponytail. I eavesdrop as she and her buddy discuss the best way to pass a baby to someone else without “flopping the head.” I watch her practice being a Big Sister to her baby doll. (A baby doll that has recently acquired a middle name. A middle name that we have incidentally settled on for Baby D.) Her teeny little self drags the empty trash can up the driveway without being reminded. Stopping only to have me unlock the gate so she can put it away. She empties the dishwasher while I make dinner, reminding me to check her back pack for a note from her teacher. Last night after her shower her wet towel was hanging from the hook on the bathroom door. Her dirty clothes in the laundry basket.

Maybe she isn’t my “little kid.”

Well, then. Merry Christmas to you, Baby Girl. In spite of this new baby and your big grown up self you will always, always be my Baby Girl.

She hopped in to the front with me while we waited for MQD at the barber the other day. "Look at you in the front seat, Miss Thang!" She grabbed my glasses and began to pose. Apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

1 Comment

Posted in Family, Parenting, Pregnancy

Tagged Christmas, Decorating, Emily, Ornaments, Pregnancy

And the stockings were hung…

Posted on December 15, 2011 | Leave a comment

By the chimney with care…

Sometimes things turn out just the way you imagine they might… Next year there will be four. Four stockings.

I grew up in a four stocking family. And soon so will Emily.

I have a fireplace. In our new house. And greens on my mantle. And Burl Ives has told me the story of the Misfit Toys several times already this month. It’s almost perfect. Next year there will be four stockings. And then it will be perfect.

Merry Christmas, Baby D. No stocking for you this year. But next year. Next Christmas you might even be walking. Quick drunken steps from the foot stool to the couch. It will be hard to remember a time when you weren’t here with us. See you soon, sweetheart.

Got to get Over the Hump!!

Posted on December 14, 2011 | Leave a comment

“I’m down to get down! On Guard! Got to get over the hump!!” ~ Bop Gun, George Clinton (What? Parliament doesn’t make you feel Christmassy?)

When we filled Emily’s Christmas Advent Elf this year we opted to have a “fancy” piece of candy poking out of Day 13.

Last year we filled each pocket the night before. Or I raced out to the living room to try and beat her to the elf when I heard her coming down the stairs in the morning.

But this year she is old enough to not only be patient enough to not sneak the candy out of each pocket early but she actually seems to be enjoying the torture of waiting.

This morning I was getting dressed when I heard her asking what day it was. I knew where this was headed so I ran out to the kitchen and grabbed my phone for a picture. MQD, always the better teaching parent, says “The 13th? What numbers make up 13?”

I think my grin gave it away. “The 1 and 3!” as she grabbed the fancy candy with the Santa head from his #13 pocket. I reminded her that we had chosen that pocket because it was the halfway mark.

“No way!! We are half way to Christmas!” she exclaimed.

It was everything I could do not to echo her sentiment. No fucking way!! IT IS HALF WAY TO CHRISTMAS! We need to wrap gifts, and bake treats, and mail packages, and sort stocking stuffers and….. breathe.

I am having candy canes for lunch.

The JR

Posted on December 13, 2011 | 1 comment

Everyone has had that job. The job that they took that was only going to last a little while. It was an “in-between jobs” job.

I hated buying more than one uniform shirt because I wasn’t going to be there very long. Sometimes I wore a long grey skirt instead of black pants. And a plain black long sleeve tshirt instead of a Jolly Roger shirt when I was tending bar. Because rebelling is not my strong suit but dammit, I hated that uniform.

I had never had sidework like that before. Two hotel sheet trays of tiny solo cups of horseradish. Four of coleslaw. Make sure you are prepped to make at least 100 Bloody Marys. On Sunday. At lunch.

Sell all the soup you can, but don’t eat it. Eat things you see being made. Made to order. Fried eggs. Not scrambled. Don’t ask about what you saw in the walk in. It is a strawberry. Even though it looks like a grey furry mouse. It is a strawberry and it is someone’s idea of a science experiment.

Never, ever run out of cigarettes. The other waiters, career waiters that have been at this since you were in elementary school and will still be at it when you are long gone, they are not likely to strike up a conversation with you unless you catch them on a smoke break. Get someone in the kitchen stoned. Just once. So they know you are not stuck up.

Figure out how the hostess station works. Because that is where the money is made. Coffee and $1.99 breakfast and a two-top of surfers. They are cute. But it won’t pay the bills. Suck it up and hope you get the family with the screaming kids and that they didn’t see the big sign that explains you can eat a LOT for almost free. Write down their order. Because it doesn’t impress anyone that you don’t have to. And later when a customer tells you that they ordered wheat toast and sunny side up eggs even though that is total bullshit and they may have said that in their minds because what they actually said was French Toast and scrambled, you will have it written down.

Be nice to the people that everyone knows. They have been eating here for a decade. The man that eats breakfast at the bar all of the time, he knows where the sour mix is when you run out. Go ahead and snicker and say “I bet you do” when the creepy guy say he likes his eggs “Over Easy.” But do not serve him a Budweiser with a Jack back at 11:57 am on a Sunday. Drop a tray of six dinners. But do not lose a credit card slip.

Don’t look too closely at the Christmas ornaments that hang from every surface in the entire restaurant. You will begin to wonder when was the last time they were dusted. And these thoughts of cleanliness will linger. And drive you crazy. Put your tray jack back exactly where you got it from. And never set an empty pitcher of iced tea down.

Learn to wash your own bar glasses. Quickly. You will run out if you send them to the dish pit. Get your own ice. And then get two extra buckets. Everyone is slammed, not just you. But it will be over soon enough.

Do not stay for late night drinks. Do not ever sing karaoke. Don’t ask any questions about Alan Ross’ Traveling Karaoke Road Show. Specifically how it is that it is traveling if it is here every single night. Do not breath an ill word to Carol Ann. Don’t bother making a request for a specific day off. Schedules were made this summer for Christmas. You are working someone’s shifts that quit. It is assumed that you will quit before the next summer.

I walked out of every shift wondering if I was going to get fired. With more money than I thought I had made. This is what I learned there.

I worked Christmas at the Jolly Roger. And all I got was this lousy ornament.

1 Comment

Posted in Nonsense

Tagged bartending, Christmas, decorations, Family, holidays, Ornaments, restaurant, tradition, waitressing

Mommy’s Capricorn

Posted on December 12, 2011 | 1 comment

So, I was having a little bit of a mini meltdown. But it’s over. The maternal hormones have levelled out and I am ready to have a baby.

And this is how I know.

Every day I drive past a few farms. My favorite of all of them has quite a few goats. I am a pretty big fan of goats. They are cheerful little creatures. They make me smile.

It’s not lost on me that I am gestating a Capricorn.

I slow down and I smile at the goats a couple of times a week. And today I thought maybe I’d even stop and pay them a visit. I pulled in the driveway and made Em jump in the car. I told her it was a surprise. I guess she knows me better than I imagined. Right away she asked me “Is it a cute animal, Mom?”

“Yep. Two of them.”

We pulled up next to the fence and when I rolled down the window at least a dozen goats started running towards us. And all of a sudden…. I felt the “Oh my god, they’s so cute….” totally overwhelm me. Because it wasn’t just a bunch of cute goats. It was goats AND FUCKING PONIES!!!

Guys. I’m gonna make it. I only have to be pregnant for five more weeks. And there are goats and shetland ponies less than half a mile from my house. And they are crazy cute. It is hard to be filled with rage and anxiety when this little buddy will come right up to the fence and smile at you. With the goats serenading you in the background.

1 Comment

Posted in Family, Parenting, Pregnancy

Tagged capricorn, goats, Pregnancy, Pregnant, shetland pony

Heads or Tails?

Posted on December 12, 2011 | 8 comments

Moody doesn’t really begin to describe it. There’s a 50/50 chance I will begin to cry every time MQD puts his arms around me lately.

And since my brother is not here to say “No shit” I will chime in on his behalf. I am a crier. I have always been a crier. But the tears of late are not of the “Jeez, I have so many feelings” Hallmark commercial tears ilk that have plagued me all my life.

They are the ugly, make your face all splotchy tears that came from a place of anger and fear and pain.

Sometimes it is hard to reconcile the two people that live inside of me. Three, if you count Baby D. Happy Go Lucky Kelly wishes Doom & Gloom Kelly would take a hike. It might leave more room for Baby D, and maybe s/he’d quit poking me in the ribs. Not likely but a girl can dream.

This hasn’t been the most glamorous of pregnancies. I never realized how fortunate I was before to feel so great so much of the time. I have complained about my heartburn. But heartburn is tolerable. I was completely ill-prepared for the day in and day out aches and pains. The can’t get out of bed flu like feeling of all over tired. The pain in my hips.

I am six years older. I sit all day now, instead of working two jobs on my feet as I did with Emily. Every pregnancy is different… blah blah blah…

I went in to labor last time strong. I was walking daily, miles, not steps to and from the door to the car. I was positive that an unmedicated birth was in my future. I was ready. And beyond hopeful. I was sure. And I failed.

This time I am afraid. I know how many things can happen, how many things can be outside of your control. My body feels weak. And tired. And yet I am hoping to make it happen this time. Because I don’t see myself doing it again. I see our family of four as complete. And I don’t want to do this to my body again.

So, it feels like my last chance to make it right. For me. This body I have struggled with loving, I want to see it do what it was designed to do. I want to feel it this time. I want to be in awe, just once, of this body.

But it isn’t the pregnancy and the labor experience that has me inside out.

Last night I finally found the words.

It’s the baby.

I am ready for this baby to make me feel good.

I know it will. I know when I can put my chin against my chest, my lips resting on a tiny little head, arms and legs all squished against my chest, my hand curled around a tiny little baby butt. Breathe in baby smell and exhale every fear I have carried in my heart for the last year, I know I will feel nothing but love.

But now. Now I don’t feel love all the time. Sometimes when I reach out for MQD I see this man I have been married to for less than year, I see this life I had been waiting for for so long and I can barely reach my arms around his waist. My face no longer fits in his neck as it did the day we were were married, his arms no longer create a space for me where I feel safe.

All I can say through tears is that I just wish it would all go away.

I don’t want to be tired. I don’t want to be cranky and short tempered. I don’t want to spend the next six months in a newborn haze. I want to rake my leaves. And stay up late and wrap Christmas presents. I want to drink Grasshoppers and write Christmas cards with this man I fell in love with. And be a newlywed. I want to roll down the hill with my kid in to the leaves we just raked.

But I can’t. Because I am tired. And dairy makes my heartburn worse. And I am too busy being weepy and peeing every five seconds and I can’t even get up off the couch anyway. Walking to the mailbox makes my hip hurt some days so there is no hill rolling on my agenda. Because I am fucking pregnant.

And “fucking pregnant” doesn’t make me feel full of magic and love. It makes me feel full of a lack of gratitude for this beautiful thing that is happening to us.

And even though I am nine feet wide, he finds a way. To wrap me in his arms and rock me back and forth and say “It’s gonna be ok. You don’t have to do everything yourself. I love you.” And he smiles. And as quickly as Doom & Gloom Kelly arrived she is gone again. And “Get a Load of THIS, shit, we’re gonna have a BABY, y’all!” takes her place.

And I am smiling, and hopeful. And excited. So maybe the smile is forced. But I am hopeful. And excited.

[Note: Dear Baby D, If you are reading this you are no longer a baby. You are probably a tech savvy pre-teen. And in case you are reading and thinking “Holy shit, you didn’t want me!! You said it!! That you wished “it” would go away!!” I have two things to say. Watch your mouth, we don’t swear in our house (ha!) and of course I wanted you. Some days I wanted you so badly I was ready to reach down my own throat and yank you out by the feet. Because I wanted you. Out here. With the rest of us, please. So I could have me back, too. Because contrary to what you might think the world does not revolve around you. Now, go clean your room. Love you, Mom. ]

8 Comments

Posted in Bad Mood, Family, Nonsense, Parenting, Pregnancy

Tagged 36 weeks, Fear, Labor, Pregnancy

The Flag

Posted on December 12, 2011 | 5 comments

For the most part I embrace the woman in me that grew out of the Brownie I was as a little girl. I make crafts with my kid and give them as gifts unabashedly.

Over the last few years I became a seasonal door decoration person. A part of me blames motherhood. Another part of me blames MQD and his desire to cover the window in our front door with something to prevent our neighbors from peeking in. It doesn’t matter how it happened.

It started with a Christmas wreath. And then I had this cute wreath with Easter Eggs on it. I have a patriotic themed “Welcome” wreath for mid-summer and the 4th of July. Autumnal leaves for the fall.

But I have a line I won’t cross. Or at least I thought I did.

The American flag went up for Veteran’s Day. And it stayed up. It makes me happy. And admittedly, aesthetically, it looks pretty cute with the pansies and the front porch and the holy-shit-all-we-need-is-a-white-picket-fence-I-have-never-been-so-happy vibe I have going.

I don’t remember what exactly prompted it. But when MQD suggested we could get all kinds of flags, for the seasons and the holidays I let fly a string of obscenities that would have made a sailor blush. Evidently homemade crafts as gifts are acceptable. Door wreaths are acceptable. Seasonal flags are not.

I was in Michael’s. I had a basket full of stocking stuffers.

I was feeling full on Mom mode and chatting with an elderly woman behind me. The line was long.

And then it happened.

At first I just took a picture.

And then I started needing permission. I all but begged MQD to tell me to buy it.

He didn’t make it easy on me. Neither did the woman working the register.

Quietly I asked her “Umm… that Snoopy flag, where are they in the store, I umm… didn’t see them anywhere.”

She pointed. I ran past the twenty people behind me in line to look for it while she rang up my other items. I started feeling a little like a contestant in that game show where the harried housewife runs through the grocery store aisles all wild-eyed and crazy. I didn’t see one. They had reindeer. And Santa. And snowmen. No Peanuts.

I returned to her register and asked one of those questions I already knew the answer to. “Is it a huge pain in the ass to ask you to get that down for me?” and I pointed twenty feet up in the air to the lone Peanuts flag. Wordlessly she left her register.

And now I have a Snoopy flag. But just this one. So help me.

5 Comments

Posted in Family, Parenting

Tagged Christmas, Ornaments, Snoopy

Snoop

Posted on December 11, 2011 | 4 comments

Once I set my mind to something I am committed. Whether it is my favorite article of clothing (overalls,) my favorite food (cheese) or my favorite man (Snoopy) there is no changing my mind.

I got my first pair of overalls sometime in preschool. I can remember ordering bowls of grated cheese as my meal at Anita’s Mexican restaurant as a little kid.

And Snoopy and I have been in love for as long as I can recall.

I left my first Snoopy in the Smithsonian Museum cafeteria circa 1981 and my mom promptly replaced him. The “new” Snoopy was de-stuffed and washed multiple times before he was satisfactory. There is a certain neck flop that I demand from my Snoopy. She very kindly obliged.

By the time I went away to college there was no questioning whether or not Snoopy would be tagging along. At that point Snoopy 2.0 was coming up on 15 years of age. He’d had a near total removal of his neck over the years, sewing up one hole at a time. Until his head sits right atop his body. But the crucial parts are still in full effect.

I started sleeping on my side when I was 8 or 9. A broken arm introduced me to the joy of side sleeping with a pillow. What began as a propped up cast developed in to a life long love of side sleeping and spooning a spare pillow. And my Snoopy. The right side of his face is softer than the left. His right ear even softer than that. Years and years of my thumb smoothing his hair down has made his ear in to a Snoopy shaped worry stone.

I didn’t set out to do it. When we decorated our bedroom. It was my first adult bedroom with all new furniture and bedding, chosen by myself and my husband. Thirty four years old. I got MQD a wedding picture on canvas for above our bed. We opted to keep things very clean and simple. Black. And White. And Grey. He’s not crazy about the throw pillow I picked out for the center of our bed.

But who am I kidding? It’s Snoopy that sits center stage. He’s coming up on 31 years of service, I think. He can sit wherever he wants.

4 Comments

Posted in Family, Parenting

Tagged Christmas, Decorating, Ornament, Snoopy

Boobs!

Posted on December 10, 2011 | 2 comments

This is another all time favorite. It reminds me of a few of my favorite things.

Becoming a mother. Nurturing my relationship with Emily through nursing, and our journey as a breastfeeding dyad. Getting to know a handful of truly amazing women that supported me and encouraged me to get involved with La Leche League. And Boobs!

I could use today’s post about my boob ornament as a platform for discussing breastfeeding. The impact that it had on me as a mother, on my parenting choices or the impact I believe it had on Emily. But I suspect that in the coming year I will talk more about my boobs and the magic that they share with this new baby than any of you care to read about.

I am not really very good at making friends with women. And groups of women I find even more intimidating than happening upon them one at a time. I’d not been attending La Leche League meetings long when the Ornament Making party was scheduled. All in attendance at the meetings were invited, but me being me, I just couldn’t quite wrap my mind around actually going. It wasn’t really a meeting. And they had to invite everyone to be nice, right? So maybe I shouldn’t go… And I chickened out.

Later in the holiday season imagine my delight when I saw the La Leche League tree at Hotline‘s Festival of Trees. It was a tree covered in golden glittering boobs. I had found my people.

So many years later I am delighted all over again when I take them out of their cocoon. There are only a handful of ornaments that get carefully wrapped in paper towels. And my boobs? I take very careful care of my boobs.

Merry Christmas, Boobs. Big, small, lactating, push up brassiered, sports bra bound, hot dog nippled, bartending money makers, middle school distractions, you have meant so much to me and so many others through the years. I’ll raise a glass to you again soon enough.

2 Comments

Posted in Attachment Parenting, Family, Nonsense

Tagged Breastfeeding, Christmas. Boobs, La Leche League, Ornament

Heart to heart, you’ll win…

Posted on December 9, 2011 | 1 comment

In the early 90’s an Amazonian Queen had a perm. And both boobs. And Revlon Rum Raisin lipstick.

“Hippolyta, I wooed thee with thy sword, and won thy love doing thee injuries.” ~ Theseus, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

If that’s the case then Emily and her sidekick are destined for eternal love. The chasing one another with sticks, the beatings that take place in the yard only moments after breakfast on a Saturday morning. The two of them tumble to the grass and roll down the hill, hunting snakes and deer in Kellan’s front yard.

These activities are in stark contrast to the playing of Family that takes place in Emily’s room. It is quiet in her room and I poke my head in the door. Quiet is a signal of distress and trouble when children are in your house. “We are putting our baby to bed, and then we will do Chores.” Chores include putting away all of the games they have taken out of her closet. And arranging their baby’s things carefully on her bed.

It shouldn’t surprise me that Emily shifts so easily from Warrior to Mother. I like to fancy myself a woman that keeps a foot in both camps. But when I stepped out the kitchen door the other day and caught her running towards the driveway I had to stop her, take a picture. “Whatcha doin’?”

“Fighting.”

“What do you have there?”

“My baby. And some lipsticks.”

And she ran off to get her stick. That’s my girl.