Take Me Out To The Ballgame

I'm a proud mama tonight. I'd like to say I am every night, but I'm also an honest mama... so I know it would be a lie to say that I am enthusiastically proud of 100% of my kids' activities 100% of the time. But, tonight I am. 

My Bubba played his first Little League ballgame tonight. Unfortunately, they didn't win. Fortunately, it took Ashton a few hours to really let it sink in, and he didn't start sulking until about 10pm, at which time I put him to bed. He is so intense. He takes himself so seriously. 

According to Jeremy (who swears he is unbiased in this point), Ashton is one of the best players on the team, especially given the fact that he has never played on a team before. I can see this about him... he has always been focused, and it showed on the field tonight. Other kids were staring into space, zoning out... and Ashton was completely invested the whole game. Of course, he was on 3rd base, which is normally a hot spot; but in coach pitch, where the kids are just starting, the ball rarely even made it to 3rd base. Poor Ashton was so ready to do his part, waving his glove in the air, and at one point even throwing his hat on the ground, getting frustrated every time a player got past him because he never got the ball. He told me he never even got nervous, but just that his "heart was beating" when it was his turn to bat.

Anyway, this is strictly a bragging blog. Some of you may believe that since his team lost, I have nothing to really brag about.

Who can look at him and tell me I don't have a reason to brag?

Love and War

It’s way too late to be blogging. But I’m feeling introspective... which is just my way of saying I’m feeling down.

I’m wearing Ashton’s camouflage Snuggie. Well, not wearing it completely, because it’s child sized. I don’t have my arms through the sleeves or anything... so it doesn’t really count as hopping on the Snuggie bandwagon, right? Although, I can’t say that I would really be adverse to owning a Snuggie. Especially the ones that come with a book light. Especially since Jeremy broke my old book light.

Speaking of Jeremy... well, I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that I’m not the only person in the universe who argues with their spouse, right? Of course, right. I can’t really say Jeremy and I have been arguing so much as... bickering. I hate that word- bickering. For some reason it reminds of when I was young, and my dad would reach his breaking point when it came to us kids. He would stand up, sometimes toss his newspaper on the floor, and holler, “That is e-NOUGH!!! I have had it up to HERE (holding his hand up above his reddening face, indicating where exactly ”here“ was) with your... BICKERING!”, with a hard pronunciation of the B. He made the word “bicker” sound like a slap.

Jeremy and I have always had a bust your chops relationship. It’s one of the things I love about us. But sometimes, as with everything, we can take it too far, and joking gives way to hurt feelings. On both sides. Both of us want to have the last word. It becomes a battle of one-upmanship (I can’t believe one-upmanship is actually a word. It looks weird). And in the end, at the risk of sounding sage and cliched, nobody wins. Except maybe me. Sometimes.

There! You see what I mean? I can’t even blog without having the final word.

So my point is, and what I’m saying to myself, and maybe anyone else out there who may need some sage and cliched advice, is that:

1. Bickering is immature. If it calls to mind memories of being yelled at by your dad for arguing with your sibling over who was sitting where, chances are, it’s probably immature.
2. Marriage isn’t about getting in the last word. It’s definitely not about winning. And that is a very, very good thing. Because (as previously stated in the above sage and cliched advice) most of the time, nobody wins.
3. My husband drives me crazy. Lord knows he does. And Lord knows that I drive him crazy, at regular intervals, and there’s a 60/40 chance that I’m doing it on purpose. I can admit that, and often do. However, and this brings me to:
4. In spite of being driven crazy, and the necessity to count to 10 frequently (which I do not always avail myself of), I know that I would so, so much rather “bicker” with Jeremy than be with someone else. More cliches, I know, but there’s a reason cliches are cliche. If being married to him means that I have to endure jokes about padded bras, occasionally (okay, maybe more than occasionally) sub-par housekeeping, and worry wart tendencies, I am completely okay with that. Because that also means that I get to tell him how awful his hair looks, and how he manages to ruin even the simplest of jokes. And how his Scottish accent somehow manages to be a mix of Cockney, Forrest Gump, Bob Marley, and Apu from The Simpsons. Yeah, don’t ask me. I don’t know how he manages that one either.
5. Somehow, just acknowledging the fact that yes, we bicker, and yes, we are still okay afterwards, makes me feel not so down. It's nice to know that I can wake up in the morning to someone I love and am annoyed by. Bad hair, stupid jokes, and all.

Feel Sorry For Me

Atleigh has contracted some sort of stomach bug. I've been puked on three times in as many days. Twice in my cupped palms. This weekend has sucked. I thought the puking was done- none at all yesterday or all day today- until tonight, when I tried to get her to eat a banana. Incidentally, all she has eaten since Friday night is: 3 pizza rolls (which ended up on my pants), a handful of mini saltine crackers, a cup of applesauce, 5 bites of a waffle, and said banana. She ate about two thirds of it before she bit off too much. I suppose her gag reflex was sensitive, because as soon as I realized she was struggling, and tried to "swipe" it from her mouth, she vomited. Into my hands. Chewed up banana. Lovely. Freaking. Lovely. Couple that with a fever ranging between 101 and almost 104, and you could say that the past few days have been far from ideal. Thankfully the fever broke this morning. Now if I can only convince her that food does not equal poison and vomiting.

I'm saying all this so you'll feel sorry for me. Do you?

Making Memories

 

 

 

It’s Friday (Friday, Friday... sorry, I couldn’t help myself). Jeremy’s camping with a bunch of guy friends. It was pouring rain earlier, thunder and lightning, wind howling. I felt sure he would turn tail and come home, but he stuck it out, good man. Like a trooper.

This is what I do on weekends when Jeremy’s gone: I buy frozen pizzas, spread a thick blanket on the living room floor, and let the kids camp out, staying up late eating pizza and watching TV. Sometimes they pass out around 10... sometimes they’ve stayed up as late as 1 in the morning before finally succumbing. They’ve inherited my night owl blood. Judge me if you will (and I know some people will) about letting them stay up so late. Kids need their rest, you’ll get them off schedule, blah blah blah. Let them judge.

Some of my best memories are cloaked in a dark living room, sprawled on the floor with my brothers and sister, the flickering blue light of the TV screen shining off of our faces. I had one of those reversible blankets, tan and brown, with a picture of horses galloping through waves on a beach. Amber had a battered old quilt, and each boy had a blanket, cleverly called- wait for it- the boys’ blankets. I still remember what they looked like, and which ones belonged to which boy.
Some nights we would play video games- we had a demo disc for the Playstation, some sort of downhill skateboarding game. We would play that over and over, for hours, taking turns with the controller until our thumbs hurt. Or Uniracers! Who remembers that game?! Other nights we watched movies. I remember laying on the floor next to my dad watching The Land Before Time, tears running down my face as Littlefoot’s mother died. And I remember years later, again laying next to Dad on the floor, watching him cry as Annie and Sam finally found each other in Sleepless in Seattle. I remember staying up late with my mom while she cross-stitched, watching While You Were Sleeping, The Cutting Edge, True Lies.... all of her staple “stitching movies” as we called them. All the Bob Hope and Bing Crosby “Road” movies, Young Frankenstein, and every Christmas Eve, The Muppet Christmas Carol.

So while some people might regard my idea of a fun family night as negligent parenting, I prefer to think of it as more of passing a torch, in a way. I see them, cloaked in a dark living room. Sprawled on the floor next to each other, the blue light of the TV flickering off of their faces. I see myself and my brothers and sister in them. And I have to ask myself, as my parents might have asked themselves all those years ago: What is sleeping compared to making memories?

A Day Without Shoes

 Ok, so I'm sure if you've read my blog before, you saw my little paragraph about Toms Shoes. Today was their annual Day Without Shoes, to raise awareness for children in poverty stricken countries who don't have the choice of whether to wear shoes or not. I took part in that this year.

I'm not gonna lie. My feet are killing me. I didn't even do that much today (my wonderful sister spent the whole day at college barefoot!). I took Ashton to school. I came home. I went to Papa John's to pick up a pizza for lunch for me and the girls, I went back to pick Ashton up from school. But walking on the sidewalks, the street, even just walking in my house, made my feet tender. I always wear flip flops. Always. I didn't realize how much I relied on them until I had to stop myself 50 times from slipping them back on.


It rained today. The temperature dropped about 15 degrees in an hour. I'm not going to say it wasn't tempting to put shoes back on. Right now, my feet are freezing, bare toes peeking over the edge of the laptop I'm propping on my legs. But I think of all the little kids, babies the same age as my babies, walking miles without shoes. In the rain, the dirt, the mud and filth. The preventable diseases that they get, diseases that can be avoided with something as simple as a pair of shoes. I wouldn't consider myself an activist. Not really. But there are things that strike chords in my heart. My not wearing shoes didn't raise money for those kids. I didn't go to any rallies, I didn't carry a sign. I knew the reason I went barefoot today was to raise awareness in myself. To not take for granted something that is so easily accessible to me. Tomorrow, I get to wake up, and choose which pair of shoes I want to wear. I have dozens to choose from. My feet won't have to get wet or dirty if I don't want them to. If they get cold, I can pull a pair of socks on.


But for today, I'm going barefoot for them. And tonight, my heart is as tender as my feet.

Correction

To all the people I scared: My friend did NOT pass away. She's moving to another state. Sorry for the confusion, and for the fact that I laughed till I cried over all the misconceptions.

For a Friend

This is for the friend that I met in Bob Kennedy’s second grade Sunday School class.

This is for the friend who knows who my first crush was (and would never tell... probably because she had a crush on him too).

This is for the friend who never said anything about my dubious fashion sense in the sixth grade. Although I’m not really sure I should thank her for that.

This is for the friend who stayed up all night with me, telling jokes, talking boys, crafting soap opera worthy futures, and designing “The Most Beautiful Dresses In The World!”

This is for the friend who didn’t slap me when she said, in reference to her then current boyfriend, that they “had so much in common! I hate watermelon candy and HE hates watermelon candy!”, and I laughed in her face.

This is for the friend who held me when I cried broken hearted tears over a guy, while telling me that he wasn’t worth it in the first place.

This is for the friend who gave me my first "tattoo".

This is for the friend who gave me a french mani-pedi the night before my wedding, and cooked biscuits for me the morning of the big day... even if I only ate half of one.

This is for the friend who held my hand (and possibly a leg) during both of my daughters’ births.

 This is for the friend who looked at my bare toes the other day, and said, "I just had a flashback to when we were kids, sitting on your bedroom floor." A true friend has known your toes your whole life.

This is for the friend who has known me longest; at my worst, and I hope, will know me at my best... although I’m still working to get there.

 

This is for the friend who I said goodbye to tonight. The one who is crossing over to her own “Promised Land”.

This is for you, Friend:

Always remember, I’m here for you.

Always remember, I love you.

Always remember, any tears we've shed are counted, and are well worth it.

And always remember, after 20 years, countless laughs, fights, hugs and high fives, closet raiding, and secrets, what’s a few thousand miles?