Birthday Season

It's Birthday Season at my house. I had enough forethought during my child-bearing years to have my kids in the consecutive months of October, November, December and January. It's especially convenient now that this is not only the Holiday Season for the Western World, but also Soccer Season for our family. (I LOVE soccer, it's my favorite thing. I'm sure glad I let all FOUR kids sign up this year--although 6 days a week is just NOT enough. I wish there were more days for MORE soccer!)

The first birthday of the season is a week from today, but her party will be this Friday. 12 girls at my house for a pizza and movie night. We're going to watch "Little Manhattan." (Great movie, I highly recommend it.) Best thing about it is that as I type my kitchen is being demolished! Tonight I'll have to paint behind where the new cabinets will go, once I get back up the hill from soccer, and Larry will need to do a little electrical work. The cabinets will be installed (with plywood counter-tops and a temporary sink) tomorrow and Wednesday, meaning I have Thursday to reload my cabinets. Thursday evening is a PTA meeting and Friday morning I have smARTS until noon.

So, I ask, When do I clean? The Birthday Girl's room is a disaster! (As are the others' for that matter.) Don't forget all of the soccer and a horseback riding lesson. Larry also invited the missionaries to dinner Tuesday--very nice. Plus I have acupuncture on Thursday morning, chiropractic that afternoon, and I am really hoping to get in a yoga class sometime since I missed last week.

Well, I actually have a small reprieve--I was telling all of this to the woman who cleans my bathrooms this morning, and she has a spot on Friday to come help me mop, dust, vacuum, etc. That, I think, will be my saving grace.

Remind me please, in my next life, to have my kids in the summer.

"I'm telling!"

We've just finished up our third week of school. It's been one of those periods where I'm busy and time is flying on the one hand, but on the other I've crammed so much into such a short time, that 3 weeks has felt like 2 months.

My baby boy started kindergarten. With another set of mixed emotions, I am now a free lady from 8:15 until 12:noon. Of course how do I spend most of that time? Either at the school or doing work for school. Two mornings this week I've devoted a couple of hours to cleaning the house, so that's good. (I like to clean with no one here, because then it actually stays clean--until someone else gets home!)

Back to my boy. Twice last week I picked him up from class in tears. "It wasn't a good day, Mom." The first day, I couldn't ever figure out the problem. The second day he told me. A little boy in his class who my heart is currently breaking for has a difficult time not trying to destroy or eat my son's lunch. That second day #4's teacher saw the tears and came to ask what was wrong. The discovery resulted in more trouble for this poor little boy and an admonition to #4 to "tell me if something like this happens again." The teacher reiterated to me that I should convince him to tell her if there is trouble with this kid.

When I was a girl, I never understood when to "tell" and when to not. Sometimes adults were surprised by silence and encouraged openness, and others a kid could get in as much trouble for tattling as for doing the bad thing. There was always an explanation that if it wasn't your business, if you weren't directly involved, keep out. But then sometimes, adults didn't even want to hear if one sibling had hurt another. And others, you could get in trouble for knowing a bad thing a classmate did without informing a teacher. It really seemed to depend on the mood of the grown-up you decided to tell or to not tell.

Of course, now that I am an adult myself . . . I'm still as confused as when I was a kid. My own patience for tattling indeed depends on my mood, and the recent frequency of such behavior, sometimes the severity of the actions being told about, and sometimes even on which kid is telling and which kid is misbehaving. So how do you set a standard for when to tell and when not? When I explain it to my kids, and I usually drift off into thought, trying to make it clear to myself what my expectations are. It's so subjective that I can't make my own rule.

So for now #4 has permission to tattle on his classmate and used that permission today after his banana got smushed in half. #4 was praised for doing the right thing--telling teacher so that she could take care of it. I think I agree with that in this situation. But I can't help but wonder whether we're training my boy to stick up for himself or to be Johnny Stool-Pigeon. Maybe at 5 it doesn't matter. Maybe I have a few more years as a parent to figure it out. Maybe #4 wll grow up and explain it to me. If he does, I'll be sure to tell.

Cabinephobia

Growing up I was never afraid of cabinetry. I could get any item out from behind any door in the kitchen of our apartment. I have to say I rarely got things out of the cabinets at my dad's N. Silver Lane house. Looking back, those might have scared me. Even in college, I lived in a dorm (no kitchen) and then another apartment. Nothing scary about that. In fact, I don't believe it even crossed my mind that cabinets could be scary until I got married.

We found a cute little place to live in Provo. A free standing unit behind the larger house which had been turned into two units, making us apt "C." We called it The Cottage. It was white, a little dirty, with a purple door under a green heavy-duty plastic awning. There was a living room, with a fireplace hidden behind the huge heater unit, a bedroom and bathroom, an eat-in kitchen and a little laundry room. New teal-green carpet which I wasn't even big on in the early 90's, and cute balloon shades on the windows. All for $400 a month. It was a good deal.

We all know there is a difference between walking through a place and living in it. It didn't take too long for Larry and I to realize we'd moved into a place not originally meant for human habitation. Because of this, our home was also home to many insects and critters who belonged out doors. Practically every time I went to take a shower, there was a huge black spider in the tub. Both Larry and I are afraid of spiders. That was not good planning on our part, but who thinks to ask, "Of which creatures are you too petrified to even kill?" Not us, anyway.

Well, the kitchen was pretty good sized, and had a door to the outside which would have dumped you about 3 yards tops from where you exited the living room. So we put some storage shelves up in front of it to help house all of our newly received appliances. The cabinets right next to that shelf had grass growing up in it. Yes, grass. It was rather sickly looking from lack of light, but it was pretty tall. More than once I pulled a pot out only to find a spider or beetle in the bottom, sending me into a virtual heart attack. So I quickly came to fear getting anything out of those cabinets. It was that way the entire 8 months we lived there.

Next we moved into a nice apartment complex, second floor. Nothing abnormal. But after a year and a half there, we moved to an old duplex, which gained us a garage and a fenced private back yard. Unfortunately that back yard contained an old big grapefruit tree which, while very useful for grapefruit, seemed to house a colony of cockroaches. This tree was feet away from--you guessed it--my kitchen wall lined with CABINETS!!! Talk about gross. We used roach baits, and they worked quite well, but it meant that every morning I'd come out to a kitchen floor and maybe a drawer or two scattered with dead roaches. Better than live ones to be sure, but still yucky.

It's no kind of life, living in fear of your own cabinetry. Never putting items very far back in. Never being able to truly wipe them all the way down. Hardly being able to look inside for a missing pot. It's like you are an intruder in your own home.

Most thankfully, come September I will have lived 9 years without fear of my cabinets. I've had nice, newer kitchens, fully separated from nature by appropriate amounts of insulation and drywall. I can dig around them to my heart's content without a close encounter of the insect or arachnid kind. I am in control of my kitchen.

Well, except for the ants. . .

Forgotten Treasure

Have you ever taken a winter coat out of the closet for the first time in a season, only to find money in the pocket? I once found a twenty left from the previous spring. It's so exciting. Like free money. Or lip gloss. Which I have also found more than once in jacket pockets after months of searching in vain for that great new color whose name I can't remember.

Well, I had a variation on this experiential theme happen this month. We had come home from vacation.

(Moms everywhere don't even need an illustration here of what my life was like. For non-moms: it's laundry and unpacking times six and finding homes for newly purchased knick-knacks. It's getting everyones toothbrushes and shoes to their respective rooms. It's returning phone calls and making postponed appointments. It's trying to get back into some sort of groove, which, we moms know, requires almost another vacation period. But we don't get that second vacation and so uptight, type-A moms like me just stress out.)

Home from vacation about a day and a half, and I was unloading the dishwasher. I saw them. They were tucked in the bowl of my food scale. I had already shut the cabinet door before they registered in my brain.

M&Ms!!

A little over half of a pound bag. Purchased during my stressful vacation preparation period. I couldn't believe that I hadn't finished off the bag before we left. Or that since I hadn't, I hadn't remembered them. I keep track of my chocolate. But there they were. To be honest, I didn't take too long analyzing my forgotten treasure. I just enjoyed the loot.

Ahoy thar!

It's not every day a girl gets swept off her feet by a pirate.

We're back from holiday up in the Pacific Northwest. While on the Oregon Coast, we visited an aquarium. We saw all of the normal great stuff--jelly fish, sharks, crab, tide-pool critters, sea otters, and some fish, too. On the way out, Larry stopped with #4 at the gift shop to purchase a book about sharks.

We girls were standing outside the shop when a band of pirates came marching up the sidewalk. They looked fantastic, and I grinned a wide grin, knowing that #4 was going to have a hey day with this. It must have been that silly Cheshire smile that caught the attention of the "captain," who commented on my sea-faring shirt. When I realized they were going to be staying in the quad area, I ran in the shop to get my boy.

I returned to find the girls bestowed with pirate gold and the troupe entertaining the crowd with pirate ditties. #4 was duly impressed, and I shot some photos of the captain for his scrapbook. The singing finished, kids began asking important questions such as "Do you kill people?" The captain spied me a second time and asked me to join him in the center of the quad. He had #3 take my bags and handed my camera to #1, who snapped pics at an impressive rate.

He introduced himself as Captain ? (drat my poor name recall!) from Scotland and asked my name. "Mina," he replied, "sounds like minnow to me." (Not the first time this rhyme has been noticed, which fact may give you some insight into the name of my blog.) He asked if I'd ever been on a ship: yes. Cruise?: yes. Know the difference between starboard and port?: Well, it's left and right, but I can never recall which is which. So he gave me a great little way to remember that port is left. Then he asked, "Port or starboard?" And although I generally love random questions like that, this one make me nervous. But I firmly answered "Starboard."

"Starboard it is then," and he picked me up over his right shoulder like a sack of flour and spun me around several times before putting me back on my feet. I am embarrassed to say that I at first screamed like a little girl. I am also sorry to say that Larry missed the whole thing, as did my sister-in-law, who'd been video recording most of our adventures that day. But the kids saw it and got a big kick out of seeing mom twirled about by the captain of a pirate ship.

Larry asked if I'd pointed out the jewels on my left hand to him. There was no need really.

He'd have had only to worry had it been Johnny Depp in that costume!

Suit Shoppin'

I'm not here to complain about what you THINK I'm going to complain about. You won't catch one word about wide hips or big thighs or small boobs. This year for me, it's all about fabric.

I do not love to swim-suit shop. Who does, right? I think once in my life I pretty quickly found a great suit that I looked FAB in and bought it. But then I had to hide it from my mother because it was a bikini.

The rest of my life has been spent in stores or looking at catalogues for hours trying to find just that right suit. I think a few years ago it was a little easier because I just needed something dark. Something to make me look not quite as big as I was.

This year has been a little trickier. I wasn't looking for something dark. I'm sick of dark. I wanted something printed. Something PINK. Nothing says, "I'm happy with my body," like a pink patterned swim suit (even if it's not entirely true).

Land's End is great for modest suits. Low leg openings, high necks, long tankini tops, lots of skirted bottoms. I thought I could certainly find one there.

So I found this great fabric in the Land's End catalogue. Pink, kinda paisley-ish, definitely out there. There were only two suits with this great fabric. One was a tank. Looked great, but I want a skirt now for (oooh, I wasn't going to talk about thighs, was I?). There was also a tankini set. Unfortunately, it had a VERY high neck. And being a person with a short torso, I can't pull those off very well. As it turned out, they were out of stock anyway when I went on-line. I guess lots of gals were attracted to that fabric.

This happened over and over. I'd find the great fabric, but it only came in a halter (those really bug my neck) or they only had a size 16. Or 4.

Larry, whose help I'd recruited for the search, finally convinced me to look at LL Bean. And guess what? I found one. Pink and patterned and camisole straps and skirted and in my size: Victory! I hope it'll look okay on me. It was a lot to spend on a suit, and that's the gamble with mail-order.

Larry got one too. It's a Speedo.

Speedo swim shorts, that is.

Two "Buns" Up: or How I Fell in Love with Harrison Ford

I was so excited that Richard at the Post Office knew my name that I wasn't even upset that he got it wrong. He'd called me out of the line because I was chatting with two friends, and hadn't seen that he was taking pick-up notices. It was a true small town moment for me. Later Christina came out from behind to give Richard a hard time about looking for my package when he'd already gotten it, saying, "See, I told you-- Johnny's coach's wife, with the blond hair." Yes, Larry and I have arrived!

Any way, the whole point of this post is really that I picked up some stamps after I got my package that day. I got one book of the "forever" stamps (which is the most ridiculous thing I've heard of--I mean are YOU going to stock-pile these things for the next rate hike? I guess I have different issues) and one sheet of . . . STAR WARS stamps.

Wow, are they cool. Have you seen them? For the first time ever, I'm not sure if I can bring myself to use them. Richard suggested I hang them on my fridge. I've done that, but they clearly can't stay there forever. I wanted to sit there and tell him all about me and STAR WARS, but it didn't seem like the right moment.

I was about 3 1/2 when I first saw STAR WARS. I loved it. I wanted to be Princess Leia in a big way. (Curse my blond hair!) And I was in love with Captain Solo. I remember coming out of the theatre and telling my dad I wanted Princess Leia to marry Han Solo. "Don't you want her to marry Luke? He's the hero." "No, Han Solo."

Now, I'd love to take credit here for being overly insightful at a precocious age, but I think it was just a tribute to great casting. Luke was never supposed to get the girl. And they got a very non-girl-getting type of guy to play him. And as for Han, I mean, come on, Harrison Ford. Little known at the time, unless you'd seen American Graffiti, but still, heartthrob and suave and funny all in one nice 70's hair package.

So Empire came out when I was 6, and we saw it the night before my brother was born. Somewhere around this time Darth Vader made an appearance at our local mall. After waiting in line to meet him, he patted my head and said, "Nice fur." Empire is, I think, the best of the three movies, and even then I had a sense of its greatness. I would have dreams about scenes in the Millennium Falcon, being myself a silent cast member-observer.

And then came Jedi, which at 10 years old I saw in the theatres an insane number of times like 16. I cried every time Luke cremated Anakin. I became, as a 10-year-old would, enchanted by the Ewoks. My brother and I would make big forts in the living room and play Ewok village with our big stuffed Wicket and Princess Kneesaa.

That trilogy had become very personal to me largely in a day before VHS or Blockbuster Video, let alone Netflix. It was an embarrassing thing for a girl to admit. And I never really did until Film 100 at the Y. The professor there was hugely into STAR WARS as well he should have been. Those films changed the industry. We watched a documentary on the "making of" (which I believe I now own along with my trilogy DVDs) and had a huge class discussion. It was a lecture hall full of hundreds of strangers to whom I could confess how impacted I'd been by these films.

It seems like not such a big deal now, I daily tell folks of my nerdiness. It's not so uncool to be a geek as an adult. Still not tons of women into the sci fi or the middle earth kind of stuff. But Harry Potter has created huge female crossover into fantasy epics of good vs. evil. And Orlando Bloom's Legolas has helped that along as well.

So if you get a letter from me soon, it might be stamped with Tatooine's twin suns or Leia recording, "Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're our only hope." But don't count on it.

Cookies, Conversation, and a Little Celebrity

Trying to get back into more regular date nights, Larry took me out for Chinese last Friday night. I love Chinese food. And I have to say, it's not just the food, it's the whole experience. Our little Chinese restaurant up here is no exception, although in a quirky sort of way.

There are several celebrity photographs gracing the wall, taken at the restaurant (I assume) with the owner. The one that stands out, for various reasons, is of Dolly Parton. Over the PA system croons a recording of a female vocalist who sounds a bit like Vikki Carr doing Beatles covers which seems like it would make more sense playing in a bakery in Little Italy. The waitress/maitre'd tends to seat folks just a little too close together for the number of parties in the place. There is an art to spacing. I tend to require as much of a buffer as possible.

Dishes are plastic versions of Asian-inspired china one might find elsewhere. This bothers me, I have to admit. Good plates are a one-time investment, unless you have a careless dish-washer. Perhaps that's their problem. The glasses are also plastic. Water, even with ice, seems warmer if you drink it out of plastic. Larry ordered a 7up and was served a can along with a plastic glass of ice. I noticed the trio seated next to us ordered beers and received glass glasses. They couldn't put a name with Dolly's face, and got a couple of photos of themselves seated around the table.

We ordered a family dinner with sweet and sour shrimp and beef with black mushrooms, then chatted over some great fried won tons, egg rolls and duck sauce served with our soups. We talked about important things, and things with almost no significance at all. We had to chat quietly to compensate for a small buffer space. Our food came a little slowly, but we weren't in any big rush. This restaurant is odd to me in that they seem to skimp a little on the rice. Most Chinese places serve enough rice with your meal for a small army. That said, we still always have left-overs to bring home.

And, of course, who doesn't like fortune cookies? My brother used to recite a funny SNL bit about the people who make up the lucky numbers for the fortunes. "4? What the hell kind of lucky number is 4?" That's all I can ever remember of it. When I was a teenager the cool thing for me and my geeky friends to do was to add "in bed" to the end of our fortunes. It can get pretty darn funny. But being grown up now and married . . . it's even funnier. It may even pan out. But not this time. I got, "You love playing to a crowd."

Larry opened my truck door as we left. I was thankful that chivalry is not entirely dead, and Larry was thankful that I appreciate such a gesture. Maybe the greatness of the night wasn't the restaurant at all. Maybe it was being with my sweetheart with no one needing a drink filled or more ketchup squirted on their plate, or beans picked out or chicken cut up. Yeah, I think that was it.

A rose by any other name . . .

My mother just cringed every time my WWII era grandmother talked about the "Japs." She did it frequently, one of her biggest fears being that the Japs still intended to take over America, at least financially. Similarly, I cringed when not long ago my mother used the term "Oriental" to refer to people from the far east. Larry having taught at UCR, which has a rather large Asian population, I am aware that Oriental seemingly refers to rugs, and is degrading to people.

African-Americans have gone through similar evolutions over the years, deciding that prior labels of choice have now taken on negative connotations. I don't point this out to criticize. I fully understand. My people have been through the same transitions and it is often emotional and even dividing within the group. Yes, I am not a housewife, I am not a homemaker, I am a stay-at-home-mom.

The housewives dominated the 50s and 60s, and even the 70s and were immortalized by TV characters from June Cleaver to Laura Petrie to Carol Brady. Somewhere in the late 70s and early 80s women remaining at home and outside of the compensated workforce decided that the term "housewife" was at the very least inaccurate, if not slightly offensive. "I am not married to my house," they cried. Homemakers emerged--women who chose to create a comfortable and loving home for their families and took pride in their role.

In the 80s Roseanne Barr coined the phrase "domestic goddess" in her stand-up routine and made it popular on her TV show. Funny, yes, but much like IHOPs "rooty-tooty-fresh-and fruity platter," I think it was a little embarrassing to verbally identify with. And with no menu to just point out the choice, the term never caught on as a serious label.

It's my generation of mothers who have decided that while we are choosing to stay home, that choice is inspired not by homemaking but child-rearing. Hence the new term: "Stay-at-home-mom." While I know some who shorten this to its acronym "SAHM," I'm personally not big on acronyms. Those who listen to Dr Laura's radio program will often use her verbiage of being "my kids' mom," meaning that one doesn't farm out the job of mothering one's own kids to someone (or some institution) else. I'm sure some working moms take offense to that as it is rather harshly blunt. We all have to make our own choices.

I frequently think to myself, that though I am not unhappy or offended by the S-A-H-M label, it is not true. I seem to be rarely home at all. I am at the school, or in the car, or at a practice or game. I am at the store, or at church, or at a meeting. I am at the doctor, dentist, or orthodontist. I am just not sure how to describe that job of mine accurately and succinctly. There are those in my acquaintance who seem to think that because I am not "gainfully employed" that I must be available to help out whenever. Sometimes I can, but often not. And even when I can, there is generally something for my family that is being put off again.

Why do we find the need to keep re-naming ourselves? Are we too sensitive and self-absorbed? Or was William wrong? If you called a rose a stink-plant would anyone bother to sniff it? If a flower gives off odor in the garden and no one is there to inhale, does it really smell?

Grace

I think we've all encountered little girls who reply, "I know" to a compliment regarding her beauty. The perceived cuteness of this situation is, I believe, negatively correlated to the size of the girl.

Today, while picking up #4 from preschool, I had such an experience with an older, kindergarten age, sister of one of his classmates. I complimented her on her pretty shirt. "It's not a shirt, it's a dress." I could see she was right. It was a short, peasant-style dress which she wore with a pair of jeans. So I remarked what a pretty top the dress made when paired with pants. No big deal--still cute.

Her mother, however, was clearly mortified and began all of the little social corrections that we mothers make in public. We make them in private, too, but with less energy of heart. I will generally in this situation try to reassure a mother that I do not think she is raising her child to be an ungrateful slob by pointing out that I have 4 kids of my own, all of whom have certainly so embarrassed me in the past and will no doubt continue to do so in the future. This time, without any consideration, I let her know that I'd made quite literally the same comment myself in decades past.

I wasn't in kindergarten, however. I was a 6th grader who felt she had a lot to prove to her peers. I was wearing a long, tiered skirt and a sweater with, I believe, nylons and boat shoes. (Not quite as un-hip in 1985 as it sounds in 2007.) A boy named Alex came up to me in class and said, "That's a pretty dress you're wearing." And I replied, "It's not a dress, it's a skirt."

I came home and told my mother about Alex's silly blunder. My mother had a similar reaction to the mother I comforted today. First I was surprised. I hadn't thought of his comment as just a nice gesture. Then I felt horrible and stupid. Alex was a boy I liked. In fact, I like-liked him. He had paid me a compliment and I corrected him. That was clearly not a smart move. Of course, being in elementary school, I cannot now imagine that that move changed any course of events much. But I was beginning to learn then that this sort of thing only helped me to look like a know-it-all. My classmates didn't have the insight to see that I desperately wanted friends and thought "meticulously intelligent" was a good trait to show off to that end.

Twenty-two years later, some things are much the same. I am still insecure not only in making friends but about how those friends view me. I tend now, though, to say too little rather than too much, afraid to get it wrong.

Other things have evolved. I've gone from correcting a compliment to dismissing one, pointing out anything negative that I can find in myself to help disprove their point. I get home and I am mortified. I scold myself: "A simple 'thank-you' would do just fine!" Maybe one of these years I'll get it right.