How We Roll

In case you are wondering what goes on at our home on the weekends, it looks a lot like this:
 

When  it comes to family, we're all ninja about it. Don't GET between me and my besties!

Another Chapter Begins

From the time they're born, little girls are conditioned to be princesses. Pink clothes, hair bows, oohs and ahhs and attention to every detail, little girls are women in the making and it is a task I have dedicated my adult life toward.

Okay, maybe not the Princess part. I'll admit that I have put out subtle messages that princesses are annoying at best, and nauseating to the general population on a daily basis. But that does not mean that I don't expect manners and (attempted) grace from my girls. My parting instructions to them whenever we are out in public are so ingrained in their psyche that now all I have to say to them is, "Do I even need to say it?" They know the drill. Their standing orders are to be on their very best behavior, and we must be doing something right because my relatives all think that my kids handle adversity with alacrity and aplomb, never an argument in sight.

This is the part where I could go into detail about Abby and Linzie's habit of fighting in secret so they can work out their differences without getting punished, or about how any one person's "tone" can start an argument that sucks in the entire family like a black hole suffering from PMS, but today I'm talking about illusions so let's put those little details back under wraps and continue the fairytale.

For a teenage girl, a high school dance is the equivalent of going to the ball and every one of them want to be Cinderella. For the last 13 years I have known the day might come when I would have to manage a financial miracle in order to afford gowns, shoes and the other glamorous necessities but as it turns out, knowing about a possibility and accepting the inevitable are entirely different. I was about to be thrust into a world that made as much sense to me as the Mad Hatter, and I had to figure out how to keep a smile on my face so I would not ruin the experience for my giggling girls.

As luck would have it, two of my girls decided that they would like to go to Sweetheart's dance at their high school. Once we got past the elaborate ritual of "ask and answer" (tradition mandates that this be done completely in secret, and preferably under the cloak of night for some silly reason), it was time to start laying out the cash for dresses, flowers, purses, jewelery, shoes, day activities, dance tickets, pictures, and dinner...whew! My bank account balance was in a free fall and I had a nifty new habit of wringing my hands and scrunching my brow every time I heard the words, "Mom, when can we go shopping?"

Ugh, shopping!

I cannot explain why I was born without the shopping gene, but trust me when I say that I absolutely despise anything having to do with the mall or dressing rooms and because of this genetic deficiency I was completely hyperventilating at the thought of hours and hours of gown and accessory shopping looming over me.

Couldn't I have a nice, relaxing tax audit instead?

In spite of my inner turmoil, with a forced smile and lots of deep breathing, I managed the pushy sales women, over crowded dressing areas, and maneuvering through the closet-sized jewelry store. Someone should have offered me a medal of honor at that point! I was so delighted that I could have burst out in a shopper's rendition of "Hallelujah" because only the shoes remained and that would be a piece of cake, right?


shoe /ʃu/ Show Spelled [shoo] Show IPA noun,plural shoes, (especially British Dialect) shoon; verb,shod or shoed, shod or shoed or shod·den, shoe·ing.
–noun
1. an external covering for the human foot, usually of leather and consisting of a more or less stiff or heavy sole and a lighter upper part ending a short distance above, at, or below the ankle.

Note that nowhere in that definition does it say elusive, difficult to find, or nonexistent. In fact, there are billions and billions of shoes in this world and more are being manufactured every day! With dozens of stores to choose from, all within  a 4 mile radius of our home, shoe shopping should have been a breeze! Okay, so 50% of it WAS a breeze. Here's how it went with Madi's shoes, "Look, Madi, these are shoes that will cover your feet and just like your dress, they are black. Ooh sparkles!" Ring them up. Done. Ka-Ching!

However, if you know my Emily, then you know that nothing she does is ordinary or expected, including shoe shopping. While I had images of sensible heels, or an elegant slipper, Emily was dreaming of Green High Top Converse.

 As Carley and I gently tried to persuade her into pretty straps and bright pinks, Emily was turning her nose up at anything that would dare to show her toes and shooting down suggestions faster than Wyatt Earp at the OK Corral. Two days before the dance I actually considered the Converse because I didn't want my girl to go barefoot! By the time we entered store number six, I was ready to buy anything that even slightly interested her, and that is how she ended up with very expensive,gravity defying high-heeled shoes that made her date look vertically challenged and were destined to be abandoned almost as soon as the dancing started.

Ahh the things we do for our children!

The day of The Dance arrived and after their day activities, my girls began their primping in such a way that made me think of tribal rituals. The table was covered with beautification tools and us helpers were standing at attention. Let the process begin!

• Beautiful gowns? Check!
• Hair curled, pinned and sprayed in place so that even a tornado could not displace a single glossy strand? Check!
• Glamor makeup? Check!
• A tiny hint of perfume? Check!
• Perfect shoes and accessories? Check and Double Check! 
 

I stood back, camera in hand, taking pictures of my little girls who suddenly didn't look so little anymore and I asked myself, "Did I allow this to happen? What have I done?" Yes, they looked perfectly stunning, magnificently beautiful... but I was not prepared for the feeling of  my babies slipping away from me and suddenly I wanted nothing more than to scoop them up and whisk them back in time.

 

 

The girls had a great time at the dance(sans expensive shoes) and when they came home we laughed together as they shared their adventures with the rest of us. We all went to bed exhausted that night, long past midnight (eat your heart out, Cinderella!) and more than a few of us slept in the next day.

I'm still struggling with the strangeness of feeling that I dressed them up like brightly colored exotic birds, or offerings for some quirky tribal ritual. It completely goes against my instincts as a mother to help my daughters achieve this sophisticated look when they are still just little girls in my eyes.


We're not Amish, and I don't think either of them would dress as a nun, but at the very least there should be an instructional video full of coping techniques to ease me gently into this new chapter of life!

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

It's Tuesday and other than the anticipation of tonight's brand-spankin' new LOST episode, this day has one other undeniably exciting distinction: NEW DVD RELEASE DAY!

Juvenile and shallow, I know.

I mean, there are people suffering and dieing in Haiti, there's an endless war going on in Iraq, landslides in LA, a freaking blizzard owning the East Coast, the FBI is warning me about new mortgage scams, Toyota is recalling a gazillion cars(although that one I secretly love because I despise all of those arrogant "My car is greener than yours" stickers in my SUV's face during rush hour!) my taxes need to be filed, and some Utah politician yahoo thinks it would be a great idea to do away with the 12th grade in order to save money! (<-- I think we should start saving money by firing him and putting his salary into public education, but that's just my opinion.) Are you kidding me? No wonder I need a video escape!! We figured out a long time ago that our entertainment dollars are best spent on the mother of all packages at Hollywood Video, the Platinum package. Oh yeah! Platinum. Don't you just love the sound of it? I have happily forked over $40 per month in order to be able to rent any three selections at a time, games included, and be allowed to return them when I darn well feel like it. No joke, we kept the Mario Bros Wii game for 5 weeks around Christmas, took it back for less than a week and then went back for more! Mario and Luigi are currently resting comfortably in our gaming console,thankyouverymuch! Why do we spend $40 per month on a video rental membership? Simple mathematics, folks. To take my family out to a movie would cost $64 dollars at the ticket counter. And that does not even include snacks once you're inside! You can read my rant about that here. Our Hollywood Video membership gives us an all-you-can-view smorgasbord of movies old and new, for the entire family, at a fraction of the cost of going to a theater. Like I said, simple.

So there I was, rental dvds in hand to exchange for today's new releases, when I pull into the parking lot and see this:

WTH?

I'm telling you, I was in shock! There was no break-up letter, no "It's not you, it's me." Just flat out, in my face RELATIONSHIP OVER! How could they do this to me? I was happy with our give and take arrangement. I never missed a payment, I only cheated on them occasionally with Blockbuster, and only then because they didn't carry the oldie I was searching for. Don't they OWE me racks and racks of dvds to choose from?

Can't breathe.

This is a disaster. I have cheated on Hollywood Video with Blockbuster, I admit that. But I don't particularly like Blockbuster. The cheating was out of necessity. I do not want to be a Blockbuster customer! Don't even get me started on Red Box. I do not feel the need to stand in line in the McDonald's parking lot to see if the stupid machine might happen to have something I want to view and then panic about the late fees that I will undoubtedly rack up day after day. And what if I don't exactly know the name of the movie but I can describe the plot and the actors? That stupid red box isn't going to help me with my movie selecting quandary!

*sob*

Today I am hanging my head in sadness and defeat because Hollywood Video broke up with me. I can't go to Netflix either, because every time they accidentally send me someone else's movies, I keep them like the happy toy surprise in a cereal box. I don't want to be the fool that has to pay when someone else keeps my mishandled movies by mail.

Oh yeah, I did just say that.

Mom! Mommy! Mama! Mother! Mom! Ma!

I've just decided that I do some of my most creative thinking on Saturday mornings. As I explored that revelation further, I came to the conclusion that this is because my dear husband is working hard in the tower, my darling family is still sleeping and I have my thoughts-
All. To. Myself.

Oh the freedom!

Don't get me wrong, I adore my family. It's just, how do I say this delicately? I think they're afraid that if they leave me alone for one second, I'll vanish like a sleepy dream and then they'll be like, "Dude, I had this gnarly dream about this lady that like took care of us, and entertained us, and it was hilarious to throw things at her because she kept coming back for more!" And then someone else would pipe in and say, "We saw that movie. It was Bicentenial Man, you knob!"

Robin Williams as a futuristic robot. Hilarious!

Seriously though, I have friends who have not yet taken that leap into parenthood and for them I have some advice. Follow the instructions written here and if you can pull it off without going bald, waking up with your spouse strangling you, or selling your Earthly possessions and running away to live Wilderness Family style in the Wal Mart parking lot, then congratulations! You're ready for parenthood!


1. Remove all of the doors in your house. Just throw them away. You don't need them anymore, not even in the bathroom. Privacy, what's that?

2. When someone calls you on the phone, immediately put them on speakerphone and call everyone into the room. Your conversations are not yours alone.

3. Buy a retro Jack in the Box and play with it until the little tune becomes the most lovely sound you've ever heard and you just can't live without it. Hum the tune everywhere you go, especially in board meetings. Other parents will smile knowingly at you.

4. When you have a fight with your spouse, take a moment to move out to the front lawn and continue there. Everyone that knows you will find out about it anyway when your kids post it on Facebook. At least this way they get a front row seat!

5. When you get paid, cash your check and pass it out to your kids. Tell them that they can spend it however they choose since they now get all of your money anyway.

6. Watch Nickelodeon all the time. Learn to love it. LEARN. TO. LOVE. IT!

7. Gather up your favorite possessions - Movies, books, electronics, etc. Take a sharp object and gouge the hell out of the dvds and then gather all the sticky substances from your fridge and pantry and have a party coating these valuables. Then throw them in the trash. Convince yourself that you don't miss them much anyway.

8. Take turns having random breakdowns in front of your spouse. Even better, invite your inlaws to watch. Cry, rant, accuse the other of not understanding you. Do not use tisues to wipe the snot from your nose, your sleeve works best. Then go find a box of Girl Scout Thin Mints and give your spouse funny looks when he or she tiptoes into the room wearing a catcher's mask and football pads. Be sure to tell your spouse that you think he or she is completely overreacting to your breakdown.

9. Wait until the very last second to: fill your vehicle with gas, do your taxes, pay your bills, write the important presentation for your business meeting, and cook Thanksgiving dinner for 35 people. These "Hail Mary" skills will come in handy when your child tells you they have a science project due. Tomorrow!

10. Have your spouse's name legally changed to "Mama" or "Dad" Because that is how you will address them from now on, even though they are not your mother or your father.

11. Bounce a basketball off the hood of your shiny vehicle, repeatedly. Then get on a bike and gouge the paint from front to rear with the bike handle. There, that's much prettier!

12. Buy Rachel Ray's 30 minute meals cookbook. Then laugh at the fish section. No kid eats fish!

13. Turn up the volume on every television, stereo, and radio that you own to full blast. Then break the remote so you can't change it back. You only need one volume setting anyway.

14. Every time someone tells you something they did that day, respond with, "What were you thinking?" Believe me, you're going to need the practice!

15. Go to your local orthodontist and ask him where he likes to vacation. Offer to pay for his entire family to take a 2 week, all expense paid trip to the destination of his choice, hand him your credit cards. Walk away.

16. Tell your spouse, 15 times every day, how bored you are.

17. Wait until your spouse finishes putting away all of the groceries then stand in front of the fridge or pantry and declare that there is nothing to eat.

18. Paint the walls of your bedroom or bathroom with your best makeup.

19. Hide the car keys from each other, constantly. Do not help locate the keys when your spouse is late for work.

20. Begin every sentence with, "When I was your age.."

So there you have it. Crying is allowed. In fact, I believe it is a requirement when you become a parent. Red Badge of Courage has nothing on my Feel Sorry For Myself tears when the kids have spent the day shredding my nerve endings. I did mention how much I love them, right?