Sundays with Stretchy Pants

In the summer of 1984, my father built me a hurdle. And then he tried to teach me how to jump over it while running. I was 9 years old and there was nothing in my physical make-up that would have lead him to believe that I would be able to hurdle things. Mostly, I was the sort who would run into things, lumbering solidly, not gliding swiftly. I didn’t have long limbs that could stretch and snap over a hurdle in just the right way. My body was made for sturdiness, not grace.

The same day he made the hurdle, he also gave me just a plain piece of wood, explaining that I was to run up to the wood and then, just as my foot hit the board, I was to jump and hurl my body through the air, hopefully landing far away from the board. Yes, he made a long jump marker thingy.

I’ve often thought back to that one day that summer and wondered what in the hell my dad was thinking. At that point in time, I was playing softball and I was pretty good at it. I didn’t need another sport, and Track and Field wasn’t even an option for an extra-curricular activity until high school. Finally, after 24 years, I think I know what my dad was thinking. Watching the Olympics this year has given me a little bit of insight into his psyche during that time. Yes, I was a good little softball player, but softball wasn’t an Olympic event back in 1984. I think my dad had a brief bout of Olympic fever and he dealt with it by building a hurdle and a long jump board. For me, his short, sturdy little girl. It hit me while I was watching Misty May and Kerri Walsh play volleyball. I found myself looking at Lena and Liberty, thinking, “We should really buy a volleyball.” In that instant, I knew that watching Carl Lewis in 1984 had affected my dad the same way. My brother and sister would have been 15 and 14, way past their prime. All of his hopes rested with me. And then I dashed them. Just like my children are dashing my Olympic dreams for them.

I didn’t buy a volleyball because I’m sure they would just whine about how it hurts to hit it. And I don’t know why they can’t do a perfect cartwheel, let alone an entire floor routine. I don’t know why they won’t even attempt synchronized diving. And I don’t know why they insist upon running all willy-nilly, limbs swinging about with no rhyme or reason. They don’t pace themselves; they just sprint and then collapse giggling in the grass. That’s not technique! That’s just tom-foolery! The Olympics have taught me that my children don’t care about me and my needs, just like I didn’t care about my dad’s needs.  That Michael Phelps’ mom is a lucky woman. You can tell how much he loves her just by looking at all of his gold medals. *sigh*

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We switched the bedrooms around so all 3 girls have their very own room for the first time ever. Lena and Liberty have always shared a room and when Maya started beginning the night in a bed other than mine, it was Liberty’s bed she wanted to be in. Recently, though, their accumulation of stuff and clothes has made me very annoyed with the closet/bookshelf/toybox situation so I broached the subject of splitting them all up into their own rooms with their very own closets. Everybody was on board, so we went for it.

Yesterday was the first full day of lone bedroomdom and Lena used most of the day to lounge on her bed listening to her mp3 player with headphones on, singing right out loud to all manner of tween songs, both local and foreign. It was just as adorable as you’d think, but it also brought back one of my most awful childhood memories: When my brother was a teenager, he would put on his headphones and sing RATT and W.A.S.P. and Black Sabbath very badly and very loudly. Constantly. He wasn’t adorable. And he wouldn’t shut up. I at least had to good sense to turn my portable tape player up really loud in order to try to drown out my own voice when I was singing in my room. Not my brother. And, though he can sing very well now, back then, with his headphones on, singing his devil music, it was just painful to hear. Also, my portable tape player didn’t have a very high volume, so sometimes his voice drowned out my Cyndi Lauper. Not cool. Even if I didn’t know what She Bop was talking about, I still thought it was a kick-ass song and I wanted to hear it without some dumb boy singing “Round and round, what comes around goes around, I’ll tell you whyyy!”

It makes me shudder and it occurs to me that I’ve never addressed this deeply repressed childhood memory in therapy. Excuse me while I make a phone call.

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Yeah, yeah, I know you all read Pepper Paints and she already blogged about Thursday’s fun. Too bad. Read about it again.

I missed last Thursday’s homeschool park day because I was in Michigan. The potluck was canceled (obviously, what fun would it have been without me?) Or maybe it was because Dawn has a job or something lame like that. Anyway, we’re on for today and I have an extra kid with me so it will be extra fun. My 10-year-old niece is visiting us for a bit and she’s really sweet so she gets along nicely with my kids and my kids’ friends. The pool even gave her a free membership for us so we wouldn’t have to try to sneak her in. Nice of them. Bryan and I were actually planning to just pay an extra 10 bucks to get a pass for a family of 6 instead of 5, but Bryan didn’t know if she had to be immediate family or what so I guess he stammered around saying, “I forgot, our step-daughter will be with us a lot this summer, so I need a pass for 6, blah, blah, blah.” The kid at the desk was like, “Whatever, geezer, have a free pass.” Yay!

I didn’t say anything to Bryan, but it’s funny that his choice of the word “our” really stood out to me when he was relaying the story. Poor little bunny from a two-parent home doesn’t understand that there is no “our” when you’re talking about step-daughters. Unfortunately, I’m quite in-the-know on all matters of step-crap. For the lie to work really well, he should have said my step-daughter. Right? It’s the little things that make a lie believable.

Speaking of step-crap, I’m making a new rule and I think all children of divorce will get behind me on this one: I decree that our parents only get one shot at “blending” families. Got that? My dad is now going through his 2nd divorce, so I will have an ex-step-mother and 2 ex-step-brothers and 1 ex-step-sister to go along with my ex-step-father whom my mom divorced several years ago. I’m not having anymore steps.  My dad’s next wife will be “my dad’s wife” and my children will call her by her first name or Mrs. Clement, but not grandma. Same goes for my mother’s next husband. If they don’t like that, I will go to plan B, which is to refer to the new spouse as “my dad’s current wife” or “my dad’s next ex-wife” or some such other equally degrading term. I think that’s fair.

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I missed you the most, Google Reader.

I don’t like my inbox to be full and I don’t like my Google Reader to tell me I have more than, like, five new blog posts to read so when I opened up the reader this morning and it told me there were 347 new items to read, I had a mild panic attack and then I hit “mark all as read” with enough force to shatter my mouse. So if somebody blogged about something super important, let me know because I so hate to be out of the loop. What if Dawn fell in a well or something? It would suck if I called over there and was all, “Hey, Brett, Lemme talk to Dawn; I missed that bitch!” and Brett burst into tears. Awkward.

We got back home last night and I’ve been grocery shopping, laundering, yoga-ing and just generally freshening since then. I suppose I eventually have to pick the hamster up from Kristen’s house. Maybe. We’ll see.

Chesaning was lovely. I make fun of it a lot, but there’s really nothing like feeling like you have two homes. My nephew’s party was tons of fun and look at these awesome centerpieces:

And look what my nephew made:

Yeah, he made that. Cool.

My sister’s youngest daughter is staying with us for a little bit so I have to go pretend like it’s fun around here so she doesn’t get homesick. More catching up later.

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My mom gets uncomfortable when I do things differently than she did. This is unfortunate because most of the things that I have ever done differently are all related to parenting, and this parenting thing is going to last the rest of my life. That’s a long time for her to be uncomfortable with me. To be fair, I probably made her uncomfortable right at birth, coming out looking exactly like my dad while her older daughter had the good sense to look exactly like her. I also made her uncomfortable when I didn’t become homecoming queen. She was queen 40 years ago and, let me tell you, when you meet her for the first time it will come up in conversation. I’m a huge disappointment in so many ways, not just as a parent to her granddaughters.

My mom doesn’t come right out and say that she has a problem with my breastfeeding, co-sleeping, homebirthing, and homeschooling. She does other things like write in the Grandmother’s Book of Memories that I gave her:

“Dear Lena and Liberty, It sucks that I didn’t get to bond with you more because I didn’t get to feed you. Your mom is so hateful for hogging up the feeding. Love, Grandma. P.S. I didn’t nurse her and she turned out fine. Except for the hateful part.”

That’s a paraphrase, but I definitely captured the spirit of the sentiment. I know that these choices I’ve made have left her feeling insecure and I know better than to bring up homeschooling, breastfeeding, and co-sleeping, but those are on-going things so I can understand some on-going touchiness. Maya’s homebirth was just a one-time thing so I didn’t know it carried the emotional triggers for her until I was chatting on the phone with her the other day.

I called her just to chat and after a little bit our chit chat turned to the subject of movies. I told her we took the kids to see Horton Hears a Who, and she said, “I wanna see Baby Mama so bad!” and I told her how funny I think Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are. She especially agreed about Amy and said she just loved her in that tv series, what was it?

Me: Saturday Night Live?

Mom: No, she’s not in that. It’s the one about the pregnant people. Something about Underbelly.

Me: Oh, I know who you’re talking about; that’s Rachael Harris. I love her! She is not in enough stuff.

Mom: That’s right, I get them confused. I just saw Rachael Harris in a Lifetime movie with Ricki Lake.

(Screw you guys, I am not googling that shit to find a link for you because, not only do I not care what Lifetime movie that would be, I would also be embarrassed for google to see me googling that. And that’s saying something because I google a lot of weird shit.)

Then she went on about how much she likes that Ricki Lake and she saw her on The View and she’s just so sweet and lovely and whatnot. And I’m rollin’ with the conversation and my brain’s trying to focus on keeping the happy vibe going and the closest thing to my brain’s surface about Ricki Lake is that documentary she just made, so I said, “Yeah, she has a documentary out that I want to see called The Business of Being Born.”

“Oh, I know! You know, she had her baby in a bathtub,” she said with what I interpreted as a good-for-her type tone.

I replied, “Not only in a bathtub, but in a bathtub at home!” In my own good-for-her tone, with an underlying tone that said, “You love Ricki Lake and she had a homebirth. You can love me in spite of my homebirth. Right Mommy? Right?”

Silence.

Silence.

“Yeah, well, now she’s a single mother.”

Aaaaand we’re back. There’s that flat, curt tone I’m used to! Let me just snuggle up to it…Mmm…that’s one sharp blankie. Feels like home.

*sigh*

It’s just so rare that we have an actual conversation that feels like 2 grown-ups talking to each other, so I was seduced by the normalcy and I forgot to never, ever, ever bring up anything that is in any way related to the myriad ways in which I slap her in the face with my different choices. Having a normal conversation with her just makes me feel like we’re grown-ups, you know? With different ideas and just different differences that don’t have anything to do with how we feel about each other or what we think about each other. Because we’re mother and daughter. And normal conversation makes me feel like we know that we’re mother and daughter and that’s pretty important, and no differences of opinion or action or dreams can ever change all that. And then when it turns ugly out of the blue, I’m lost again. And I stay lost for a bit because I like to beat myself up over it and wonder when I will learn.

She has told me before that I never remember anything good, but the truth is, I remember the good. I remember because there is nothing like the joy of connecting with this all-important person and then having that awful panic set in when you know that the connection is lost because of some unforseen change in her mood. I remember the good being constantly besieged by the bad. I remember the eggshells and I remember exactly how it felt when they cracked under my feet.

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And I have to admit that the whole time we were in West Virginia, I’m the only one who walked around affecting a southern accent and saying things like “Let’s get us some grits, ya’ll!” Berkeley Springs is only about 8 miles into WV, so it’s pretty much Maryland. Not that you couldn’t get yourself some grits, but still.

As promised, my brother and sister-in-law took us to see the Weber Brothers and they were fabulous with their 2 drum sets and their stand-up bass and their way cool original music plus Johnny Cash and Rolling Stones and Bruce Springsteen and stuff. They even invited my brother to go up and sing Sympathy for the Devil with them, which was nice because Mike knows how to do that kind of thing. Plus he’s their #1 groupie. I love them, love them, love them and I’m pretending they’re moving to Columbus to play every night at Victorians’ Midnight Cafe. Let’s start a letter-writing campaign. You won’t be sorry. They had 2 drum sets! And the one brother plays a stand-up bass! And the other one reminds me of Rufus Wainwright only way cooler! And they rock! And stand-up bass! I even love them when they’re playing songs I don’t know, which for me is kind of a big deal. If I can’t sing along, then I’m all, “This is too loud. Can’t they turn it down?” but not with the Weber Brothers. They could play Enya and I’m pretty sure I would drool.

They played at a place called the Troubadour, which was waaaayy out there on some narrow, winding, hilly roads that really looked like what you think West Virginia should look like. It’s the kind of place that has a sweet 72-year-old owner (Joltin’ Jim McCoy) and a barbecue grill in the shape of a six shooter. And they raffled off 10 pounds of bacon. Twice. Yes, they did. I bet it was good bacon, too, because my brother ordered a steak there and it was the best tasting steak I have ever had in a restaurant. It tasted like the cow had been killed that morning after a breakfast of grass grown by angels. I’m not kidding. I’m a beef snob and that was some good beef. I imagine the pork would be nothing less than heavenly. Not Jewish or Muslim heaven, obviously, but definitely one of the other ones. One little piece of advice just in case you city folk are ever thinking of visiting the Troubadour: Don’t think that just because it’s way out in the country that they’re going to let you get away with fast and loose behavior. The rules are posted and it says right there that you may not sleep in the booths or your vehicle. Got it, y’all? They will cut you off before you reach that point. For real.

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The gov’mint’s about ta give us a check, y’all!

We’re going to West Virginia unless our van costs a billion dollars to fix. Melissa, I know you’re worried about us getting accosted by some hilljack iff’n our van busts up on the way, but don’t worry. We’re taking precautions. First, we’re going to stop off at a gas station about an hour east of here where we’re sure to be able to find a Bush/Cheney ‘04 bumper sticker as well as any number of these awesome bumper stickers. If we break down in the hills, we’ll slap those puppies on real quick-like. Also, we’ve been watching Squidbillies enough so we will be able to affect a native accent and attitude if need be. And the most important thing that will keep us safe? The fact that Bryan and I could pass for brother and sister. Nothing puts a god-fearing hillbilly at ease like incest.

Typing all that makes me wonder how my brother and sister-in-law have survived there. Tracy, do the people know you volunteer for Hillary’s campaign? Watch yourself.

Happy birthday to lots of people today. I know 5 people IRL who have a birthday today, so I assume that most of you who read this have a birthday today, too. Happy birthday!

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It could be guacamole. God bless avocado season. I regularly pay $1.50 for avocadoes, so I’m in heaven when they’re 66 cents! Or it could be frosting from my birthday cake yesterday. My lovely husband and children baked me a white cake with chocolate frosting. My favorite. I’m special. I’m 33 now, which is how old Jesus was when he died, in case you were wondering. I could be at risk for crucifixion. I could be. You don’t know. I’m definitely at risk for leaving the house with frosting or guacamole on my face. That’s a given.

I had a good birthday until my stupid van started smoking. Effin’ machinery. Pontiac piece of crap. We’re supposed to go to West Virginia this weekend to visit my brother and his family and see The Weber Brothers
play. For free. They played at my brother’s wedding. I have a picture of them, but I can’t make it show up in my stupid blog. Effin’ blog. Do you hear me, Dawn? I say, I can’t get a picture to upload. I was yelling that, but I didn’t put it in all caps. Just trust me. So, we assume the mechanic will want to be paid for fixing the stupid van, which might mean no free Weber Brothers for us since we’ll have to spend the billion dollars of gas money that we were saving for the trip on fixing the stupid van. I hate budgets. Except for the part where they help us be debt-free, budgets suck. And they’re lame.

Now I want more guacamole and I’m going to have some because our budget allows for unlimited avocadoes when they’re 66 cents each.

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I love April for many reasons. I got married in April. I became a mother in April. My birthday is in early May, which means April is practically my birth month, which means I can start saying, “Guess how many more days until my birthday!” over and over until even the kids try to stab me. So I’ve been trying to write an anniversary post and I’ve been trying to write a happy birthday Lena and Liberty post, but I keep being distracted by April ghosts.

My paternal grandmother, Lena, died when my dad was 14, and I’ve always pined for her. The only time I ever played with a Ouija board, it was her I was after. When I wondered if there was a heaven, it was her I was after. All of my first big questions revolved around her. I knew that, had she not died, my dad never would have moved to Chesaning and met my mom, making my existence impossible. I would ask myself, Is it better that she died so I could live or would it be better if she lived and then had different grandchildren? Of course I always said it would be better if she had lived because, after all, Santa could’ve been listening to my thoughts and I didn’t want him to know I was so selfish. But those imaginary “other” grandchildren she would’ve had? In my mind, they totally ended up sucking and then it was Grandma Lena who was pining for ME!

Anyway, my maternal grandmother is a very special kind of crazy. You know, the kind that translates into, “Wow, you’re really an evil bitch.” So I spent a lot of time as a girl imagining what it would be like if Grandma Lena were alive. I put her up on this pedestal of perfect grandmotherliness and I was always greedy for her. I can remember being relentless with my questioning about her from a very young age. How did she laugh? Did she wear an apron? Would she give us candy? Would she like us? My fascination with her didn’t end with my intense need for a grandmother who would love me. I was drawn to her by the tragedies she endured. First, she didn’t get married until she was 36 and when I was a little KISS-loving princess, to me that was tragic. I didn’t know until I was an adult that she turned down proposals and owned her own car and traveled all over and things like that. One of her sisters told me with a wink, “We weren’t even sure she was the marrying kind!” So she suprised everyone and married Carl Clement on April 23, 1947. Ten years later, on April 22, 1957 when my dad was 8 and his brother was 6, Carl died of a heart attack at work. April, you give and you take away.

Lena might have been used to April’s pissiness by 1957 because on April 12, 1948 she gave birth to a stillborn baby girl named Jane Marie. On the same date, exactly one year later, she gave birth to my dad. Many of my childhood imaginings of her had to do with the fact that every April 12th she had to contend with the warring emotions of grief for her stillborn daughter, and the bliss that was her healthy son. Even as a kid, I knew that there was probably no pain like losing a child and I couldn’t imagine what it would’ve been like to go through another pregnancy that was due to end around the exact same time as that tragedy, not 2 or 5 or 7 years before, but only 1 year before. And then to give birth on the actual anniversary of the firstborn’s death? How? Seriously, how? I can tell you for a fact that the fear alone would have driven me to a mental institution. And then to be widowed with 2 small boys on the day before her 10th wedding anniversary? That’s just, I don’t know. I wish I had a better vocabulary but as I am, in my heart of hearts, trailer trash, all I can come up with is “bullshit.” It’s total bullshit.

So April? I’m glad you’re making with the sunny because you have a lot of esplainin’ to do and I demand that you atone for my grandmother’s roller-coaster of emotions by drying up the ground at the park and making pretty flowers bloom. Pretty ones! Not marigolds. She carried a lily in the center of her wedding bouquet. I don’t think it’s too much to ask for some early lilies.

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Happy Easter.

I have many friends. Rum is not one of them.

My mom is here for one more night, but my brother and sister-in-law and their 3 boys left earlier today after a couple of nights of proving that none of us are mature enough to be entrusted with housepets, let alone children. Bryan and I have so much fun with these people and we just lose our heads with the loveliness of it all and we can’t be trusted to just play cards and sip some wine like regular grown-ups. Here is a good rule to live by: When the wine is gone, you’ve had enough. Don’t go get your mom’s rum and decide that you think you can drink like a real drinker. You can’t. It will end badly. Sure, there will be lots of fun before it all goes badly (and during the part where it is going badly for you, your houseguests and husband might act like it’s the best part of the night. For they will still be laughing. And taking pictures of you going badly.)

Before it all started to go badly, though, I’m pretty sure that the 4 of us solved most, if not all, of the world’s problems. Pretty sure. We were so frickin’ smart last night! You don’t even know.
And the daylight hours were precious. The 6 kids (7 if you count my mom, which I do) played together well. We ate good food. We talked good talks. We drank good drinks. And as a bonus, we remembered to put the Easter baskets out. It was a happy Easter

To prepare for next year, I’m going Catholic and I’m giving up rum for Lent. I’m also going to start working on my dodge ball dodging because whenever my brother gets a ball in his hands, he insists on acting like he’s 13 and I’m 7 again. Yes, I took a soccer ball to the back of the head while we were at the park and then I had to listen to Mike cackle maniacally. Just a warning, old man, laughing that hard at your age is unattractive and unhealthy, so stop it.

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