Category Archives: mommy

Christmas Presence

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I’m in love!

As I write this, it’s Christmas Eve in my neck of the woods, still quite early. Children are nestled, snug in their beds while Mommy is almost panicked with ‘to do’ lists a mile long dancing in my head. My house is a mess, but festive! The dog needs a bath. My poor Christmas tree, “Sherrie”, is crispy from thirst. Her limbs are hanging low from ten years of homemade ornaments and lifetime memories.  My daughters named her after Steve Perry’s song.  Bless their little Journey hearts. Whew. This Christmas season has got to slow down. For God’s sake, I haven’t blogged in ages! I’m spread thinner than a Baptist minister’s combover.

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December in a good year can be tough. In addition to the mountains of activities and festivities and nativities, my youngest daughter has her birthday right smack in the middle. She wanted a sleepover with NINE friends ” more than anything in the whole world.” And her sister had one the year before, so she played the older sister trump card.  And won. Without exhausting myself further by reliving it, you can fill in the blanks with screams, giggles, pizzas, popcorn, and thousands of Rainbow loom bands. (And please remove any and all sleep from this scenario). But I got gifts too! The mommies brought wine! Any time I complain about her birthday, I have to remind myself it was poor planning on my part to give birth in the middle of December.

Next. My Elf on the Shelf has all but become a third child. Actually fourth considering the dog. I have woken up at three am more than once in a panic realizing I forgot to move him. And I know I’m not alone! As darling as this Yuletide addition is to all of our homes this time of year, he’s also a bit of a pain. This year, I’ve only forgotten to move him once and the little angels weren’t happy. “Mommy, he’s still sitting on the mantle! He didn’t move!” Quick thinking mommy replies, “Well girls, did you fight yesterday?” They glance at each other, “Yes. But we fight everyday.” So true. “Girls, the Elf is not used to this and has reported back to Santa.”

Then, the  Tooth Fairy was summoned.  My oldest lost a wisdom tooth. I remembered it.  Saw it. Congratulated her. Prepared for the Tooth Fairy visit by rummaging through my purse. A five dollar bill. Perfect! Then forgot. Four days later, my daughter plops her little dimpled face into her hands inches away from mine while I’m trying to get my last five minutes of sleep. “This tooth fairy thing is a rip off.” Whaaaa? “It’s been four days! Nothing.” Lots of four letter words like sugar plums danced in my head. “Are you sure???  Did you check everywhere?”” She shot me ‘the look’ reminding me this wasn’t her first rodeo. “You have to write a letter,” I told her. “Maybe she’s sick.”  That sufficed long enough for quick thinking mommy to get my plan in action.  This is the letter I found:

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“Dear Tooth Fairy, You didn’t give me my money yet from my tooth. I want it.”

Next morning, the Elf had tucked it under his little elf arms while canoodling with the Monster High dolls. That silly elf! It was him all along I assured her.  She seemed to buy the idea that the Elf actually did steal the money and the Tooth Fairy wasn’t slack. “Maybe he’s stealing other stuff. I can’t find my boots.” Now I have an elf thief.

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The Elf: Friend? Thief?

photo 4Don’t get me started in the advent calendar. Oops. Too late. Simple math. Twenty four little boxes for twenty four days times two little angels equals hundreds of small items. Right? I’ll admit I was pretty good with it, slipping only twice. But being reminded forty times. “It’s the Elf. I swear I put something in there.” I really have started liking him.

Truth is, the season is supposed to be crazy.  Things will be left undone. Things forgotten.  Who cares?   But in a flash, it’s gone. I’m thankful my children still believe for that too will be gone in an instant.  As I say, you must Believe to Receive! It is funny though when you think what must run through our kids’ minds as all of these creatures: the Elf, Tooth Fairy, and Santa mysteriously visit and play while they aren’t watching.  Hmmmm….

Tonight, I will be with my beautiful angels all dressed up with friends.  We will come home and put cookies and milk out for Santa and make Magic Reindeer Food for Santa’s reindeer. Mommy will have a nice glass of Cabernet by the fire and tomorrow a new Christmas memory will be under our expanding belts.  Merry Christmas!  Happy New Year from UnWINEd!

Tammy

Recipe for Magic Reindeer Food:

Raw Oats, Glitter, Carrots, Apples

***Leave out for the Reindeer!

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Awww.  I’m really going to miss this little guy:)

Catfights in the Sandbox

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A couple of days ago my ten year old scored at her volleyball game. She pumped the ball thirteen times before popping it over the net and she scored!  Yes, it was a really big deal, partly because of how elated (and in shock) she was.  And for me, to know that she weighed a mere four pounds when she was born and now she’s playing volleyball of all sports was an emotional double take! My eight year old leaned over and asked if I was crying. I didn’t think it was obvious so I explained they were happy tears and that I was so proud. “So if I get really really really happy, I’m going to start crying? That doesn’t make any sense Mommy.” Nothing like that rubber band to snap you out of your moment:)IMG_1122

I remember when my oldest was born and my dad said “she’s not even as big as a five pound bag of sugar.” She was healthy, just tiny. No explanations why. As a new mom, I couldn’t help but worry but after lots of reassurance from the doctor and my intuition, I knew she was ok. Funny how things shifted on the playground. That’s where I endured endless chatter of those moms whose children were smarter, bigger, faster, slept longer, ate more, cried less, talked earlier, walked quicker,  had more hair, more teeth, anything that could give that mom a home court advantage over us visitors. They could smell the fear in new moms and rather than give comforting advice, they would wave those percentile charts over our heads like victory flags. (My child barely if rarely was even on those charts). More than once I left the park clutching the remainder of my nonfat latte in one hand maneuvering my non-cooperative stroller with the other wondering if I had just made more organic baby food or switched to cloth diapers or nursed EVEN LONGER, maybe then my child’s head circumference would be in the 80th percentile!

I finally migrated to the moms who’s kids were the ones eating sand and they just smiled and cooed at them without concern. They were the ones who weren’t worried their children would catch a cold being barefoot in November or that their child didn’t get into the baby Mozart class with all the other perfect children. Looking back it was always their second or third child. They learned from the first, that barefeet and sand snacks wouldn’t kill them. And that was brilliant advice to me. I, too, let go of the fear with my second one. I tossed those awful baby books that convinced me of all the possible things that could go wrong with my child. Remember them? The ones that we read like a bible daily to guide us through pregnancy and baby years. They guided me alright-into sheer panic.

images-8And now, I have two extremely different children whose interests are polar opposites. I have one with the intensity and focus of a laser with artistic ability far beyond her eight little years. And another who floats around the room like a butterfly who connects the dots of life in a unique pattern all her own. They keep me guessing everyday as to who they will become. It’s exciting to watch and I hope everyday goes slow.

In the chaos of daily parental Olympics, the competition is exhausting to me.  Everyone is racing for gold. I wholeheartedly admit I run towards the back of the pack at times, and it’s not because I don’t want my kids to excel. I refuse to get tangled in the drama. It’s a fine line of pushing your child to their max to succeed and pushing them in the opposite direction. It’s the difference between encourage and force. We decide where that line is drawn.

So fast forward a few years and my little four pound baby is now playing volleyball. I won’t remember who she played or if her team won. But I will remember that she played. And even scored! I’ll remember that she laughed with her teammates and looked cute in her uniform. And that I sat on the sidelines with tears of joy.

So, if my children don’t make straight A’s and O’s in elementary school, will this lead to a mediocre academic life with no chance at a 5.0 GPA and no college acceptance?  Should I have painted their walls in primary colors versus pastels to boost their IQ? I’m going to walk away from this sandbox with confidence and know that they’ll do great. Call it Mom’s intuition.

Tammy 

“There’s a crack in everything.  That’s how light gets in.”  Leonard Cohen

Why an Eight Year Old Needs a Cell Phone

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When my 8 year old asked me when she could get a cell phone and I was about to say “two weeks from your sixteenth birthday”, I stared at her.  The eagerness in her big blue eyes to be in touch with all the other eight year olds and their social agendas was cute and pathetic.  She’s convinced she NEEDS it.  And my 10 year old has made me feel its just pure neglect that she doesn’t possess an iPhone, only a measly iTouch that she “doesn’t even like”.  I’m such a mean mommy. I’m fairly certain it qualifies as child abuse in the state of California. “But EVERYONE else has one!”  “But punkin’, they are going to be socially stunted as adults.”  “Whaaaaaaa?” I wanted to tell her to Google it, but I stopped myself.

Remember when a keyboard was only on a piano and a virus was the flu?  Only spiders lived in a web? Yes, it is hard to comprehend our lives before we had cell phones and the Internet.  Our Universe shrunk down to the size of a pea and answers to everything were two clicks away.  Our friends could be phoned almost anywhere (for 40 cents per minute) at any time and it was AWESOME! The new technology was exhilarating!  I remember my dad carrying around a cell phone the size of a briefcase, He loaded it in his car to with the same finesse that we load a carryon on a plane, except his bag phone was probably bigger. People would stop and stare.

Our lives before this social media onslaught seem to be pre Civil War (ie Gold Rush or insert event from the 1800s).  We thumbed through the Encyclopedia Britannica and marveled over its slick glossy pages and colorful photos. The library was our only source for term papers.  We utilized mountains of books.  For hours.  I had a row of dictionaries in my room in high school that graduated in line due to their thickness. My big blue one I ultimately filled with my friends’ high school photos and two ‘mums’ from a couple of promsJ (I found it a few years ago when cleaning out a bunch of old boxes. It was bent from the memories and a big ol’ rubber band held it all in place.).  We had a rotary phone mounted to the wall in the kitchen.

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An Apple a day…..

Recently, when I had my third iPhone replaced (sigh), there were a mere couple of hours that I wasn’t ‘connected’ with the world.  You heard right.  Hours. Diagnostics were done.  The Apple Doctors were baffled. Replace the organ! (I mean phone).  Transfer everything AGAIN?!   I admit, I panicked.  My umbilical cord was severed. Waiting a nanosecond for a text response has on occasion put me near Stress Con 5.  I looked at The Genius Bar in Apple and imagined that it served martinis.  Apple martinis! A mirage.

Remember when we used to pass notes in class and it worked! My girlfriend got asked to the prom via a neatly folded note in the middle of Advanced Biology during a lecture on porifera reproduction (you may need to Google that). It was the preferred, well only, method of immediately sending and receiving information on fashion, dates, weekend plans, MTV, feathered bangs, and football games, and “like, how boring this stupid class is and like will this teacher ever like shut up!” But you had to make sure that you had allies beside you, otherwise the covert operation would be thwarted (ie. the future hackers). There was always somebody in the group waiting to grab your notes.  And if you got busted or it got in the wrong hands, the best-case scenario was the note got ripped up and valuable information ‘deleted’. The worst was the teacher read it to the whole class and your crush was revealed and his girlfriend happened to be sitting beside you. And there’s still 45 minutes left.

Google has done for our brains what karaoke has done for our voices.  We are all fucking geniuses holding mini PhDs in everything and we are all one beer away from being ‘discovered’.  If it all boosts our self-esteem in this sea of crazy uncertainty that we all live in, then why not?  Google away! As far as Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and all the others go?  Stick needles in my eyes. Facebook has exhausted me but I caved in. Though, the conversations, the photos, the comments, thumbs up and thumbs down, it’s a lot to keep up and raise kids too. I have to put my virtual foot down and say “No more social media!” (at least for another week or so…….)

So, when I hear, “Mommy, you don’t understand!”  I actually really truly do.  But the answer is still “No.”

Tammy

“When I delete someone from the contacts in my phone, it feels like I’m deleting that person from existence. “
” I answer unknown calls on my cell phone because I’m a fearless person. “

 

Sipping Wine through a Straw

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The question begs to be asked: Is it bad when your eight year old daughter brings you, not just your wine without you asking her (which admittedly goes against the grain of some parenting, unclear why), but shows up proudly with a straw in it? Clearly she sees the value of a glass of vino for mommy and the ease at which it needs to be consumed. I say increase her allowance!

Then something miraculous happened.  Unsolicited.  My little angels cleaned out my car.  Together. They pulled out water bottles, dirty shoes, a science project that had been growing in the third row, about three loads of dirty clothes, six hairbrushes, and a Justin Bieber folder.  They removed mats, washed them, vacuumed the car.  I was speechless. My photogirls working in tandem in any other arena other than fighting, is, well, not all that common.  Then it occurred to me:  They had been abducted by aliens and little carbon copies were left.  They got along and did something that can only happen when the mother ship beams down: they shared! I sipped my cab through my straw, ate my grapes in awe of these specimens, too afraid to move from my fold-out camp chair only feet away. The rest of the night continued without stress and love flowed like water.  They hugged each other goodnight; even shared  “I love yous”. I got cavities (and whiplash) witnessing this.

You’ll be happy and (oddly) relieved as I was to know that they woke up fighting over the same pair of pink and black socks, who got to use the toilet first, and my favorite: “Mommy, I wish I had a different sister!” They’re back.

Tammy

“Either give me more wine, or leave me alone.”                                                                        Rumi, circa 1200’s

Book Tip:  Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls  David Sedaris                                     Wickedly, laugh out loud funny!

Look Mama! It’s Cheese in a Can!

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Recently, I was perusing the aisles in Ralph’s, as I do on average twice a day, with my two little angels trying to ignore their feuds over who gets to stand on the end of the shopping cart while I push (neither, as I can hardly steer it but I was too damn tired to yell).  All I could focus on was getting my last five items, which were neatly written in my head, three of which were already forgotten.

Then, my ten-year old exclaims “Mama!  Look!  It’s cheese in a can!”   Sure enough, on the top shelf (In NC it would be placed at eye level, the optimal spot) were three neat rows of aerosol cheese.  How had this been an oversight all these years?  “What is that?  Can we get it?”, she asked in pure wonderment. Then my eight-year old said, “I don’t understand. How do you get it out?”  Bless their little hearts. I forget sometimes that my children haven’t had the same wonderful childhood culinary experiences as I did where viscous cheese products such as Velveeta, Cheez Whiz, and Easy Cheese were a staple atop saltine

Golden Goodness

photo: courtesy Lisa Hall

crackers.  Those were the days when no one read ingredients, and that more was better.  I remember my dad opening a can of Vienna sausages (he pronounced them vi-EENA with his thick Southern accent), and stabbing them with a toothpick and handing me one. They were snug in their short little container surrounded by a light brown flavor-packed gelatinous substance.  Their tender smoked taste and mushiness was delectable. It was hot dog pate’ and I loved it! Though oddly enough I don’t care for any form of pate’ today. Go figure.

I let them each hold a golden can and marvel at the sheer oddity of it.  I looked around for a second, I admit, to see if any mom from the junk food protection program witnessed this.  After a few “pretty pleases” coupled with the excitement of holding a new puppy, I tossed a can under the toilet tissue and organic apples.

When we got home, they fought (of course) over who could find the golden can first, similar to the Golden Ticket in Willie Wonka, (pause….Johnny Depp flashback….deep breath…). After I pried it from their little fingers, I pulled out a box of brown rice crackers.  Alas! A healthy snack! After a quick tutorial as to the right angle at which to ‘spray”, they were on their way! Quick learners, my children.  They were amazed at the electric orange color and the crinkled pattern as it left the can. Even I couldn’t wait to bite into that little mountain of velvet tanginess, trying to remember the last time I did.  My ten year old loved it.  Her eyes opened wide and she eagerly grabbed the can to spray her second one.  My eight year old? Not so much.  “This isn’t cheese mommy.  What is it?’, she said with a deadpan voice and languid expression.  “Why honey it’s a cheese product!”  I sounded like Joan Cleaver.

The remainder is in my refrigerator right now aging to perfection in its metal cylinder.

I’ll wait a while before I introduce them to SPAM, (and I don’t mean the unsolicited electronic bulk messages).

Tammy

“Life is great, Cheese makes it better,”                                                                                           Avery Aames