Posts from — November 2009

I was cleaning out a bag from last week’s Thanksgiving trip and must have pulled out six or seven crumpled up, mustard and god-knows-what-else stained napkins with little snippets and phrases written on them.  Ideas for blog posts, all of them. The discovery made me realize two things: 1. For the love, I should just buy a small notebook to carry around, and 2. I am not finding the time to get these wrinkled thoughts onto paper (screen).

The truth of it is, I find myself wishing I had a legitimate reason to be able to take that time every day to write.  Or the means to forge a way into making it so.  Because as engrossing as my caps lock laden epics are, they don’t quite pay the babysitter (or for themselves for that matter). And in a world where fifteen whole minutes of my day often can be devoted to heavy negotiations regarding Number of Lima Bean Bites That Must Be Suffered For Dessert Attainment, babysitters are key to this desired venture.

I would like to just go ahead and have a big old wallow in self-pity about all of this, except this is the post where I’m telling you about the New Exciting Thing, and damn if that isn’t throwing a wallop of a kink into my pity party plans.

So! All of this is a very undignified and mopey way of telling you that starting at the beginning of next year, I will have a regular column in a new magazine called Ruckus.  At which point I should get off my mope-horse and add: Exclamation point!  Because I am in fact, very exclamation pointy about it!  Ruckus is an Atlanta-based alternative parenting magazine “for Atlanta families that don’t fit in the traditional mold.”  It’s a pretty awesome magazine, I do declare, and if you are in the area you should totally grab one (if you become a fan on Facebook, it tells you where it is distributed – their newest issue comes out today).

Of course, if you do get one, you should immediately turn to the back page and read my column and say loudly WOW THAT BACK PAGE COLUMNIST SURE IS A TERRIFIC WRITER so that other magazine and/or book publishers who will most certainly be surrounding you at that moment will immediately and probably breathlessly ask you for my contact information so that they can approach me with their myriad of freelance writing job offers.  This will almost definitely work.  I know it.

In the meantime, check out Ruckus, and look for the next issue in January/February featuring me!  Being funny! Because it’s supposed to be a humor column!  Which I am trying not to freak out about!  Which I seem to be excelling at so far!  Judging by my punctuation!

So I guess I’ll have to forgo the wallow for now, because it does feel an awful lot like this could be the door that my foot has found to get in and I’ll just go ahead and admit it: it feels exciting as hell.

No
he can’t read you
books tonight
I say for the tenth day
in a row.
He has work to do.
You’re stuck with me.
Again.

Something about
his forlorn face
reminds me of a girl
I once knew
who
missing someone she loved
across an ocean
devised a plan.

A box of Tic Tacs
perfectly counted out
to the number of days
until she would see him again.
Daily she ate
as she waited
for him to be there
with her.

All we need
I explain
is a jar and something small
and sweet
so that we can count down
the days
until he can be with us
again.

Thinking on this
with his serious mind
he decides:
Skittles.
So we tally them up
and drop them in
one by one
with a plink.

Now every day
after lunch
with a flourish
one is chosen.
Green yesterday
red today
each one a little sweeter
than the last.

And it helps
for a minute
that sugar rush.
Sweetening a moment
in the middle
of days often filled
with longing
and discontent.

But as I stand later doing dishes
eyes level with the sill
that holds the jar
all I can see
is how many colors
there are to go
before we reach
that pot of gold.

OOOF.  Hey scooter toots.  Oh, I love you, too.  Sweet kisses.  Ok.  OK, slobber.  Help.  SLOBBER! GAH!

BUT I LIKE TO SHOW MY LOVE THROUGH FREQUENT APPLICATIONS OF MY SALIVA. IS THAT WRONG?

Rosie, you want to take a picture with Mama?  Look right here! See the camera? Smile for the camera! Smile! Rosie! Psst!  Rosie!  Smile for Mama!  Give me a big smile! Rosie! Rosie! Rosie!

I don’t want to alarm you or anything, but there is a very tiny Mama up there in your hand and I swear she is talking to me. I cannot. look. away.

Rosie Mae, those are Noah’s things.  You be careful now.  Gentle! Gentle touch!

I know, I’m just gonna look at this one thing. And also maybe taste it. And then fling it to the floor. Gently, though, Mama!  I will fling gently!

ROSIE MAE.

Look at all these toys over here just for you. Those are Noah’s things.  They’re not for you to fling. Not for Rosie.  For Noah.

What do these words mean, “not for Rosie?”

You need to leave Noah’s things be.  He is very good about sharing, but when you start in with all the flinging, he gets a little less excited about you messing with his stuff.  So, you know, lay off a little with the big brother toy meddling for now, okay?

Ok.  But Mama. There’s just one thing you may want to look at down here.

What is it, scoots?

Well…

Oh, Rosie.

Do you think he’ll be mad?

Well, no, I guess he won’t really be mad.  He loves you. After all, you are his little sister.

Single peeps with children, seriously.  How do you do it? What is your secret?  Do you have access to some sort of single-parent pseudoephedrine stash, and if so, can I get in on that action?  Because we have three-ish weeks of this Choose Your Own Adventure: First Semester of Law School left, and I am WORE OUT.  I am waiting for the inevitable bad decision page turn where I get hit with a giant runaway boulder.  Oops! THE END.

It’s the weekends, man.  The weekends.  The only way in which my weekend is different than my week is that I do not have a built in activity (school) to entertain my kids in the morning (although if places in heaven are secured by Sunday School attendance, Noah is set UP).  That’s pretty much it.  It’s monotonous to the max, and do not get me wrong, I love me some Rosie and Noah, (and in fact I feel kind of like I’m a big jerk for complaining about this gig when all they’re doing is being Totally Winsome and Completely Delightful in All Ways) but all I’m saying is that a little absence could go a LONG way in my heart, re: growing fonder.

My house is sort of freakishly ordered (note: not the same as clean), and that may be due to the fact that I sometimes fill time by getting Noah to do chores with-slash-for me.  The second he figures out I have conscripted him into hard manual labor and passed it off as a super! fun! activity!, I’m screwed.  The picking up help is necessary though, because this single parenting stuff has coincided with Rosie’s rededication to making sure everything is cleared from all high surfaces and relocated to the floor, where the good Lord intended it to be.  She is thorough in her efforts, too: the box of dominoes cannot just be knocked off the shelf – every. single. domino. must be painstakingly removed and then flung away with vigor so as to cover all the square inches of the floor equally.  It is hard work, but she remains steadfast in her labors.  She’s no half-asser!

I would like to mention that L is working tirelessly as well.  It’s a different kind of work, but I have to say that as much as I would love a child-rearing break, I do not envy him.  I remember that feeling – that weight that settles in to your countenance at the beginning of each semester and doesn’t leave until you turn in your last exam.  Always feeling like you should be doing something else, whether you are with your family or with your books.  Study material-filled dreams (or nightmares).  Exam dread. Performance anxiety. Study sequestration.

At least I am getting to enjoy a little sunshine sometimes, you know?

Anyway, we’re kind of a pitiful lot over here, but we’re going to make it.  I’m pretty sure we will.  Like almost definitely.

Maybe.