Karma doesn’t wear a coat

jae and rae in winter coatsIf I think back across the years of being parented by my mother, all the things I learned from her, all the wisdom she imparted, there is definitely one thing that stands out.  Something that she drilled into my head over and over across the years.  Something of import, a thing that every child growing into adulthood needs to learn along the way.

This, then, is her legacy.

The advice is simple and straight-forward.  Eight measly words:  IT’S COLD OUT THERE.  PUT ON A COAT.

My mother has barked this at me as recently as this past winter.  Me, in my 40s.  (People!  I’m in my 40s!  When did that happen?)  I’m pretty sure if she thought she could get away with it, she would clip mittens onto the ends of my coat sleeves.

When I die, my grave stone will be etched with a message done in an 18-point font (probably Pepita MT, because I love that font) that says “Here lies Linda.  She never wore her coat.”

I really hate coats.  They’re such a pain in the ass.  I especially hate traveling with them, having to deal with them in the airports and on the airplanes.  When I’m home, my outdoor exposure is pretty limited.  I go from the garage to the house, from the house to the garage, from the parking lot to the office, from the office to the parking lot.  (If I took Mother-May-I GIANT steps, I could get from the car to the office in about 15 steps.  Mother may I?  Yes, you may.  In fact, you must.)

Occasionally I may have to walk from the car in a parking lot to the supermarket door or the gym entrance or some such.  But it ain’t much.  That’s what I’m telling you.

I’m not doing any downhill skiing.  I don’t have to walk to school uphill both ways in the snow.  EVER.

It’s not like the olden days, the pioneer days.  It’s not like I need to tie a guideline from the house to the barn so I can go out in a blizzard to feed the livestock and find my way back to the house using the guideline, because Pa Ingalls totally knew of a dude who thought he could navigate back from the barn without a guideline and they didn’t find him until the spring thaw.  No, I’m serious.  I read it in a book when I was a kid.  Winters were brutal then – they all totally needed coats.

Good thing I don’t live in pioneer days, huh?  Mostly because I don’t think I could handle the lack of high speed Internet.  Also, slightly less important, because I have no desire to milk a cow and the thought of unpasteurized, unrefrigerated, full-fat milk makes me want to barf.  (Hey, look – my spell-checker didn’t put a red squiggly line under the word barf.  Congratulations, Barf, for making the big leagues!!  I always knew you would find your way up.) ( Ha.  Pun.)

And so I’m at peace with my position on coat-wearing.  Yes, yes, I definitely am.

But these KIDS – these devil’s spawn that I have given birth to!  What is UP with them and the not wearing of the coats?  I mean, sure, we’ve enjoyed some mild winters of late (thank you Global Warming!) but this winter has been pretty cold.  And they’re all “Eh, big deal… I have this here flimsy hoodie on, I’ll be FINE at the bus stop with the wind chill of ten below, Mom.  Quit yer nagging.”

I deserve this.  I totally do.

Let’s just hope I don’t get everything else I deserve in the realm of parenting with Karma at the wheel.

Hold me, I’m scared (and slightly chilly).

By |February 12th, 2010|Indiscriminate Drivel, The Parent Hood|2 Comments
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When mama ain’t happy, everyone cowers in fear…

Hello my little blog visitors.  Did you miss me?

You didn’t even notice I was gone, did you?  {sniff, sniff}

When I restarted the ol’ blog up, I told myself “Self, you need to post regularly.” and then last week I had a trip and was out of town all week long and so busy, what with all the eating of Oreos and the business dinners and talking (so much talking!).  When I would get to my hotel room late in the evening, I would simply fall, exhausted, into the not-my-bed, and lay my head on the not-my-pillow and pass out before I could even write anything in my head much less on my blog.

It was a long week.

I’m home now, though.  I’d like to think you missed me so please do just keep it to yourself if you didn’t notice I was gone.  (Linda who?  I vaguely remember her…)

Saturday morning came early and we all trekked off to our morning of Family Fitness Fun at the YMCA.  We came home afterward to grab lunch and then the little ones had a basketball game.  I was tired and sore and the house was a bit of a mess and, well, I was crabby.

Dr. Jekyll’s alter-ego is alive and well and living in St. Louis.

You, my internet friends, are all probably sitting there with your jaws hanging open.  “Our sweet Linda?  Crabby?  I can hardly believe it!  She’s all sunshine and light!  She brings the funny, she’s so upbeat!  Surely you are confused – it must be some other Linda to whom you refer.”

But no.  It’s true – I get crabby.  If my husband kept a blog, you’d probably be shocked.  “Leave her!  She’s so awful to you!  No self-respecting human should put up with that!”  Of course, he’d probably be exaggerating and I’d be all “Oh, you have NO IDEA what I put up with here!!!  Shut-up!”  (See?  C-R-A-B-B-Y.)

My husband and I have a sort of secret agreement about this situation.  He tries to smile and pretend he doesn’t notice hoping it will all blow over.

When it gets bad, real bad, then in the middle of the day on a Saturday, I might say “I’m going to take a hot bath.”

This is the universal signal for “Here’s our chance to make an escape!”  Sometimes, with a look of unadulterated fear on his face, he will rally the kids “Come on, guys… let’s go pick up trash along the side of the highway or something – give your mom some alone time.”  I pretend not to notice as he packs toothbrushes and clean underwear just in case they have to spend the night somewhere.

I appreciate this about him.

I go up to the sanctuary of my bathroom.

Ahhhhhhhhhh……..

I get out all sorts of goop and formulas and put them on the edge of the tub.  I run a bath – a hot, hot bath.  A scald-your-skin bath.  I get my book.

I lock the door.

For the next two hours, I bathe.  This is radical bathing – it’s not for sissies.  In the end, I’m smooth and relaxed and everyone is allowed to live (which is the important thing, right?)

This Bath & Bodyworks issue has me annoyed.  I love several of their scents – I love Japanese Cherry Blossom, and Black Amethyst, and  Moonlight Path, and Velvet Tuberose.  So over time, I have accumulated some products in each of these various scents.  I have some bubble bath and some body scrub and some shampoo and conditioner and some moisturizing body wash and some lotions and potions and such.  I don’t, however, have all of those items across the board in one scent.

So I step into a bath with Velvet Tuberose bubble bath and I use Japanese Cherry Blossom body scrub and Black Amethyst body wash and Moonlight Path shampoo, and… well, you get the idea.

When I step out of the bathroom at the end of this, I smell like a indecisive madame at the Bath & Bodyworks Brothel.  (I wonder how much that job would pay?  I think I have all the qualifications… Hmmmm…)

Sometimes, when circumstances are such that Bill and the kids cannot make a quick escape while I am stewing in my own crabby juices, they will remain in the house while I bathe.  I can sometimes hear them moving around down there, and I imagine what is going on.  “Quick – shove all those toys in this closet.  Bake some double chocolate brownies.  Someone find the Legends of the Fall DVD.  If we all pull together, I think we might be allowed to live.”  (And, really, that’s the important thing, right?)

I do hear them all scrambling to clean up and I deeply appreciate this.  When I sink down under the bath water (which is only scalding hot in Phase 1 and is much cooler in Phase 2 after I drain part of the water and add cold water) where my ears are under water, I love hearing them clean up down there.  I am a sailor in a submarine heading home and they are my welcoming committee making sure everything is perfect for my arrival.  I have the best welcoming committee in the whole world!  Too bad the stress and anxiety of it is causing them hair loss and skin rashes and nervous ticks.  Poor things.

So after the face mask and the shaving of legs and other areas that were not meant to have any hair (big toes?  REALLY?) and the hot water and the cooler water and then the shower…

Oh.  Why, yes – yes, I do take a shower at the end of my bath.  Do you have an issue with this?  I realize my “when mama ain’t happy” bath routine uses enough water to put out the wildfires in California or end the drought in Fuji (aside: you probably didn’t even realize they HAD a drought in Fiji, did you?  Oh, the things I learn from Google…) but I don’t care.  I DON’T CARE AND ALL YOU TREE HUGGERS CAN SUCK IT BECAUSE I’M NOT GIVING UP MY GALLONS AND GALLONS OF LOVELY WATER FOR MY MENTAL-HEALTH-BATHATHON.

I may use a lot of water, but it’s still cheaper to society than having you support me in a women’s medium-security prison for years.  Plus, I hear Bath & Bodyworks Brothel madames don’t fare well in prison.

Really, it’s water well spent.  The use of this water saves lives.

So, anyway… what was the point of this post?

Oh, yeah.  I took a bath yesterday.  Everything’s fine now.  I even saw one of the kids smile, cautiously.  It was so cute.  I hugged her and she breathed a sigh of relief and told her sisters “It’s safe now, you can come out.”

Motherhood is so rewarding.

By |February 7th, 2010|Indiscriminate Drivel, Married Life, The Parent Hood|Comments Off on When mama ain’t happy, everyone cowers in fear…
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Dear Zebra Room Teachers

Dear Zebra Room Teachers,

Here is my baby.  She is one of the most precious people in the whole world to me.  Today is her first day of pre-school.

She thinks she is a real true princess.  We indulge this kind of thinking.

She has decided she does not want to grow up.  It was quite the feat to get her to agree to turn four.  She really wanted to stay three.  It was only the promise of copious amounts of chocolate birthday cake that swayed her over.  She is adamant, though, that she will grow no older.  We also indulge this.  This means you can never ever use the “Well, you want to be a BIG girl…” line of reasoning with her.  She doesn’t.  She wants to be my baby.  If you push her, she will suck her thumb and pretend she cannot speak.

In fact, some of us (ahem, her mother) may even be responsible for it by saying to her (over and over) “You’ll always be my baby, won’t you?” and “Stop growing so fast!” and perhaps, in times of quiet desperation “Don’t grow up and leave me!  Promise?”  We (ahem, me) take full responsibility.  Please remind us (ahem, me) of this whole little clever ruse when she is 34 and refuses to move out of our basement and requires I do her laundry and make her chicken nuggets.  OK?

Her favorite colors are pink and purple.  We have indulged this too.  We always let her choose pink or purple for whatever – her cup at dinner, the book we will read her, a new toothbrush, her backpack, our Kitchenaide mixer, the family automobile, the siding for the house, etc.  It grows on you after awhile.

She is a carnivore, pure and simple.  She likes steak and turkey legs and baby back ribs and Slim Jims.  I know those things don’t come up on the preschool lunch menu too often, which means she might just hate everything you guys serve to her.  This would be our fault, too.

Oh, Zebra Room Teachers, have mercy on me.  I’m a 43 year old mother of five and she’s my BABY.  Of course I’ve ruined her for anyone else – can’t you see the desperation on my face?  Who will take care of me in my old age?  It always falls to the youngest.  I’m just doing my best to keep her ostracized by society and nestled firmly in my royal pink nest eating Slim Jims.

Deal with it.

Love,

Rae-Rae’s Mommy

By |August 18th, 2008|Indiscriminate Drivel, The Parent Hood|Comments Off on Dear Zebra Room Teachers
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