An Interview on Day 2,555 of J's Life

J is seven years old today.   Here's our birthday interview.  Sorry about the scritchy morning voice and for snapping at the dog.  She was noisily licking her hindquarters and it annoyed me.  My patience is low when I haven't had coffee.
No apologies for J though.  He's perfectly seven today.

IMG 1968 from Tacy Cauthron on Vimeo.

Water Park Phobia

Well, we are smack in the middle of summer. For many people that means fun in the sun all day, every day.  For me, it means it's time to deal with my phobia.

I've had lots of experiences with other people's phobias.  I know how irrational they are.  I have a friend who is afraid of birds.  Every time I went to the beach with her, I got a full report every two minutes on the location of the nearest seagull stalking us.  9, for about two years of elementary school, was afraid of the wind.  My niece is deathly afraid of dogs, and I......

I am afraid of the water park.

It's not the slides.  I have no problem with the slides.  It's the water I'm afraid of.  More specifically, it's the idea of community water.

I can deal.

I can NOT deal. 

Everyone with all their sweat and hair and bodily fluids sharing water space makes me gag.  Furthermore, while I know that I'm supposedly the one with the irrational phobia, what I really don't understand is why everyone else is okay with sharing community water.  I can not describe the horror I feel when I see people sliding on their bellies along the floor of the wave pool, mouth open, eyes open, just swimming along.  There are unidentifiable floaties down there, people! I see them all the time.  Little brown things that sure, maybe, yeah could be a leaf..... but it could be something else infinitely more disgusting too.  Why are you all okay with that?

And why doesn't it freak people out that at any given time, there are at least 10 different people PEEING in that water?  I mean, ya'll are swimming and sliding around in water, some of which a short time ago, used to be inside someone else's body.  Their urinary tract, to be exact.  People are basically swimming in multiple urinary tracts.  Disgusting.

Also, the baby lagoon.  I can't figure it out.  Parents who'll run to wash off a pacifier within nano seconds of it touching a floor are okay with wading around in the baby lagoon with their toddlers! WHY?   I've had years of experience with the swim diapers, and trust me, they are not a guarantee against Code Brown.  Code Brown will occur, people.  It will and it does.  Get out of the water.

Finally, there's one last thing that bears mentioning here-the innertubes.  I know I said that it's the water I'm afraid of and it is, I swear it is, but the innertubes.....  they're all warm and squishy and they make those farting sounds when you get on them and sometimes they have other people's wet hair stuck on their sides.  Plus, you have to stick your butt down in the hole to float and sometimes your butt hits a warm spot.  (Lazy River, I'm looking at you.)

So if you see a mom walking on her tip toes in the shallowest section of the wave pool, it's me.  I'm minimizing the amount of skin to pool contact.

The lady laying like a plank across her inner tube in the Lazy River?  That's me too, actively avoiding warm spots while minimizing skin-to-public-pool-float contact.  It's one of my best moves.

And the nut job doing the deep breathing exercises while standing at the bottom of the kiddie slide to catch her child?  Yep, that's me.  Notice how I have the art of catching down to a science- lips sealed, head adverted to avoid the inevitable splash, a controlled rush to the side where the child is quickly deposited, and finally, a nimble jump out of the water that-if one is observing carefully enough- conveys just the slightest bit of panic.

I may look crazy, but know that in my head, you all are the crazy ones for being okay with swimming in a cesspit.

Thus is the rationale of the water park phobia.

Wedding Story

Do you guys remember that show on TLC called "The Wedding Story"?  It was on back in the Nineties when I was in college.  Man, I used to love that show.  Every episode highlighted an engaged couple who told the story of how they met, their courtship, and their proposal.  The last ten minutes was nothing but footage from their wedding and it always left me feeling like I had big old hearts dancing in my eyes.

Ah, memories.

Wait!  Do you remember the theme song?

And when the spark of youth someday surrenders 

I will have your hand to see me through

The years may come and go....

But there's one thing I know. 

Love is all there is when I'm with you.  

Corny as hell and I LOVED it with all my twenty something little heart.  I scheduled my classes around that show.

I was dumb.

Anyway.  Ten years ago today I was getting married.  My wedding was nothing like the couples' weddings on The Wedding Story.  Those weddings usually had a ton of pomp and circumstance. We, Matt and I,  were very untraditional.

For instance, we saw each other the morning of the wedding.  And look how itty bitty 9 was!  I could have put him in my pocket.

 

No fancy hair and makeup professionals came to doll me up.  My mother in law did my hair and I did my own makeup. 

I had trouble zipping up my dress. (A little math with a gestation calendar and my wedding date, and voila, the mystery of the stuck zipper is solved.)

 I had a fight with the florist.  The Wedding Story would have edited that out for sure, but maybe it would have been good fodder for Bridezillas.  I'll spare you the details, but you can rest assured that I've learned to live with the fact that somewhere in the Sierra Nevadas there is a random wedding florist who thinks I'm the world's biggest bitch.

C'est la vie.

Once at the Nevada Beach parking lot, waiting for the minister to show, I spotted my beloved all dressed up and ready to exchange vows with me.  He was standing next to his truck and I walked up to him, ready to receive any compliments that I, in all my wedding finery, may have inspired in his heart or soul.

Instead, he said "Hey babe!  Can you pass me that camera bag?"

And I will never let him live that down.  It's a permanent part of our wedding story.  Matt swears that he did compliment me, and he did- after I asked him to.  And that is how I usually have to get compliments from Matt.  When I really need them, I ask for them.  That's okay.  He does the dishes and helps bathe the kids, so I decided that it's something I can live with.

For now.

"Oh. Hey.  Pass me the camera bag."

So then it was time to start the ceremony.  We all stood under the shade of a big Juniper Pine tree and the minister began.

And do you know, it wasn't until recently when I was looking through pictures that I realized that Matt married me with his sunglasses on his head? 

You can see them if you look real close. 

I always thought that in this picture I was looking at him adoringly while we exchanged vows, but now I wonder if maybe I wasn't just looking at his sunglasses? 

That's okay.  The whole time we were exchanging vows, my nose was running.  I sniffled my way through the whole thing and tried to keep my head tilted back because I didn't have a Kleenex. 

Oh well.  

We sealed the deal anyway.

Later, at the restaurant we thanked our guests for coming.  I always laugh at this picture because it seems like for this shot only, every ounce of Hungarian Gypsy DNA in Matt's blood showed up.  

My tall, dark and handsome gypsy.  All he needs is a hoop earring.

And then the faux pas of all wedding faux pas happened.  

We cut the cake and the knife handle broke off with the blade inside the cake! 

There we are, knife handle in hand wondering what to do now.  Oops. 

(But doesn't my cleavage look fabulous? Hi girls! Miss you.)

Anyway, I figured that was some seriously bad wedding juju.  I knew we were headed for trouble.  Especially when the next day, the piece of cake we were supposed to take home to freeze for the next year got knocked over and spilled onto parking lot asphalt.  Double juju.  

You know what though?  Ten years, and I'm still waiting for that bad juju to catch up.  So far, we've been doing okay.  Life hasn't given us anything that's felt too unbearable. And when that day comes, when life does hand over a pile of crap for us to wade though, it's going to take more than some silly superstitious wedding juju to break down what we've built over the last ten years.  

But I'm going to keep my fingers crossed just in case.   

The Voices in my Head

Hey there!  Hope you all have eased nicely into summer.  Not to brag, but I think I may have had the easiest transition of anybody out there.  Matt took off on his annual Father's Day Camping Trip and I stayed behind.  As in, he took the kids and I stayed behind.

By myself.

Like, I didn't have to share the house with anyone. Or take care of anyone other than the dog. I didn't have to cook for anyone.  And while I didn't have to clean, I'll let you in on a little secret: I did it anyway.  Oh yeah, baby.  I cleaned.  Mama deep cleaned.  She deep cleaned goooooood.  She deep cleaned so good and-here's the best part-it stayed clean.  The house actually STAYED CLEAN FOR FIVE WHOLE DAYS.

I know.

I know!

Anyway.  Enough reliving the glory days.  They're all home now and the house once again looks like 4 kids and a dog live here.  It was great while it lasted.

So, officially, there are two reasons I stayed behind:
1)AYSO had one last registration for Roo, who will be playing soccer next year
2) I had some tutoring sessions scheduled.

The unofficial reason I stayed behind was:
1) I didn't really want to go
2)                                               

There is no number two.  I just didn't really want to go.

Listen, I am getting too old for this camping crap. And if we're really being honest, Matt and the kids probably have a better time when I'm not there.  As the official Family Funsucker, I make them do lame things like wash their hands and use hot water to clean the dishes.  So I don't think my presence was missed.  Besides, it's not like I'm of much help when I'm there.

See?  That's me "helping" last year.

Anyway, I didn't just get on here to brag about my five days o'solitude.  In fact, I want to confess something to you about those five days.  Something that took my by complete surprise.

I felt guilty.

It wasn't the kind of guilt where I felt like I was actually doing something wrong.  It was more of the kind of guilt where I worried what people would think.  I found myself justifying ridiculous judgements that buzzed around my mind all day like annoying little gnats.  Who was I to think I deserved five whole days to myself?  How dare I stick Matt with all the kids for such a long period of time? What if something happened to them and I wasn't there?  How could I let PG go to a camp where neither one of us knew anything about the people who would be taking care of her? (Did I mention that part?  Part of the trip was taking PG up for her second year at Hume Lake Wagon Train Camp.)

Isn't that nuts?

Ten years of Matt happily taking whichever kids were old enough off into the wilderness (and loving it enough to repeat it every year), and suddenly I was listening to my insecurities about whether that was okay.  Ten years of 9 going to Hume and having a blast- not to mention the fact that my mother in law, sister, cousins, and friends had also gone to the same camp and have had nothing but positive experiences- and now I was wondering if I was being irresponsible by letting PG go.

What's even crazier is that no one- NO ONE- had ever accused me directly of any of the above judgements, but here I was accusing myself.  Where did all this come from?

Well.  Obviously most of it is my own personal insecurities.  But those had to start from somewhere, so what was it?

I was pondering all this when my friend called.  She's pregnant for the first time and was calling me with a kid question.  (Also because she knows that I like to feel like an authority on stuff.  She remembers the bossy side of me from our growing up years and I love her for paying homage to it.)  She started the conversation with "I'd like your opinion on something because apparently people online are very opinionated-"

"Oh."  I interrupted, while nodding sagely. "Vaccinations?"

"No. Actually-"

"Breastfeeding then."

"No," she said. "Crib bumpers."

Crib bumpers? People are getting hot under the collar about crib bumpers.  Oh, my head.

And that's when I got it.  Those stupid voices of judgement that had been ruining my good time were judgements I'd heard from other people about other things.  None of them were directed at me but I'd gotten so used to living with the constant barrage of opinions that surrounds the world of parenting, that I'd internalized some of them.

Well, good.  That knowledge at least made it easier to throw those thoughts away.

Beyond that however, I had another realization.  The last few months I've made a conscience effort to live kinder and more graciously.  With this new epiphany, I realized that when I judge someone or something out loud- even when the things I'm judging aren't present- my words and actions plant themselves in other people's ears, like little worms.  And there they can feed off of other people's insecurities.  That's a really negative thing to throw out there into the world.

So I wrapped up the conversation with my friend.  (Yes, crib bumpers are fun when you're decorating your first nursery.  No, you are most likely not putting your child into harm's way by using them those first few immobile months.  Take them out when he starts rolling around, or sooner if you feel the need.  Yep, you're okay, I'm okay, we're all okay.  Yay!)

Then I enjoyed the rest of my time alone.

I visited a friend in L.A.

I read a really great book.

I had a wine party at the house with another friend.

I baked bread and took it over to my grandparents.

I hung out with my friend's girls when I needed a kid fix.

And through it all, my house stayed clean.





P.S.- And to go back to the crib bumpers for a sec- can we just stop it people?  Please.  Just stop it.

Because His Imagination Can Still Go There

Horrible, but effective, use of guilt to get things done:

Me:  J, if I have to tell you one more time to go and brush your teeth, my head will literally explode.

J:  It wouldn't LITERALLY explode, mom.  (eye roll)

I establish very strong eye contact and then say:
"How is it that  you so sure about that?  What if it did?  What if the very next time I say the words 'Go. Brush. Your. Teeth', my head popped off and exploded all over this room?  You would be without a mother.  Motherless.  No one to tuck you in and make you food and watch Adventure Time with you.  Is that what you want?"

He shrugs and I say:

"Go ahead.  I dare you to make me say it one more time."

We stare each other down for a solid 5 seconds before he turns and wordlessly walks into the bathroom.

This morning's score: mom 1, kids 0.

Summer Reading List for My People

Happy two-days-left-of-school everyone!  For those of you who were out before Memorial Day- tell me, is life as sweet as it seems over there in the land of logic and reasoning?  What's it like living in the boundaries of a district which recognizes that forcing people to go to school in June is like sitting through the credits after a movie is over?  Maybe there's a good little tidbit at the end, but mostly you're just passing time.      

And for those of you who aren't out for another week or two, read this blog post from Jen Hatmaker if you haven't already.  It went viral last week, and with good reason.  Apparently a lot of people can relate, including me.  In fact, it was on my mind these last two nights as PG's teacher is still assigning homework- and not just any homework.  Long Division homework.  Do you know what causes more drama than long division?  Nothing.  Nothing causes more drama than long division.  Not even fractions.  Please pray for me, PG, and the innocent box of #No. 2 pencils whose erasers are being worn down to flat little nubs and whose long, sleek yellow bodies are being dented and chipped by rough treatment from frustrated hands.   Mainly mine.

Anyway.

I felt like writing tonight, but didn't really have a topic to write about.  Then I remembered a conversation that I had with 9 last week after he came home from taking the SAT.  I had asked him what the essay prompt was and he said it was something like "Should universities teach pop culture?".  He argued for the case, and while it sounded like he wrote a pretty solid essay, I had to stop listening to him after he told me that one of his pieces of evidence was that "people don't really read books anymore."

Uhhhh, what?  People don't read books anymore?  I'm really hoping that was teenage naiveté. In fact, looking back I'm pretty sure he meant that people don't get information from books anymore.  That would be true.  But if you're my people in my world, you still read books.  Lovely, lovely books- with  bendy spines, and dusty smells, and.... words.

I love books, and I prefer reading them in person (and by that I mean in paper form) than electronically- although truthfully I'll take my stories anyway I can get them. So I thought, since it's summer, I'd give you a list of some of the best books I've read this year.  It's a short list, since I haven't had a lot of extra time to read.  Hopefully that changes this summer.   If you have any recommendations, I'd love it if you'd leave them for me in the comments.

Alright.  Here we go.

Number 1-  Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn.

This is probably the most memorable one I've read all year.  I had brought it with me on vacation last August and meant for it to last me all week.  Instead, I ended up reading the entire thing in the car on the 8 hour drive up to San Francisco.  I couldn't stop.  The whole thing was like a bag of kettle chips (you all remember how much I love my kettle chips).  The characters were deliciously flawed, and all their flaws wove right into the twisted plot in the most compelling way.  Clear your schedule if you read this one.  Not much will get done until you're finished.

Number 2- One Thousand White Women, by Jim Fergus

I liked this one because it is a fiction historical novel that very well could have been true.  The premise of the story is that President Grant, in an attempt to peacefully integrate settlers and natives in the mid 1800's, grants a request from a Cheyenne Indian Tribe to appoint a group of women "volunteers" to travel west and marry  into the Cheyenne tribe.  (In fact, in 1854, a group of Cheyenne Indians did propose to President Grant that he send them a group of white women so they may be permitted to intermarry and teach the natives the "ways of the white man", while also having mixed race babies that would ultimately unite the two cultures).
In reality, the proposal was turned down. However, in this novel, the President publicly rejects the proposal, but secretly fills the tribe's request by seeking volunteers from insane asylums.  The main character, May Dodd, is probably one of the best written female characters of any book I've ever read.  I was astonished that it was a man that authored her female perspective into existence.  And as you might expect, the story that follows is heart breaking, yet so well written that I felt haunted by it for weeks.

Number 3- 11-22-63, by Stephen King
I have to start this by saying that 15 years ago or so, I was reading Needful Things before bed and whatever it was that I read before I put the book down and fell asleep gave me such a bad nightmare than I woke up and vomited.
I seriously vomited.... and then I never picked up another Stephen King book again- until a few months ago.  A friend recommended this, so despite my reservations I cautiously started in on the first few chapters.  After that, it was easy.  I kept going, and 11-22-63 turned out to be the best time travel story I've read since The Time Traveller's Wife.  
The main character, Jake Epping, starts off his time traveling adventures to save a friend from a horrid small town crime that takes place in the 50's.  However, as the title hints, he  soon realizes he can make bigger changes on a global level. The rub is that the longer he stays back in time, the more his ties to the future become tangled. Before he knows it he has a much larger conundrum on his hands than he ever bargained for.  It was a delicious read, and you'll be happy to hear, not once did it make me throw up.

Number 4- The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Okay, so I didn't read this one for the first time this year.  Like most of you, I read Gatsby for the first time back in tenth grade English.  I liked it okay then, but all the symbolism forced upon me by my (probably) well-intentioned teacher got in the way of the whole point of the novel: what it was that made Gatsby great.  Who cares about the green light at the end of the dock, or the giant eyes of Dr. T.J Eckleburg when you have a character who can love someone so wholeheartedly and (in my opinion) foolishly as Gatsby?  Now that I know considerably more about love than I did at age 15, in rereading the book, the character of Gatsby fully broke my heart:  The way he schemed to be close to Daisy, his anxiety at seeing her again for the first time at Nick's, how he took the blame when she ran over Myrtle, how he still had hope and waited under her window until early morning after she went back to Tom.  It killed me.  That poor, poor man.
You know, Nick is really the only likable character in the whole book, but that doesn't stop this from being one of my favorite stories of all time.  It's romantic and hopeful and tragic- and it doesn't hurt that Leo DiCaprio's face is now what I picture while reading this beautiful novel.

Number 5- Wild About Books, by Judy Sierra and Skippy Jon Jones, by Judy Schachner
I'm having trouble thinking of another adult book, and 4 seems like a weird number upon which to stop a list.  So,  I'm including two read alouds here.  These truly are the two best children's books I've read all year.
The first, Wild About Books, was given to me by my friend Alisha.  She said she just thought of me when she read it.  Isn't that sweet?  I'm hoping it doens't mean that I remind her of a bunch of unruly book-loving animals, cause that's kind of what this book is about.  A librarian drives a bookmobile into a zoo and introduces the animals to books.  You know how Pixar movies, while geared towards the kids, usually have little subtle nuances for adults so they don't get bored? That's this book.  The rhymes are intelligent and hilarious, including this haiku written by a walking stick:

A cannibal twig

Silently devours a leaf-

Eating, not eaten. 

(In case you're interested, the scorpion's review of haiku claimed it pretentious.  Ha!)

The other book, Skippy Jon Jones, is just fun and imaginative.  It's about a kitten who thinks he's a chihuahua and has to hide in his closet to have adventures away from his mama. Cute story, cute characters but mostly, I just like that this book gave me cause to walk around my hourse reciting this :

My name is Skippito Friskito.

I fear not a single bandito.

My manners are mellow, 

I'm sweet like the Jell-O, 

I get the job done, yes indeed-o. 

So that's it.  For those of you who are my people, happy reading!  And for those of you who are not, well, you wouldn't have made it this far anyway.  Just being here makes you my people by default.  Lucky you.


Also, a few years ago I wrote a list of my all time favorite books.  If you're interested in seeing that, you can click this link here.  That list has more or less stayed the same.

Have a good night.





 

The Prom Fairy

Hello parents.
I have someone I'd like to introduce to you tonight.  She's very important- in fact, in terms of making the magic happen, she ranks up there with Santa Claus, The Tooth Fairy, and The Easter Bunny.

That's right, there's a new mythical creature in town and her name is The Prom Fairy.

Are you aware of her?

The Prom Fairy resides in a spacious high school gym in the sky where bright balloon arches and colorful crepe streamers flutter about in the breeze.  Rumor has it that little gnomes bustle about a garden assembling corsages from dusk to dawn, while an endless fleet of limousines are kept polished and shined by tiny worker elves.

What does the Prom Fairy do, you ask?

Well.  The Prom Fairy is responsible for not only making sure that corsages are ordered, but that they are ordered in the right colors.  She also picks up the corsages and ensures that they stay fresh by keeping them in the refrigerator, as opposed to on... oh, I don't know- the kitchen counter? (Not that I personally know any teen who would think that they would keep fresh on a counter in 100 degree weather. Nope. Not me.)

She makes sure that the tickets are bought.  She makes sure that the tux is rented.  She attends the fitting.  She also drives the Prom attendee to pick up the tux and grits her tiny little fairy teeth through 45 minutes of the worst customer service ever known to man.

But perhaps the most difficult part of the Prom Fairy's job is the eliciting of information and communication from the Prom attendee, who, tradition would have it, is usually a teenager.  This task requires an extraordinary amount of patience and strategy on the part of the Prom Fairy.

For example, it is not uncommon for the Prom attendee to treat the expected time of departure for Prom as if it's a highly guarded government secret.  This may cause some dismay and stress on the part of the attendees parents (who only want to make sure that they have enough time to capture memories on their digital cameras).  With determination and a few hysterical threats, the Prom Fairy can usually narrow down the ETD to an hour window, which the parents can usually- although reluctantly- deal with.

Prom attendees have also been known to wait until the last minute to make decisions about important things such as transportation.  I recently heard, through the grapevine of course, that she- the Prom Fairy- had a situation in which one of her attendees, despite his parent's pleas and inquiries, did not have a clue of how he was going to get he and his date to the event.  While he didn't seem too worried about it, his parents felt pretty stressed.  Thankfully, the Prom Fairy found a simple solution.  She informed the teenager that if was unable to make a plan, then he and his date would be welcome to go to Prom in the back of his parents minivan, chauffeured by his stepmother with his young siblings in tow.  She also informed him that his parents may or may not be moved to hang a giant disco ball in the van and blast Barry White throughout the entire trip.  Needless to say, the young attendee was motivated, and with a mere 18 hours to go before the start of Prom, cemented his own plans (which thankfully did not involve a minivan or Barry White).

It's my hope that you all, my readers, will embrace this new magical creature with open arms.  Make her feel welcome.  After all, look at how much we owe to her peers: what would the magic of Christmas be without Santa?  Who would buy the presents?  Who would bake the cookies?  Who would put together the bikes and stuff the stockings?  And what about the Easter Bunny?  What would Easter Sunday be without all that yummy chocolate and egg hunts?  Thank goodness the bunny takes care of all that for us!  And of course, there's the Tooth Fairy with her gold coins and dollar bills, standing diligently at our children's bedside.  Where would we be without her?

So thank you.  Thank you, Prom Fairy for all that you've done to make this household's Junior Prom a truly memorable experience.  You rock.

P.S- The secret subtitle to this post is "Dear Parents of the Class of 1992:  A Belated Thank You."
Thank you to my own Prom Fairies- aka Mom and Dad.