Alabaster Mom

You may have noticed that I posted quite a few blog entries while my daughter was gone. Now that she is back from Oklahoma, I've too busy reprogramming her to have time for writing. By Wednesday, we were ready to ship her back. She would not go to sleep and it was leading to a bad scene at night and another one in the morning. She is still a natural-born night owl, but things finally got a little better by the end of last week. The kid's first week at summer camp went well. It's a day program (not an overnight dealio) and she really seemed to like it. She was in a music camp for the first week. Next up, sports camp. That would've been my worst nightmare when I was a kid, but she seems fine with the prospect of playing sports all day. As for me, I had a hectic week but ended it with a peaceful retreat on Saturday. The retreat was for the women of my church and was held at a bucolic, picturesque retreat center about 25 minutes from my house. I wasn't really sure w...

She's home! And reprogramming has begun. My daughter is a night owl, as are my parents. So, it didn't take long for her to fall into the routine of staying up very late and then sleeping until the crack of noon while she was in Oklahoma. Also, my parents are helpless in the face of rampant manipulation from their adorable granddaughter.  So, when we got her back, she was used to: 1. Doing whatever she wanted and 2. Doing it until very late at night.  We had our work cut out for us. Picking her up at the airport went pretty smoothly.  This time, I wasn't selected by the TSA for additional screening, but I did end up in the "full body scan" line. Yay!  I made it to the gate with only a minute or two to spare.  Moments later, the door to the jetway was opened and I spotted my daughter walking with a flight attendant.  Before I knew it, my kid was in my arms and I was hugging the bejeebers out of her. I surprised myself by getting all weepy.  Meanwhile, ...

I mean to tell you I saluted that sun like nobody's business. I got up at 4 a.m. this morning in order to make it to yoga by 5 a.m. We did 108 sun salutations for the solstice. It was challenging, but I made it through. In all honesty, one reason I showed up is that there was a drawing for three months of free classes. And, as you know, I am thrifty frugal just really fucking cheap, and I truly wanted to win those free classes. Alas, I did not. However, I did get a free tee shirt just for showing up. Oh, and some nut mix and a cup of green smoothie. I'd blather on some more, but I gotta get my act together so I can spend the rest of my day workin' for the man. If you are wondering what a sun salutation is, I described it in more detail in last year's post . In other news, my baby girl comes home tomorrow. Woot!

Life has been pretty quiet with the kid gone.  She flies back home on Saturday. Her dad and I have decided to make a weekend of it (after we pick her up) and stay overnight at a hotel near the airport.  We've promised her a trip to the Rainforest Cafe, because we enjoy over-priced meals layered with jungle sounds and mediocre service. While she's been gone, I've spent quite a bit of time cleaning out her room. I feel like I should make her apologize to the planet for the sheer volume of paper she has used over the last year or so. I'm also trying to smuggle out a few things before she gets back. I want her to give some of her "little kid" toys to her younger cousins. She also has more books than she needs. I called her the other day and asked her if we can give away her series of Muppet Babies books. "No," she sniffed. "I like to read them when I am alone." Seriously?  What a giver, that kid. The worst thing that's happened while sh...

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you . . . Gideon on bath day. He would rather be one of those one-eyed, matted homeless dogs in a commercial narrated by Sarah McLachlan than to endure bath day. Gretchen and Kaiser hop into the tub willingly. Gideon, not so much. First, I have to find him (as soon as my brain forms the thought "I should give the dogs a bath," he hides). Then, I have to lift him and carry him down the hall and into the bathroom. He somehow re-arranges his physical mass and adds roughly 410 pounds to his weight. Then I have to heave him into the tub while he actively tries to get back out. Eventually, he concedes the battle and then stands there forlornly while I make him smell purdy.

You may have seen a link to this article going around on Facebook a few days ago.  A lot of my friends were sharing it, particularly my childhood/high school friends . . . probably because we're all 43ish and the article describes many of us to a T. A few years ago, I was watching "So You Think You Can Dance" (don't judge me) and became enamored with a dancer named Phillip Chbeeb. He was really talented and had lips that kinda made me swoon a little.  I watched him dance and then at some point I came to the sad realization that . . . I am basically old enough to be his mother. I mean, he was born in 1988, the year I graduated high school, so, I mean, it's feasible. Every year I watch the show and the contestants stay the same age while I've morphed into an older (and apparently dirtier) old lady. :::sigh:::: Everything in the article is true, so true. While I do my best to avoid wearing pants with an elasticized waist, I will admit to having at least one ...

A dog sittin' on my kid. Ah, just like home. For the first couple of days our daughter was in Oklahoma, we didn't hear from her at all. I called to speak to her on Sunday but she was too busy swimming to talk. I was happy to hear that she was having a good time. On Monday, she went to the park and had ice cream and had all sorts of fun with her cousins. On Tuesday, the dam broke. Homesickness set in. Her dad and I spoke to her on the phone Tuesday evening.  She was practically morose. It was one of the hardest phone calls of my life. She cried and said she missed us. "We miss you, too, sweetie.  But, don't worry about us.  Just have fun!" Eventually, I needed to hang up and get ready for yoga, but that just made her cry harder. "Don't leave me, Mama!  Don't hang up, Mama!" This went on for quite a while until I convinced her that she should go help Aunt Craggy with dinner.  But oh man, that was one tough phone call.  I began to wonder...

So, my baby is in Oklahoma. Yes, I know she's eight and all. When she is 45 I will still call her "my baby." And when she is 13 as well . . . preferably very loudly and in front of all her friends. She and I left Friday night after work. We stayed in a hotel room (a couple hours from our house) so that we wouldn't have to drive all the way to the airport  in one fell swoop (around four hours total, depending on how bad traffic is).  Plus, we wanted to go swimming. After we checked in, I ran back down to the lobby to buy us some ice cream. When I got back to our room, I immediately noticed that her bottle of pink lemonade was sitting on the desk with about a third of it gone. "What happened?" I asked.  She confessed to spilling it.  The lemonade was all over the nightstand and on the floor, and she'd even managed to splash some of it on the wall behind the nightstand. "Why didn't you grab a towel and start mopping it up?" I asked her. ...

I've never been a huge "reality TV" fan but one little guilty pleasure I do have on my DVR is a show called "Extreme Weight Loss" (formerly called "Extreme Makeover: Weight Loss Edition").  Chris Powell strikes me as being a good trainer as well as being the sort of guy who would be downright pleasant if you met him in person. I like the way the show portrays an overweight person for an entire one-year journey - no quick fixes. A recent episode featured a pretty young woman named Meredith . Meredith was adopted as an infant and seemed to be very hung-up on it. She grew up in a loving family with two parents and a sister.  On the first day of the year-long transformation, Chris Powell took her on a run on the beach and Meredith collapsed almost immediately, crying and lamenting the fact that she was "given away on the first day of her life." Her pain was very real and I felt terrible for her. On the other hand, it was extremely obvious tha...

21 years ago today, I asked a super-cute jarhead to dance and when he walked me to my car, he said those fateful words to me.  He didn't tell me about the comic books, nor did he warn me that he's not even vaguely handy. But, we did have the same color car, so all was well. I still adore that brown-eyed boy. I

As you know, my OB/GYN made me mucho upset on Monday (and on every visit prior to that - if you have a particularly good memory, I complained about him back in 2010 ). I know, I know. It was stupid of me not to bail before now.  You know, you start thinking . . . well, this person has three degrees and I only have one, I'm probably an overly difficult patient, maybe it is supposed to be this way . . . There was one extra little bit of fun to be had at Monday's visit.  I went off the pill four years ago. I can't have children and I'm an old lady now, so I decided I didn't want to keep taking it. My body, my decision.  At Monday's visit, Dr. D asked me about not being on the pill. I didn't feel like arguing with him (since he's always right and I'm always wrong) so I simply said, "I just don't want to be on it." He said," So you'd be fine with a baby if it happened?" Again, not up for arguing. "Yes." Then c...

And yes, I actually sent this! *************************************************** Dear Dr. D, I’m sure it will not surprise you to learn that I will no longer count myself among your patients.  It may take me some time to find a new doctor, but I will call to have my records transferred at that time. When I first became pregnant back in 1999, Dr. S was my doctor. My pregnancy did not go well, almost from the start. I told him multiple times that I felt like something was wrong. He refused to grant me an ultrasound. “You’re a first-time mom,” he told me. “You’re supposed to worry! But, everything is fine.”  I miscarried at 13 weeks.  I do not think he could have stopped the miscarriage, but I know an ultrasound would have saved me many weeks of carrying a non-viable pregnancy.  So, I sought a new doctor.  Dr. K seemed like a good doctor at first.  However, on one of my subsequent miscarriages, she sent me to the hospital for an ultrasound.  I was told ...

We held a pet blessing service at my church yesterday. I took my boy Giddy along. During the service I read a piece I'd thrown together a day or two beforehand. So, I'll just cheat and share it here. What binds us to our non-human companions?    What do we seek in them?    I live with three dogs – two of my own plus a long-term foster dog.   They are all Boxers. I’ve also lived with cats for most of my life, until the passing of my cat Ella Fitzkitty last year.    The dogs, my clan of knuckleheads.   What can I say about them?   Well, for starters . . . they eat an awful lot and have expressed an occasional willingness to eat their own vomit. And by “occasional” I mean “every single time the opportunity arises.” They drink too much water and sometimes pee on the floor as a result.   They have floppy jowls and like to shake their heads, flinging tiny bits of food and unidentified goobers onto my walls. They emit waves of gas tha...

Lately I've been wondering if it is about time to start talking to my daughter about one of the worst things what will ever happen to her: menstruation. As much as she frustrates the bejeebers out of me with her inability refusal to turn off lights, comb her own hair, etc., there are signs that she is growing up. Last week, I took her grocery shopping with me. My preferred grocery store has good prices and a better-than-average selection of vegetarian stuff (also, a huge-ass liquor store). The bad news is that the store is about the size of a football field and it takes me the better part of two hours to work my way from one end to the other. Anywho, last week we were at the register and I realized I'd managed to forget milk. My kiddo volunteered to go and get it even though the milk section was as far from where we were as it could possibly be. "Okay," I said, a bit nervously. See, we drink almond milk. And not only that, it's a specific kind. Not unsweetened,...