Tail Between My Legs

Stop. Close your eyes. Do you feel it? Do you know what that is? Yes, you are right. It's the Earth spinning backwards on its axis. I have a confession to make, and with my head bowed and my tail between my legs, I will admit it. I bought a Kindle today. Most who know me would admit that it would be more likely to see the Chick-fil-A cows holding "Eat More Hamburgers" signs than it would be for me to read from anything other than a real book, magazine, or newspaper. Other than the occasional stain that I can't identify as being blood, something from someone's nose, or spaghetti sauce, there is absolutely NOTHING I don't love about tangible books.Yes, it has been me who has been the anti-technology queen. I rant and rave about video games and the downfall of our children. I have been known to take away my child's DS for months at a time. The horrible result? He played more basketball outside and read even more books. Is it a coincidence that as we get XBoxes, and DSi's, and texting becomes more popular, our childhood obesity problem grows? I don't think so. I think kids should be skipping rocks and riding bikes, not figuring out how to beat the top score on Mario. I've always considered myself old school on so many things. So for me to get a Kindle was a really hypocritical move.
      I was possibly the last person to get any sort of iPod, and I still have less than 100 songs on it anyway. I was in the Mayfield High School class of 1990, the last class able to graduate without having to take a computer class. Needless to say, when I got to college English 101 and we all had PC's, I almost hyperventilated. I was one of the last to get a Smartphone, and got my first iPhone this Christmas. I still don't really understand how to work apps. And was embarrassed that just today I had to ask my husband to fully explain Wifi to me. I even used to pronounce it wrong, thinking it might be called "wiffy." I am like one of those little old women who thinks milk should still be delivered to your door or that they don't make good movies like they used to. And I know that to those of you who know me, who know how much I LOVE the smell of books, the texture of the pages, perusing the library or book stores, and who know that 2nd & Charles is like the mother ship calling me home---I must explain. 
     Sometimes I look on the computer for psychological thrillers that interest me. In the past few weeks, I have come across two books with wonderful reviews that I desperately want to read. Imagine my horror when I found out THEY DON'T COME IN A TANGIBLE FORM! This absolutely horrified me! Like some science fiction chapter out of Farenheit 451  from my junior year that seemed so futuristic it was ridiculous. A book that you can't hold even if you want to??? HATE it.
     But what has always driven my love of books is curiosity. Sometimes when I walk into a big old library or even a bookstore, it's almost as if the books are whispering to me (no, I haven't been drinking), "Read me." You know how some books can change your life? Or change your way of thinking? Just one line in a book, any kind of book, can help you learn something about yourself. And after that, everything is different. Well, just the mere idea that there is a book out there that I can't read unless I have some sort of e-reader greatly troubled me. It troubled me enough to actually buy one of the darn things.
     So after Facebooking everyone for their opinions, reading online reviews, and sitting on the floor of Barnes and Noble like I was in some sort of trance, I finally broke down and bought a Kindle. I bought the cheapest, most basic Kindle they have. The reason for this is because for the occasional times I have to read from my Kindle, that means I want to get lost in a book, with no distractions. I didn't want the frills. When I am reading I want to lose myself. I don't want to know if I have an e-mail or a Facebook post. I want to think I am Clarisse about to catch Hannibal Lecter.
     And no matter how much I start to LIKE my Kindle. I will never LOVE it like I love actual books. I even bought two hardback new releases today just to prove I'm not a complete traitor:)

Whew, can I breathe now?

Well, we all have this idea of how Christmas is supposed to go. And I don't really know why, because does it EVER go that way? Don't get me wrong, I'm not being negative. To me, a predictable life is a boring life. However, sometimes things really go differently than we plan. My family came for five days and we had a wonderful time. On the morning my family left, my husband's family arrived. I had a huge meal prepared, and everything was going perfectly...perhaps too perfectly. My feelers should have gone up. It started when my husband's daughter called to tell us that her three-year-old had thrown up in the car. They thought she was carsick, but made a little pit stop just to be sure. For those of you who don't know me, vomiting is one of the number one things that freaks me out. The reason for this is because if I ever vomit, I can't stop. My husband (Ed) says I remind him of a cocker spaniel he once had. If I get sick once, you can guarantee it is going to happen every thirty minutes until you almost have to take me to the hospital for dehydration. I remember one time when my son was two he caught a stomach virus. I gave him a bowl while he sat on the floor just wretching repeatedly. I knew I should be sitting there stroking his hair and holding him, but I was totally frozen just standing there watching him vomit into a bowl on the kitchen floor. Not my finest moment.
The wimpy side of me was thinking, "He seems to be doing a pretty good job by himself." At that moment I felt like the worst mom in the world. And I have bucked up since then and held my children while they throw up, and I've also cleaned up my fair share of vomit. But on that one night, I was a very bad mom, all because of my irrational fear of vomiting. But if you vomit like a cocker spaniel with a bad gag reflex, then maybe it's not all that irrational. Anyhow, back to Christmas, it all ended up simply being car sickness, so that catastrophe was averted. So half the family would have to heat up my Christmas dinner on my new dishes in the microwave. No big deal. I could handle that. It wouldn't be Christmas at Martha Stewart's, but
it wouldn't be a National Lampoon Christmas either.
     But then, making a long story short, my husband's mom had some very scary symptoms at the dinner table, we had to call 911 in the middle of dinner, and she had to be taken to the nearest hospital by ambulance. I won't go into details, but I am happy to say she is fine, and it wasn't anything serious. But with her in the hospital for two nights, a house full of children that we really couldn't take to do anything fun
because we were waiting on doctors for some answers who made us endlessly wait and wait, and three dogs in the house of different sizes and energy levels, I will say that the weekend was anything but calm.
    And proving that you never know what is going to happen from one minute to the next, in the midst of all of this, I got a random e-mail from a New York agent who is interested in my children's book that I have been trying to publish. After reading that e-mail I should have been screaming and shouting and jumping on the roof, and I am truly excited. This could be my dream coming true! But after getting rejection letters, I think you get really gun shy until you know something is a "for sure" thing. So for now I am just going to be cautiously optomistic:)
   So basically, though the weekend did not go at all as planned, there is so much for which to be thankful. Ed's mom is okay, and that is wonderful. This may be the big break I have been looking for with my book. No one got sick over Christmas. And we were all together.
   Did I plan on helping pull part of a stringy dog toy out of a dog's bottom? Of course not. Did I plan on paramedics sitting at the dinner table in the middle of the meal? No way. But it probably led to one of the best physical's Ed's mom has ever had, and that's a good thing. Did I plan on having insomnia until 3 a.m. last night because I was so exhausted and stressed out? Nope. But on the bright side, I had forgotten how incredibly fantastic Tom Selleck looked in those old reruns of Friends. I also never expected to eat so many toffee bars that I have gained about four pounds in the past week. And I absolutely never expected to be contacted by a literary agent. Especially not in the midst of all the madness. So it truly does go to show that anything, everything can change at a moment's notice. Is that scary? Absolutely. And as they always say, you can't appreciate the good without the bad. And sometimes the good and bad even happen at the same time. And I know everyone has different opinions, but over predictablility and monotony, I will take the scary roller coaster of life any day. Sometimes we just have to hold on tighter than we thought.

Until next time,
Melissa

Round Two!

     Second blog update, and I still haven't a clue as to what I am doing. I suppose I will treat this like a journal or diary. However, rather than Diary of a Wimpy Kid, it will be more like Diary of a Neurotic Mom of Two Who Would Like to Lose Ten Pounds but Refuses to get on the Treadmill...or something like that.  Though now it might be more like 15 pounds. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE all of the goodies that people make during Christmas, and if the food is in my house I am certainly going to eat it. I wouldn't want to offend anyone. This year when I was with a group of my girlfriends I sort of made a public service announcement. I told them I would NOT be making them any candy, so please don't feel like they needed to make me anything. That is when I was informed that there are many who actually ENJOY making 14 different types of goodies.  I decided to make this announcement last year when people kept popping up at my door with the most beautiful arrangements. Homemade fudge, numerous goodies in a basket or on a beautiful ceramic candy cane plate (was I supposed to actually keep that plate?) and a book tucked in there for each child. This sort of made my pretzels dipped in white chocolate on a paper plate secured with Press and Seal seem rather lame. So this year I made nothing to deliver. Nada. I still got the delicious goodies, five more pounds of muffin top, and now I feel even more lame for not reciprocating. And the one who gave me the most goodies is the same one who gave me a thong for a Dirty Santa present...I think a theme is emerging. Seriously, we all complain about gaining weight during the holidays. Shouldn't we be delivering a six-pack of Slim-Fast and a bottle of Tums instead? In all seriousness, I appreciate the goodies immensely. I'm a southern girl and food is a sign of love. I'm going to start planning something for next year that is going to blow their socks off. And maybe if I can make all my friends bigger, I will look smaller. I could be on to something.

I hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas with your families. Some of you are probably giving a big sigh of relief that now you can finally relax, while others are getting ready for Round Two with the other side of the family. I happen to be in the latter category, which is why I just made three dishes to stick in the fridge for tomorrow and why I am awake and fidgety. We had a wonderful Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. We had a wonderful Prime Rib prepared by my grandmother or "Gram" for dinner, and then we all gathered around for a story about baby Jesus, a story about our Christmas elf, and The Night Before Christmas. Of course during The Night Before Christmas there were vomiting noises made while "threw up the sash" was read. Okay, and yes, it was actually me making the noises. But it's a family tradition. My cousin and I began doing that years ago after we got struck with the stomach virus for two Christmases. Is it immature? Yes. But I'm 39, and it's still quite funny. All in all it was a pretty "Normal Rockwell-ish" evening, other than the fact that my four-year-old kept talking like a gangster for no reason I could determine, and he also became fascinated by something in the elf story and blurted out "Dang," in front of my grandparents. My seven-year-old is over the "reading out loud" thing, so he spiced things up with different accents, but other than that, things were pretty calm. They awoke early Christmas morning, we all went to see what Santa had brought, and everyone was happy. But right after the last present was opened, something sort of odd happened. While sitting on the couch, I passed right out on top of the dog for almost two hours. I'm not talking about a normal nap. I mean the kind where one minute you are awake and the next you are out like you have been given some sort of narcotic. I wouldn't be surprised if drooling was involved. All I can figure, which I am sure is common with most moms, is that I was mentally and physically DONE. All the shopping, all the preparation, wrapping, planning, Christmas cards, cooking, etc., and we CAN'T stop. No matter how tired we get or how bad that sinus infection gets, Christmas is still coming. So we go and go and go, until we collapse. And I suppose that's what I did today.  So for all of you who have happy kids playing with their new toys, and you can now kick back and relax...congratulations and job well done! Relax and enjoy the fact that there is nothing you have to do. (It's totally acceptable for Christmas decor to stay up until January 1.) And for the rest of us...let's get crackin'!!! But I do think a glass of wine might be involved in tomorrow's celebration:)

Merry Christmas everyone!
Melissa 

Who Am I Kidding?

Well, I've finally done it. I've started a blog. Do I have any clue what I am doing? Heck no. It always seemed pretty presumptuous to me. Like why would anyone give a rip about the mundane things I, or anyone else does, from day to day? But then it hit me. I have to do it for me, even if no one ever reads it. I have to do it because writing is who I am. And if someone happens to read it and suddenly feels like they aren't the only one who has no idea what they are doing in motherhood, or in life for that matter, then that makes it even better. It's around Christmas time that everyone reflects on the year, what they have done, and who they are. It's a time to pull up our boot straps, and try (once again) to be better. One thing I always vow to do is stop raising my voice around my children. But I usually have already screwed that one up around 9:30 a.m. And if you are a mom of two young boys and have managed to conquer this, then PLEASE let me in on the secret. Most days I feel like I need blood pressure medication. I think we all try to revamp our lives around Christmas time. Who doesn't want to be a little Martha Stewart-ish? Today I played board games with the kids, made cookies with the kids, and made a craft with the kids. But here is the REAL story. The cookie making was a disaster. Four generations gathered around my kitchen counter turned into National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. The dough was too sticky. Our huge dog jumped on the counter and bit the misshapen doughy head off of the snowman cookie, and while in the oven ALL of the cookies merged together like some mutation from Chernobyl. Martha Stewart I am not. Then, I will confess this, I hate (yes, I said hate) doing crafts with the kids. I am a perfectionist, and nothing bothers me more than trying to stand there and act like everything is okay when all I really want to do is rip the spoon from their little hands and do it all myself. One time I had to leave the room and pace around the house while my son did an "All About Me" project when he was in Kindergarten. I was one step away from having to breathe into a brown paper sack. So tonight we did a craft from Pinterest that involved paint and footprints. The only way I am still functioning is because all they had to do was let me paint their feet and then step onto a canvas. But it is 12:08, and I am still up working on it. That should pretty much tell you everything you need to know. My house is a mess, laundry is piling up, and none of that bothers me. But this craft of baby Jesus in the manger will be perfect before I hit the hay. Oh, and a snack too. AND I suppose the elf should do something really fantastic tonight. Does anyone else want to duct tape the maker of Christmas elves to a chair in a closet with only one lightbulb? Sorry, I am digressing. As perfect as I, or maybe even you, want things to be, it's not those moments that you will remember. You won't remember the time you made perfectly round sugar cookies with the kids, but you will remember the dog biting off the head of the snowman and everyone laughing as they realized that all of the cookies turned into one giant, disturbing cookie disaster. I'll remember my son building a Lego Whitehouse with my grandfather, and I will remember watching our dog playing with some arugula salad on the den carpet as one of our forms of entertainment for the evening. The perfect things I won't remember. It's our uniqueness that we remember. And unique is what we should all strive to be. Not perfection. Perfection is not possible anyway. So why are killing ourselves trying?