It’s The Crazy That Makes Christmas So Fun

23 December 2010 by

Every once in awhile I’ll get an email from someone who mentions that they wish they could get along with their extended family as well as I get along with mine. And inevitably when I read those emails I throw my head back and CACKLE because OH MY WORD, NO. I mean, by and large we behave and love each other and enjoy some good times, but don’t think for one second we don’t have our issues. Because people, we have some issues. Like everybody else we get through them as best we can, but I don’t blog about a lot of that stuff because so far I haven’t really gotten any requests from family members asking if I would please discuss all of our junk WITH THE INTERNET. Plus, I want to remember the fun times and the happy times and the times when we laughed until we hurt.

In other words, I don’t necessarily need a blog post that chronicles the time that David and I went to a Chinese buffet with my parents, and after D went back for seconds my mama surveyed his plate and said – without a hint of irony – “OH MY WORD LOOK AT ALL THAT FOOD YOU’RE GOING TO DIE.”

My husband, he was somewhat aggravated by the buffet-related judgment. As you might imagine.

But we worked through it, just like all families work through countless other tense and/or awkward and/or hurtful moments with the people who are nearest and dearest. There’s no question that there’s a whole lot of refining that takes place in families, especially around the holidays. Just because I don’t write about it doesn’t mean we’re unfamiliar with that sort of stuff. We just try our best to deal with it and move on without recording it on the internet for posterity’s (and Google’s) sake.

So, all that being said, I’ll now say this: we really and truly had a blast with D’s family last night. It was blissfully drama-free, completely relaxed – and it’s a night that’ll make me smile for a really long time.

(The jacket! It’s just DARRRRRRRRRLIN’!)

This morning we had a last minute change-o-plans when our friend Todd called to say that their little girl was running a fever (bless her), so we postponed that trip and decided to run by and say goodbye to my aunt C before we headed home. We’d been at her house about fifteen minutes when my cousin Paige and her little boy stopped by, and my aunt asked if she could take all of us to lunch. Since we were feeling all devil-may-care-ish in terms of our schedule, we said yes and enjoyed a great lunch where I felt like I saw approximately half of the people I have ever known. And really, it was only about ten people, but when you live in a bigger city, you forget what it’s like to be in a small town where you know people EVERY SINGLE PLACE you go – I don’t typically run into my childhood pediatrician and his sweet wife at the salad bar, after all.

After lunch we made a trip with Martha, Rose and our niece to the nursing home to see Sissie. At first she seemed to be having trouble hearing us, and Martha was insistent that a little hearing aid device that was stored in Sissie’s dresser might help. But then she realized that the battery in the hearing aid thing-y was dead, so she took matters into her own hands by putting her face approximately a quarter inch away from Sissie’s ear and saying, “Mother? Can you hear? Can you hear, Mother? Sugar, can you hear? Can you hear us, darlin’?” And after about the eighth time that Martha asked, Sissie whipped her head around and said, “I CAN HEAR, MARTHA! I CAN HEAR!”

I laughed so hard that I had to clap my hands.

We gave Sissie her Christmas present, which was a really cute lime green zip-up jacket and pants. I bought that particular outfit because a couple of months ago Martha was FIT TO BE TIED that the nursing home had lost the top to Sissie’s turquoise velour track suit. She talked about that lost turquoise top ALL THE TIME WITHOUT STOPPING EVER, to the point that if you drove to my hometown, got out of the car, walked up to a total stranger and said, “Turquoise velour track suit,” the stranger would say, “Didn’t Martha tell you? THE NURSING HOME LOST THE TOP.” Oh sweet mercy. As a general rule I try to laugh and go with the flow as far as Martha’s various and sundry obsessions are concerned, but that turquoise velour track suit nearly exhausted every bit of my patience. In fact, the last time that Martha was at our house and was talking about that turquoise velour track suit for the 74th time, I said, “Martha? I think Sissie is going to be just fine without that turquoise velour top for her track suit. Because do you know what? SHE’S ONE HUNDRED YEARS OLD. A MATCHING TRACK SUIT IS SORT OF THE LEAST OF HER WORRIES AT THIS POINT.”

I’m happy to tell you that my attempt at perspective did not one iota of good.

Anyway, Martha was beyond tickled that we got Sissie an ensemble that was similar to the turquoise one (DID YOU KNOW THAT THE NURSING HOME LOST THE TOP?), and nothing would do but for her to describe it to Sissie in great detail: “MOTHER! FEEL THIS FABRIC! AND DO YOU SEE THE SPARKLIES? IT HAS A FEW LITTLE SPARKLIES! AND YOU’RE GOING TO BE THE PRETTIEST PERSON HERE! THE PRETTIEST PERSON! AND YOU NEED MORE COTTON OUTFITS, MOTHER! YOU NEED MORE COTTON!”

Sissie’s response?

“Okay.”

And I think she may have rolled her eyes.

It made all of us so happy.

One last thing: when Martha got to the nursing home, I told her how cute she looked because, well, she looked really cute. So she did a little pivot turn so I could see her whole outfit (I think it goes without saying that she was wearing a jacket from Steinmart), and she said, “Do you like my new jeans?”

BegyourpardonImusthavemisunderstooddidyousayjeans?

About that time D said, “Are you wearing DENIM?”

And she was! She was wearing denim! For the first time since I have known her, which is basically for my whole entire life, Martha was wearing denim. She bought a pair of Not Your Daughter’s Jeans, and they were GREAT-looking. So cute on her. So sassy. And so perfect with her brown corduroy jacket.

It was big fun for all.

And then we drove home.

And we said, “I CAN HEAR, MARTHA!” approximately seventeen times.

Merry Christmas, everybody!

Filed Under: Family Fun

Not-Sew-Crafty

6 December 2010 by

I have so much on my heart from this past weekend, which was sort of an overwhelming smorgasbord of joy and love and conviction and laughter, but before I can even think about trying to dive into all that, I have to tell y’all something that happened this past Friday.

A few weeks ago the little man’s sweet teacher sent home a couple of different notes about various and sundry craft-related requirements that were coming up. There are few things in life that I despise (YES. I SAID “DESPISE.” BECAUSE I MEAN IT.) more than a craft, what with all that cutting and pinning and gluing and glittering. I don’t mind painting, but if you start to bring in ITEMS THAT MUST BE ASSEMBLED, I’m out. SHUT ‘ER DOWN. Mama’s done.

The first crafty requirement was that A. needed 350 strips of 1 x 6 inch fabric for a rag wreath that his class is making. I am not kidding you when I say that I must have read the rag wreath information sheet at least five times to make sure that I wasn’t seeing the numbers incorrectly. 350? THREE HUNDRED FIFTY? PIECES OF FABRIC? It made me want to throw things, mainly because I can’t stand doing anything that requires lots of measurement or precision. For example, I like to cook because it’s not an exact science, and I’ll bake the occasional cake, but I avoid intricate, multi-step dessert recipes like the plague. I much prefer cranking my car and driving down the hill to the grocery store and buying something from the bakery there. Because if a recipe calls for something like ALTERNATING SPRINKLE COLORS? OR CUTTING 100 MINIATURE MARSHMALLOWS IN HALF? OR PIPING ICING?

Well, the truth of the matter is that I’m probably going to need a nerve pill. And what’s the fun of serving your family a platter of very detailed petit fours if the stress of it all requires you to lie down for several hours afterwards?

Thanksgiving Day I told Sister about how I had to cut out 350 pieces of fabric, and she said, “Oh, I’ll do that for you!” I could not believe my good fortune, and I was so relieved that I wasn’t going to have to, you know, MEASURE THINGS that I didn’t even try to politely decline her kind offer. So we went to the fabric store the next day, and after I twitched my way through the selection of an appropriate Christmas-themed fabric, we went back to the house – where Sister promptly did some math and marked off some stuff and knocked out those 350 strips in all of thirty minutes.

I don’t know when I’ve ever been more grateful.

However, the fabric strips were just the beginning. Because the little man was also going to need a red cape for his role as a Roman solider in the Christmas program. Sister and I actually went back to the fabric store the day after she cut out all the strips (two trips to the fabric store in one week? I am ALL GOOD until, I don’t know, 2013-ish), and I bought a yard of red fleece. I figured fleece was a good choice since I wouldn’t have to actually sew it, and then I took it home and pulled it out of the bag and stared at it. And then it taunted me for the next five days.

This past Wednesday I knew I had to make the cape, already. Dress rehearsal was Thursday, and I couldn’t very well let my little soldier be the only child who wasn’t properly costumed. So I grabbed a cape we already had – I believe it was of the Darth Vader variety – and I spread it out very carefully on top of the fleece fabric. I EVEN PINNED IT, Y’ALL. I used the Darth Vader cape as a template or pattern or whatever you call it for the Roman soldier cape. I cut around it very carefully, sweating bullets every step of the way, and when I finished I was understandably relieved. Pleased, even. The only little question mark in the back of my head was what the length of the cape should be, but since I had a very cloudy memory of watching Julius Caesar that involved some soldier-type people wearing shorter capes, I aimed for something about waist-length. I even used Google to confirm my decision.

Well.

Friday morning D and I went to Alex’s school for the big program. We sat exactly where the little man had asked us to sit – so that he would walk right past us on his way up to the stage – and right after the music started, D nudged me and said, “There he is!” I looked to my right, and sure enough, there was my sweet baby boy who’s really not a baby at all anymore and who’s actually the second-tallest young’un in his class and who’s going to be 40 before I know it. I smiled at him, waved just a little bit, and reflected on the passage of time. I may have even hummed “Sunrise, Sunset.” It was a Moment.

About that time I noticed that D’s shoulders were shaking and that he seemed to be having a little trouble regulating his breathing. I looked at him to see what was going on, and y’all, he was SO TICKLED – sort of venturing into the kind of laughter where you start to wheeze a little bit. I couldn’t imagine what in the world had happened, but then D pointed in the direction of our child, and I knew. As soon as I saw his back, I knew.

His cape was a full foot and a half shorter than everyone else’s. All the other boys had on these long, flowing, dramatic red capes, and our precious seven year-old looked like he’d been cast in the lead role of “Little Red Riding Hood.”

HIS MAMA’S GOT SKILLS.

D and I were laughing so hard that it felt like our whole row was shaking. And just as I was starting to regain my composure, D leaned over and said, “It really wasn’t so much a cape as it was a CAPELET, really” – which started the shoulder-shaking all over again. It was priceless and perfect and completely fitting given my history of craft-related failure. I’m just as sorry as I can be that our offspring had to bear the burden of his mama’s shortcomings.

The good news is that A had absolutely no idea about the unfortunate length of his cape. He was as enthusiastic a Roman soldier as you’ve ever seen. And when the play was over, he walked off the stage, grinned like crazy, and gave us a confident thumbs up. He had rocked that capelet like nobody’s business.

He’s even been wearing it at home. Apparently it’s easier to stage light saber battles when there’s no risk of your cape getting tangled in the weaponry.

See? I knew exactly what I was doing.

EXACTLY.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go work some more crafty magic. There are some handmade Christmas ornaments that I need to ruin.

Time’s a wastin’.

Filed Under: Family Fun, Oh Howard

Hail, Dear Old State (And TJ Maxx, Too)

28 November 2010 by

As some of you may remember, I nearly died last week during the Mississippi State / Arkansas game.

Oh, not dead dead. Just sorta kinda dead.

No need for alarm, of course. I bounced back beautifully.

Anyway, since the game against Arkansas was a bit of a heartbreaker, I was apprehensive at best about our game against Ole Miss. The Bulldogs really needed to win if we wanted to stay in the running for the Chick-fil-a bowl in Atlanta, and I’ve got enough years as a Bulldogs fan under my belt to know that things tend to get tricky for us when there’s some sort of pressure attached to a game.

And then there was the fact that the last time we played in Oxford, the Rebels beat us something like 104-2. Or maybe it was 45-0. Regardless, IT WAS SOMEWHAT EMBARRASSING.

I tried not to think about the game too much Saturday morning, and it helped that Sister and I spent a chunk of the day running errands. I had to get fabric for a couple of the little man’s school projects, and OH SWEET MERCY I may just lose my mind with the crafts. Put me in just about any situation that involves cutting fabric, and odds are that I eventually will find a small, private corner where I can assume the fetal position and weep at will. Thank goodness that Sister was here to stand in the crafty gap for me. I can’t imagine what my pre-game mental state would have been without her help.

Anyway, Sister and I were on our way home from the errands when we decided to make a quick stop at TJ Maxx. I don’t have a huge fondness for the TJ Maxx in our neck of the woods because I never seem to find anything there. I mean, I’ll occasionally find a deal, but they seem few and far between when you consider that I could walk into the TJ Maxx by Sister’s house in Nashville and find six red-hot deals within five minutes of entering the store. Maybe my TJ Maxx just gets picked over more quickly? Or maybe it’s part of a different distribution center? Or maybe I’m overthinking the nuances of TJ Maxx shopping and need to get back to the point of this post already?

Yes. That last thing.

Well.

We wandered back to the home stuff, mainly just to kill a little time before we headed back to my house before the State game. And when I turned down the third or fourth aisle, this little fella caught my eye:

Our mascot? Walking upright in a sea of red? At a TJ Maxx in Birmingham, Alabama that never has one bit of Mississippi State stuff since it is always FILLED TO THE BRIM with Alabama and Auburn merchandise?

YOU CAN’T TELL ME THAT IT WASN’T A SIGN.

In all seriousness, though, Sister and I did our best not to assign more meaning to that little Bulldog than what he deserved, and once the surprise of the initial Bulldog sighting wore off, I really didn’t think much more of it. After we looked around about 15 more minutes, we figured we probably should wrap up our Maxx-ing, so we started making our way to the front of the store.

But then this stopped me dead in my tracks.

YES MA’AM.

As you might imagine, I gasped.

It was, as best I could tell, the only one in the store. And while I was standing there trying to figure out what it might mean, WHAT COULD IT ALL MEAN, Sister tapped my shoulder and pointed at something across the aisle.

Clearly the Lord had decided to speak to us through t-shirts. I mean, it was like an Egg Bowl showdown right there in the middle of the casual knitwear.

We stood there for a few seconds, looking from the State shirt to the Ole Miss shirt to the State shirt to the Ole Miss shirt (I guess we thought that at some point the shirts were going to have words? Or a football from sporting goods was going to jump in the mix and the two shirts could battle it out in the parking lot?), and eventually my eye settled on a red tag on the Ole Miss shirt. About that time Sister said, “LOOK!” while she held up the very same tag.

The Ole Miss shirt was on sale. The State shirt wasn’t. WHAT COULD IT ALL MEAN?

And that’s not all. Because if you look even more closely at the tag, you can see two telltale words:

“PAST SEASON.”

Let that settle in for a few seconds, my friends.

“PAST SEASON.”

What happened this past season? Well, the Bulldogs beat the Rebels 41-27 in the Egg Bowl. THAT’S what happened this past season.

Let me guess: cold chills just ran down your spine.

I mean, HAVE YOU EVER?

Sister and I laughed about the whole thing while we stood in the checkout line, but we were definitely still nervous about the game. Once we got back to my house and cooked supper, everybody settled in for the Egg Bowl (Sister and I may or may not have watched from separate rooms, but I’ll save that tale of our collective crazy for another day). We cheered and hollered and clapped for three hours, and do you know what happened?

The Bulldogs won. 31-23.

The Egg Bowl trophy stays in Starkville.

photo by Keith Warren

AND THE TJ MAXX KNEW IT ALL ALONG.

Go ‘Dogs.

Filed Under: Beloved Bulldogs, Family Fun

The Battle Of The Badges

19 November 2010 by

I knew that motherhood would bring its share of challenges.

Sleepless nights.

Potty training.

Terrible threes (I don’t care what anybody says; the twos have NOTHING on the threes).

First day of kindergarten.

Etc. and so on and so forth amen.

But I have to say: nothing – NOTHING – could have prepared me for a challenge I’ve faced over the last couple of months. It blindsided me – hit me out of the blue – and even now the mere thought of it makes my heart race and fills me with a lingering sense of dread.

I’m talking, of course, about Cub Scout badges.

OH MY WORD INTERNET WHY DIDN’T YOU WARN ME?

Now granted, I don’t really know how to sew. Even still, I felt certain that I could attach the little guy’s badges to his uniform before his first den meeting. But just in case I couldn’t – JUST IN CASE – I made sure that I had a back-up plan. And my back up plan was an industrial-size pack of safety pins.

After ONE HOUR of trying to sew on badges that are apparently made of an impenetrable material that can only be attached to fabric with a hammer and nails, I managed to tack on the smaller badges and run a single three-inch long stitch across the biggest badge. I knew that the badges wouldn’t hold for long, but since I didn’t have a drill and/or a set of grommets nearby, I decided that I’d try to use the safety pins.

The safety pins, however, were completely uncooperative. I tried to push them through, only to watch them bend into unrecognizable shapes. I’m sure that a more experienced seamstress could have made those safety pins submit, but all I could seem to get them to do was to jab my thumb and and consequently make me VERY ANGRY.

Despite my frustration, I was bound and determined that THE BADGES, THEY WOULD NOT BEAT ME, and that is why I sent my child to his first scouting event with badges that were attached to his sleeves with a tiny bit of thread and an obnoxious amount of Scotch tape. We like to keep things klassy, you understand.

REMEMBER: I DO NOT KNOW HOW TO OPERATE A NEEDLE.

The badges survived the first few meetings (I KNOW!), but tonight I knew that I had to step it up a notch. The biggest badge was just about to fall off, so I took a deep breath, grabbed my box of safety pins and summoned all of my courage. It was time for action.

And do you know what happened? DO YOU KNOW?

SUCCESS!

I don’t want to overstate it, but I’m pretty sure that it’s the crowning achievement of my life as a mama.

I don’t know when I’ve ever been more proud.

Filed Under: Family Fun

It Wasn’t Pretty, But It Was Fun

24 October 2010 by

I’ll go ahead and warn you that I’ve started this post about six times and have either dozed off or lost interest every single time.

This probably doesn’t bode well.

But for whatever reason, I’ve spent most of the day wondering how in the world I didn’t notice that someone was flogging me with wet towels last night while I slept. I woke up with a right eye that was almost completely swollen shut (silly allergies) and have been achy and sore and sinus-y and drowsy all day long. So basically I’ve been a joy and a delight. A ray of sunshine, if you will.

So. On to happy things!

Saturday we drove over to Starkville to see the Bulldogs play, and a fine time was had by all. Mississippi State has really thrown down the game day gauntlet over the last two or three years, and it is SUCH a fun environment – laid-back and festive all at the same time. It’s a little bit like being at a huge family picnic with 50,000 people, but because of the way the tailgating is laid out, it never feels overwhelming or overly crowded. We love it so much. At one point Saturday I looked to my left and saw big inflatables for the kids, looked to my right and saw a blues duo singing and playing guitars underneath a big oak tree, looked straight ahead and saw tailgating tents that trailed way off into the distance – and I thought, “Well, this is just home.”

And it is. It’s our home away from home.

We walked over to the front of the stadium about an hour before Dawg Walk (when the players walk through the crowd on their way into the stadium), and while we were waiting for the festivities to start I got a little tickled looking at some of the day’s ambitious Homecoming fashion choices. I for one cannot throw stones because when I was a sophomore at State I wore an all-wool ensemble to a game where the temperatures hovered in the 70s, so more than anything I just sat there and felt great empathy for the girls who had decided that the football game was the perfect place to break in their boots with four-inch heels and their sweater coats. Several of the girls had opted for shorter dresses since it was warm outside, but the wind was unkind, and I watched more than one girl walk across The Junction while holding onto her hemline for dear life. Sometimes the weather just doesn’t cooperate with our fashion goals.

We had a big time at Dawg Walk, and the highlight was right at the end when I saw a familiar face coming toward us. A family friend of ours walked on to the football team at the beginning of the semester, and it had never occurred to me that he’d be participating in Dawg Walk and all the pre-game revelry. But there he was, walking toward the stadium with the rest of the team, and when Alex saw him he started to wave and jump up and down. Our friend spotted him and made a point to stop and give him a big hug – and it was about the sweetest part of our day. Alex thought he was the luckiest seven year-old alive. Such a great moment.

The little guy also got to hang out with a very big Bulldog.

Afterwards we headed over to the spot where my friend Daphne and her family tailgate, and it was fun – as always – just to sit around and visit and solve the world’s problems. Alex adores Daphne – ADORES HER – and as a result of that the tailgate tent is one of his favorite places on earth. This may be in part because Daph fixes him plates of pigs in a blanket and sausage balls and Little Debbie Fudge Rounds, but I think it’s mostly because he knows that Daphne loves him and he just loves her right back. Makes me smile.

At the game we sat with our sweet friends The Hales, and I will confess that by the end of the first quarter I was ill as a hornet. We weren’t playing well, the game was boring, and I was afraid that we were in for a big ole letdown. Right before halftime Emma Kate walked down to our seats, and we tried really, really hard to be optimistic about our chances. Plus, every time I would say something about our defense giving up big plays or our offense not being very productive, the seven year-old sitting next to me would say something like, “Mama! They’re doing the best they can!” or “Mama! Be glad that they got a first down!” I wanted to tell him that his mama has a looooong history of watching Mississippi State football games that End Badly, but his enthusiasm got the better of me.

So we cheered and clapped and rang our cowbell, and what do you know – the Bulldogs won the game. They’re bowl eligible for the first time in three years, and we’re just as proud as we can be.

[insert ringing cowbell sound here]

[you’ll just have to pretend]

[I don’t have a recording of a cowbell handy]

More than anything, it was a great day with family and friends (I got to see Wendi, Elise and Tracey, too!). We had a blast (thanks, Barb!). And even though I’m a wee bit worse for the wear (thanks, sinuses!), my heart is full and happy.

So if you’ll excuse me, my full, happy heart and I are going to bed. After all, it’s been three whole hours since we’ve had a nap.

Go ‘Dogs.

Filed Under: Beloved Bulldogs, Family Fun

He’ll Be Here All Week

8 October 2010 by

Yesterday afternoon the little man greeted me with a joke when I picked him up from school:

What did Tarzan say when he saw the elephants coming over the hill?”

*dramatic pause*

He said, “Hey! Here come the elephants!”

I laughed until I cried. Clearly we share an appreciation for the obvious in our family.

I’m heading to Nashville today to do a little dekky-ratin’ with Sister, which means there are a whole bunch of trips to Home Goods, TJ Maxx and World Market on the immediate horizon.

And that reminds me.

A couple of weeks ago when Alex and I were in Nashville, we ended up staying in World Market for somewhere between four to sixteen hours. The seven year-old was DONE after about eleven minutes, so I told him he could sit down a few feet away from Sister and me and play Doodle Jump on my iPod.

Here is how I found him about fifteen minutes later.

Oh, he’s a card.

Oh, I love him.

Hope y’all have a great weekend!

Filed Under: Family Fun, Rambling
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