I received an email from my angel mother today. So did ten other people.
She was feeling sad. Her baby has just graduated from the sixth grade. Do you know what that means?
For "thirty-two consecutive years" my mother has had a child (usually several children) in elementary school.
Thirty-two years!!! Think of it! I'm sure--even with my wild imagination--I don't fully comprehend the long race that represents.
Nightly reading packets to sign, class parties, multiplication memorization, state reports, class plays with poor sound systems, morning rush to the bus, book reports, sack lunches with heart felt notes written on napkins, clean clothes and well-coifed hair before 7 am, after school snacks, states and capitals, parent-teacher conferences, Hope of America, lost library books, teacher appreciation week, spelling lists, geography bees, art projects, forgotten books and lunches. . .
Years upon years of hurdle after hurdle, one foot in front of the other, one step at a time.
And when she finished the race, there were no camera crews, no medals, no cash prizes.
Just eleven children in the stand, cheering, applauding, praising her blessed, blessed name.
For those eleven children, her thirty-two years made ALL the difference.
Her efforts, sacrifice, tears, and love that went into those many, many. . .many sleep deprived years will go largely unheralded by the world.
But isn't that the way of it for angels?
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
He's turned them all.
Don't get me wrong. I want to be a mother. The pursuit of raising our children to be happy, well-adjusted, intelligent, contributing adults is my life's labor.
Usually my husband backs me up on this. But sometimes, I feel as if Mom's training takes us one step forward and Dad's influence takes us two steps back.
For example, the other night, dinner began with me quizzing the children on the mnemonic devices for the Great Lakes and the planets in our solar system. We quickly digressed.
Faster than you can say "Brains!", our topics went from Lake Huron, to Pluto the un-planet, to the fog on the road today, to the perfect weather conditions for a zombie apocalypse.
"I hope the zombies don't come out," our seven-year-old son said in a grave, somber voice. He had experienced the low and quick-moving fog first hand, and I guess this translated to the inevitable zombie onslaught.
Dad admitted that it would indeed be bad if zombies came out, but snatching up the teaching moment, he assured our young brood with the plain facts.
"With zombies," he explained, "it all comes down to ammo. You have to have enough ammo to hold off the zombie hoard." And with a smirk on his face, he added, "We could hold off the zombie hoard for quite some time."
Oh, good, I thought. Since that's resolved, let's talk about my blooming dahlias.
Our seven-year-old then revealed his zombie slaying protocol. "I would just dress up like a zombie, pretend to be one of them, and then ambush them from behind."
"That would work. . .as long as they don't smell you," Dad pointed out.
Our oldest quickly offered the solution. "Just use zombie oderant."
Our oldest revealed his tactic. "I would use my bow and arrow."
Dad encouraged, "A bow and arrow is actually a great choice, because you can reuse an arrow to kill more zombies."
Our oldest daughter tried again, "Who wants to camp like a zombie?" But her question fell on deaf ears.
Then our seven-year-old son suggested another plan. "We should use our MAC 10."
"Well, if we did that," clarified Dad, "we wouldn't have it on fully automatic, because that would waste ammo."
Well, let's use some of it and just shoot me now.
Our daughter offered the final question, "Who wants to eat some Freddy?" At which, my young family joined in a rousing chorus of, "All we want to do is eat your brains!" My toddler and infant daughters laughed heartily at the joy of it all.
My first mistake was trying to raise intellects. I should've seen this coming. Smart brains are infinitely more nutritious and delicious than dumb brains.
So they say. I wouldn't know. I haven't been turned yet.
You want proof my brain is still intact? Just ask me the names of the Great Lakes.
Usually my husband backs me up on this. But sometimes, I feel as if Mom's training takes us one step forward and Dad's influence takes us two steps back.
For example, the other night, dinner began with me quizzing the children on the mnemonic devices for the Great Lakes and the planets in our solar system. We quickly digressed.
Faster than you can say "Brains!", our topics went from Lake Huron, to Pluto the un-planet, to the fog on the road today, to the perfect weather conditions for a zombie apocalypse.
"I hope the zombies don't come out," our seven-year-old son said in a grave, somber voice. He had experienced the low and quick-moving fog first hand, and I guess this translated to the inevitable zombie onslaught.
Dad admitted that it would indeed be bad if zombies came out, but snatching up the teaching moment, he assured our young brood with the plain facts.
"With zombies," he explained, "it all comes down to ammo. You have to have enough ammo to hold off the zombie hoard." And with a smirk on his face, he added, "We could hold off the zombie hoard for quite some time."
Oh, good, I thought. Since that's resolved, let's talk about my blooming dahlias.
Our seven-year-old then revealed his zombie slaying protocol. "I would just dress up like a zombie, pretend to be one of them, and then ambush them from behind."
"That would work. . .as long as they don't smell you," Dad pointed out.
Our oldest quickly offered the solution. "Just use zombie oderant."
Wanting to be part of the happy conversation, our five-year-old daughter announced, "You have to eat your bacon, Gilbert."
Poor dear, I thought. She just wants to have a voice. I'm with her. Let's talk about bacon.
Our oldest revealed his tactic. "I would use my bow and arrow."
Dad encouraged, "A bow and arrow is actually a great choice, because you can reuse an arrow to kill more zombies."
Our oldest daughter tried again, "Who wants to camp like a zombie?" But her question fell on deaf ears.
Then our seven-year-old son suggested another plan. "We should use our MAC 10."
"Well, if we did that," clarified Dad, "we wouldn't have it on fully automatic, because that would waste ammo."
Well, let's use some of it and just shoot me now.
Our daughter offered the final question, "Who wants to eat some Freddy?" At which, my young family joined in a rousing chorus of, "All we want to do is eat your brains!" My toddler and infant daughters laughed heartily at the joy of it all.
My first mistake was trying to raise intellects. I should've seen this coming. Smart brains are infinitely more nutritious and delicious than dumb brains.
So they say. I wouldn't know. I haven't been turned yet.
You want proof my brain is still intact? Just ask me the names of the Great Lakes.
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Dinner on the High Seas
I guess I'll just have to level with myself and admit that I occasionally overestimate our dining manners.
The Vista Dining Room on the ms Westerdam is gorgeous: a sweeping spiral staircase stands in the middle of the room, gracefully joining both the upper and lower levels. Leather-seated chairs with a rich brocade back circle each table. Glimmering dishes, goblets, and silverware are perfectly poised atop their gleaming, white table linens. Each tower of plates has an artfully folded cloth napkin which changes shape every night.
The service is just as luxurious. A long row of hosts lines the entrance of the room, and each one bows to you in welcome. One leads you to your table and ushers you to your personal dining steward, who seats you, places your napkin in your lap, asks what you will be drinking, and sets tonight's menu in your unsuspecting, yet ready, hands.
I'm a mother with five children aged ten and under. I never eat my meal when it's hot. I serve everyone else first. My shirt doubles as a napkin. So do my pants. And my face. We use plastic, colored table wear with mismatched utensils whose prongs are frayed and poking out at the perfect angles to rip up your tongue. Dinner conversation is mostly me trying to convince everyone that your left hand goes in your lap, and you hold your fork like this; you really love this meal, so stop complaining; we don't throw our vegetables on the floor, or on our brother's plate, or on our father's face; cookies are for finishers; I'm not offering my lap as an alternative to your chair tonight; for heaven's sake, will everyone please stop humming!
What I 'm trying relate is, we were a mite out of our league.
But blinded by the pomp of the circumstance, I did not tell this to our steward, Alvin. I should have stopped the procession with a confession about the menu, dinnerware, and state of the diners that we are accustomed to in our Nelson Dining Room, and accepted my defeat by retreating to the buffet line on the Lido deck. But intoxicated by the celebrity of it all, I kept mum and tried my best to act the part.
And heaven bless us, we did our best, but the odds were against us, and I fear we blew our cover.
Wednesday night at table 222 began in the usual way, with my three-year-old daughter pulling the bread basket over to her, insisting on buttering her own piece with three tablespoons of butter, deciding that was gross, throwing it onto her big brother's plate, and finishing her nightly ritual by ripping out the centers of four pieces of artisan bread whilst splaying crumbs everywhere.
Alvin didn't flinch. This was night five, and he was used to her by now. He brought over a silver tool, and with three quick flicks of his wrist, he successfully gathered every bread crumb before he placed her appetizer in front of her.
This left me to enjoy my four course meal in a crumb-free environment, but by course two, I could sense we were going downhill faster than usual.
The girls were whining and thrashing around in excess, and after a closer inspection, I was sure they had contracted a nasty case of conjunctivitis. What could I do but put on a brave face, eat my meal with a whirlwind of knife and fork, and pray that we could get out of there before we spread it any further?
On edge, my eyes darted about the diners at our table, trying to channel my Spidey Senses and catch any infractions before we were caught and arrested for impersonating royalty. When the girls finally settled into their entrees and their whining stopped, I decided I could relax a little.
But by the end of course three, it happened.
My mother, who was sitting across the table from me, motioned to me with a panicked look on her face. I followed her gestures to see my oldest daughter, with a handful of table cloth in each hand, fiercely rubbing her itchy eyes, which were now spewing forth copious amounts of yellow eye matter at an alarming rate.
I leaned over to my husband and in a deliberate whisper I told him what was going on. I was careful not to move my lips so that if other diners were watching (they were always watching!), they wouldn't have any idea that we were living the movie Outbreak.
Scraping together all the parenting wisdom and experience we could muster, we decided that when dessert came, one of us would nonchalantly drip chocolate sauce over the table cloth in a large, glaring arc so as to ensure it would be laundered before the later diners of table 222 came to replace us. For extra measure, we decided one would use chocolate sauce, and one would use strawberry sauce.
We didn't have to enact that charade though. The children beat us to it.
By the end of dessert, one son had dripped his dessert sauce everywhere, the other son had spilled ten ounces of apple juice down the middle of the table, and the youngest daughter had dripped cream all over her dining area.
When I pushed away from the table and stood to leave, it was all I could do to not run from the crime scene. With hot tears stinging my eyes, I had to admit to myself that I was not a celebrity, and even worse, now I was sure that everyone in the Vista Dining Room knew that, too.
As penance for ruining a perfectly good table cloth, when I got to my room, I called room service and ordered a nice big slice of humble pie...sans linen.
The Vista Dining Room on the ms Westerdam is gorgeous: a sweeping spiral staircase stands in the middle of the room, gracefully joining both the upper and lower levels. Leather-seated chairs with a rich brocade back circle each table. Glimmering dishes, goblets, and silverware are perfectly poised atop their gleaming, white table linens. Each tower of plates has an artfully folded cloth napkin which changes shape every night.
The service is just as luxurious. A long row of hosts lines the entrance of the room, and each one bows to you in welcome. One leads you to your table and ushers you to your personal dining steward, who seats you, places your napkin in your lap, asks what you will be drinking, and sets tonight's menu in your unsuspecting, yet ready, hands.
I'm a mother with five children aged ten and under. I never eat my meal when it's hot. I serve everyone else first. My shirt doubles as a napkin. So do my pants. And my face. We use plastic, colored table wear with mismatched utensils whose prongs are frayed and poking out at the perfect angles to rip up your tongue. Dinner conversation is mostly me trying to convince everyone that your left hand goes in your lap, and you hold your fork like this; you really love this meal, so stop complaining; we don't throw our vegetables on the floor, or on our brother's plate, or on our father's face; cookies are for finishers; I'm not offering my lap as an alternative to your chair tonight; for heaven's sake, will everyone please stop humming!
What I 'm trying relate is, we were a mite out of our league.
But blinded by the pomp of the circumstance, I did not tell this to our steward, Alvin. I should have stopped the procession with a confession about the menu, dinnerware, and state of the diners that we are accustomed to in our Nelson Dining Room, and accepted my defeat by retreating to the buffet line on the Lido deck. But intoxicated by the celebrity of it all, I kept mum and tried my best to act the part.
And heaven bless us, we did our best, but the odds were against us, and I fear we blew our cover.
Wednesday night at table 222 began in the usual way, with my three-year-old daughter pulling the bread basket over to her, insisting on buttering her own piece with three tablespoons of butter, deciding that was gross, throwing it onto her big brother's plate, and finishing her nightly ritual by ripping out the centers of four pieces of artisan bread whilst splaying crumbs everywhere.
Alvin didn't flinch. This was night five, and he was used to her by now. He brought over a silver tool, and with three quick flicks of his wrist, he successfully gathered every bread crumb before he placed her appetizer in front of her.
This left me to enjoy my four course meal in a crumb-free environment, but by course two, I could sense we were going downhill faster than usual.
The girls were whining and thrashing around in excess, and after a closer inspection, I was sure they had contracted a nasty case of conjunctivitis. What could I do but put on a brave face, eat my meal with a whirlwind of knife and fork, and pray that we could get out of there before we spread it any further?
On edge, my eyes darted about the diners at our table, trying to channel my Spidey Senses and catch any infractions before we were caught and arrested for impersonating royalty. When the girls finally settled into their entrees and their whining stopped, I decided I could relax a little.
But by the end of course three, it happened.
My mother, who was sitting across the table from me, motioned to me with a panicked look on her face. I followed her gestures to see my oldest daughter, with a handful of table cloth in each hand, fiercely rubbing her itchy eyes, which were now spewing forth copious amounts of yellow eye matter at an alarming rate.
I leaned over to my husband and in a deliberate whisper I told him what was going on. I was careful not to move my lips so that if other diners were watching (they were always watching!), they wouldn't have any idea that we were living the movie Outbreak.
Scraping together all the parenting wisdom and experience we could muster, we decided that when dessert came, one of us would nonchalantly drip chocolate sauce over the table cloth in a large, glaring arc so as to ensure it would be laundered before the later diners of table 222 came to replace us. For extra measure, we decided one would use chocolate sauce, and one would use strawberry sauce.
We didn't have to enact that charade though. The children beat us to it.
By the end of dessert, one son had dripped his dessert sauce everywhere, the other son had spilled ten ounces of apple juice down the middle of the table, and the youngest daughter had dripped cream all over her dining area.
When I pushed away from the table and stood to leave, it was all I could do to not run from the crime scene. With hot tears stinging my eyes, I had to admit to myself that I was not a celebrity, and even worse, now I was sure that everyone in the Vista Dining Room knew that, too.
As penance for ruining a perfectly good table cloth, when I got to my room, I called room service and ordered a nice big slice of humble pie...sans linen.
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