Those who think that a dog offers the ultimate in companionship have never met my son's imaginary friend, Tooby. Allow me to introduce you.
Tooby is a reformed hitter who just one short year ago was not apt to heed his parents' instruction. Upon first introduction, I feared that my son had fallen in with a bad crowd at the ripe old age of 2 1/2, as we only heard about Tooby when we were correcting one of our kids or sharing a "learn from my mistakes" story. Just like my husband, for example, Tooby once failed to heed his mother's warning not to stand up in his chair at the table and took a nasty tumble as a result of his disobedience.
Over the course of the past year, Tooby has celebrated birthdays ranging from his 10th to his "90-12th", though he has seemingly settled into being 19 "like Austin", my oldest nephew.
Tooby is a vagrant, having lived in houses mere blocks from our own all the way to an impressively large stucco number at the corner of 16th Street and Muhammad Ali Boulevard.
Tooby is an animal lover, having assembled a menagerie in one of those above-referenced backyards that included a hippopotamus named Sarah Bates. I appreciate the shout out, Tooby.
Tooby is an unobtrusive guest, so I don't mind when he arrives unannounced for dinner or a playdate. Last night he unexpectedly accompanied us to my husband's basketball game, and since he's 19 he enjoyed the privilege of riding in the front passenger's seat (after I moved my diaper bag to accommodate him, that is.)
My daughter once accused Tooby of being imaginary, which infuriated my son. So you can imagine my surprise when one day, during a discussion on creation (Did God make mountains? Did God make horses? Did God make ice cream?) my son pointed out that God made everything "except Tooby, because he's not real. I made him."
Tooby has been busy lately, or at least I assume he has because we've heard less about him in the past several months than we had in the previous year. I guess college and part-time jobs and all the other things that occupy a 19-year old's mind have made it tough to keep in touch with almost-four-year old friends who don't text.
I admit that I have enjoyed having Tooby around (once he got his act together and stopped hitting people, that is) and will be sad when he takes his final leave, as I guess most imaginary friends do. I suspect that time is drawing near, but before it happens I'm going to make every effort to meet my namesake hippo. Wouldn't you?
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Monday, February 20, 2012
Cinderella gets schooled
My husband and I are going to a fundraising gala on Saturday, and since I haven't worn formal attire since our 2003 wedding I decided it was time for a dress and all the trimmings.
Having accompanied my husband to the high school "prom ball" that he chaperoned last spring, my five-year old is a veteran of such affairs and immediately volunteered to pick my dress. While I wasn't willing to commit to the possibility of wearing a hot pink sequined number, I did agree to take her along for the ride.
So off we set this past unseasonably beautiful Saturday morning, me with a vision of something long and chic and her with a backpack full of lunch and lipgloss. In the time it took her to eat her turkey sandwich, Sun Chips and pear, we hit four boutiques (two of them of the consignment variety, a new concept to my daughter, who blurted out incredulously in one of them, "So all these things someone else has worn before?") and came up empty.
A bit dejected, I headed home to clean the bathroom. Cinderella, indeed.
Determined to find something (anything), I headed out for round two yesterday afternoon and quickly confirmed my hypothesis that there were no long gowns in the city of Louisville that were a) in my price range and b) not fit for a 17-year old "prom ball go-er" or a mother of the bride. Further dejected but growing a bit desperate, I grabbed a few cocktail dresses from a rack and headed to the dressing room, where one of them proved acceptable if not the long, chic vision I'd been entertaining since I first received the invitation to the event.
As difficult as it had been to find a dress, I had absolutely no problem finding lots of other things I loved, from red leather Frye boots to chunky beaded necklaces. Unfortunately, with private school and a new vehicle on our horizon, we have even less disposable income than usual, so I left all those things right where I found them. Yet I continued to think about them, long for them and pout about the fact that I couldn't buy them.
I was acting, I realized, just like my three-year old, who begs for a new toy everywhere we go. He's so automatic, in fact, that my response - 'You don't need a new toy. You have don't even play with all the toys you have' - has become the same. Talk about not practicing what I preach.
I don't need anything. I have shoes and clothes and cookware and furniture, all the things that turn my head in magazines and on shopping binges like the one I went on this past weekend, in excess of what I actually need to exist comfortably. But, just as my son always finds a newer/bigger/better dinosaur or car that he "needs", I constantly see newer/better/more stylish things that I think I "need."
Ironically, our minister's sermon yesterday was on the topic of sin. In it, he reminded us that Jesus suggested it would be better to cut off your hand or gouge out your eye if either caused you to sin than to continue sinning. I'm not sure if Jesus really intended for people to start lopping off appendages or if he was going for dramatic effect to emphasize the danger of sin. Either way, I see the application in my life.
Lusting for material possessions is sinful. That may be uncomfortable for some people to read - it's uncomfortable for me to write, like I'm standing up in an AA meeting announcing an addiction - but that was another pivotal point of the sermon yesterday: People don't call a spade a spade when it comes to sin. Too uncomfortable. Too harsh.
My love of things distracts me from what's important and makes me dissatisfied with all the good things that I do have.
So while I have no plans to gouge out my eyes (I could barely stomach removing a splinter from my cuticle recently), I can take steps to starve the beast. Step one will be abstaining from multi-stop shopping marathons. Step two will be letting a few of my four magazine subscriptions lapse. And step three will be declining the Pinterest invitation that I finally received from Ben and his cronies.
Having accompanied my husband to the high school "prom ball" that he chaperoned last spring, my five-year old is a veteran of such affairs and immediately volunteered to pick my dress. While I wasn't willing to commit to the possibility of wearing a hot pink sequined number, I did agree to take her along for the ride.
So off we set this past unseasonably beautiful Saturday morning, me with a vision of something long and chic and her with a backpack full of lunch and lipgloss. In the time it took her to eat her turkey sandwich, Sun Chips and pear, we hit four boutiques (two of them of the consignment variety, a new concept to my daughter, who blurted out incredulously in one of them, "So all these things someone else has worn before?") and came up empty.
A bit dejected, I headed home to clean the bathroom. Cinderella, indeed.
Determined to find something (anything), I headed out for round two yesterday afternoon and quickly confirmed my hypothesis that there were no long gowns in the city of Louisville that were a) in my price range and b) not fit for a 17-year old "prom ball go-er" or a mother of the bride. Further dejected but growing a bit desperate, I grabbed a few cocktail dresses from a rack and headed to the dressing room, where one of them proved acceptable if not the long, chic vision I'd been entertaining since I first received the invitation to the event.
As difficult as it had been to find a dress, I had absolutely no problem finding lots of other things I loved, from red leather Frye boots to chunky beaded necklaces. Unfortunately, with private school and a new vehicle on our horizon, we have even less disposable income than usual, so I left all those things right where I found them. Yet I continued to think about them, long for them and pout about the fact that I couldn't buy them.
I was acting, I realized, just like my three-year old, who begs for a new toy everywhere we go. He's so automatic, in fact, that my response - 'You don't need a new toy. You have don't even play with all the toys you have' - has become the same. Talk about not practicing what I preach.
I don't need anything. I have shoes and clothes and cookware and furniture, all the things that turn my head in magazines and on shopping binges like the one I went on this past weekend, in excess of what I actually need to exist comfortably. But, just as my son always finds a newer/bigger/better dinosaur or car that he "needs", I constantly see newer/better/more stylish things that I think I "need."
Ironically, our minister's sermon yesterday was on the topic of sin. In it, he reminded us that Jesus suggested it would be better to cut off your hand or gouge out your eye if either caused you to sin than to continue sinning. I'm not sure if Jesus really intended for people to start lopping off appendages or if he was going for dramatic effect to emphasize the danger of sin. Either way, I see the application in my life.
Lusting for material possessions is sinful. That may be uncomfortable for some people to read - it's uncomfortable for me to write, like I'm standing up in an AA meeting announcing an addiction - but that was another pivotal point of the sermon yesterday: People don't call a spade a spade when it comes to sin. Too uncomfortable. Too harsh.
My love of things distracts me from what's important and makes me dissatisfied with all the good things that I do have.
So while I have no plans to gouge out my eyes (I could barely stomach removing a splinter from my cuticle recently), I can take steps to starve the beast. Step one will be abstaining from multi-stop shopping marathons. Step two will be letting a few of my four magazine subscriptions lapse. And step three will be declining the Pinterest invitation that I finally received from Ben and his cronies.
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Pardon the interruption
As a mom of three young kids, I have resigned myself to the fact that for the next, oh, 18 years or so, my time and money are not my own. Any parent can identify with that. But only nursing mothers, or those who've been down that road in the past, can fully appreciate the idea of your body not being your own for what can feel like the same period of time.
After spending the better part of the past five years with one of my children attached to my breast, my expertise in the area has ballooned in direct correlation to my rapidly disappearing sense of modesty. You simply can't be shy when there's a hungry baby demanding that you feed her. Cling to decorum, and you'll spend a lot of time in public restrooms and eat countless cold meals.
Those of us who commit to the American Academy of Pediatrics-recommended one year understand that you make some sacrifices along the way. Of course, you also lay the groundwork for a healthy child and reap your own physical and emotional benefits, but perhaps more importantly you create "memories" that help sustain you when your dedication wanes.
For instance, I'll always remember the first time my husband walked into the room while I was pumping. Or, more scientifically, expressing breast milk. He's a dairy farmer's kid, so he quickly made a very graphic (and, I can't lie, accurate) observation about the similarities between milking a human and milking a cow. I've been to the milk parlor, and I think the only process deviation is that I don't dip my teats in iodine before I hook myself up to the machine.
I'll also always cherish the memory of the first time my almost-four year old son crashed the same kind of party. He stopped in his tracks, cocked his head to one side and asked, "What's that tooting sound?"
And then there's the time my eldest daughter paid me a visit in our upstairs bathroom, where, after settling the kids down with their bedtime snack and show, I'd slipped away to pump in private. Three minutes into the process, she bounded up the stairs and into the bathroom.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"I'm getting milk for your sister," I replied.
Her eyes narrowed slightly as she studied the pump. Then she crowded in for a closer look.
"Your boobies are going in and out of there! In and out. In and out," she chanted, keeping rhythm with the motor.
"Yes," I replied. "They sure are."
"Why are you up here," she asked.
"Well, I usually like to do this in private."
She gave me a blank look and then proceeded to pepper me with a dozen or so additional questions about who knows what. Maybe the life cycle of a possum.
Finally, and most recently, I was taking care of business in the lactation room at work yesterday when midway through a fire alarm started blaring. My initial thought was, 'I wonder if it's a false alarm?' Since I hadn't quite reached my quota, I considered waiting it out but then thought better of it. I may have surrendered all modesty, but I still don't want to end up a story on the 6 o'clock news: Woman found topless and unconscious from smoke inhalation. Firefighters puzzled by mechanical apparatus found next to the body.
So, I aborted my mission, stuffed my hardware into the fashionable black tote bag that male colleagues have confused for everything from a briefcase to a lunch box (seriously - I eat a lot, but I don't eat a tote bag's worth of lunch) and hurried out the door, tucking my shirt in as I walked.
Four seconds after I exited the room, the alarm stopped blaring. Turns out it was, thankfully, a false alarm.
Just another memory-making day in the life of a mom.
After spending the better part of the past five years with one of my children attached to my breast, my expertise in the area has ballooned in direct correlation to my rapidly disappearing sense of modesty. You simply can't be shy when there's a hungry baby demanding that you feed her. Cling to decorum, and you'll spend a lot of time in public restrooms and eat countless cold meals.
Those of us who commit to the American Academy of Pediatrics-recommended one year understand that you make some sacrifices along the way. Of course, you also lay the groundwork for a healthy child and reap your own physical and emotional benefits, but perhaps more importantly you create "memories" that help sustain you when your dedication wanes.
For instance, I'll always remember the first time my husband walked into the room while I was pumping. Or, more scientifically, expressing breast milk. He's a dairy farmer's kid, so he quickly made a very graphic (and, I can't lie, accurate) observation about the similarities between milking a human and milking a cow. I've been to the milk parlor, and I think the only process deviation is that I don't dip my teats in iodine before I hook myself up to the machine.
I'll also always cherish the memory of the first time my almost-four year old son crashed the same kind of party. He stopped in his tracks, cocked his head to one side and asked, "What's that tooting sound?"
And then there's the time my eldest daughter paid me a visit in our upstairs bathroom, where, after settling the kids down with their bedtime snack and show, I'd slipped away to pump in private. Three minutes into the process, she bounded up the stairs and into the bathroom.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"I'm getting milk for your sister," I replied.
Her eyes narrowed slightly as she studied the pump. Then she crowded in for a closer look.
"Your boobies are going in and out of there! In and out. In and out," she chanted, keeping rhythm with the motor.
"Yes," I replied. "They sure are."
"Why are you up here," she asked.
"Well, I usually like to do this in private."
She gave me a blank look and then proceeded to pepper me with a dozen or so additional questions about who knows what. Maybe the life cycle of a possum.
Finally, and most recently, I was taking care of business in the lactation room at work yesterday when midway through a fire alarm started blaring. My initial thought was, 'I wonder if it's a false alarm?' Since I hadn't quite reached my quota, I considered waiting it out but then thought better of it. I may have surrendered all modesty, but I still don't want to end up a story on the 6 o'clock news: Woman found topless and unconscious from smoke inhalation. Firefighters puzzled by mechanical apparatus found next to the body.
So, I aborted my mission, stuffed my hardware into the fashionable black tote bag that male colleagues have confused for everything from a briefcase to a lunch box (seriously - I eat a lot, but I don't eat a tote bag's worth of lunch) and hurried out the door, tucking my shirt in as I walked.
Four seconds after I exited the room, the alarm stopped blaring. Turns out it was, thankfully, a false alarm.
Just another memory-making day in the life of a mom.
Monday, February 6, 2012
The Proposal
With Valentine's Day right around the corner, media outlets galore are sure to be featuring proposal stories - from the most romantic to the most outrageous - from now until February 14. I'd like to submit the following, overheard during bathtime this evening, in the category of "Best Hypothetical":
Daughter to son: "Do you want to marry me? I don't have a husband."
Son to daughter: "Um, yeah. I'm a pizza maker."
Daughter to son: "Okay. You can make us pizza to eat."
Simple, straightforward and just edgy enough (how many women really do the asking, after all?) to make it a contender. Plus there's that whole livin' on love, or pizza, element that's sure to sway the voters in its favor. All in all, a solid proposal.
Daughter to son: "Do you want to marry me? I don't have a husband."
Son to daughter: "Um, yeah. I'm a pizza maker."
Daughter to son: "Okay. You can make us pizza to eat."
Simple, straightforward and just edgy enough (how many women really do the asking, after all?) to make it a contender. Plus there's that whole livin' on love, or pizza, element that's sure to sway the voters in its favor. All in all, a solid proposal.
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