Mother's Day and a Tribute to Mothers, Part 1

Seeing as how Mother's Day was this past Sunday, and true to my typical self, I'm going to take this opportunity to write a late post about said holiday. (Don't look at me like that. You know me and punctuality really only exist in public with actual, live people around witnessing it.) I am blessed to have both an amazing and awesome mom and mother-in-law, so I'm going to entertain us all with (hopefully) amusing anecdotes that either directly or indirectly have to do with both women, and then one of my own. And since I tend to, erm, ramble a bit (a lot) I'm splitting it up into three posts for you convenience. You can slip me a $20 on your way out as thanks. *Smiles brightly*

First up, is my mom. That's her with my little girl and my youngest sister.

Don't tell her I posted a picture of her, she'll freak. She hates pictures of her. I don't know why, I've always thought my mom was pretty, and I look just like her. She, myself, and my younger sister are all strikingly similar, and I'm glad for it.

Now, I may have mentioned before that my mom is the SuperMom of moms in a lot of ways. Not that perfectly primped soccer mom wearing Nordstroms sweaters and perfectly manicured nails with impeccably behaved kids, no. Because that mom is not real. She's an alien, or she is a celebrity with a whole platoon of nannies, stylists, trainers, and chefs behind her. No, the real supermoms are the moms that you see sitting on the porch, sipping a soda while she talks with a fellow supermom, and the kids are playing in the yard, and somehow dinner is in the oven, and despite a hairstyle that looks like it was done, oh, yesterday, and pants that were probably supposed to be in the load of laundry going right now, this mom is in complete control. She may look like crap some days, but you know what, she's got things handled.

You scraped your knee trying to jump your bike off a ramp? Supermom not only has bandaids, neosporin, gauze, first aid tape, three different kinds of pain relievers, an actual first aid kit, and an x-ray machine stuffed in that hall closet, but she's also got a bag of popsicles to hand out to your friends while they wait for you to get patched up. Oh, and she's also got that magical kiss for your owie that somehow makes everything all better. Mom magic, that's what it is.

Have you had the hairiest day in middle school known to man and it's not even lunchtime yet? Supermom knows. And she will either A) Have you pulled out of class for a "doctor's appointment" that turns into a day of playing hooky with your mom, or B) Have chocolate chip cookies and milk ready for you when you hit the door. She's like a best friend. She just knows. Again, mom magic.

You just mouthed off to someone you shouldn't have, or vandalized property, or looked at Supermom right in the eye and told her, "No"? Well, hold onto your britches, baby, 'cause you're getting spanked. And grounded. You will be apologizing if you offended anyone, you will be making restitution, and you will be feeling the heavy cloak of shame on your shoulders when Supermom tells you that she is disappointed in you. Because that's how Supermom proves that she loves you. She doesn't let you get away with crap, and therefore makes you a better, more responsible human being.

And if, maybe, after this nightmare of backpedaling and apologizing and swearing to yourself that you will NEVER incur Supermom's wrath like that again (although you will), you maybe break down and cry? Supermom will be there. Hugging you. And making you feel better. Because even if you did something bad that made her angry, she still loves you. And you will never understand, until you are a parent, just how super that particular power is.

This was my mom. The mom that would whop me with a wooden spoon when I seriously stepped out of line, gave me my freedom to become the person I am today, very sneakily taught me skills that I'd be a useless human being without, kissed my owies, pulled me out of school to play hooky, and still hugs me with that mom magic that somehow makes everything okay, just for a second. Because nothing can hurt you when your mom is holding you.

My mom was the one sitting on the back porch, in a lawn chair, chatting with our next door neighbor while we ran around in our front yard in our bare feet with the neighbor kids, playing our hearts out, and knowing not to do anything stupid. Because even though mom appeared to be focusing solely on the Coke in her hand and the friend at her side, she would catch you if you were an idiot. Every time. "Young lady, knock that off right now!"

The difference between now and then? Now, I get to be that friend sitting next to her, keeping one eye on my own daughter and one eye on my mom, Dr. Pepper in hand, sitting on a lawn chair out on the back porch while Sammy and my youngest sister, closely followed by two dogs, go running helter-skelter around the yard, hair all a mess, having the time of their lives. And my ponytail is as close to ungroomed as you can get when you actually brushed your hair that day, my jeans should have been washed last week, and there are undoubtedly a million other things I should be doing. But they can wait. Because what I experience in those moments is more important than having all the laundry done in one day and having every dish sparkling clean and put away before bedtime.

My mom taught me . . . everything. And even if she didn't teach it to me, she taught me how to be teachable. To observe. To take things into my own hands and learn how to do it myself. I would not be able to cook today if I hadn't grown up my whole life eating home-cooked breakfasts and dinners every day, made by her. Half of my recipe collection right now is straight from my mom.

Tonight, I made a cheesecake, just like my mom makes (because I actually had 2 packages of cream cheese AND a pie crust in the house at the same time, heck yes!). I'm not talking a fancy-shmancy baked New York style cheesecake, I'm talking a creamy, cold, delectable concoction of cream cheese, sweetened condensed milk, lemon juice, and vanilla smoothed into store-bought graham cracker crust. It's my favorite cheesecake, and the only thing bad about it is that it takes about 2-3 hours to chill in the fridge before I can proceed to eat the entire thing in one sitting.

I think of my mom every time I make one of her recipes. Even if it isn't technically her recipe, it's one of the dozens she's collected over the years from all kinds of places. I still think of her. Of how lost people would be without their moms. Especially moms themselves. You are not truly a mom until you call your own mother, who you of course have on speed dial for just such an occasion, and practically cry to her over the phone. Because you messed up the spaghetti sauce and can't figure out what you did wrong. Because your baby has a fever and you don't know how much medicine to give her. Because your favorite pants just ripped and your sewing machine isn't working and you just can't handle it! (Also, my mom taught me to implement sewing in my life. Sure, technically home ec taught me HOW to sew, but my mom taught me how to use the skill. I can't count how many items of clothing hang in my or my daughter's closet that are made by my mom or me.)

And Supermom listens, she agrees with your frustrations, is sympathetic to your pains, says many a comforting and calming word, and then offers you a solution. Whether it be how to fix the spaghetti sauce, how much medicine you can give a 4 month old, why your machine isn't working, or to simply throw out the sauce, pack up baby, grab your pants, and come to mom's house. And mom will feed you, because that's what mom does. Mom will cuddle her grandbaby to her chest that you fell asleep on countless times, and rock and sing to her until the baby-sized dose of medicine kicks in and allows baby to sleep, because that's what mom does. And then, mom will get you both a chocolate chip cookie (either store bought or homemade, neither of you are picky), and mom will get out her sewing machine and fix your pants for you while you sit and talk and laugh uproariously about every little thing. Because that's what supermom does.

You'll get home later that night, baby asleep in her car seat, a tupperware container of food in the passenger seat, and your pants folded up neatly next to it, all fixed. Baby is even holding a brand new stuffed animal in her little hand, because grandma cannot help herself. She spoils you both rotten. Somehow, in just a few hours, Supermom just fixed everything.

That is my mom. My perfectly imperfect mom who has loved and tolerated and humored and amused and taught all these years. I was a beastly child, especially in my pre-teen years, but somehow my poor mom not only managed to get through it, but she got me through it as well. My teen years, too, although I was a completely different kind of beastly then. Problem child vs. Supermom, and Supermom definitely won. Because I turned out well, thanks to her. I screwed up and made all kinds of mistakes, every color of wrong and stupid, but here I am. On the other side of that. With my own little girl, my own family, my own life, and although it's so not perfect that it skims downright dreadful some days, I still love it. I wouldn't trade any of it for anything.

My bed is covered with folded laundry that I have to stuff into my drawers, but they are clean and folded because my mom taught me by example. I have a cheesecake chilling in the fridge, and the dishes drying in the drainer, because my mom taught me how. I have a stack of clothing items to mend on my desk, but I can fix them instead of throwing them away, because my mom taught me how. I am looking at a free night, with no little eyes peering through a crack in the door telling me she needs another drink of water, because my mom is watching her so I can work on some projects. There is no teaching for that one. Because no one has to be taught how to love my mom. Even my friends loved my mom best.

So, this Mother's Day, I'm not lacking in needing a woman to look up to and respect and love for being the astounding woman she is. She has always been that way. Even when I was a snotrag little 11 year old that hated my life and everything in it, I knew my mom was amazing.



Happy Mother's Day, Supermom. I can count my life a success if I am ever the kind of mom to my daughter that you were, and still are, to me.

How the Baby Grew Up

I had another one of those moments a minute ago when I think about my daughter and kind of . . . sit there in awe and shock and completely unadulterated terror for a second about how fast things are changing. Thankfully these moments don't happen too frequently, or I'd be a basketcase, but I just had one. Allow me to explain . . .

So, Sammy starts preschool in one week. I know. A week ago she was still wearing toddler size clothes that come from the baby section, and then this week suddenly she knows her alphabet, is reading the letters off the label on the ketchup bottle, and we have to buy her clothes from the little girl section at the store.

Seriously. She picked an absolutely hideous pink and white zebra striped jumper to wear for her first day of school. I wanted the light pink, yellow, and orange plaid, or the cute striped one of the same color scheme, or the blue shirt and pant set with little chalk drawn hearts in different colors. But no. She wants the zebra stripes. Because she loves zebras. And it hasn't occurred to my nearly 5 year old that zebra stripes in preschool is a bit much. It doesn't help that I have exactly one bra that is anything other than boring and it happens to be zebra stripes (only fun one they had), which makes it the default when Sammy picks out my bra for me (don't ask how this got started, I still don't know).

Anyway, where were we? Oh, me freaking out a little that my baby is growing up. See, I can kind of figure out how this is catching me weird. It's because up until now, for Sammy's whole life, she's always been at home. She hasn't had daycare or anything like that to go away every day for, no schedule to meet. She was still a baby, a toddler, something other than a little girl in school.

But now . . . this is the precipice of a completely different time in her life. From now on, my baby is a student, a school kid, and for the next 14 years of her life, she will be going to school 9 months of the year. No, it's not like she's leaving home to go to a boarding school on the East Coast. But it's weird. Good and bad weird. Good because the child is driving me absolutely nuts, increasingly so over the last year or so. I think a nice 4 hour break 4 days a week sounds DIVINE.

But it's also bad, because . . . she just won't be my baby anymore. She is officially and irrevocably out of her toddler stage. And yeah, she hasn't been a toddler for something like 2 years now, but she's still kind of been in that group in my head. She's still been the baby. And now . . . nope. Not anymore. She is a grown up little girl who is going to school. And in two years, she starts elementary school, first grade, full time school. Which might be another big change, I don't know. I just know that this one, this leap from baby to preschooler, is a weird thing for me.

She is going to have so much fun. She's going to get to interact and play with a bunch of little kids her own age. She's going to suck up information and learning so fast, and I know she's going to love it. She'll have an absolute ball! And I'm sure she'll make new friends, and get to love her teachers, and I think she's just going to be the type of kid that loves school. I'm really excited for her.

But I sure will miss my baby. She'll always be my baby, in a lot of ways, but she's past that age now where she's still my toddler running around the house with jingle bells on her shoes so I can find her. She's a big girl. And her life is about to change in a major way. And so is mine.

I'm looking forward to making the journey with her. And at the same time, already missing my baby.

Diaper Vs. Panties: The Debate

You know, I usually try to have some idea of what I'm going to write about when I shimmy on over to my cute little corner of the internet here, but tonight I don't. Not the foggiest idea. I was showing my hubby, Pete, the grand chopstick caper from last week and figured since I was already here . . . Yeah. Got nothin'.

Although, may I just mention how annoying it is to have a song stuck in your head when you don't know all the music or the words? Wanna know what's worse? To have a whole musical stuck in your head when you don't know all the music or words. I have had the soundtrack to Sweeney Todd (creepifying movie) stuck in my head ALL DAY LONG. The same lines, over and over again. It's been driving me bonkers. I tried to distract myself with Cats, and it just didn't take. I lip-synced through an abbreviated version of at least half the musical today at work (yes, I did get weird looks), and I STILL had Sweeney Todd stuck in my head like he'd taken up shop there and had no plans to vacate. *Annoyed expression* See, I LOVE the music, it's just . . . oh, gorgeous, I love it. But the story is about fourteen different kinds of creepy. And I will never watch that movie again, unless I suddenly find myself nursing a really kinky blood/gore/slitting throats fetish. But the music . . . Now, if only I could remember the freaking words.

Ooh, ooh, I have another funny Sammy story. This one is the Panty/Diaper argument we had tonight for a good fifteen minutes at bedtime. I also have a story about her banzai leap off the furniture yesterday, but I kinda already told that one on Facebook. The punchline is, she shorted it. But anyway, Panty/Diaper Debate. You see . . . I forgot to go to shopping today . . . and we're out of diapers. Completely. Panties work great when the child is conscious and is being told to go pee every hour, but at night? Yeah, right. Not happening, waterproof mattress protector aside.

Well . . . we had no choice, we had no diapers. So I, thinking that she wouldn't care that she got to wear panties to bed, indeed, might even be excited about it, held them out to her while she was running around her room with her bare bum hanging out. Her answer? No. Mommy was not amused. So I tried again, explaining that the diapers were all gone and she needed to wear panties tonight. No. *Annoyed expression* We tried bodily lifting her into the things and she threw a fit, crawling onto her pillow, facing the corner, burying her head in the mattress, and sticking her butt up in the air as a defensive position.

We tried to talk her into it. "Look, this pair has pretty flowers all over it! Do you want to wear the princess panties? Oh, cute, bows! Don't you want to wear some panties with bows?" She was not convinced nor swayed in the slightest, merely hurling the pair of flower panties back at Daddy and possibly shouting an obscenity in whatever language it is that she speaks. It's certainly not English.

At this point I'm torn between laughing hysterically and letting her go to bed naked. We were ransacking the house trying to find a diaper lying around somewhere. There is ALWAYS at least two diapers running around the house stuffed down the side of a mattress, tangled in the covers on a bed, sitting under a small collection of dog hair on the floor, tossed in a basket of laundry to be folded, stashed in her "going to Grammy's house" bag. Tonight? NOTHING. Not a diaper to be found ANYWHERE. We tore our rooms apart trying to find one, just one little diaper that the girl could wear to bed because she was finding her panties offensive. Nothing.

I had to go relieve myself at this point before I giggled and needed my own diaper, and by the time I got back, Pete had found one blessed diaper tucked in the sheets on his parents bed. Hallelujah. We were saved. Child: diapered. Panties: exiled to drawer. Bedtime: hour late, but accomplished.

So, I guess you could say that Sammy won the debate tonight. If I had remembered to go to the store and actually get diapers since I knew we were out, this whole fiasco would have been avoided, but then I wouldn't have a funny story to tell you, now would I? Life's funny that way, if not a tad cruel. But anyway, I'm going to see about either reading some of my fantastic book that I'm obsessed with, or going to bed a titch early . . . honestly, it's a toss up. There's a sleeping man in my bed, and he's a lot more exciting than a book . . . but he is asleep. *Shrugs* I'll let you know. Ciao!

Beat the Jell-O into Submission

Today . . . has been an epic day. It's the Saturday before Easter, which means that all that fun holiday stuff that you can't really do on the Sabbath, happens today. You know, shopping for all that stuff you forgot to buy at the grocery store on the four previous trips you made. Making the house all pretty and shiny for Sunday. For my family, that means boiling and dyeing the Easter eggs, so they're all ready to be skinned and eaten alive the next day. Oh, and getting started on all the food that the ravenous children will be eating tomorrow.

Of course, I'm talking about my mother. I am not cool enough to clean my house (well, rooms that I live in at my in-law's house) for special occasions. Or every day. Or at all, really. Have I mentioned I hate cleaning? Yeah. But my mom, who is pretty much the Supermom that other moms try to emulate and usually fail at, is awesome like that. House: clean. Brand new Easter clothes (half of them handmade): done and ironed. Food: ingredients gotten (after 17 trips to the grocery store). I am not this cool. I would go to the grocery store once . . . and if I forgot to grab the French fried onions for the green bean casserole, well, dehydrated onions work too, right? And how crucial are the apples in the Snickers n' Apple Salad? Cut up Snickers smothered in Cool Whip (I remembered to buy that, right?) works just as well. Right?

Well, anyway, my Mom's amazingness aside, here is what else we did today: We went out for lunch and a movie. The movie was Hop, and it was cute and funny and a keeper! I love James Marsden. But the real highlight of this outing . . . was lunch. We went to the Beijing Buffet, all 8 of us, and systematically consumed half the food in the place. And my little brother . . . found the chopsticks. Now, see, normally this is not a problem, since 7 of us are over the age of eight and therefore quite adept at using chopsticks. However . . . my daughter . . . is 3. We gave CHOPSTICKS to a THREE YEAR OLD. Yes, at the time, I knew this was a supremely stupid idea. I knew I would regret it. I was not, however, prepared for how . . . epic of a fail it turned out to be.

First of all, she tried to eat salmon with the chopsticks. And promptly ditched one of the chopsticks out of sheer annoyance. So, three year old, piece of salmon, single chopstick. And next to the plate, a cup of Egg Drop Soup. Want to know what happens when you semi-violently attack a helpless piece of salmon with a chopstick? That's right. A piece of it goes flying hari-kari to commit suicide in the cup of soup, and it may or not have had help from the semi-violent three year old brandishing a chopstick like a Japanese samurai sword.

Most of the salmon (that didn't end up lying peacefully in the soup) ended up scattered all over the floor. Then . . . we moved on to the Jell-O. My sister, with the greatest of intentions, got my daughter some Jell-O cubes to eat for desert, along side the ice cream (just for the record, Sammy ate more of the ice cream than she did of the actual food for lunch). Still using her single chopstick, my daughter decided that the easiest way to make use of these strange, squishy, rubbery-lookin' orange things would be to spear the sucker, raise it in the air, and try to navigate it to her mouth. Didn't work. *Plop* Orange Jell-O jiggler is back on the plate, somewhat holey, and three year old is surveying it with a look of confusion.

So, we moved on to a different tactic, holding the Jell-O in place with a finger while sticking with chopstick and again raising into air and maneuvering to mouth. *Squish* Jell-O, meet table. At this point, it occurred to my daughter that Jell-O seemed way more like a toy and less and less like something to try eating. So she proceeded to chase the gelatin cube around the table, giggling as it bounced off the edges of plates. And then, apparently offended and outraged that it had the nerve to split in half, she then started to beat the Jell-O into submission (that phrase courtesy of my hysterical Dad), and once subdued, sweep it all onto the floor.

It was around this point that I figured I should stop laughing and take the chopstick away. I wrapped it and the masticated Jell-O up in a napkin, keeping it out of her reach. So, Sammy just stole my sister's chopsticks, dropped one a plate, and in the process of smacking it with the other stick as punishment, sent the one on the plate flying over our heads, to bounce off of the table behind us and roll to a stop under a chair.

By now, I was crawling under our table in embarrassment and shame as my daughter shrieked with laughter and kept trying to find the missing chopstick. And then started whacking my sister with the other one, prompting me to get out from under the table and remove all chopsticks from within her reach and hide them. We managed to get out of the restaurant without too much incident (leaving a $12.50 tip for the poor person who had to clean up the smooshed Jell-O, bits of noodle and rice, and flakes of salmon ground into the carpet. Oh, and the chopstick under the chair at the other end of the room).

Apparently her exertions at trying to tame the wild Jell-O jiggler had just worn my poor daughter out, and she slept through most of the movie. Which left her all kinds of chipper and perky at Walmart, which was just so . . . fun. Really. Yeah. The next adventure on the docket was dyeing Easter eggs, and after getting the six dozen eggs boiled (yes, six dozen) and ready to go, my mom and I shared a nostalgic moment together, grinning like little kids as we plopped the little color dye tablets into the mugs, to fizz and bubble in the vinegar at the bottom. The smell of vinegar has always reminded me of Easter, for this exact reason. We watched the little tablets scoot around the edge of the cups as they bubbled, sending the dye swirling up in their wake.

And then . . . my little brother and sister got ahold of the stuff. A nine and eleven year old, 2 dozen eggs, and 12 mugs of pretty darn permanent multicolored dye, and these really nifty "dye pens" we found at Walmart that consisted of thin tubes of dye with a Q-tip fluff on each end. You break the seal on one end, and all the ink rushes to the cotton at the other end. Voila, Easter egg dye pen! Let me just say that it is a good thing my mom's Easter tablecloth is vinyl.

And now, I'm sitting at the table amidst the aftermath of a whirlwind evening of dyeing Easter eggs. We even have a set of eggs decorated as Gru and his minions from Despicable Me, I kid you not. Those were my brothers invention. Oh, and by the way, if you do not know how to juggle, attempting to learn how with hard-boiled eggs is . . . well, hysterically funny, but maybe not advisable.

So now, I'm going to see what I can do about cleaning up the disaster that once used to be the kitchen table, stick the 6 dozen eggs back in the fridge in preparation for tomorrow, and pour 12 cups of dye down the sink (best part of dyeing eggs). I hope everyone else has as . . . memorable an Easter as I did. Ta!

The Best of Times and Worst of Times

We'll start with yesterday . . .

My family lives an hour away from us, which really sucks. I am the oldest of 5 kids, and I have the best parents and siblings in the world. My mom is the coolest mom ever, and she loves all of us kids with a fierceness that is unequaled. My dad is one of the smartest people I know and through all of the ups and downs of our lives he has always been there. I have never gone a single day in my life without hearing, usually mulitiple times, that they love me. Every night, and every time I would leave the house, that was the last thing I would hear. I have never, never once doubted that my parents love me. On that score, I am truly blessed.

My siblings are amazing. I have two brothers and two sisters. My first brother has been the protector of his mom and sisters since he was old enough to walk and talk. Once in junior high I got mad at this one guy who was being a putz, and I told my brother to go kick him for me. My little brother, a scrawny, thin as a pole, seventh grader brother walked up to this burly ninth grade wrestler, and kicked him. My dear brother practically forfeited his life to get even with some guy who had broken my little ninth grader heart.

My sister is next. She and I are spitting images of my mom, and everywhere we go there is no doubt that we are sisters. Even people I have never met have asked if I was her sister. She is the most spiritually sensitive person I know. We went on a family vacation a couple years ago and on the way home we stopped in Nevada to get lunch. The only places around were casinos, and we had to walk through an entire casino to get to the restaurant. The smoke was thick, and for us, a religious family all our lives, you could just feel the bad spirit in the air. My precious sister was in tears because of our surroundings and how horrible it made her feel.

My younger brother is very gifted. At the age of 7 he was drawing those pictures where you tip this thing over and it knocks the ball onto the ramp, which bumps this thing, which falls over and launches this thing. Seven years old. He's 10 now, and he reads books that are high school level. He's very perceptive. He asks questions about things he sees that I didn't even think about, much less ask clarification for, until I was a teenager. We watched Phantom of the Opera and he was running over with the most intelligent questions. He's a hugger. He's also a really big kid, at least a head taller than all the other kids his age and muscle to back it up, but he's a teddy bear. He has to hug everyone in the house good night before he goes to bed.

My younger sister is a spitfire. She acts like a teenage drama queen, and she's a little brat when she wants to be. But she is also a sharp observer and never hesitant to ask to help with whatever you're doing. It could be making dinner, cutting out paper dolls, doing nails, anything, she wants to help. She was born when I was 14, and just a year and a few months after my younger brother, and I was a bit more attuned to maternal instincts at that point which just made it more special. She is also the favorite playmate of my daughter, despite the 6 year difference between them, and my daughter adores her.

We're with my family this week, just hanging out like we try to do every week. My mom and sister and I talked forever last night about everything, looking at funny pictures on the internet, talking about the book my mom is reading now, laughing hysterically at how we get increasingly loopy and crazy the later it gets. Today my mom and I took my daughter and we went to a fabulous Chinese buffet Brigham City. We watched my daughter slurp lo mein and throw rice and flirt with the old man in the booth behind us until the waitresses were giving us funny looks at trying to smother our laughter. Then, on our way out, my mom gave my daughter a penny to throw in the fountain at the front. She did this, quite fascinated that I let her, then proceeded to pick up one of the decorative rocks beside the fountain and had her arm cocked back to throw that sucker before I managed to get it out of her grip. I also tried to walk out of the restaurant still carrying my glass before my mom reminded me (amid giggles) that I couldn't take it home with me.

Awhile later while I was talking with my mom and sister again, listening to my daughter and younger sister run through the house giggling and jabbering, my husband came up the stairs with the news that his cousin had just committed suicide. He's a few years younger than me, his adult life just barely starting.

We weren't very close to this cousin, but we knew him. His family and my husband's family are pretty close, especially because his mom and my husbands mom are very close sisters. It came as a huge shock. We all knew he had been having troubles the past few years, but no one expected this. My mouth just hung open for several minutes as I processed this information. It's still not quite real to me. I've had a few family members die, two grandparents, one great grandma, and two cousins that also died unexpectedly, although not suicides. The one I was closest with was my grandma, and her health and mental capacity had been deteriorating for years before she finally died. The amazing woman that she used to be died long before her body followed her.

This death is a new experience for me. I have never known somebody who committed suicide before. His death has left everybody reeling. He was a great kid. He was funny. He could have been a professional chef if he wanted, he had an amazing talent. He committed suicide today when his parents were both at work. He got into the truck in the garage, turned it on, and left it idling. We don't know how long it was before his dad found him. His dad did CPR while he called 911, but he was already long gone. We have no idea what to do. My sister-in-law has a birthday this weekend that she will probably remember as one of the saddest in her life. My other sister-in-law is in Europe right now on a college British Literary Tour, she just left on Monday and is supposed to stay there for another 3 weeks. How will she remember this experience that she has been saving for and planning for over a year?

This has been a day filled with emotions of such polar opposites of the spectrum. I love coming to my family's house. There is so much comfort for me here, such a sense of acceptance and unconditional love in unmeasurable amounts. My mom hates it when we have to leave, and so do I. I've gone to lunch with my mom, looked at funny stuff on the internet with my sisters, played with my daughter, snuggled with my husband, hugged my dad, marvelled at my younger brother, and missed my other brother and his new wife of almost 5 months who wasn't able to get off work and come up here with his wife this weekend. I love them all so much it hurts.

And I've been in complete shock and felt such heartbreak for my husband's aunt, uncle, and cousins who are probably sitting at home right now still struggling with the thought that they will never talk to their son and brother again. They will never hear his voice, never see his smile, never have to wonder where he is after curfew, never be able to wonder what kind of man he will grow into. He is gone from their lives and they will never see him again in this world. I had a horrible nightmare a few months ago that my daughter fell into a stream and she was stuck and I couldn't reach her and couldn't get her out, and I was so scared and traumatized that I was afraid to go back to sleep and had to check on her to make sure she was ok. I rarely cry, but I did that night.

His parents are living that right now, and they aren't going to wake up from it, and it's not going to go away, and he's never coming back, and there is nothing anyone can do.

What does anyone do when this happens?

Tantrums and Trenchcoats

You know that wonderfully euphoric feeling you get when everything in your life is going right and perfect and there's nothing that can take it away? Yeah, me neither.

I witnessed the funniest and most pathetic thing today. A fully grown, mature (sometimes), thirty year old woman throwing a tantrum. A thirty year old woman!!! Have you ever seen a seven year old throw a tantrum? They throw something, they stomp around the house making as much noise as possible without saying a word, and they look at you as if you are the stupidest and most inconvenient person they have ever seen in the universe. Yeah. Thirty year old woman. It took every fiber of my self-control not to laugh when she threw the remote then went stomping away with a "bite me" scowl on her face, looking for all the world like an infuriated seven year old trapped in a grown up body. I never knew such a short person could make so much noise stomping around like that.

Another funny thing today? Ok, so you remember that vanity publishing company that I sent my manuscript to? I got a package from them in the mail today. (Go figure, I was expecting an e-mail.) They said they would be pleased to publish my Work (with a capital letter) and they included a very nice summary of my book. I blushed a little. Want to know what the going rate is to get your book published with a vanity publishing company? $11,500. Yeah, my jaw dropped too. And that's for a soft cover and the smallest type font available! I don't make that much money in like 3 years (not kidding), an I'm currently the breadwinner while my husband is looking for a better job! I am trying to think of a very nice, eloquent, polite way to say, "Are you fricking kidding me?!?!?!" I'm not getting very far. So far I have "Dear Publisher,". Any suggestions?

Sooooo . . . I'm giving serious consideration to just finding a printing and binding company and doing it that way. Like how people do their family histories and sometimes kids in school do a school project and they print it up and they each get a real book of it? Yeah, that. I don't really care if I get it for real published, I really don't. The money would be fabulous, but I've never wanted to be famous. That would be so stressful and awkward. I just want my book. I want to hold my book, have it in my hands, printed and bound and real and looking like I just bought it from a bookstore. There you go, deep wild fantasy moment. And then I want to do the same with all the rest of my books! I want a whole shelf of my own books that I can read when I want to without having to do it on a computer. Because oftentimes I completely forget what I have written, and I can actually be quite funny and witty sometimes! I always get a little tingly and warm inside when I can read my own words and laugh at them. Ok, a lot tingly and warm.

Ooh, this is random, but guess what? I have a trenchcoat! You know like in the movies, the butt-kicking sexy chick has a sexy black trenchcoat that goes to her knees and just looks sexy? I have one! I got it on sale at Walmart! It's actually a little too small for me, so I can't button it all the way up and I can't fold my arms because the shoulders are too tight when I do that, but since I like it better unbuttoned anyway, I don't care! I feel dangerous when I wear it. I think sometime soon I'll have to put on one of my pairs of black boots and my trenchcoat and sunglasses and just feel all dangerous and cool and sexy for a minute. I'm weird, I know. I'll just sit here in my weirdness and be weird.

Ok, I think I'm done prattling on for now. Actually, I can think of lots more things to prattle on about, but I'm not sure my poor audience wants to listen. And I'm trying to go to bed at a decent hour (yes, before 2 in the morning is considered a decent hour for me). Last night we had to stay up late and finish washing our laundry. We were trying to get it all done so my sister-in-law could use the machine in the morning. At about 5:30 a.m. I decided that perhaps I should try to get some sleep before the sun rose and our daughter came bouncing into our room as cheery as a chipmunk on drugs. I did fall asleep, because the next thing I knew I was being rudely awoken with and elbow in my ribs, a knee on my bladder, and a very loud chorus of "Mote! Mote!" ringing in my ears. So while our bouncy daughter scrambled around on the bed and on my kidneys looking for the remote and insisted that we watch Mickey (or just about any kind of cartoon featuring a character that was friends with Mickey Mouse) I unfortunately woke up a little more and seriously considered murdering the dog. There could not have possibly been something outside that would inspire such loud, persistent, OBNOXIOUS barking! It wasn't even his frenzied barking at the mailman! It was this booming bark every other second like he was trying to perfect doggie Morse code! GAH! I very nearly got out of bed to order him to be silent using very strong language and possibly a threat to his treat supply. But at that point it was somewhere around 7 or 8 in the morning. I did not have the oomph. And I had a two year old kneeling on my ovaries. The dog should be very grateful.

Anyway, I'm really leaving now. It's 12:52 and I have to get up at 8:30 tomorrow to get ready for work. Have a lovely day! Or night. Or afternoon. Or whatever. Tomorrow I will aspire to be happier than a seagull with a french fry! Byez!