Huh?

“What did you say?”  She said it again.  I picked up my jaw off the floor and flashed back to the first time I said a …um…chosen word in my mom's presence.  Before I continue, you’ve got to understand that my mom was “old school,”  in fact, she’d be 84 on her next birthday.  Hers was the generation where you didn’t sit down and do mini-psychotherapy to find out why your 6-year-old just cussed like a sailor.  You simply spanked her little bottom, and she never said the word again – even if she didn’t know why saying the word was wrong in the first place.  Which is what happened with me.  But I knew I wanted to do things differently with GG.

“Who have you heard say that word?”  Heaven knows that Jamie and I aren’t halo-heads or anything, but strong language is something that just doesn’t happen around our house.  In fact, I was 30 years old before I ever heard my own dad swear.   Anyway, back to GG the Sailor.  “I heard it from my Surf’s Up movie.”  Great.  Not only did I take her to see that movie, but bought her the DVD too…So we had yet another “talk.”   We talked about how she may hear people saying words like that, but it doesn’t mean that she should use them; how she’s got so many words in her vocabulary that she doesn’t have to come up with dirty words to explain herself; how saying dirty words can get her in trouble at school or even cause her to lose friends.  And whole bunch of other stuff that took about 10 minutes to go through, as well as a “time out” and an apology to me.

Really…didn’t I just have “the talk” about alcohol with her the other day?  Great…and now we’ve moved onto swearing.  Guess I better buy a book about the “Birds & the Bees”…that’ll probably be the topic of tomorrow’s “talk” at the rate we’re going.

Anybody have suggestions for some "cover the gray" hair coloring?

I think I'm gonna need it.

“Now….are you crying because it’s that time of the month, or uh…..”  That was my Beloved's response to me crying over a working-mother dilemma I was facing. 

Bottom line is this: there was a last-minute work thing that got scheduled smack-dab in the middle of GG’s first big-kid speaking role at school.  “She’ll be fine.  You know she’s got it memorized, she’ll do great.  I’ll be there.  I’ll videotape it."  That was my husband's very logical reasoning. Jamie’s not clueless – far from it.  My job’s been cranking up lately and he’s really been Dad AND Mom lately, so I should have been thankful.  But instead, I was ripped up in shreds.  So no – the tears weren’t because of “that time of the month,” these were bona fide Working-Mom Tears.  He looked at me helplessly as I forced out an "Okay."  Realizing his logical logic was useless to his teary wife, he said “You need to talk to Amy about this.”  He meant BFF Amy.  We’ve been friends since we were five and he knew she’d talk some sense into me.

But he forgot BFF Amy is also a mom…with THREE kids.  BFF Amy and I talked about it…and like a Mom, she advised…”Yeah, that’s hard… she’ll have other stuff, but she’s only going to have her first time doing something like this once...and you can't get that back.”  Later, I talked to BFF Becky – she’s my sister-in-law and GG’s Godmother.  Back when her 20-something-year-old was GG’s age, she was a working mom too.  After a lot of tears on my part and lots of hugs on BFF Becky’s part, she offered “Maybe you just have to stand up and tell ‘em that your daughter comes first.”  But at the same time, she also understood the work obligation “But if you have to be at work, you tell me – and I’ll be there.  I know it won't be like you being there, but I’m her Godmother. That’s what I’m here for, honey.”  Makes me tear up now just writing about it.

Anyway, that’s what I love about my Mom-BFFs…they get it.  They put up with every conversation being about the crisis at hand, even if it means having a week-long conversation about the same thing.  They get the push-pull of working and mothering, and they’ve got the common sense to say when it’s time to push back.  They put up with Working-Mom Tears….and they never, EVER ask if the tears are there because it’s “that time of the month.”

Good comedy's all about timing; and if you were at Red Arrow Park's Slice of Ice this past Friday around 2:00ish, you probably got some great comedy from the adults there skating badly.  VERY badly.

Like this one woman  -- she oozed cockiness as she came out of the skate rental place with her daughter (who was obviously a little pensive about skating in the first place) and her husband -- who was there with the camera ready for the photo ops.  Nose in the air, she told her little one, "Let Mommy warm up first, and then we'll skate together" and took off.  Only she didn't.  She wobbled like a newborn calf and joked "Wow, this ice is really slippery!" with the Sideline Moms who couldn't help but look at the spectacle.  They only looked at her like the fool she was.  I'll give the woman credit though, she kept her brave face while stumbling awkwardly and began to glide....glide out of control, that is.  That's when she came crashing down with a BANG-ker-Slide (about 4 feet, if anyone was measuring) on the ice.  The beaten-down woman looked at the Sideline Moms and mumbled something like "What the heck happened?" and the moms just tried to politely ignore her as best they could.  I swear, the ruckus this clumsy woman created even caused her husband and child to back away (far, far away) from this crazy-newborn-calf-nonskating person they came to the park with.

That would have been hilarious...if it hadn't been me.

Once upon a time, I had been a very graceful skater.  I regularly skated at Mayfair Mall's ice skating rink, zipping round and round for hours on end.  And even last year -- and the year before that -- even the year before that, I had been good!  DARN good!  But for some reason this past Friday, I remember stepping out onto the ice and knowing that something didn't feel quite right.  I figured that the unusal slippery-ness was just me getting older (heck, I'm gonna be forty this year), but it wasn't anything I couldn't overcome, hence the trivial commentary with the Sideline Moms.  Then the initial fall happened.  Stubbornly refusing to believe that getting older could turn me into a wreck on the rink, I got up.  Big Mistake:  That's when the final SPA-LATT happened.  I was ready to throw in the towel or at least use one for my backside that was by that time covered in slushy ice.  Even Jamie and GG had backed away and started looking at me like I was from the Twilight Zone or something.  Then thankfully...finally, some wonderful man whose name I shall never know, but to whom I'll always be grateful said "Hey!  You've got your blade guards on!"

My pride hopes that your timing was off on Friday so you would have missed the five minute disaster that was me that day.  But if it was on and you caught my impromptu slip-sliding-away show, I hope you got a chuckle out of it.

This time of year known as the Holiday Season to everyone else is known as Year End to those of us in the non-profit world.  Now's when we make our last push to get those extra donations in to meet our budgets and fundraising goals, so we send out letters, double-check with funders that we've approached about pending grants, and start preparing for the annual audit.  In a word, it's just been busy, and I've definitely been on that crazy treadmill too.  And lately, the running theme in my mind has been "All I want for Christmas is my sense of humor back...or at least my sense of fun back" because I find it really hard to disconnect from the busyness of work and reconnect with the not only the true meaning of Christmas, but also the funny, silly things that GG does.

Anyway, today started the first day of an entire week off.  I spent the morning -- probably like a gazillion other people -- trying to get the last minute things done that I should've have done weeks ago, and of course GG was with me -- partially so she could see Santa, and mostly so we could reconnect.  GG calls it a "Mom and GG Day."  We got up early, headed to the mall in the blowing snow and made it there before the crowds hit.  She picked out a present for her uncle, and then we headed off to see Santa.  I love Mayfair's Santa because he looks like the genuine article.  Each year, he says "My you've grown"  and that always makes me feel like "maybe, just maybe he does exist."  But today was the capper of all cappers -- he says "Well, you're on the good list.....BUT you've got to work on your listening.  Especially when you're shopping with your mom."  That was the very thing we've been talking about over the last few days!  How did he know?!

Call me naive, but all of the sudden, I was 7 years old again, wondering along with GG how he could've possibly known that she's got "listening issues."  I couldn't have asked for a better present than that.  And GG had renewed motivation to work on her listening.

Think I'm officially off the treadmill now.  Merry Christmas everyone.

Today’s the 17^th…so let’s see….25 minus 17 means there’s….EIGHT MORE DAYS until Christmas!  There's still plenty of time left!

I'll start with our Christmas tree.  Poor thing’s been sitting there naked except for three hundred lights and some garland.  Easily squeezed in tonight after GG’s Christmas pageant.  Oh – that reminds me….I didn’t tell GG’s Godparents about the pageant.  That’s okay, I’ll call them after I’m done with this post.  Cross that off the list.  Back to the tree.  I still have time to do it and…wait a minute: GG’s mini-tree needs ornaments too, and I’ve been promising her that we’d decorate it after she gets home from school.  Perfect!  We can do it before tonight’s pageant.  Cross that off the list too.

Was I supposed to be calling someone about something?

GG’s Christmas shopping should be easy -- I know what she wants because she told me what she’s going to tell Santa she wants.  Oh no, GG hasn’t visited Santa yet!  We can’t very well have the gifts and tell her that Santa brought ‘em when she hasn’t even talked to him yet!  I wonder how long that pageant’s going to be…Hmm...think I’ll call to see how long Santa’s at the mall once I’m done with this post.  Perfect!  We’ll just go see Santa after the pageant’s over.  Back to shopping for GG, stores are open super late now, so I can still fit that in tonight after we see Santa after the pageant after we decorate the tree.  Cross some more stuff off the list!

Who was I going to call again?

Whatever.  After tonight, I’ll have another seven days to shop for Christmas dinner, even though I don’t even know what we’re having …think I’ll call Jamie & see what he thinks once I’m done with this post.  Speaking of Jamie, I’ve still got time to shop for him, GG’s Godparents, my mother-in-law, my Godchild, my brother and his wife; get the Christmas Cards in the mail; clean the house and hopefully find the Jimmy Buffet Christmas CD that hasn't been seen since last Christmas.

So you see, eight days is plenty of time….Now, why am I calling Jamie again?

4 days until D-Day – or shall I say the B-Day (although, technically, GG’s birthday is indeed D-Day/Pearl Harbor).  Anyway, she’s turning 6 on Sunday, and I’m not quite sure what to do with myself.  I don’t know if has to do with hormonal stuff that women go through when they reach a certain age, or just the fact that (sniff, sniff): my baby’s not a baby anymore.

I’ve realized this melancholy/nostalgic/introspective thing happens to me every year about seven days before her birthday.  GG, on the other hand, seems to exert her independence/will/individuality – sometimes exhibited by uncharacteristic (and it pains me to say it) brattiness seven days before her special day. 

And so I end up on this weird emotional seesaw where I’m on her (it seems like constantly) for doing things she wouldn’t normally do (e.g. sassing one of her favorite aunts) and wondering where I went wrong and realizing how woefully unprepared I was for this parenting gig in the first place.  Then the seesaw goes up (or down depending on the day) and I see how she’s got her own little circle of friends at school.  Or I call home from work to see how her day went and she tells me that she’s “a little busy right now.”  Or she comes up with ideas about helping “people who are poor” and “people who are sad.” 

All of it gets me misty because I realize that GG really is a big kid now….and maybe, just maybe – in between all the ups and downs - some of what we’re trying to impart is getting through.

Guess I’m looking forward to D-Day/B-Day after all, even though I’ll see it through the misty eyes of a woefully unprepared mom.

Happy Birthday, GG.  Mom and Dad love you more than anything.

GG two months after THE Birth Day

GG at last year's birthday party.

Sniff. Sniff.

Years ago -- somewhere in my early twenties -- my friends and I would make the annual pilgrimage to Summerfest six out of the festival's eleven days.  Essential to our annual ritual was scrambling around to get our "Summerfest Outfits" in the days before we went.  When we finally made it to the festival, the first order of business was snagging the all-important picnic table and then going to the ladies room in rotation throughout the day so we could keep it.  After all, our table would be our dance floor up until closing time.  After dancing the night away, we'd hear the closing announcement boom over the loudspeakers, and head over to Ma Fischer's for late dinner or early breakfast, depending on what we ordered.

Not so much anymore.  Now it's Summerfest A.K. (After Kids)

This year, I didn't go with a bunch of giggling boy-crazy twenty-somethings who were going just to dance and work it out to whatever band was playing wherever a picnic table could be found.  No, I was among a group of parents who, collectively, have six small children.  Now, instead of scrambling around for the Summerfest Outfit the day before, I was scrambling to make sure that I packed everything GG would need for her sleepover at her Godmother's house.  And snagging a picnic table?  We wanted --no, we needed -- a concert where we could sit, so we opted for the Steve Miller show at the Ampitheater. (Okay, maybe we'd stand for the rockin' tunes as long as it wouldn't morph into one of those twenty-minute jam sessions)   And even though we had a few hours before the concert, there was a quiet understanding among us that hunkering down at a picnic table probably meant not moving once it was time for the concert to start.  So we found it best to keep walking...albeit at a slow pace.  This was Summerfest A.K. ...and it also afforded something that had been unheard of in my early twenties:  Eating!  We all ditched our diets and consumed everything from pork and beef on a stick to mini-bratwurst corndogs to haystack onion rings.  Honestly, I don't remember ever eating at Summerfest back in the "Outfit Days."  That's what Ma Fischer's was for.

The concert ended early enough for us to catch one of the "new groups" at the Briggs & Stratton Big Backyard to complete our Summerfest A.K. experience.  I think we went to prove our "coolness," -- that this A.K. business hadn't gotten the best of us, and so we caught the ending of a rap group's set.  After listening, I found out just how cool I'm not, because I like clean rap -- and what we heard was not clean.  (And here I was thinking that I was being a totally rebellious teen when I rocked out to the Clash's "Straight to Hell" during my high school days)  While the profanity-laced riffs were disturbing, it wasn't as disturbing to me as this girl who was 17 -- at most - totally into it, dancing gleefully on a picnic table.  My husband heard what I heard and saw what I saw, and gave me that deer-in-the-headlights look; and I then realized that we had both flashed forward to GG in about ten years:  What is music going to be like by that time?  Are we going to be the dorky parents who "just don't get it?"  And how long will she want us to hang out with her, because heaven knows she can't be dancing on Summerfest picnic tables without us there to protect her from all the Summerfest guys who are there to pick up girls!  

There's this wonderful commercial that says "A baby changes everything."  Well, they do.  The Summerfest experience isn't about The Outfit or hanging around until closing anymore.  And now, it's certainly about more than "date night" for me.  This A.K. experience made me think about the long-lasting impact that we will have as parents on our daughter's life, and it awakened a resolve within myself to:

• Have continual dialogue with GG about self-esteem, peer pressure, alcohol use and all of those things that can cause our kids to get sidelined
• Teach GG to listen to the lyrics of whatever music she chooses with a critical ear, and to learn about what those lyrics really mean

and just as importantly,

• Recapture my own sense of fun, and not obsess or get too uptight about the years ahead.

After all, I know that Summerfest will still be there in ten years with a new crop of kids dancing on tables, GG included.  I also know that if Jamie and I continue instilling the right messages in GG's heart throughout the precious growing years that we have with her now, she'll be okay then.  And in about ten years after her Summerfest Outfit days are over, GG will get married, have kids....and be just as worried about them too....especially after she experiences her own Summerfest A.K.