Motherhood Would Be Easier If....

This is an article that was almost published in Chicken Soup for the Soul for the New Mom. Unfortunately, when the editors did their last edits of the book and had to cut articles for space, this was one of them. But it's still a thrill that I was almost part of Chicken Soup. :)

Motherhood Would Be Easier If...

by Christy Hammond

...chocolate chip cookies were part of a nutritious breakfast (but then of course your preschooler wouldn't eat them)

...dishwashers, washing machines and refrigerators were all self loading 

..."I'm telling," didn't mean that someone was in trouble again but that they were coming to tell you how well they were sharing

...that glitter remained glued to their art projects

...broccoli and peas came in different flavors and colors

...clothes grew with your child

...that Chuck'n'Cheese was still fun after the 12th birthday party there in one weekend

...that there wasn't any waiting at the doctor's office and your child didn't come home sick with an extra cold

...you could freeze one minute a day, just so you could take a shower without trying to solve the world's problems with soap in your hair

...you could lost just as much weight thinking about exercising as you could actually doing it

...during Kodak moments your camera was never low on batteries or out of memory

...they stayed little just a little bit longer

Coffee Shop Hazards that Your Momma Never Warned You About...

      I should invest in a coffee pot, not only would it save me time and money, (how much do they mark up that coffee anyway?) I could save myself quite a bit of embarrassment.
      You have to understand, I'm a writer, the words you read I've had a chance to edit, finding just the right word to convey my intentions. Talking doesn't work so well for me. It's not that I'm not a chatter box, ask anyone that knows me, there's a problem if I'm not filling the silence but I don't always have a chance to edit the words before they're flying around, causing me embarrassment.
      Like at the coffee shop this month. And these times the 'oh-no' feeling was even worse than the time I wrote Corner Panty instead of Corner Pantry on my check while paying for gas. The clerk thought it was so hilarious, she was sharing the story with all her other customers, including hero hottie, who had to tell me, with a huge grin, how every one was getting a chuckle over my misspelling.
      The first coffee shop incident happened a couple of weeks ago. I ordered my regular size for really tired days, a 16 ounce coffee. Except my mind must have been on snooze still because I ordered a 16 inch coffee. Now, I didn't think anything of it, until hero hottie started chuckling beside me and muttering something about 16 inches. I love the guy, but he's a guy and sixteen inches apparently is a dirty joke. I'm sure I don't have to explain in further detail the jokes that were tossed back and forth at my expense between hero hottie and the guy taking the order. My cheeks were blazing and I could have kicked hero hottie in the shin for laughing in the first place.
       And the second incident probably never would have happened had hero hottie not teased me about my 16 inch coffee order but he did and yesterday when we went in the coffee shop to order a very innocent cup of coffee, I was faced with the guy from last time and my mind started recalling the last time I ordered from him and all the times hero hottie had teased me about it. And instead of asking for a 16 ounce coffee, I was so busy hoping the guy didn't remember the last time I had ordered coffee, I asked for...
      "Sixteen inch-ounce coffee." I asked, cringing as I realized that he had indeed heard the inches and completely remembered me from last time. The guy chuckled and proceeded with another bunch of dirty jokes.
      I would have teleported if that was real or if I had been really bold I would have commented on their wishful thinking and the impracticability of such a thing as 16 inch 'coffee'. Instead, I took my coffee and decided I might have to find another place to embarrass myself at. Like at home. Or on my blog.
     And contrary to what hero hottie says, even though a great deal of what I write is 'icky-icky' as my children call it, my mind is not in the gutter. His is. Because I'm not the one who took a word of measurement and turned it into a joke about guy's you know what.
      In the meantime, I think it might be a while before I stop thinking about anatomy while drinking coffee.

Lost in a Sea of Box Tops and Bad News

      These are interesting times we live in and I say that even knowing that other times were just as fascinating, its just I wasn't there so it's considered history. Which is unfortunately a dull and boring subject if you never get pass high school or college history classes. I think it's difficult for people to relate to history when classes revolve around dates and chronological time lines that are just about wars, and not the daily life and experiences of the people. 
      And then we end up with this arrogance over our ancestors because we think we're better than they were, that we had better stuff than they did, because we don't understand the things we haven't been taught in school.
      It's just all the events and disasters in the world right now make you wonder how the show is going to end. When you have riots breaking out all over the Middle East and Africa, which seems like a world away, but then you have huge protests in your own country, it reminds us that history happened to regular people just like us. We're not immune from it, we're part of it. Even our simple choices that seem routine, propel us towards the future and eventually our own entry in the history books.

       I tend to worry too much about things I can't control or change, like the earthquake in New Zealand or the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico that lingers. I do small things and hope that it makes a difference. Like Box Tops for my children's school. And boy, what a pain that is, cutting and clipping, sorting and stacking, bundling and counting. Luckily, I had recuits. Hero hottie and the children were given scissors and rubber bands and put to work.
      The task was so large I started bringing the Box Tops along with me to public places while waiting to pick up the children and didn't realize how guilty I could make people feel just by trying to help the school. I had Moms come up to me that I didn't even know and give me a list of reasons why they didn't help their children's school. Why they didn't have time to volunteer even though they should. Do they assume that I DO have the time?
      I even had Moms purposely avoid looking at me in case there guilt happen to be too much and they offer to help. Actually, I had children and teenagers offer to help me but not the busy adults.
     Now, I'm not saying we should volunteer so much that our families suffer or our children don't know who we are but there are small things we can all do. An hour a month at a local agency, or keeping a box in the pantry and buying extra items for it to drop off at a woman's shelter or going down to a school and buying supplies for the classrooms.
      In the mean time, I can't fix all the bad news in the world, the people that are living a future entry in our history books, but I can focus on the small things, my community, my family and if we all did that, we would eventually touch the entire world.
      So while we all try to keep our heads above water in this crazy sea of bad news, huge disasters, and constantly shifting events, we need to remember a few things...only volunteer for Box Tops if you like cutting and bundling, people will spend more time making excuses than actually doing something and sometimes even optimistic people like myself will be gloomy when there's too much hurt in the world.
        Remember to do a few small things this week for someone else, say a few prayers for the people that have had a horrible week, and love really does run the universe, even if it seems a bit faded and jaded in the world lately.

Monday Musings...

Dedicated to a great dog...

       I had plans to post on Monday, even had the idea ready to go and then that inevitable change I've talked about before decided to make itself very known and hero hottie and I had to make a difficult decision about our Buddy dog.

       We knew it was coming, he was dying of cancer, and every extra day we had with him was a gift that we didn't take for granted. But there's no way to prepare yourself emotionally for the hard decisions. I can't go down to the store and buy a shield of iron for my heart and neither would I choose to.

       He was my best canine friend in the whole universe and his presence around the house has been sorely missed. And its the little things too, the daily interactions that weren't significant, that weren't exciting, that weren't celebrations, but they were the foundations on which our life with him was built. Saving scraps of chicken from dinner, letting him outside one last time for the night, his tail purposely hitting the mattress in the middle of my sleep to wake me when he couldn't wait until morning. It was the grin on his face, because yes, dogs do smile, when we were goofing off with him. Hero hottie would often times play a game of tag and chase with him and it was something they both enjoyed. 

        The house is empty without him. I feel tears off and on during the day and for anyone that hasn't been given the gift of a canine or feline best friend they probably think I'm crazy to be so upset about his passing. For readers that have shared in the joy of having a furry friend then they know exactly what I'm talking about. From their first purr or bark they wrap your heart around their little paws and when they die they break it. And then its especially sad because they love you so much they don't want to break your heart. Buddy kept looking at me with his big brown eyes, sad and crying but with a look of 'it's okay, Mom. Don't be sad.' He hated to see me sad. When I was upset he would come over and lay his head on my leg until it was all okay. I'll tell you I could use my canine friend right now, because my heart is sore and his unconditional love would fix it all. 

        I hate movies where the dogs die at the end. Old Yeller, Where the Red Fern Grows, Marley and Me...Why remind people how much it hurts when your dog dies? I don't need to think about it yet here I am writing about it, doing the same thing. I think we write about them because we don't want to forget them. Because we want other people to know how sweet and wonderful our furry friends were. 

        And telling stories help heal the hurt. There's laughter and joy to be found when we tell stories of them. And they live on, in a way. I never really realized why my Grandmother still talked about her childhood dog with such intensity and love. Now I know. Time is relative and doesn't heal but sharing our love and memories does. 

        On the day we had to help him over to the other side, my child, who doesn't remember a time without him, came home with two drawings. One was of Buddy, with a smile and a curly tail and unfortunately the tumor on his leg that took him away from us. And the other drawing was an unusual picture of a geometric shape in the middle, covered with a bright yellow star that had a door drawn in the middle of it. The star was exploding with light, tons of inviting light that seem to stretch into the forever. I was instantly comforted by it and knew that this unusual picture was perhaps a glimpse into the beyond that we rarely have a view of from down here on planet Earth. It was Buddy's light and I knew he would be okay. 

        Adopting Buddy was one of the best decisions hero hottie and I ever made. It was one of those decisions that we never doubted. He was a part of the family and everyone around here will greatly miss him. And even with the pain that fogs my brain and fills my heart, I would never change that bright, sunny Saturday when we followed an impulse and took home a charming, golden colored mutt that would teach us lessons of love and lost by simply being a great 'Buddy.' 

          So this entry is for you Bud, a great dog who loved everyone he met and handed out happiness with every wag of his tail and lick of his tongue.