Making Mistakes or you know, it's Motherhood

     In the small town next to our small town, we have a gluten free bakery. It's tucked away in a plaza that shares space with the local sanitary district, an occasional used car salesman and various other businesses that survive for six months and then blow away with the constant prairie wind. 

    Years ago I went to a church housed in one of the bigger office spaces. I don't remember much except they had made a spaghetti dinner for after the service and it didn't smell that great. Now, I have been to many a church function and some of those church ladies, they know how to make a spread. This was not one of them. But it was significantly better than the fundraiser I visited this spring inside a church and the church ladies had made boiled hot dogs. Do you know the color of a boiled hot dog? LOL - not a natural one and Baby Blueberry had to have one. 

    Now, to catch up new readers, I must say that Baby Blueberry is no longer a baby, but instead is a teenager. And if you're a reader from the start, then if you feel old, imagine how I feel? I don't feel old until I realize that my surprise baby from a pregnancy in my mid-thirties is now a teenager. This is why poets and songwriters make art about time slipping into the unknown. It is the most elusive element in science. 

    But I digress, as I often do, even in real time conversations. My best friend from when I was a teenager, we will call her SB, often joked about how we would bird walk in our conversations. When I moved half way across country, we were pen pals for a while and then it slowly died out. I missed her. Sometimes there's nothing as intense as a teenage best friend, besides maybe first love. A couple of years ago I started to get the intense urge to look her up. I would dream about her. She would pop into my head uninvited. 

    And so I looked her up. Her obit was the third down on the search. She had died just shortly before that of cancer. At 43. Grief is hard. Regret of not connecting again before she was gone is harder. 

    She had ended up being a fifth grade teacher. Something she had adamantly said she would never be. And now, I'm teaching fifth grade. Also, something I had said I would never do either. I wish we could joke about that. She would enjoy the irony in it. 

    But again I digress and now we go back to the bakery. This bakery is a must visit if you ever come to my area of the world. The baker has worked countless hours to make goods that taste delicious. Not it's pretty good for gluten free, but actually yummy. And so the other day I had the Husband, who does not get the moniker Hero Hottie anymore, because that relationship is in murky waters, pick up two blueberry lemon muffins. One for Baby Blueberry and one for me. 

    I did not eat it that day. I'm recovering from the second of two major abdominal surgeries - thank you Crohn's- and was not hungry yet. 

    The next day I went to get it out of the fridge and I find one muffin with the delicious and best part of the muffin - the top munched by someone else. I started crying and fuming. How could someone eat my muffin? I angrily toss it in the air fryer and ate the bottom of my muffin. 

    A little while later...Baby Blueberry is searching through the fridge, pulls out a whole muffin, not touched and munched and asks, "Where is my muffin? I was saving the bottom of it to eat later." 

    I stare at the untouched blueberry muffin and then look at her. I look back at the muffin and realized that I had grabbed her saved muffin. I sigh. 

    I tell her what happened and then offer my whole, untouched muffin in return. It does seem rather petty to demand the top of the muffin. The best part. The part she now gets to have two of, but I graciously offer my muffin to her. 

    She shared a bit of it, since she realized I didn't get a whole muffin. But man, I really missed eating my entire treat. So the mistake I mentioned in the title - you thought it would be me confessing to some mistake with my child? No, it's the mistake of grabbing the wrong treat in the fridge, believing someone had taken mine, not bothering to look further because if I had, I would have found it, and then missing out of the best part of the muffin. 

    If only I could have hidden my muffin in my secret chocolate stash in my underwear drawer. I used to hide the chocolate in the cupboard, but they - the children - found it. So it had to go where no child is going to search - their Mom's underwear drawer. 

    Anyway, that is how good those bakery treats are - that I wrote a blog about a missing muffin top. Maybe I should put that in a Google review? 

 And also, having treats and kids is the definition of a paradox. 

Retreat into the Familiar

      My oldest daughter, her nickname is Bean, turned ten years old at the beginning of summer and has entered the last year of elementary school this fall. Change has been like a roller coaster ride for her and yesterday I think she almost fell off. Retreated back into the safe and warm folds of childhood.
    
       Already she has started to give up toys, now her dolls wait in carefully placed poses on her nightstand or in the dollhouse, rarely played with but still enjoyed nevertheless. Her preparations for school take a whole lot more time, with the shoes absolutely having to match the outfit, the hair style matching the shirt and the backpack an accessory that just happens to carry her homework. Nails are painted every weekend and this summer she got her ears pierced. Whew, I can't keep up, I'm not sure how she does it. Maybe that's why she gets a bit crabby sometimes, torn between still wanting to be cuddled and treated like a child and wanting to find the path that will lead to her adulthood. I didn't realize it started quite so young but all journeys do have a beginning and watching her fumble towards the right path makes me proud of her for the wonderful job she's doing and the intense need to cry because she'll never be my small child again.
       I didn't remember how much change I went through in fifth grade until Bean came home yesterday completely upset and in a temper. That girl is tough, and a lot like Wolverine. The temper flares when pain is experienced. Tears are rarely seen, which is not like me at all. So she comes home quite mad at this girl at school.
      "We were having lunch together and talking just like every day since school started. Oh, she's such..." She breaks off, controlling her temper, especially since name calling isn't allowed in our household.
        "What happened?" I asked, quite concerned because she seemed so vulnerable and not like the sassy fifth grader I have been sending to school the last two weeks, all confident and sure of herself.
        "We were talking and then suddenly, just suddenly Mom. She asks me 'why do you sit with us?" She frowns and obviously this question has confused her for the abruptness of how it had been asked. "I said it was because I liked to." She takes a deep breath, her fists clenched, her face lined with anger but it's the hurt in her green gold eyes that has me wanting to take her in a big hug.
        "Then what happened?" I asked quietly.
         "She said I was annoying. That everything I said was annoying. That I was just annoying and I wasn't welcomed to sit with them anymore. And she was so rude about it. Just snotty and rude. I wanted to punch her."  Angry. Hurt. And totally confused how one second they could be getting along and then suddenly thrown into the lion's den.
         I asked her what happened then. Apparently the conversation had been interrupted before Bean had a chance to respond. The lunch room was put into quiet mode and under the threat of losing recess they dared not speak. But later at recess the girl was not nice to Bean either and I must have taught my daughter something because she responded firmly but didn't resort to name calling or rudeness. And I know she would have been angry and hurt.
        I went through the usual cliches of how some people just aren't nice, there might be reasons, such as a terrible home life, or they're having a bad day but we still didn't have to spend time with them and the best thing to do was avoid rude people like that. Don't let her be a bully but we don't have to allow them a chance to ruin our day. I reassured her that she had plenty of other friends, ones that weren't suddenly rude and hurtful and she shouldn't let this girl bother her.
       But I know it hurts. I remember fifth grade and the day my best friend from fourth grade stood up and told everyone it was her last day because her parents were getting a divorce and she was moving. I was shocked because she hadn't told me. The summer before she had decided to play with someone else and had told me we weren't best friends anymore. I had been horribly hurt and had hoped that once the school year started we would be friends again. Apparently not.
      So I knew Bean was hurting, it's hard to learn lessons on how to deal with people. How to deal with ourselves. So I did the only other thing I knew how to do to make it better. I gathered her into a huge bear hug and held her close for a minute, telling her that no matter what she was My Bean and would always have a family that loved her.
      I don't know how much it helped except she wasn't as angry but for the rest of the afternoon she pulled out my childhood collection of My Little Ponies and started playing with her sister and her nieces. And then she picked a few of her favorites and took them to the corner of the room and played by herself. Making them talk and play. The sounds of pretend were warmly familiar but just a bit solemn because I knew she was finding comfort with a tactical retreat back into childhood.
     And sometimes don't we all have to make tactical retreats from life and the world?

A Summer 'Bloomed'

According to my three year old niece, CT, this is her artwork of a flower bloomed. Not blooming.
       Bloomed.
       And that's how I feel about summer. It's no longer blooming, it has bloomed. And like a flower whose petals slowly fall off, seeds start to form and eventually the plant withers, summer has already given us its brightest day; now we watch it wind down to the chilly days of autumn.
       I'm not ready. The children are definitely not ready for cold weather and longs weekends trapped in the house. They weren't ready for the first day of school this week. Even some of my plants aren't prepared for the coming arrival of fall. They are still pretending that these last few weeks of warm weather will last forever.
      If only. I know I should try to appreciate winter more for it's frosty reminder of how grateful I should be that summer days are lit brightly and warm and wonderful. But Mr. Frost can kiss Summer's sun warmed...
      Winter is not my favorite season. Perhaps if snow was 'smarter' and would only accumulate on the yard and not on my car. Or if it wouldn't drop to twenty below so the children could actually play in the snow, then I wouldn't be bemoaning- the too soon end -of sunny days. As it is, I am saddened by the 'bloomed' summer and wish it would blossom longer around these parts.

    On another note, why do husbands have to be so frustrating? (Yes, men say that about their wives too and I know, as women we try to say they have nothing to complain about but I will admit, just so hero hottie doesn't think I'm picking on him, that yes sometimes wives can be frustrating too. (Grin)
     But back when I started my blog I asked if I could refer to him by name or would he rather I came up with a nick name for him.
     "I don't want you using my name. Come up with something. I don't care what." He said.
     I thought long and hard and decided on hero hottie because even after over twelve years of marriage I still think he's hot and since most of the stories I write are romantically inclined, I naturally chose something that sounded like a corny romance novel.
     He was okay with this. Not thrilled, even though I called him hot but gave me the go ahead.
     And then I collected readers. In town. That knew him and used his new nickname.
     "Why did you call me..." he bemoaned.
     "Hero hottie?" I supplied when the poor man couldn't even say it aloud.
     "Yes."
     I gave him a mock glare, trying to hide the laughter and not being successful at all. Poor guy, not only did someone call him hero hottie but his wife wouldn't stop laughing over it. "You said I could call you that."
I reminded him.
     "Yes, but I didn't think anyone would actually read your blog."
     Ahhh. I should have been upset. And a little part of me was and as my friend said, 'You could change his name from hero hottie to hero nottie.'
     And on some days I have certainty contemplated it but I think for now I'll just leave it as hero hottie and kindly let him continue enjoying his small claim to celebrity hood. I'm sure he'll get used to it. :)