Deep South Moms

Young at Heart

When we are young we think, and feel, that we are invincible. We see suffering as a distant reality in someone else's world. Few of us experience deep seated suffering, or if we do, we digest it differently. We are perhaps better equipped to look forward with anticipation. And hope. Few of us taste mortality's bitter sweetness when we are young.

When we are young we never see ourselves growing old. Hell, I thought 32 was old once upon a time. Nevermind that I am almost a decade past that now. Ironically, now that I am teetering on the cusp of 42, I still feel young. I believe people call women like me, women of a certain age, "young at heart. My body doesn't always comply. My graying temples, mushy parts, dark circles, and forehead wrinkles betray me. Somehow I'm not keeping up with my mind, my outlook, and my youthful (i.e. immature) sense of humor.

There is a fork in my aging highway.

Neighborhood Values (or Why I Don't Want to Live in the Burbs)

It's no secret that I have made many a barb at the burbs. What I really loathe is urban sprawl that taxes our infrastructure and increases our dependency on cars. Strip malls line the landscape here, and it's a rudely jarring eyesore to the Nth degree. Locally owned shops aren't spontaneously combusting. Suburban growth is bringing the big box marvels to town. My disdain is not about money or class or cachet. It's also not about the people. It's about shared values. It is no secret that people choose their homes based on a sense of values, not just cost. Now work with me here. I'm not here to incite a fight or anything. This is not a personal attack. I'm not judging, though my tone can admittedly be snarky and irreverent.

I surely don't fault people for making the housing and neighborhood choices they make. I take my share of flak for choosing city living. People balk at the price per square foot we paid for our house and are astounded we wouldn't want a larger house with a media room and two car garage for less than what we stroke a monthly check for. People also shake their head in pity that we live with a yard about the size of six parking spots at the mall. Many people think we are doing our sons a disservice because they don't have a yard large enough to host a bouncy house party or play a proper game of football. We do have plenty of room for my sons to play baseball, frolic on the Slip n Slide, grow vegetables in two garden beds, and cook up pudgie pies in the outdoor patio fireplace. They yard is a tish small for Hide & Seek, but it makes it easy to round up the kids for dinner.

It seems that suburbia is peppered with clock towers, bucolic sounding subdivision monikers, community pools, and whatever the modern day equivalent of bridge clubs are.  There just seems to be a lot of sameness. While there is a sense of community and neighborliness, new neighborhoods can foster homogeneity because they tend not to attract people in different life stages. For example, you wouldn't find retired couples, empty nesters, and new parents on the same block because the neighborhood's built in amenities do not cater to all those audiences. My husband and I prefer our sons grow up around a variety of people, not just families with 2.3 kids. The sounds of children romping through the streets is not the only thing that makes a place family friendly. Remember, "family" has many faces. I realize that definition is open to interpretation. I fear that too much sameness causes an insulated sense of community, the same dynamic that fuels the "neighborhood school" argument that has recently killed our county's diversity policy. When your mindset goes from the community at large to only your set of gridded streets, the effects can be damaging.

Greece was the Word

Two kids. A post office with just one passport line. Two hours in said line. Three hundred dollars, several signatures, and a few wallet size photos with fake smiles emblazoned on our proof of citizenship for the next five years.

We had big plans to go to Greece this summer. Athens. Mykonos. Santorini. Ancient ruins meet pristine blue beaches. Moussaka. Dolmas. Avgolemono. Decadently strong coffee and rich red wine. The perfect triumvirate of history, culture, and seaside frolicking. Mac Daddy and I celebrated our tenth wedding anniversary in March, and in true romantic style, we planned on taking our sons along for the ride on our celebratory jaunt. Did I mention our sons are six and four? Not entirely a picture of romance, but we didn't have a choice. We have no family to watch the boys for 10 days so we figured instead of waiting 10 more years, we'll just pack up the airborne minivan and make it a family road trip.

Pulling the Plug on Project Enlightenment

The blessing and the curse of children is that they grow up. Babies are wondrous little bundles, so promising, so helpless, so sweet. Their succulent rolls and coos are proof of a life divine. Babyhood passes in a flutter of a thousand butterfly wings. The weariness and momentousness of that time is imprinted on us forever, though the details are hazy.

And then those babies start crawling and walking and talking. With those milestones come their own opinions and resolve. They develop preferences, habits, ideas. Those babies grow up on us, proving that Time is both a bandit and a gift.

I have a hunch my mom wished away many a day when I was a little girl. I was a spirited, curious child and a painfully rebellious teen. I don't think my parents really liked me until I had children of my own. For starters, they partake in the spoiling and fun without the dread and responsibility. Also, they believe in karma. I was facing payback for all the misdeeds I got busted for as a kid.

Never Too Old to Read With Mommy

 My six-year old son has turned into a voracious reader. He's the kid who begs (read: whines) for one more chapter and falls asleep night after night with his book open across his chest, drool puddling on his bookmark and lamp left shining. My brother and I were much the same as kids. We thought it absurd to actually sit, interact, and catch up at the dinner table. Our minds, and attention spans, wandered elsewhere. It wasn't TV that was the culprit, it was whatever book we had in tow. When my brother and I were young my mom and dad made us sit at the dinner table without our books open. It pained us. We hurried through dinner to get back to our imaginary conversations with Enid Blyton or Ramona Quimby.

As an adult, I still swim in books. I have three at any given time on my nightstand. I also keep a book in my car to occupy the hour a day I spend in car pool. I covet a Nook just to make my load a bit lighter. Words are my first true love. I wrote short stories and poems to entertain myself as a child. Now I recount what I remember of those tales to my sons. There's the story I wrote about why we dye Easter eggs (involving a clumsy bunny and a smorgasbord of juice) and my take on Greek mythology to explain where echos come from. I was a rhyming whiz and thought it wasn't real poetry if the lines didn't rhyme with a lilting cadence. To tell you the truth, I still prefer a Shel Silverstein verse to high falutin' poetry.

Who Are You Calling Mommy?

I think the word "Mommy" gets slammed a lot. It seems to have a treacly undertone that people don't take seriously. And before you think I'm late to the New York Times mommy blogger rebuttal, let me assure you that this post is not about that rag. It seems to me that "Mommy" is often coupled with "just," as in "just a mommy." Even mothers use it self-deprecatingly ourselves. Often in an atmosphere of other adults, say a cocktail party or office open house, when asked about ourselves, we look to the floor, shrug, and say, "Oh, I'm just a mommy." Why must we discount ourselves as such? There's power in Motherhood.

Being called Mommy is a privilege.

Paradise Lost. And Gained.

This song has been ringing in my ears lately. I know there must be a message in that ear worm. Why else would Charlene be crooning in my ears?

"Hey lady, you lady
cursing at your life
you're a discontented mother
and a regimented wife
I've no doubt
you dream about the things you never do"

I'm on the brink of losing it. Really, I am. If I had hair long enough to pull I'd have yanked it out by now. Instead my short locks are graying before my tired eyes. I noticed a deep crevasse under my right eye the other day. I thought it was the marks the sheets left from sleeping on my stomach in a ball because I didn't want to disturb the dog in his gently snoring slumber. I slathered on some eye cream. Still there. Slathered on some more, being careful to use the tip of my ring finger in an ever so gentle circular motion. The sheets were not the culprit here. I owe that under eye crevasse to Stress.

Beauty's number one foe. A mother's constant companion.

Facebook Makes Me Reconcile the Girl I Was With the Woman I've Become

I use friend as a verb.

I dream in status updates.

I search for a Like button whenever something speaks to me.

I only recognize people by their avatars.

I have Facebook downloaded to my BlackBerry.

Facebook has turned me into a time traveler, yet I don't recall a thing about the long, strange trip I took.

A bit of background: My parents split up. I went to boarding school (my choice, not theirs). I changed schools. I changed schools again. All in all, I went to three high schools in four years (clearly therapy couch fodder, but it seemed perfectly normal at the time). My parents moved out of my home town. I went to college. I moved to the midwest. I went to graduate school. I visited my home town precisely three times in 20 years, most recently just about four years ago.

You see, many of the people I have been reconnecting with on Facebook were boys and girls when I saw them last. Prepubescent. Innocent. Gawky. I myself was a tiny 4'8 peanut with scraggly hair and geeky tendencies. No self esteem, little confidence, lots of cluelessness. My boobs had not reached their full 32 DD. I was picked last in gym  and faced the evil terror of Mr. Benfer, whose mother terrorized me in math class. I was an 82 pound nothing with no athletic prowess, mutated social skills, and a nervous giggle, but I could conjugate the hell out of some verbs in Mrs. Robinson's English class.

The Worst Thing About Parenting Is Other Parents

Despite the tantrums, endless diapers, potty training , rotavirus, hand and foot disease, trips to the ER, perpetual sleepless daze, and overall angst and worry that come with parenting, I always say that the worst thing about parenting is other parents.

It starts in the birthing class. "Oneupmomship" starts while the wee one is in the womb. All the chatter about designer organic crib bedding, European strollers, stretch marks (who has them and who doesn't), cup size, doulas, birth plan. Gah! My ears were on fire after six weeks of that class. I couldn't take it anymore. Then again, my husband and I were misfits to begin with in that crowd. I had no pregnancy war stories to tell. I didn't look pregnant from behind. My ankles stayed as such without a cankle in sight. I had experienced no symptoms in any of the trimesters. Pregnancy was easy peasy. The women hated me. It didn't help that in a new parent version of the Newlywed Game we chose "Bad to the Bone" as our baby's theme song. You should have seen the gawks and gasps from the Rockabye Baby crowd. But come on, in that song the baby falls out of a tree! What exactly is comforting about that?

Parenting Doesn't Get Easier When the Kids Get Older

I took the boys for a brisk walk along the Greenway with Lark, our new pup. It's a great time to let the boys toodle about on their scooters while Lark sniffs his way along the path. On the drive home we passed by a Catholic church in our neighborhood, a church we pass umpteen times a day. A church with a school where we know lots of kids. Peppering the church lawn were pink and blue flags. They are out every year but not year round as far as I recall. In the past we justoohed and  aahed at the colors and noted the dramatic effect of all those flags planted in one place.

Today was different.

From the back seat I hear my six year old ask, "Mommy, what does "abortion kills babies' mean?"

GULP.

Then my four year old pipes in with, "Bortion? What's that?"

G.U.L.P.