She Made the Dress

This weekend I had the pleasure of playing Aunt JacJac to my best friend’s daughter. The three of us went to Dallas “Prom Dress Shopping”.  I was so excited to have the chance to spend the day with them; getting to shop was just the cherry on the top.  She had one destination in mind, her mother and I had several because shopping and shopping should always be balanced with eating and eating really good stuff. We started at 9 a.m. and were determined to make the day all about her. The drive to Dallas was quick and easy as unbridled excitement hung in the air. I was excited, but since I remember shopping with my teenage girl, my excitement was tempered
by experience.  In this case the stress wasn’t on my shoulders. My job was to stay calm and referee if needed…. When shopping with a teenager and her mom a referee is ALWAYS a good idea. When I was in high school, prom wasn’t a big deal to me. I saw a dress in a store window at the mall where I worked. I put the dress in lay-away and later when I found my friend had unintentionally bought the same dress, we were both tickled pink in a Scarlett O’Hara kind of way. Things certainly have changed.The store was “Whatchamacallit”. It looked benign enough on the outside, but inside a new story began to unfold. When I say I was shocked when I walked in, I’m not exaggerating one tiny bit. It was like a 1000 cotton candy blowers exploded at the same time. The acres of dress racks were so tightly packed, you literally had to maneuver between them by doing the breast stroke as if swimming in a pool. I did not see one small child and I know why; if a child got lost beneath the sea of tulle, sequins and beads, they would never be found. My heart broke a million times Saturday as I saw my little princess become overwhelmed with the magnitude of the decision, the frustration of the process and the intense heat inside the dressing room. When I finally detected a meltdown was close, I suggested we all take a break, go eat something magnificent and give her have a chance to process her choices. We ate lunch at PF Chang’s and then back into the battle we went. At the end of the day we sat on the couch outside the dressing rooms. Actually, I think I had more or less melted into the couch itself; if we looked anything like we felt,then we looked like we had been dragged behind wild horses for several miles in the dry dusty dessert. A woman with her daughter in tow, walked up to the couch and asked… “May I ask you what the best way to attack this store is? What’s the secret?” In all seriousness I told her straight up…. “ With Xanax and a bottle of wine!” Yes, I was exhausted! I have no idea what time we finally walked out of the store, but the fact we were on a first name basis with most of the personnel should give you a good idea as to the number of hours we were there. I do know the three of us were physically, mentally and emotionally exhausted. Oh how I wish she could see herself through my eyes. True beauty begins inside and bubbles its way outward, it believes in you regardless of the direction society trends and it walks to the beat of an inner drum with no regrets and no hesitation… She looked amazing in every single dress she tried on. She is simply a stunningly beautiful girl. Although the final selection was beautiful, and I loved seeing the smile on her face, the simple truth is… She made the dress, the dress didn’t make her. XOXOXO my Sweet One. Thank you for the amazing memory and the oh so many laughs. Your Aunt JacJac couldn’t be more proud.

Some Elbow Grease Required

We snuggled under last night after a day of cleaning and painting. We took Daddy along to help my daughter move from her apartment into a house owned by my Son. The last few years the house had been rented by college boys. My daughter is military OCD and without going into great detail, the condition of the house was not vacated with her standard of clean. When I called to see how the walk through had gone, my son said.... "Well, not too bad, she just has a blank look on her face. I hung up the phone and told my Dad... "the blank look comes just prior to a total meltdown. Seconds later my cell phone rang and I

answered it to sobs of hysteria on the other end. Without her saying a word, I assured her there wasn't anything so dirty that it couldn't be cleaned and told her the rescue team was just minutes away.  When we got to the house, the curb was piled with loads of stuff that had been left behind. We took a deep breath, donned our rubber gloves and dived in. She was out getting supplies. When she pulled up I went out to greet her. She opened the door and started to apologize.... "I feel so bad that after the week you've had, you're here helping me. I assured her we were fine. Papa never sits still anyway,  if he wasn't cleaning at her house, he would be cleaning at his house so basically we're doing the same thing just in a different location. "Remember" I assured her..."don't look at how things are, look at how they can be." Everything will eventually be in tip top ship shape, it will just take a lot of elbow grease and a positive attitude.

Guilt Trip to Nowhere

My Motto

Being a parent isn't easy. Those cute little bundles of love do not come with instruction manuals tied to their toes and just when you think you've got it figured out, some psychologist comes out with the newest and greatest book debunking all of the parenting methods you've been using. That's why I rarely read parenting books, it was  confusing. After talking to other women, I'm happy to know that I'm not the only one who thinks so. You would think that after the kids are grown and gone you could ease up a little on yourself, but I'm finding out that isn't the way parenting works. Adult children are like the gift that keeps on giving... In the guilt trip department. You finally think you can see light at the end of the parenting tunnel where you can sleep peacefully at night knowing you did your best, then they come up with how your parenting methods were all wrong. Everything you did was unhealthy, harmful, hurtful, or just politically incorrect... As if we didn't know we weren't perfect to begin with. I've done it to my mom, my kids have done it me and my friends kids have done it to them. Everyone has a laundry list of things we wish we would have done differently, times we wish we would have had more patience, and opportunities we missed to impart valuable wisdom instead of freaking out like a mob boss. But life is a trial and error situation with no do-overs and that's why God made psychologist and shrinks (and possibly Prozac) and warns against older women be given to too much wine... Your kids can drive you to drink! (LOL) Seriously, if you went to a psychologist without a mind blowing mother story, you'd be immediately admitted to the psych ward until you remembered the esteem shattering thing she did to turn you into the dark and twisty being you are today. Dads rarely get the bad rap moms do. A friend of mine used to laugh at me when I would tell her my mother/daughter stories.... And then she had one herself. A little part of her thought I exaggerated the drama until her daughter got old enough to walk and talk. Exactly why do moms get all of the attitude? We get the dirty diapers, the spit up, the attitude and then the "You should of's" while good ole dads plays dumb and gets a pass. You know why dads get a pass? It's because men don't do guilt trips. You can send a woman on a guilt trip because the Dairy Queen got your order wrong, but a man isn't going to go there. If a grown kid went to their dad with the idea of sending him on a guilt trip, the man would give them the famous blank look, leaving the child no satisfaction at all. A mother on the other hand will pack her bags, buy her own plane ticket to guilt trip island, never to return again, or until one of her girlfriends comes by to slap some sense
into her and demand she snap out of it and put her granny panties on. Guilt is  something most women naturally believe we deserve for some reasons (probably because of our moms). A therapist I know puts it this way... Okay, so (insert esteem shattering event here) happened when you were a child, now you're an adult and you're the one responsible for your attitude and the direction your life is going... Whatcha gonna do about it?

The greatest line of all Simpson episodes was this.....

Marge: I'm tired of looking like the world's worst mother.

Homer: Oh, honey, you're not the world's worst mother. What about that freezer lady in Georgia?

Story of my life.

June 14th, 1983

I sat in the sunshine yellow nursery, with a lap full of baby clothes, imagining that any day, they would be filled the pudgy cheeks of a wee one. I had painted half a rainbow on the wall over the crib where my little pot o' gold would sleep. I worked in.... You're going to find this hard to believe, but yes, a small shoe store in the mall. Even 9 months pregnant, I could rock a pair of stilettos, just to prove I could. Two weeks before my due date, the owner became a little jumpy. Every time I'd go to the bathroom, I'd come out to find her waiting by the door... Making sure everything was okay. "Yep, I'm still pregnant." Finally, when her nerves couldn't stand watching me waddle around in heels all day, she urged me to take off earlier than I had planned... I complied because I knew it would make her feel better. Not working those two weeks, gave me plenty of time to nest. One night my husband woke up to find me organizing paper sacks in the kitchen closet. The Lamaze classes had been completed. My bags were packed with the list they gave me from Lamaze class. My focal point was an advertisement I ripped from a magazine. It showed a bottle of amber liquor being poured into a glass stiletto (very cool, the stiletto not the liquor). My parents were on standby in Tulsa waiting for the.... "It's Time!" call. I rocked and I waited, I waited and I rocked. More than anything in the world, I wanted to be a mother. In the evenings my husband would play basketball downtown with the guys. I would walk downtown, then we would walk back home together. Tuesday evening, June 14, 1983, was the last time I walked downtown as an ordinary woman. The next time I took a walk, I'd be a Mom. I'd walk with the responsibility of teaching my child to reach for the stars and capture them in their hand, like they had my heart. I was ready (or so I thought), let the journey begin.

Cords of Love

Jenny and her friends

This weekend my friend hosted a Tea for her daughter and her two closest friends and their moms. She asked if I would decorate for it. There are fewer things that I enjoy more than preparing for special occasion for someone I love. The theme I selected was "The Key to Success". I made banners with wisdom quotes and scriptures. I made a wisdom tree and adorned it with skeleton keys and wisdom tags. The tablecloth was an unfinished quilt top that
has a special meaning to me. I got to use my e mis-matched china for the first time. I put candles on the mantel, pictures on the hearth with skeleton key chatskis laying around. It wasn't anything fancy and it wasn't anything anyone else couldn't do, but I enjoyed it so much because it was for someone so special to me. Another friend of ours gave a devotion called "Living in a Small Town". It was a precious reminder that although living in a small town has it's down side, the benefits
far outweigh the negative. Our families have been knitted together with cords of love that cannot be broken and
everyone has benefited in countless ways from these relationships. Like ripples in a pond, each drop of love you allow to fall on others, will be returned to you tenfold. My heart is full of pride to see Jenny grow into everything God created her to be and I'll be on the sidelines every step of the way cheering her on as she continues her journey.

Parenting In a Totally Different Way

I'm not sure how or why this conversation took place, but a friend of mine asked me the other day if I thought she was doing a good job as a mother.... "I mean, my kids are all right, right? I'm not screwing them up like I was screwed up, am I?" and I understood her insecurity; like Bill Cosby said... "Kids don't come with a set of instruction." So, I assured her... "Oh, no, your kids are great.... You're a great mom. But yeah... You totally are screwing them up. You're just doing it in a completely different way than your parents screwed you up.... But, that's normal... It's what
parents do." And it's true, parents do want to parent well. Sometimes,  we even think we're doing it right, but then there's  always some little something you miss, and years later you're still beating yourself up over. It may sound negative, but really it's just the reality of parenting. Trying to put a move positive spin on it I added...  "You're doing a great job of screwing your kids up in the best possible way." She thought for a minute, then nodded and said.... "Yeah, that's what I think too." Even the best parents need a little encouragement sometimes. I'm happy to be one of those people you can count on to lift you up when you're feeling down.