I'm Changing My Name to Alice

When I was a little girl, I remember my mom being as calm as a cucumber. I'm sure there were moments - and of course this excludes that one time, when I went through puberty - when she got a little edgy. But for the most part, I remember her being somewhat...serene, for a mom.

The kitchen was the hub of our home, like it is with most families. Kids and dogs and cats would run through it several times a day on their way to here or there, and mom would stand, making her homemade yogurt or applesauce, as if there wasn't the slightest bit of chaos surrounding her.

Serene.

I would yell out "Mom!" from the other end of the house with a question (probably about a very important missing leg warmer or something) and she'd say, without raising her voice one teeny bit, "I'm in here, if you'd like to talk to me."

And she never had to repeat herself.

She only had to say it once.

GASP!

I'd go to the kitchen with my very important question and ask her face to face.

Just like my childhood, our kitchen (despite it's tinyness) is the hub of our home. It's where plans are made, meals are made and evil plots are developed. It's where the dishes and the dancing happen. It's the center of our universe and not a day goes by that I don't find myself there for large chunks of the day doing something important...even if I'm not making yogurt.

Because of the layout of our house, you can hear just about everything from the kitchen - but don't tell my kids that. I'll let that little morsel of knowledge come to them in due time, when they can figure it out for themselves.

Anyway, because I'm always in the kitchen and because the kids always need something it isn't odd to hear "Mom!" more than a few times a day. Normally, I give them a pass for the first few times, but after about 10 or so, I start to unravel, my eyes start bulging and the hair stands up on the back of my neck each time I hear "Mom!" And so help me baby Jesus, if I hear it one more time I just may walk out the front door never to return.

A girl can dream, right?

So I've come up with a solution.

I'm changing my name to Alice.

That way, when they call out "Mom!" I won't have to answer.

All You Need Is

I picked up Auntie Joy on Monday to run errands with me. And just like going anywhere with Auntie, it was an adventure.

Remember, this is the woman who calls Magnum P.I. "Magnesium P.I." and referred to Tom Selleck as "Tom Seltzer".

And I just love hanging out with her.

Our first stop was the local drugstore, where I had to pick up prescriptions for three of us (one battling strep throat, one battling migraines and one battling everything else - that would be my mother-in-law). Anyway, I've hinted before how difficult it is to go anywhere in this town without running into every Tom, Dick and Harry that I went to preschool with - well, it's even worse for Auntie.

In other words, she's an old timer.

She's lived here waaaaaay longer than I have. Not that it's a bad thing, because it isn't - and I would not trade our Little Pink Houses life here in this small town for all the wonders of the world. Neither would Auntie. We like it. We like the smallness. We like the community. We just like it.

So there we were, waiting in the check out line with our Sucrets and People magazines and prescriptions when she strikes up a conversation with the ladies in front of us.

[Very Jane* of her]

I was distracted by the refillable butane lighters and all the other impluse items placed near the registers to suck every last dime from the customers who pass through when, before I know it, she's hugging the younger of the two - who is smiling a big sloppy smile over Auntie's shoulder at me.

I smiled back.

Then, she goes in for the mother of the lady she had just hugged.

And she hugged her too.

Again, I received a smile and big grin. I'm not exaggerating when I say that you could feel the happiness in our little corner of the drugstore at that very moment in time. It was palpable. It was obvious. It was simple and easy and just, plain HAPPY.

I paid for my things, told the clerk to "have a nice day," like I always do and out the sliding doors we went to find my car.

"Did you know those ladies?" I asked her.

She giggled.

"No."

I think the world could use a few more Aunties in it.





*Jane is my mom. It's a fact in our family that she is famous for talking to strangers in grocery stores. The reference is used in nothing but love and respect. I mean, we're taught from the time we can hear not to talk to strangers, but wouldn't it be horrible if we actually never did? Thanks mom and Auntie, for being rule breakers. The world is a better place because you're in it.

Hey Thirteen

Last night we took the kids shopping for their brother's birthday presents.

What do you get a thirteen year old, anyway?

I had an idea - useful things. Things that make sense. Sadly, not toys.

So there we were in the back of our favorite big box store (you know the one, starts with a "Tar" and ends with something that rhymes with "let") when we bumped into an acquaintance with her new-ish baby. I'm a baby magnet. Like, I cannot be in the same room with a baby without grabbing it out of it's mothers clutches (as long as I know her) and taking a big whiff of that new baby smell. This baby was no different.

In fact, he was quite adorable.

But, I restrained myself.

I only grabbed his little foot. And gave it a nice big squeeze.

I was standing there admiring that baby boy, admiring the mother's beautiful moby wrap (they did not have those thirteen years ago), talking to her about the item in her cart - an exersaucer - which would be the most important piece of equipment she could ever have as it allows a mom to actually shower without the baby freaking out - when it hit me.

This was me thirteen years ago.

Except without the beautiful moby wrap...because those weren't around. Oh no. I had something purple and turquoise (and no it wasn't the 80's) called a "baby carrier". It was hideous. And my baby hated it. And I can't even believe that I put him in that thing and walked around.

In public!

But, anyway.

To stand there and talk to her, and squeeze her first baby's little chunk-a-chunk-a foot and realize that I was there, in those same shoes, so may years ago. Well, it kind of choked me up.

I remember it like it was yesterday. The way he smelled. The way he sounded. The way I could not, even for one second, take my eyes off of him. The way he fit in the seat of our rocking chair (the same one that sits piled with laundry in our bedroom right now). The way he laughed. The way he spit up. The way he loved, loved, loved his baths and everything daddy. The way he fit into the space right beneath my chin. The way he giggled when we played peek-a-boo.

How did we come from those baby days - the days of diapers and bottles and writing down every poop - to this, the days of hanging out with friends, football, iPods, fishing and trying to convince me that he's old enough to shave?

How?

It's not that I don't enjoy everything that he is now.

Because I do. Well, except the eye rolling. I could really do with less eye rolling. And talking back. And...

Okay, I'll go easy on him. It's his birthday.

I just can't believe how fast it really does go by. Everyone says that it will. I've heard it my entire life. And I suspect I'll hear it for many years to come. It is something we're told, something we tell others, something that falls from our lips as easily as breathing air. It goes by so fast, enjoy it now.

But I wonder when I'll really start believing it?

Maybe tomorrow, when I wake up my teenager. Oy.

Not Quite a Beatles Song, But Almost

On the days when my husband is at the firestation, naturally I'm the one in charge. That is, if I don't let my oldest boss me around...but really, it's me. All me. Which means we're usually running just a hair, a smidgen, behind the clock.

Running late means that breakfast is sometimes rushed and if one thing is out of place, like a back pack, the entire morning becomes a throw your hands up in the air failure! So I try to avoid having anything like that happen, by making sure the darn back pack is where it's supposed to be the night before.

The other morning though, was different.

I went to bed earlier than everyone else the night before and just as expected, I woke to a little mess here and a little untidiness there. So, while my kids were shoveling Lucky Charms into their mouths, I cleaned up the mess. Of course, one thing led to another and before I knew it, I was also throwing in a load of laundry and scrubbing away at a chocolate stain on my daughter's brand new pink shirt. Just like every other suburban mother in the world.

Point?

We missed the bus.

So I had to drive them.

No big deal, as I really avoid the bus stop like the plague. It's not that I don't approve of bus riding, because I do. I really, really do. But in case you haven't figured it out, I'm not a morning person and it takes an exponentially large amount of planning and effort (AND COFFEE) on my part to get myself and my kids ready for the day before their departure to school. Basically, I'd rather drive them to school in my cozy pants than actually put on make up and dress for the day to visit with the other moms at the bus stop.

I know.

Lame.

[Nothing against you, bus stop moms]

So here I was, in my cozy pants (aka jammie pants, let's just call an apple an apple) driving my kids to school, my eyes still drowsy despite my morning clean up cardio and thoughts of climbing back into my bed until time for kindergarten pick up clouding my mind like a heavy haze. Oh yes, this was going to be a very good morning. No work. No husband. No kids.

All I could focus on was the prize, the proverbial pot of gold at the end of the school's drop off parking lot loop where I'd get my cup of tea, my book, and my bed - all to myself - for the next few hours.

I was so wrapped up in my own little version of Fantasy Island that I hardly noticed the kids.

There was my son, who had gotten (in only the past few months) within inches of me in height, helping his sister zip up her jacket. There was my daughter, who had cleaned her room without being asked the other day, with her hand upon his head - patting it gently and motherly. A smile passed between them and I tried not to let them see my eyes in the rearview mirror as the cars in front of me inched closer and closer to the drop off zone.

When it was our turn, I verbally scooted them out the door. "Have a great day you two," I said. "I love you more than the world."

"We love you more than the world too." They both answered in unison. A twin reply to a statement that has been said to them every morning for their respective eleven and six years - that's a lot of "I love yous."

And without prompting, or bribing, or any hinting whatsoever, my son took my daughters kindergarten-sized hand in his big fifth-grader hand and led her to the open school doors. She looked back at me over her shoulder, looking like the luckiest girl in the world, and smiled without showing her teeth while he held her hand fast and protectively, until she was safe inside.

It's not about having a clean house, paying bills, menu plans, a morning off, or crawling back into bed to steal a nap when the kids are in school. It's about that, right there.

That, is what it's all about.

One Week, Reprise

There are those stories that get passed down, generation to generation, with no need for embellishment or flourish because they are just so amazing. You know the ones, the stuff movies are made of, the kind which inspire the scenes in The Notebook, Bridges of Madison County and When Harry Met Sally. The ones which leave one sitting in her jammies on the couch, popcorn eaten, cozy pants on and big, giant tears taking up residence on the front of one's shirt...those scenes.

We all know them.

Some better than others, a'hem.

I am a sucker for a good love story. I cry every time I watch Definitely, Maybe. I cry every time I watch Sleepless in Seattle. Don't even get me started on Love Actually for you will, perpetually, find me with a wet face and unable to breathe during the end. Every. Single. Time.

It isn't a pretty sight.

But these are the movies. And I know this, really I do, yet there I go - falling into their magical trap as if I had no warning at all.

Once upon a time, in a hick town in Eastern Washington, there lived a girl, a barmaid, of not yet 24, who was finishing up her college degree. It was the kind of place with rustic wooded floors and Naugahyde booths. There may or may not have been a pool table or two.

She met his dog first, an aging Golden named (appropriately) Brandy.

Although the details are for only the two of them to know, really, the story goes something like this:

He walked in and we began an easy conversation, discovering early on that we were both transplanted "west siders" (that is what people who come from the west side of the mountains are referred to in hick towns east of the Cascades). It was just before President's Day weekend and I was going to go home to Edmonds to spend some time with friends and family. He mentioned that there was this party he was going to in Fremont and asked if I'd like to go.

It was a date.

I met him in Seattle a few days later, bringing my little mutt Abbie along with me, and we talked and talked and talked. At some point in the evening, Abbie was lost. I was scared I'd lost her forever. He stayed out all night with me, looking for that little dog and it was then that I knew I'd found someone special. I mean, who spends an entire cold night looking for a girl's dog that he hardly knows?

We had decided to drive back to Ellensburg together, after the weekend. Just after Snoqualmie Pass, at the West Nelson Siding Road exit, he pulled over.

My heart knew he was the one. And we made a decision right then and there, after only a few days, to keep on driving to Idaho to elope. It felt like the most perfect thing in the world to do.

We called and told my brother (your Uncle). We called and told my sister (your Aunt). We called your future godfather to ask for some money to be wired so that we could pay for the ceremony, but later decided we could "do it on our own." We made it to Idaho and had to wait one extra day because of the holiday and then, on the 7th day, we were married! And we have been ever since.*

This is how I remember my mom telling me the story of how she and my dad met and were married.

38 years ago.

38 years after only one week.

Reckless, silly, irresponsible! I used to think. I, who was with my husband for 7 years...not 7 days before we were married. How could they know? I used to wonder. How?

After they eloped, my grandparents held a reception for them, in which I am sure more than one person muttered, "This will never last." I mean, who wouldn't think that? What person in their right mind would believe that this kind of love, the kind that makes you have butterflies for 38 years, the kind that brings you through all that life throws in your direction, good and bad, the kind that truly does endure...who would have thought that this kind of love could be found and more importantly, recognized, after only 7 days?

I know now that it doesn't matter how, what matters is that it is. It is.

Happy 38th Anniversary Mom and Dad.

Thank you for giving me a love that I can believe in, and a love story that still makes me cry, no matter how many times I hear it.

*Originally posted February, 2009. Resurrected one year later for yet another anniversary for an amazing couple. I love you, Mom and Dad.