Leanna Kay

Lauren has been going through a phase lately where she wants to be just like me. I know, I know. Someone needs to do an intervention before the child goes down that horrible path. Though I have a suspicion that teenaged hormones will soon make her want to be just the opposite of me so there’s hope for her yet.

Though I’m flattered that Lauren sees something in me that she’d like to imitate, it’s not always easy to live up to her expectations. Especially when it comes to clothes and hair. She came into my bedroom a few days ago, intent on a mission to find us matching outfits. She rooted through my closet for the longest time until disappointment set in. No Hannah Montana t-shirts. No hot pink leggings. No spaghetti-strapped purple glitter tank tops.

“This is all Mom stuff,” she said with obvious disappointment. As if she was expecting to go into my closet and find some sort of magical door to another realm where her mom actually owned a t-shirt with Zac Efron’s mug on it.

She gave up on the closet search and went back into her own room where she changed into a plain red shirt and jean shorts like the kind of clothes I actually do own.

After I put on my matching (and boring – her words, not mine) outfit, she insisted we should have the same hair style. She chose pigtails. There’s no magical realm where pigtails look good on a middle-aged mom. I convinced her that barrettes were the way to go even though that meant I ended up with a rainbow clip stuck on the side of my head.

When we looked in the mirror, she looked like the cute eight year old she is. I looked like a woman about five minutes away from a mid-life crisis. That’s when something occurred to me. Maybe this wasn’t about Lauren wanting to be like me. Maybe she was wanting me to be more like her.

Now that wouldn’t be such a horrible thing after all. At least not until she turns thirteen and I show up at her school dance in a miniskirt and pigtails.

We recently took our dog, Maria on a huge outing. Well, we walked her across the street to my parents’ house anyway. For her that’s a huge adventure because it’s beyond her wireless dog loop and there are things to sniff and pee on in my parents’ yard that aren’t available for sniffing and peeing on at our house.

As soon as we let her off the leash in my parents’ back yard, Maria made a beeline for the bushes behind the chair where my mom was sitting. The dog got the kind of excited she usually only gets when she spots rabbit poop to roll in while she’s still wet from her bath. Only a second later, I saw it wasn’t animal excrement causing all her excitement. There was a small garter snake lurking in the bushes right behind my mom’s chair.

The minute I saw the snake, I did the only thing a rational adult woman can do in a situation like that. I screamed like a toddler girl and ran for the house with Lauren and my mom hot on my heels.

My rational mind knows a garter snake is only a danger to small bugs and not to screaming middle-aged women. But the irrational part of my mind immediately makes the following connection. Snake = venom = painful death. I’ve seen enough Westerns to know what happens after a snake bites you, and trust me, you aren’t in for a happy ending.

While I was quivering behind the safety of the glass patio door, Maria threw the snake out from the bushes and did what dogs do. Killed it and rolled around on its dead carcass. (Don’t ask me to explain it. She’s a dog!)

Lauren and I kept a careful distance while the boys went up to the snake and took turns kicking it with their shoes to make sure it was really dead. (Don’t ask me to explain it. They’re boys!)

Both Lauren and I refused to take control of the dog’s leash to walk her back home. (Did I mention the dog had rolled around on a dead snake?!) So the boys took control and we all took Maria back home where she chased the cats and took a long nap on the deck. Because that’s what dogs do.

Today during the children’s service at church, the minister was asking the kids if they’d ever made messes. My three threw up their hands and acknowledged that this had happened a time or two in their world.

The minister then asked the kids how they went about cleaning their messes. He got the usual responses. “Soap and water.” “Picking up my toys and putting them away.” “Wiping up a spill with a towel.”

Then he asked “What do you do when you have a mess that you just can’t clean up?”

“You could set it on fire,” Drew responded, clearly shoving himself to the top of the minister’s list for kids in dire need of counseling.

When he sat back down, I asked Drew to explain his response so I could judge whether I needed to hide all the matches and fireproof the house.

“Well,” he said in a most authoritative tone. “Clearly you’re not going to be concerned about the purple Kool-aid I spilled on the white living room carpet if the house is on fire.”

By Trouble, I mean the game with the pop dice. For whatever reason, as a kid I loved that pop dice. It was so much more fun than just rolling dice and moving the pieces.

Why was I playing Trouble at midnight last night? Because Lauren got up at about 11:30 with the stomach flu. She came into my room, spewing puke down the hallway, to tell me she was sick. I moved her to the bathroom which is where we sat for the next two hours. I told her stories. I rubbed her back. When that was no longer a distraction, I whipped out the Trouble game to keep her mind off the fact that every ten minutes she was leaning over the toilet.

Between bouts of dice popping and sickness, I went to work on the carpeting and cursed myself for my lack of foresight. Why in the world had I fed the girl spaghetti and meatballs followed by cherries? Bright red, carpet staining cherries?

It was Trouble. And there was no pop up dice to make this any fun.

There are two words that strike fear into a mother’s heart while simultaneously striking joy into her children’s.

Field Trip.

I recently chaperoned the boys’ field trip to Conner Prairie. Conner Prairie is an outdoor museum where actors pretend to be real residents of a town settled in the 1830s. No matter how hard you try, the pretend settlers will not break out of character. Offer them a Reeces Cup and they’ll act as if they have no idea what one is, even while their taste buds are tingling and the scent of peanut butter is drifting happily through their nostrils. Yet they pretend to be enjoying the gruel that was the favored food of the time.

Visiting Conner Prairie was a rare treat for the kids. Not just because they can taunt the actors with modern candy bars much like one messes with the poor lions at the zoo, but because it’s about a five hour round trip from school. That means there’s no time during the day to sneak in any actual school work.

For parents this equates to hours of bouncing on a school bus with no air conditioning and one hundred screaming kids who know exactly what Reeces Cups are because they had four dozen of them for breakfast. After hours of bouncing with a full bladder screaming for release, a mom can appreciate the meaning of the words “hell on Earth”.

That’s why I drove separately.

My bliss ended the moment I met the bus at Conner Prairie and got my chaperoning assignment. I always get the same handful of kids. I suppose it’s because as a criminal defense attorney, the teachers want me to get to know my future clients. Someday when the young boys have moved from pantsing their classmates to knocking off liquor stores, I’ll be able to fondly reminiscence with them about the day we brought the shopkeeper at Conner Prairie to tears by taunting him with a Milky Way.

But no matter how much the boys tried my patience, I successfully completed my chaperoning duties, returning all kids to the bus in one piece. Because if I didn’t, there would probably have been some sort of punishment awaiting. Something involving a loaded school bus filled with screaming children.

Lately Lauren has become obsessed with her Barbies. Considering she’s eight, I’ve been encouraging her obsession. In this day and age where kids grow up quicker than they should, I’d rather have her role playing Barbies’ wedding a hundred times a day than playing Spin the Bottle with the boys in her second grade classroom.

Because Lauren doesn’t have any sisters, I am her designated Barbie playmate. Playing Barbies is actually one of the most challenging jobs I’ve ever had. And that’s saying something considering I once worked at Kentucky Fried Chicken where my shoes would get so covered with grease I’d have to leave them outside when I got home to keep the mess off my parent’s carpeting. Except there was this one time when a raccoon took off with one of the grease-covered shoes and I wasn’t fast enough to chase the varmint down. So I had to go to work the next day in non-regulation footwear and explain to the boss that my shoe was supper for a down-and-out woodland creature.

But that’s a different story.

Compared to Barbies, selling chicken was an easy job. With Barbies, you have to use a different voice with each doll you’re bringing to life. Not only that, but you have to remember to use the exact same voice, down to whatever weird accent you’ve chosen with each unique doll. Quite a task considering Lauren has a few hundred Barbies (I exaggerate only minimally).

Get it wrong, and you quickly hear:

“Mom, she doesn’t have that squeaky of a voice.”

“No, Mom. That’s the way the dumb Barbie sounds, not the Barbie whose sister’s cousin is a famous rock star..”

“Mom, don’t do that silly voice. No one sounds that stupid.”

We played Barbies for about two hours today. At the end of the marathon session, I felt as though I’d performed a one-woman Broadway show. I was ready to collapse as we put the dolls away. I tossed my designated Barbies in the general direction of the dollhouse much to Lauren’s dismay.

“Mom, that’s not where Susie goes. Susie sleeps in the top floor of the Barbie mansion.”

Apparently Stephanie stands in the shower. Margaret reclines on the couch. Jackson sits at the kitchen table. And so on and so on. She took ten minutes placing each Barbie in his or her special spot. I’m not sure what would have happened if the Barbies had just been flung into the house like I’d suggested. Barbie anarchy apparently.

Bob has been traveling again recently for work. When the kids were little, I would practically wrap my arms around his legs to prevent him from leaving me with three helpless beings all still in diapers. Invariably the minute he’d walk out the door, the kids would develop pneumonia or start projectile vomiting.

But the kids got older and lost their ability to coordinate the spewing of their bodily functions. So now I let Bob out the door without the usual histrionics and downright begging.

A few weeks ago, Bob spent most of the week in Canada. As a treat for the kids while he was away, I let them each plan a meal with anything they wanted. Well, not anything. After I got their menus consisting of cotton candy, ice cream and jelly beans, I made it clear that the meal had to include something with nutritional value. And no, even though some jelly beans are green, they don’t count as a vegetable.
 
Chris was particularly interested in making the meal of his dreams. He spent hours thinking about what he wanted and writing out a detailed menu. After all the planning, I was sure the kid would want something complicated. Nope. He requested hot ham and cheese sandwiches, corn, green beans and peaches. I thought this was easy enough until we sat down to eat.

“Mom, the ham’s supposed to be the thick cut. Not slices.” The critique started the minute the he peeked under the bun. “And the bun is cold. It should be warm.”

“Where are these rules coming from?” I asked. Nothing in my Betty Crocker cookbook said anything about warm buns.

“That’s the way they make them at school.”

School? The kid was given the option to eat anything in the world he wanted. Had my mom ever been stupid enough to say that to me, I would have had lobster flow in from Maine and chocolate cake ordered in from a Swiss bakery.

My kid? He wants me to precisely duplicate the school cafeteria menu. What does that say about my cooking when my children are begging me to cook more like the school lunch lady?

Ten years old?! Where did the time go? It seems like just yesterday I was holding your tiny body against mine, wiping spit up off your chin and changing your dirty diapers. (Hey, if I get to embarrass Drew, I get to embarrass you too!)

You have matured so much in the last year. I am now seeing glimpses of the man I know you will someday be. You are still very competitive and as you get older, this drive to win makes you try and try until you get it right. Unfortunately this competitive streak runs through everything you do.

“Mom, I can beat you at Wii Mariokart.”

“Yeah, like that’s a challenge. Your five-year-old cousin can beat me at that game.”

“How about basketball, Mom?”

“Ditto the five-year-old cousin remark.”

“I can beat you at chess. I can swim faster than you. I can stand on one leg longer. I can drink my milk faster….”

Finally, I just have to concede that you are the victor so we can move on with life. And while the drive to win can wear on my nerves, you also work hard at everything you do which means you’re doing very well in school. You won’t go outside to play until all your homework is done and you’ve memorized every pertinent fact for any upcoming tests.

Besides being studious, you’re also very kind to animals. This summer when we went to Hilton Head Beach, you found a starfish washed on shore. The poor starfish was missing an arm and struggling to live on the sand. You captured the poor creature in your sand bucket and carried it back into the sea where you carefully placed it back in the water so it could live.

Five minutes later the starfish washed back onto shore again. You found him and put him back into the ocean. This process must have repeated itself ten times and with each sighting, the creature appeared more and more lifeless. Finally we didn’t see the starfish again. You were so pleased with yourself for “saving” its life. I complimented you on your humanitarian efforts though I was secretly sure the thing had washed down tide to die in peace.

You are also kind to people. When your great-grandma died, I sat all three of you kids down in the living room and tried to tell you that Grandma had gone to heaven. At least that’s the way I’d planned it. We were going to have a nice chat about her dying and we were going to talk about what a nice place she was in so we wouldn’t have to be so sad.

Things didn’t go as I’d planned. I sat you three down and got as far as the “Grandma” part of my planned speech before I started to cry and no more words would come out. But you didn’t need me to be the one doing the comforting, you took on that role. The tears had barely started falling from my eyes before you were up out of your seat with your arms around me in a big hug. You were the one who patted me on the back and told me Grandma was in heaven. You will never know how much your kindness that day meant to me.

I feel so lucky that you are my son and I can’t wait to see where life will take us in this next year. Happy Birthday Chris!

Better late than never.  The boys actually turned ten on March 4th.  But life intervened so I’m just now getting around to writing their birthday tributes.

As you turn ten years old, it’s hard for me to believe you’re more than halfway to adulthood. It seems like only yesterday I was cleaning smooshed peas off your little chin and changing your dirty diapers. (Yes, Drew. We mothers do write these things to embarrass our children. I fully intend to read my unedited journal as a tribute to you at your wedding complete with a slide show to illustrate each point….. You’re welcome my little sweetykins.)

You’ve done a lot of growing in the last year and I don’t just mean those pants I keep buying that grow too small in just a month or two. Just last year, you finally realized that the dog needs fed occasionally. Granted, you still want to offer her the asparagus and lima beans off your own plate so I’m not sure how altruistic you’re being. But you do now take responsibility for feeding her every day, for which I’m grateful.

In the last year, we’ve had a lot of fun. When we went to Hilton Head beach this summer, you longed for a boogie board to ride the waves. When you saw the price tag, I could see your yearning war with your hesitation to spend the money.

“Mom, I really don’t need that,” you said. The longing in your voice told me different. The happy look on your face alone would have made spending the money worthwhile. But the true joy was watching your intensity in mastering the new skill and your pride when you could ride a wave all the way to shore without toppling into the water. No matter how old you get, I hope you never forget that kind of joy.

I also hope you never lose the joy you’ve found in reading. In the Fall last year, you discovered the Harry Potter series. I think you were first motivated to try them because the school assigned the books a high point value which really pushed up your reading grade. But from the first page, you were fascinated, reading the whole series in a little over two weeks.

I loved the way you didn’t want the fantasy to end. You found a stick in the yard and made it into a magic wand. Then you spent the next week casting pretend spells over your brother and sister. Even though I admired your creativity, I did have to get on you for trying to turn your sister into a warty frog.

In this last year, we’ve weathered some bad times too. Right around your tenth birthday, my grandmother passed away at the age of 94. In your lifetime, you’ve seen her go from an energetic white-haired woman who played kick ball with you to the frail old lady who couldn’t get out of her hospital bed. Because she lived next door, she’s been a constant presence in your life.

Even though I planned my words carefully all day while you were at school, when the time came to tell you she was gone, nothing came out except tears. But you understood as soon as I said it was about great-grandma. You knew she’d gone to heaven and you started crying too.

“I’m going to miss her too,” you said as we hugged each other. “Every day, I’ll miss her,” you added. You understood and you made me feel I wasn’t so alone in my grief.

I appreciate the way that you always seem to “get it” even though you’re still young. Your third grade teacher marveled at the way you would always get her subtle humor, laughing when no one in the classroom understood the joke. You have such a wonderful sense of humor and many times I’ve caught your eye and we’ve shared a private smile at some sarcastic barb no one else got.

You continue to grow and I see subtle glimpses of the wonderful man I know you will someday be. I can’t wait to see where life will take us in this next year. Happy Birthday!