Leanna Kay

I was singing in the shower last night and Lauren got a sad look on her face.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“I’m very much like you, aren’t I?” she asked with a frown.

“I guess so. We have the same hair and the same face. So?”

“That means I’m gonna get your voice when I get older. And you can’t sing. Which means I can’t be a pop star. And that’s what I had planned. I was gonna make at least a thousand dollars and now I won’t. And I was going to give you money too, but now you won’t get any of it either.” She was practically in tears as she wound down her tirade. “And it’s all because you can’t sing.”

My nephew walked into the kitchen this morning while I was scrubbing knick knacks and bleaching countertops - jobs I do on average once every century.

“Whatcha doing Aunt Leanna?” my nephew asked, apparently confused by the sight of me cleaning.

“Cleaning the kitchen,” I responded.  “I guess I’m just in the mood to clean.”

“That’s a bad mood,” he replied.  “I hope you get over it soon.”

We woke up this morning to icy roads and school closings. I caught the school closings before the kids’ alarms turned on, so I turned the noisy clocks off and crawled back into my warm bed anticipating another hour of blessed sleep. Two minutes later, Lauren came bounding into my room with enough energy to lead a 6 a.m. aerobics class for the hyperactive.

“Is school closed?” she asked while bouncing on the bed next to me.

“Yeah. Crawl in here and we’ll go back to sleep.” I was hoping to turn this into one of those precious Hallmark moments we mothers remember long after our children leave the nest.

She crawled in next to me and started babbling about snow and school and sleep and TV shows. Had I been more awake, this could have been a bonding moment. But at 6 a.m., all I wanted to do was find her “off” button. (She doesn’t have one by the way. I checked.)

Finally, she got tired of my mumbled responses and went off in search of something else to do. The something else did end up being one of those Hallmark moments. She came upstairs ten minutes later with breakfast she’d prepared for me.

It was dry toast and water. Kind of like the meals I imagine they serve in prison. Only this toast was so blackened that the warden who served it to his inmates would find himself facing a lawsuit.

But of course, I didn’t mention that. Instead I ate the toast and raved about how delicious it was. I think I might have even said it was the best toast ever. Whatever compliments I gave must have hit the mark because Lauren went trotting off with a huge smile on her face.

Then ten minutes later she was back. With ANOTHER piece of dry toast burned even worse than the first. “Mom, I made you more since you loved it so much.”

Now there’s your Hallmark moment.

For the church Christmas musical this year, my kids were asked to make decorations for the set. When you’re asked to do the set, it’s a clear indication that you’re lacking in both acting and singing talent. That’s definitely true in the case of our non-musical family whose off-key rendition of HAPPY BIRTHDAY has been known to call wild dogs from three counties over.

So we acknowledge our lack of talents in the fine arts and the kids have repeatedly refused to sing at the annual church musical. After all, it’s one thing to call wild dogs to your own house. It’s quite another to summon them to a public location where lots of old people congregate.

When asked by the choir director if the kids would rather work on the set decorations, I had to agree that their talents lay more with slapping paint on cardboard than singing. The musical this year is was about Christmas around the world. We were challenged with the task of making flags for six different countries. I got on the internet and researched the flags, bought poster board and paint and settled the kids at the kitchen table.

The project looked easy…. until we started. Five minutes after I opened pots of paint, two colors were tipped sideways dripping onto the table. Chris was painting off the edge of the poster board so that our table resembled a preschooler’s version of the flag of Uganda. Lauren got bored in the middle of painting the Ukranian flag and went off to play Webkins. Her flag was half unpainted as if the country had left in the middle of the task to go fight a civil war. Drew was busily trying to make a triangle that was looking more like an over-painted blob than a geometric shape.

When we were finished, the whole mess looked more like a Jackson Pollock exhibit for the art challenged than the backdrop for a church musical. Using enough paint and some imagination, we finally ended up with something that resembled flags. If you use your imagination, a little poor lighting and some squinting, you can really see the flag of Australia emerging among the mess of royal blue and red paint. And the best part? At least our woeful painting didn’t summon any wild dogs.

As I mentioned before, Bob and I are now playing in an adult soccer league. We signed up to get some exercise and in the back of our deluded minds to pretend we were young again. Well, at least we’re getting exercise.

I have never played soccer before. I was the scrawny kid voted in high school as “least likely to be on a Wheaties box or be the spokesperson for Gatorade.” Well I would have won in those categories had they been listed in the high school yearbook.

I’m the person who kicks at the ball, misses, falls down and breaks a hip. Well maybe not with quite that much drama, but you get the picture. I told Bob last Friday that I felt I was the obstacle on the field around which our team must play.

Being the kind husband he is, he turned to me and said, “Don’t sell yourself short, honey.” I expected this to be followed by some greatly inflated compliment about my athleticism. Instead he added, “You’re also the obstacle the other team has to play around.”