A-Caroling We Go...

After picking Savannah up from the airport yesterday (she was visiting her dad in Durango) we went to the store and got a little silly. We were really cracking ourselves up and Savannah was convinced that we should have our own show and that everyone would find us hilarious. After I had paid for my purchases, I told the cashier "Happy New Year!" and then launched into a Happy New Year song that I made up on the spot:

happy happy new year
to you my new year's friend
happy happy new year
happy to the end

We continued to sing the song and do a little dance as we exited the store. At this point there was no stopping our dream of having the funniest show the world had ever seen--and then Savannah had the greatest stroke of genius she'd had in the whole of 2008: We should go caroling with our new song and when we reached the end of our tune (and this is the BEST part!) we would give the awed and amazed family who was the victim of our musical assault a baby. I took it so far as to suggest that we could start a charity and at Christmas we would go to Somalia or somewhere where there might be lots of babies that were needy, and we would bring them home and pass them out at New Year's as the parting gift of our caroling crusade. I mean, I still think it sounds like an inspired idea...and if we really want to make it successful, I think we'll invite Ellen and Brangelina to join us (worst-case scenario Brangelina would keep all the kids if people balked at such a thoughtful and generous gift.)

The Most Wonderful (and creepy) Time of the Year

I love Christmas music. I like the jazzy, jaunty tunes by Bing and Ella and Andy Williams. I like the traditional carols, beautiful and reverent (although ALWAYS a bit too high for me at some point!) I like the Mickey's Christmas CD that my girls loved to hear over and over when they were little. But this year, my most favorite type of Christmas music is a sub-genre that I've discovered: "Pervy Christmas Songs." And it is more pervasive than you might think (if you're listening for the right things, that is!) In the spirit of the season, I offer this gift to you--my top three Pervy Christmas Songs--for your enjoyment:

#3--Santa Claus Is Coming To Town: This classic children's favorite boasts among its famous lyrics, this key pervy line: "He sees you when you're sleeping/he knows when you're awake/he knows if you've been bad or good/so be good for goodness sake." I think that the Santa of this fine tune must have been the inspiration for the obsessed stalker in the Police song Every Breath You Take. And not only does this cheery tune boast advanced stalker imagery, but there is the lightly-veiled threat at the end about being good...or else.

#2--A Kiss A Toy from the 1970 animated TV classic "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town": Every year Gabi and I hold our own version of MST3K and make merciless fun of this ridiculously silly show. We impress ourselves with our ability to come up with new witty barbs each year and, of course, pull out our favorite insults from years past. ("You must not play with toys children, you must play with fire!" --Gabi) But the piece de resistance of this entire production is the song Good Ol' St. Nick sings to the sad children of SomberTown. "If you sit on my lap today/a kiss a toy is the price you'll pay/when you tell what you wish for in a whisper/be prepared to pay/so give a little love/get a little love back/" Do I really need to say anything more?

#1--Baby, It's Cold Outside: Don't get me wrong--I LOVE this song. It's one of my favorites. However, it has become impossible for me to listen to the persuasive insistence of the "gentleman" without thinking of it as the consummate date-rape song. The more the woman insists on leaving, the more he pushes her to go against her own wishes. He offers her booze, the threat of freezing to death, and pushes her to feel guilty with lines like "How can you do this thing to me?" It's a textbook example of how to NOT take no for an answer.

So, at this most WONDERFUL time of the year, take a few moments to lend a different kind of ear to your favorite tunes and see what fun discoveries (and perversions) you can discover!

Happy Holidays!!! :)

I've Fallen and I Can't Get Up

When you are single, there are certain moments that drive home the idea that you are utterly alone. One such moment happened to me not long after my ex-husband had moved out of our house. I was having an unusually good day for that time in my life, and was in high spirits. I had just gotten home and heard the phone ring. The phone was in the basement and in my buoyant frame of mind I found myself bouncing down the stairs to answer it. I decided to take the last several steps in one bounding leap. I joyously launched myself from the stair to the bottom and suddenly saw stars (yes, STARS) and everything went black.

A few moments later I was lying on my basement floor, and felt a throbbing on the very top of my head. I wasn't sure what was going on, but I realized that I was alone. It was the weekend and my kids were with my ex-husband, and I was ALL. BY. MY. SELF. If I lost consciousness and started bleeding into my brain, no one would be coming home to find me. I could slip into a coma or even die and it could be days--DAYS--before my poor children ran in to greet me after their weekend away and found me unresponsive on the basement floor.

With my survival instincts in full force, I crawled across the floor to where the now-silent phone lay. I picked up the receiver and dialed Terri's number. I got the answering machine. I left a message that I had hurt my head, and that I would appreciate it if they would check on me later to make sure that I was okay. I hung up the phone and rested my weary head with the comforting knowledge that someone out there would find me before it was too late.

When I was ready to get up, I looked back at the staircase where I had been so happy just a few minutes before. I noticed that up above the last few stairs, the ceiling lowered a few feet. I had literally launched my head at full speed into the ceiling.

Tonite I once again fell down the stairs, to the mixed delight and horror of my second-born child. I was wearing my fuzzy socks and missed the first step. I was certain that I would right myself and gain my footing on the next step, or the next, or the next, or the next (NINE times I expected to stop falling.) Finally the momentum stopped, and my crumpled form slumped over the bottom stair and pulsed in pain at several different points. Immediately, I felt Gabi's arms around me, asking if I was okay. I caught my breath and somewhere between a laugh and a sob, looked up. It hurt. I cried.

I peeled off my sweater and viewed my arm where much of the skin had been peeled off by the stairs and a large area beneath my elbow had already swollen grotesquely. As Gabi shared her view of the incident (the back of my head nodding fiercely as I stuttered down the stairs) and tried to hold back a snicker, I burst into hysterical laughter through my tears. Once Gabi determined that I was really okay, and that I wouldn't kill her for laughing, she had two things to say, "I didn't want to have to call the hospital," and "You might have whiplash--your head was really bobbing."

Hell Hath No Fury...

...like a compact, brunette, teenage dynamo (that I spawned.) Tonite there was a line drawn in the sand. A line about grades, and accountability, and (yikes!) being grounded until aforementioned issues are improved. Now I am being punished. And I was informed that such punishment would not abate until said restrictions are lifted. This is one part about the whole grounding thing that I have always hated. It is not just a punishment for the child--it is a prison sentence for the entire family. If one of us suffers, ALL of us will suffer. The "one" will make sure.



But there is no stronger weapon in my arsenal. Not right now. Not with this one. This one is determined. Smart. Willful. Strong. She is the girl who lied repeatedly about lying when she was five. She lied in the face of the evidence of her lie. She lied after being berated. She lied after being put in the longest time-out in the history of time-out. She lied after Dad was brought in. She lied even when nothing she did changed her circumstances or our minds. She was never going to surrender. No matter what. And neither was I.



We are at an impasse, she and I. It may last as long as this battle. It may last throughout the teenage years. It may last into the early twenties. But, as I have sworn to my daughter multiple times, I will persist. I will love her when she can't stand me. I will love her when she is so angry she could spit nails. I will love her through hating school, hating life, hating the hating. And I will love her enough to do what makes her angry, what challenges her doubts, what pushes her to be more than she expects. I will stubbornly love her just as she stubbornly fights to be her own person. And we will each come out better for it.

There's no place like Law & Order

Dorothy may have found home over the rainbow with Aunty Emm and the gang at the Kansas homestead, but as I spent week after week in different hotels in strange towns, I found home in a very different place. Clicking the heels of her red shoes is what took Dorothy home and clicking the buttons on a TV remote is what takes me.

After several weeks on the road, trying to find a bedtime routine that could help this insomniac find a sense of comfort and familiarity (and failing miserably), I finally found the key that I had been searching for. It was the fourth night in a row where I was still flipping channels at 3am, and I landed on a show that instantly calmed my restlessness. It wasn't the first time I had seen it--I had been watching it more and more frequently throughout my travels, but this was the first time I recognized my heartbeat slowing, my breath steadying, and my head hitting the pillow in contentment as Goren & Eames quipped witty penal code banter on the glowing screen of my hotel room TV. I knew that I was powerless to resist as my fingers relaxed their death grip on the remote and it partially fell out of my hand--now I would have to engage my brain in order to properly position my fingers back on the correct buttons in order to keep my usual all-night channel flipping vigil. This was serious.

Scenes from the past weeks of travel flashed through my mind: Hoboken, Seattle, Chicago, Denver, Tucson...wherever I was and whatever time it may be some channel ALWAYS had one version or another of Law & Order playing. The characters became my best friends, my dinner dates, my bedtime lullaby. No matter where I was they were always there. They made tonight's generic hotel room familiar, comfy, like home. Escaping into the gritty, violent, seamy underside of NYC with these flawed, quirky detectives as my tour guides became my sleeping pill. As long as I could hear that unmistakable Law & Order music and watch the detectives fight with their captain, the DA, and the perps--I was at peace.

And now that I am home--no longer on the road--I still find myself addicted to this show. It has a hold on me. I keep trying to quit, but find myself sneaking another hit. Recording episodes on my DVR. Saving episodes I've already watched as an emergency stash. Just in case. I never know when I'll find myself fighting the Wicked Witch of Wakefulness, and need the magic. In fact, right now my trigger fingers are a little itchy--it's time to click that remote and repeat, "There's no place like home. There's no place like home." (Well, no place like the major case squad, anyway...One Police Plaza, here I come!)

Tiny Triumphs

Last nite I was brave enough to weigh myself. I was avoiding it because I have lost 16 pounds and know the main reason is stress. But then the PMS hit, and I started rummaging through the leftover Halloween candy that had not been even slightly tempting to me before. And there was cheese. And bread. So, I was afraid that I had gained back that hard-earned stress weight loss. Because, after all, stress is not a very maintainable way to drop pounds.

So, I kicked the discarded clothes to the side and approached the previously buried scale. I stepped on. I waited. I took a deep breath, and looked down. It was exactly the same!! My PMS craving indulgence had not cost me any of my precious stress-related weight loss! Woo-hoo!! I smiled. I bounced off the scale and lowered myself into the hot bath and sat back quite contented and pleased. At that moment, regardless of what else was working or not in my life, I felt a thrill of victory for that tiny triumph.

And I felt even better to know that such a tiny triumph could bring me such a sense of well-being. Because, at times, it seems that we are so far away from feeling good that we don't know what it would take to get us back there. It only took one small thrill of joy, contentment, satisfaction to remember that place and to know that I was fully capable of living there again. For a few moments, without any trying, I was not worried. Did not feel anxiety. Was not calculating the balance of my bank account, or fretting over the state of my job search. A completely silly and (yes) superficial thing had jolted me out of my quagmire. It was a light at the end of my proverbial tunnel. It was confirmation that I was okay. That I would be okay. And--hey--if nothing else, I'll be a skinny, worried, unemployed mess, and that ain't too bad!

I'm the Only One!

While speaking to my mother the other day about the trials and travails of surviving as a single mother of two teenage girls, she called me something she never had before.

"You're Tigger!" she exclaimed.

There was a pause as I tried to get on her wave length.

"You're the Only One!" she continued.

It made me laugh and I instantly fell in love with the concept. I have remarked, on multiple occasions as of late, that this time is the most challenging I have experienced as a parent, and that the multitude of challenges all parents face seem to be more daunting when you are the one who bears the full brunt of everything.

I may be wrong. The added stress/blessing of a marriage could color things much differently--or not; however, as this is my only perspective, I cling to the belief that I am struggling disproportionately due to my single-ness.

The constant doubts and guilt that are your parting gift when the nurse wheels you out of the hospital doors after giving birth ( a measly 24 hours total allowed by insurance back in the day when I had my babies) feel magnified to Hubble Telescope proportions when the major conversations you have about your decisions, worries, and fears occur among voices that preside mostly within your own mind.

This is the worst news of all: the teen years don't just suck when you are going through them yourself--they also suck when you are dragged back into the quicksand by your offspring. They NEVER end! You cannot escape them--and this time they come with all those gleefully spouted wishes by your own parents that someday you will "have a kid just like you!"

As far as motherly curses go, I was never too worried about that one.

I was wrong.

I was a good kid: good grades, good friends, active in church and many school activities. I followed the rules, respected what my parents wished, and was terrified of getting into trouble most of the time. However, the way of the teenager is to rebel. It is to rage. It is to push. And I was a pusher. I used my verbal acumen to engage my mother in a nasty battle for most of my teenage life. I was merciless in my pursuit for her acknowledgement that I knew better than her what was best for me.

I can't even type this right now without shaking my head and laughing. It's my turn--and my mother got her wish: I have two kids who are just like me in so many ways. They are like me in good ways--they make (mostly) good choices about friends, they don't party, they don't really hide themselves from me. They are also like me in many other ways--they are pretty damn smart, they will engage in lively debate and heated argument for what they believe in, they are fiercely committed to being who they are and making sure that it is different from most.

When I am confronted with their natural teenager-ness on a daily basis, I often do stupid things. I say stupid things. I overreact. I underreact. And I think every decision is most likely the wrong one and/or the one that they really will write down to tell their therapist later (a bit of "advice" I have been offering them since before they were old enough to understand.) In this vulnerable state of uncertainty I comfort myself with the belief that the reason it is so hard is because I live in it by myself. And while I don't know if that belief is true, I am not ready to give up that excuse (no matter how flimsy it may be.)

But thanks to the new title (Tigger) bestowed upon me by my dear, sweet mother I feel a whole lot more bouncy and fun-loving about it. And I have a feeling that if I can connect to the inner-Tigger, my girls and I will all benefit. After all, the wonderful thing about Tiggers, is Tiggers are wonderful things...and the MOST WONDERFUL thing about Tiggers, is......I'm the Only One!!