The Shnooks

According to website, they like to be in a chain gang.

I would be remiss if I did not post about our recent adventures with the Shnooks.

Early one Saturday morning while watching cartoons, Z and I saw a commercial for a new toy. Z was immediately smitten with what she had seen and was bouncing around the living room as though she had just witnessed the second coming. Being that it was early and I was busy attempting to get us ready for the day, I only caught the ending of the commercial that said, "Buy it at Walgreen's".

This would be like most things in a 3 year old's attention span, I figured, she would talk about it for a few minutes and then all remaining traces of it would be stored to the back of her brain to be regurgitated at some later, random time.

Except that she is getting older and smarter.

She retained every piece of this commercial (save the name of the product) and would recant it to her father, grandparents and visting relatives. Throughout the day I heard her tell everyone about this amazing and exciting toy that she had been a witness to. As a reward for having a great day without tantrums or intense insanity, I told her that we would go to the store to buy this toy.

I packed her up in the car and the 5 point harness could hardly contain her excitement as we drove to the store. We searched the small toy department and seasonal Easter supplies. No luck. I asked an associate who stared blindly at me and then asked slowly, "Let me get this straight, you are looking for a toy that you do not know the name of that may or may not look like a stuffed animal and a troll doll had, er, um, relations?"

I nodded. I knew that he thought I should probably be put away on a 48 hour hold.

Now, I was on a mission.

I am not spoiling my child. (My posts about threats and discipline and punishments should be enough to tell you that.)

There are reasons to my madness.

Firstly, she has NEVER asked for a toy. Sure, we have been at the store and she has liked the toy sections, but no matter what she was playing with, if you showed her something else, she would divert away from the first toy as though it had never caught her interest. For her to remember something as small a commercial with that amount of detail that she had, meant to me that she is reaching an all new milestone in life.

Secondly, she had worked really hard to keep her emotions and attitude in check. Several times throughout the day I caught her, fists clenched, ready to rage when she would remember, all on her own, that she needed to be on her best behavior. I felt that this needed to be rewarded.

Finally, her birthday is one week before Christmas. It is a long time before either holiday and it feels like it has been a long time since she has gotten a gift.

Anyway, after the first store debacle, we tried again on Sunday. Again, crazy stares and no luck. I searched the internet Sunday night and Monday morning, I was starting to wonder if she and I hallucinated the whole bit.

As a last ditch effort, I posted a plea on Facebook when (Eureeka!) one of my friends had seen the display at her local store, seen the commercial and sent me a picture on my cell phone. Armed with the name of the product and a picture, I tried yet another store. Nothing.

Z began to weep. She pled her case to the sales clerk, who, in turn, got on the phone and started calling all of the stores in town. The closest one to us was a good 20 minute drive across town, but the expression on my girl's face when she saw that display was priceless.

I know that this is just the beginning. I know that I will not always be able to get her what she wants in life. I know that soon the requests for toys that are under $10 will stop and that the demand for more expensive things will come.

For now, I am able to delight in the fact that my 3 year old watched a 30 second commercial, fell in love with what she saw, and memorized and retained it all down to the smallest detail.

I am grateful for her amazing mind, the creativity that she has expressed in the last week when talking about what she and her new toy would be able to do together, and the trust and faith in her momma that I would not only be able to find it for her, but that she would actually buy it for her.

And that is worth so much more than $7.99 to me.

Opposites Attract

No one on this Earth is meant to live this life alone. We are all built with missing pieces that other people posess so that we can link together and become parts of the whole. This theory is not new. We have heard it in bad Paula Abdul songs from the '90's and the whole Men are from Mars series.

I am not going to talk about the Hubs and I. (Later, I promise, but not tonight.)

I am going to talk about my two friends. (Yes, only two, I am a little socially awkard, I smell funny, have a weird laugh and a tendency to talk too much.)

I met J in high school and while we were aquaintances then (I kept everyone from high school at arms length, I didn't really want them to know about the stuff that I was dealing with at home, and again, there is that whole smelling funny thing) when we met again my first week of college we became thick as thieves. We built our friendship around cheap gas prices, an Escort that could drive anywhere, Dr. Pepper and bi-weekly trips to the Plasma Center to make some quick cash. She convinced her sister-in-law to give me a job working in the Counseling Department at the college and introduced me to the show Friends.

J is a tomboy from Mississippi, with a Southern accent so thick that you feel like you could curl up in it and take a nap. She prefers beer, country music, fishing and talking about cars. Her entire family adopted me from the moment that I met them, Z calls her mother "Mamaw" and I refer to her son as my Godson. I caught the bouquet at her wedding and was there the day her boy was born.

She is beautiful (even down to the glistening silver threads that I notice every now and then around her temples) and was always able to talk her way out of a ticket. She is compulsive and spontaneous, adventurous and headstrong. She does not care what people say or do, she lives life with a passion that few exhibit. She has a gigantic, giving heart for everyone (including people she does not know). She loved my dad until the end, even when others had nothing good or worthwhile to say about him.

Our lives are intertwined almost as far back as I can remember. She has defended me in hopeless situations, encouraged me in moments of doubt, and pushed me to do things that I never would have done (take a job as a Karaoke DJ?, go fishing at 2 AM?). If I had a superhero, J would probably be my girl.

No matter if it has been a day, a week, a month or a year since we spoke, if the two of us find time to get together, we are completing each other's sentences and nodding in agreement as if there has been no time lost. No one can beat us if we team up for a board game, which may be why our husbands won't let us do that anymore.
S is younger than both us, but I have always known that she was an old soul.

At 21 and she 16, we were an odd pair. I was the youngest employee at her grandma's job before she took on a part-time position doing filing in the office. When we first started having lunch together, there was much grumbling amongst the co-workers about why a 21 year old would want to hang out with a 16 year old, especially from her "Granny". Our friendship flourished as we swapped shocking stories and compared parental disasters.

S is also stunningly beautiful. Her eyebrows are so strikingly perfect that I study them. She knows how to use them too; making precise facial responses to everything that a person says or does. It's hypnotizing to watch her reactions to things and I catch myself staring at her.

S adores most things girly. She loves to try out new beauty products, bring over hair dye for us to both get updates to our looks, painting toe nails and research ways for us to give ourselves layers without having to pay someone to do them for us. Without her, I am certain, that I would perpetually look like a truck had recently run me over.

Her family is different from J's in most ways possible. While her "Granny" has finally accepted me (and actually complimented me!) and her mother (unofficially) adopted me, to most of them I am just another character in S's cast of friends. Her boy calls me his "Step-Momma" and I call him my Godson as well.

S is vicacious, caring, strong and determined. She does not accept bullshit from anyone and does not back down in an argument. She is strong-willed and level headed. In times of illness or depression, she shows up at my door with gossip magazines, toenail polish, treats and a card. She loves me for who I am, showered or not, hair combed or not, she is willing to get down into my mess and help me dig my way back out of it. She makes me feel important and pretty, even in my darkest times. During a particularly bad day in my marriage, she arrived at my house at 7:30 in the morning armed with garbage bags, a baseball bat and a shovel (we are still not sure what her plans were, but her intentions were in the right place).

If we were missing one piece, we wouldn't be complete.

We have a standing date on Saturday nights. Some weeks, it feels like Saturday will never come, but when it does, it is always greatness. Every Saturday night, we are able to dump out all of our collective baggage from the week, bounce ideas off of each other, laugh and play with our kids (building forts, making homemade play doh, baking cookies and helping the kids decorate them), joke about the lack of parenting skills that we posess, play Scrabble. When it is over, I feel refreshed, renewed, able to dust off the frustrations of the past week and focus on what I have in store in the coming week or month.

These women complete me. They helped make me the person that I am today. They have helped shape and forge the mother that I am now and the mother that I will become someday. Where they are strong, I am weak and vice versa. They round out my world to make it not as warped in my own silliness. They strengthen my arguments, inspire me to do more and encourage me to come out of my shell.

I hope that I give them the tools that they need to conquer the world as well.

Not Who I Was (The Adventures of Adulthood)

I have been known to throw temper tantrums in times of stress. I have been known to rail against God, to lash out against friends and family, to lose my patience and throw things in fits of rage. I have been known to shut down and close people out. I have been known to internalize my anger and take it out on myself ("You are stupid, fat, lazy..."). In the darkest times, I have cut and even burnt myself to externalize internalized self-hatred. .

I strived to maintain control over every detail of my life and any semblance of any one of those details slipping meant that I was not good enough, not smart enough, just not enough.

I lacked a sense of peace, a sense of contentment. I lacked maturity and grace.

But I'm not who I was.

On Thursday, our family's one and only car died. Hubs, Z, and I were stranded, in the midst of rush hour on a busy street. It was clear to me that it would be a costly repair in a season of costly repairs and it was the second time in less than two months that this had happened.

The old me would have been angry. Pissed that this had happened (again), raging that I would have to miss work, figure out where to find money to fix it or buy a new one. I would have felt cheated and picked on by the fates or God or whatever. I would have taken out my frustrations in nasty, snide remarks to the Hubs and cold indifference towards Z.

But I'm not who I was.

Instead, I was strangely calm. Thankful that we had already bought dinner as I munched fries and reviewed our situation. I made calls to our family and was glad that Z had fallen asleep in the backseat before this had all transpired. Hubs and I pushed the car up the hill and awaited for our rescue to arrive. Friends, seeing our situation, stopped to assist us push the car.

I know that this post may not seem remarkable or even interesting.

Just as a caterpillar becomes a butterfly, I can change my old ways too!

But I am not who I was.

The old me lacked confidence in myself as a person. I felt cast out, pushed asisde and tormented in my own skin. I was depressed, miserable and without hope. I lacked patience in myself and the world. I spent a lot of time and energy being frustrated and angry.

In the days and weeks following Z's birth, I faced a series of life challenges, bigger than all of the anger and rage that I had ever posessed, bigger than all of the things I had ever experienced. Life was no longer under my control, and the only thing that I could really focus on was my little girl.

Small and helpless, her needs outweighed the car being broke down in the driveway, the Hubs losing his job, the new grandfather dying in the hospital, the threat of my maternity leave replacement taking over my job, emergency surgery that left me on bed rest for nearly two weeks.

I dropped all of my balls. I left them for others, for God, and I did the one and only thing I could do. I took care of my daughter. I slept, I nursed, I rested my mind from all of the things that I would normally battle internally and externally and I let life take it's course around me.

I gave birth to my daughter and in doing so I gave life to a whole new me. A calmer, gentler version of myself. I am not as concerned about the piles of laundry waiting for me, there is a little girl that wants to play with her momma. I am not as concerned about the dishes that are cluttering the counters, there is a little girl that wants one more story before she goes to bed. I am not as concerned about the bill that may have to wait another week or two before it gets paid, there is a little girl that wants to go to the park.

I have learned that life has a way of taking care of itself, I have someone far more important to take care of.