Where Did All The Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice Disappear To??

There are certain aspects to your personality that you lose when you are a mother to just boys. I'm not sure it's the same thing for fathers who parent just girls, either. You lose some of your innate "girl-ness". Think about this:

If you only have sons, when was the last time you saw a musical or other stereotypical "chick flick" when it first came out in the theater? Or did you have to wait until months after it finally appeared on cable, and even then it wasn't a premium movie channel, just TBS or something?

If you have only sons, when was the last time you were able to take your time shopping for a bra and panties that were more pretty than functional?  Or the last time you were able to at least take enough time to make sure you bought some in your size, not just grab the closest thing to the aisle you were speed walking past so that the boys weren't scarred for life by the mental picture of their mother owning undergarments with lace and leopard prints on them?

If you have only sons, when was the last time you were able to actually go and get your hair "done", including color and styling if you wanted it? Or have you found you just have to settle for quickly getting it cut?

I finally saw Mama Mia for the FIRST TIME about two weeks ago. And if I hadn't found it on some random station after the boys had gone to bed and I was trying to avoid giving in to Coach's insane obsession with ESPN Sports Center at all freakin' hours, I'm fairly certain I STILL wouldn't have seen it.  Another of my all time favorite movies (and yes, I know it has no real cinematic value, and I don't care. I love it anyway!), Grease 2, was on recently. And again, if I hadn't lucked into running across it late one night I would have missed it.  None of my guys, Coach included, will watch those movies with me. Not at the theater; will not let me grab them at Blockbuster; and will run and hide if they come on at home. 

I won't give you entirely too much information about the state of my underwear, but just know that I haven't worn lace and leopard print since Jock was looking at puberty. I haven't been able to get enough time to myself to go someplace besides Wally World to look, and I usually have the boys with me when I'm there. Some things they just don't need to know, I think.

But as God is my witness, I WILL get my hair done again some day! I will once again have two or three colors weaved into it, with a cut so professional it will naturally look like I just didn't do a thing with it. And I will be wearing lace when it happens. And then I might even bring home a copy of Pirates of Penzance to watch afterwards. At 11:00 in the morning. On a Saturday.

And I will remember to put ID bracelets on all of my menfolk, so that when I have to track them down after they run screaming out of the house I can find them easily.

After the movie, of course.

The Feast of My Life

For the last several years, Coach and I have had two turkeys at our table every Thanksgiving. These turkeys keep getting bigger and bigger, to accommodate our lives. The bigger they get, the more full of flavor they seem to become, too.

Each year, in addition to the bigger turkeys, there seems to always be more and more stuffing, potatoes and other assorted side dishes. As with the turkeys, these become more flavorful and exciting. We've rotated some dishes in, and some dishes out; but we still keep adding to the table.

The gravy gets thicker every year, and yet still manages to be the perfect consistency. It covers everything that needs covering, adding just the right amount of "extra" to whatever it needs to. We've learned that no matter what, we know that we can count on that gravy to be there, doing what needs to be done to enhance those turkeys and side dishes. Making everything so good you often can't pinpoint that it was the gravy that pushed it into awesomeness.

And we seem to always be blessed with an abundance of desserts, as well. Plates of things so sweet you can't help closing your eyes in bliss, and smiling until your dimples hurt. Dishes that seem so rich and decadent, you don't even realize how good for you they actually are!

Two growing turkeys, constantly changing and adding to the never-ending table of side dishes, enhanced by the gravy to always be better than they could be without it, with the sweet parts afterward savored and enjoyed; this is how life should be.

This is life at my house. Every day, not just at Thanksgiving. My turkeys are the joys of my life, and I would be lost if we didn't have all those side dishes to enjoy. The gravy I love so much might be thicker every year, but without it we'd all be less than what we could be since that gravy enhances our life without even realizing it. And the sweetness after all is said and done? Well, I couldn't live without seeing those dimples and feeling something so rich in my life.

I'm so thankful that God chose to bless me with this feast.  I may not deserve it, I may often unknowingly try to sabotage it. I may, on occasion, burn something that has to be tossed and started over again. But I am always so, so, so grateful He has given it to me.

It's a Darn Good Thing I Only Have Two

I had planned to write something witty tonight about the things I'm thankful for right now. Okay, fine. I had planned to ATTEMPT to write something witty tonight about the things I'm thankful for right now.  Some kind of profound play on the latest "new" idea to be thankful for one thing a day. Something like "30 Things I'm Thankful For". Or something like that.  But then I spent 30 minutes holding my baby while he cried tears he didn't want to be crying, sobbing about how he's torn between the part of him that doesn't want to grow up and the part of him that does. And telling me that he's missed me "sooo much" lately, and feeling ignored and unimportant to me because I've been spending so much of my attention on his older brother. It occurred to me then that I hadn't spent a great deal of time with my Bug since before football season started. Okay, okay. It didn't just occur to me. It walked right up to me, looked me square in the eye, and whomped me upside my thick skull.

I am such a craptastic mother sometimes. How could I ignore one child and lavish so much time and attention on the other? How had it completely escaped my notice that the reason my son has been such a royal puke for the last several weeks was because it was the only way he could get my undivided attention? (And in the spirit of thankfulness, I did take a moment to thank God that He had only given me two children. How much more damage to the future of our nation would it be possible for me to inflict if I had been gifted with the original six children I had started asking Him for when I was younger?)

And then I stopped beating myself up. (Mostly stopped, at any rate. I think it's normal for a mother to regularly flog herself over her perception of how she sucks at the whole motherhood thing.) I squeezed my boy a little tighter, and told him how sorry I was that I hadn't been paying close enough attention. Both to him, and to everything else. I told him that I loved him, but even bigger than that....he was super important to me. I told him that he was not just one of my favorite kids, but one of my favorite people in the whole world. And that I had missed him, too.

We talked about how growing up is hard, and I reminded him that sometimes? It's okay to still do the things you did when you were little. Lego cities and watching cartoons, sleeping with stuffed animals and having mom sing to you at night. It didn't mean you weren't growing up just because you did one of those things sometimes. He told me that right now, the part of him that wants to grow up fast is still mostly small; but that it's getting bigger all the time and it's really making it hard for him to just be fine. All I could say to that was that I understood. I'm not sure he believed me, though.

In the end, after we had found our way through the tears and back to the giggles, Bug and I made a date. We're going on a Mother-Son date this weekend, and he gets to decide what we're going to do. I'm thinking movies and food, but he could surprise me. I hear there's a truck pull in town this weekend.

There's Always A Smile On This Boy

This picture isn't recent. And the story isn't about this shot specifically. But every time I look at this picture of the top of Bug's head, I laugh and smile.

The fact that my boys are 5 years apart, with one in high school where Every. Single. Moment is driven by a hormone tsunami more powerful than anything he can possibly ever control, makes it hard sometimes for me to feel like I'm giving them equal time. Lately, the high school heartbreaks and homework have demanded more of my attention than is really fair to Bug. And maybe its because of the hero worship he has for his big brother, or maybe I blinked and he grew up enough to need me less, but I'm just not seeing the amount of bitterness and irritation over this lack of attention that one would expect. On the contrary, actually.

In a move that makes it look like he's lying in wait for me to walk into his line of sight, as soon as he sees me lately he asks how his brother's doing. He pounces on Jock the minute he peeks out of his teen-cave, asking how the homework's coming, and what's it about? And at bedtime, when he finally has me to himself for a few minutes, he starts making plans for when HE gets to spend time with me. And he always...ALWAYS...makes me laugh and smile in those few minutes we spend together getting him all tucked in.

This weekend? He's planning to teach me how to play poker and build a proper Lego tower.

And even if I already know any of those things, why would I spoil it for him? It occurs to me that just as I need to feel needed as their mother, maybe they need to show me that they still do need me. Even if it's only to see hard he can make me laugh before I snort or cry!




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