Matilda at Pop's funeral. By Mark Thomas.
What do you think? Creepy or cute?
Archive for the ‘Family’ Category
Creepy or Cute?
Friday, August 28th, 2009Tiller Tonight
Thursday, August 27th, 2009“Mama? See that shadow over there? By my CD player? It looks like Darth Vader.”
Geez. Way to creep me out, Tills. Wait till I am under my covers before you say stuff like that.
Six Years of You
Thursday, August 27th, 20099:00 a.m. Six years ago today, i was pretty much being ripped apart by a bowling ball. A bowling ball that was not numbed by any amount of drugs for a couple hours. Rollie, you were that bowling ball. And you were worth every second of the worst pain of my entire life.
By the time you came out, my pain was being managed and I was tired and so very happy to see you. I still grieve for those hours that you were not in my arms, but they had to make sure you were okay, and you being okay was most important. Six years going by makes it clear that all of those details and all of the guilt I poured over myself at the time was for nothing. You turned out perfectly and completely and totally YOU. And you are wonderful.
I really feel like this was the year that you became a true boy, no longer a baby, or a toddler, or a preschooler. You started Kindergarten this year! You rode the bus for the first time! I was so terrified, sending my baby boy off with some person i have never met before. And that night, when i kissed you goodnight, you whispered “I want to ride the bus forever. I never want you to pick me up at school again!” You loved the bus. You still do.
You have learned so many wonderful things this year. You already learned to read way back when you were four, but now you are reading longer and longer books. Sometimes the words that you read amaze me. You sound them out just perfectly, and even use them in the correct context sometimes. I will never forget the night that I walked into your room and you were reading the Tales of Beedle the Bard. At five! I wasn’t sure whether to worry that it was too graphic for you, or swell with pride that you could read a real short story book, with few pictures! You are like a sponge with the reading and you retain so much. It amazes me. At school, you are ahead of the game – They are teaching letters, letter sounds, colors, shapes, and the like, and you can already read. I worry that you won’t be challenged enough, but when I see that you are still sensitive, and still on the same emotional level with the other kids in your class, I know we made the right decision. Plus, so far, you are not struggling with your homework very much, and that is a relief to me.
Yes, you have homework. We never had homework when I was in kindergarten, but a lot seems to have changed for parents and kids since then. I hope that your Daddy and I are making good decisions for you, but sometimes it is scary for us. We want so badly to give you all of the tools you need to be a happy and well-adjusted kid. You also started taking French this year, and you have an hour of it a day. i am hoping that you and I can have some secret French conversations around the dinner table. You are already coming home every day with new French vocabulary words. There are still things to learn, though: You still can’t tie your shoes and you get very frustrated when we try to teach you. And your dad and I have been pretty bad about helping you learn to ride a bike. We need to get on that.
You have really turned into an active, energetic little boy. You learned to swim a little last year, but this year, I can sit out of the water and watch you, and you do just great. You put your head down in the water and you can jump off the side and swim back by yourself and swim the entire length of the pool! You dive for rockets, and you were so fun to watch at the pool this year, because you played with the other kids so well. This was also the first year that I could put a lifejacket on you and let you swim in the lake while I sat on the dock. You and Tiller swam for hours in the lake last time I was there. It was a joy to watch you swimming and playing the same exact games that Aunt Lisa and I used to play right there, too. You took your first ride with me on the Jetski this year – I think you were a little freaked out by it, but I am sure you will grow out of that soon and be scaring me with your fearlessness. I know I was terrified riding around on that thing with such precious cargo, but I want you to learn to have fun, and be cautious, but not fearful. I try to teach you that by example, but sometimes Mamas get scared, too.
You played soccer last Fall and this spring and loved it. You are pretty good and we call you “The Cheetah” because you are so fast. Your team was called “The Dream Team Tigers” which we have really gotten a lot of laughs about. This year, you are playing soccer and t-ball (Go, RiverCats!) and I am really enjoying you learn to catch and throw and learn the rules of the game. Just last night, you made your first base hit and you played pitcher and got an out at first. I was beaming. The best part of all, though, is sitting in the bleachers in that moment when light and dark are just about even, then the lights on the field flutter on, and you and your team-mates are running around the bases, playing pickle and laughing (giggling, really) and I just see the joy on your face, and the fact that you are happy, and comfortable with who you are.
I know that won’t last forever – that kids are mean, and you have to watch movies about bullying at school for a reason. I know that there will cliques and hurt feelings, mean things said, and unrequited crushes. I just hope that you will have a foundation given to you by your Dad and me that leaves you with a sense that you are a wonderful person, and that you have self-worth. I hope that you always have the strength to know who you are, to be your own person, and to do the right thing, even under difficult circumstances.
10:00 a.m. I was still at Northside waiting for you to join us. The room was unlit and I was hurting, but it was getting better. Daddy and Aunt Lisa were there. The rest is a blur of visiting grandparents and MASH re-runs, until you came out and changed my world forever, at about 5:30, I think.
At about 5:30 today, we should be getting ready to head down to Turner Field. Your birthday party is Saturday morning at the pool, but we have kind of started a tradition of taking you to a Braves game on your birthday. Last year, Daddy and I surprised you with it, but this year, all four of us are going. Even Tiller. We haven’t told you yet, but I can’t wait to see your face when we do. It will be Tiller’s first baseball game, and I’m sure she will love it, but you will be the star tonight. I can’t wait to see you eating peanuts and hot dogs, and yeah, we might even get you a coke. It is your birthday, after all.
I love you, little buddy. More than you will ever know, at least until you maybe have a child of your own. And then you will ache with it, and swell with it, and wrestle with it. I hope that I am there for you when the time comes, because I am so proud of you and I know how proud I will be then.
Love,
Your Mama
Are you an aunt, uncle or Grandma or Papaw, who can’t get enough of baby pictures of Rollie? Here’s a set of some of my favorites.
This Time Six Years Ago
Wednesday, August 26th, 2009I was at the Ob’s office, waiting to get on the list to check into Northside for an induction. I finally knew that I was going to the hospital and I would be able to see my baby in the next 24 to 48 hours. I was nervous, happy, relieved, and scared shitless.
Not half as scared as I should have been.
I had to go home and wait for the call that they were ready for me. We went in that night. We slept in a room at the hospital and they induced me the next morning.
I didn’t have any earthly idea how much my life was about to change, drastically and irrevocably. Forever.
Johnson Family Comedy Hour
Monday, August 24th, 2009I think I mentioned how the kids’ Knock Knock joke skills are horrendous. . . Here’s the proof:
For Jason B.
Sunday, August 23rd, 2009For Jason, who thinks Rollie and I look so much alike at Rollie’s age. . . check out my mother, at about the same age. In very p.c. Indian headdress, with old Aunt Zelma, and her dog, Peg. Evidently, Zelma used to fart and blame it on Peg all the time. Mom will have to confirm, but I believe this photo was taken at the duplex on either Seminole Dr. or Mason Dr., Chattanooga, Hamilton Co., TN.
Can’t seem to find the picture of me in my Birmingham PeeWees baseball uniform, but Rollie and I look a LOT alike in that one.
Coming up on Dogwood Girl: “Before” photos of our basement; “Before” photos of my gray roots.
Tutu Redux
Friday, August 21st, 2009By popular demand, (okay, an aunt and a couple of Grandmas), here is the video I have so far of the Tills in a tutu. . . .
This first one is Tiller and her class in the hallway at the rec center, getting some water. Kind of boring at first, but you get to see Ms. D, the bigger-than-life trashy, bleached blonde sixty-something woman, who teaches the class. She is wearing the I Love New York shirt. The first time I met her, she was dressed like Jennifer Beals in Flashdance. My neighbor said one time she taught the class wearing a “Roofers do it on top” shirt. Effin’ awesome!
I need to work on my camera skills, but it was the first time I’ve used this camera. . . . This is Tills leaving class to go to the car.
And one more on the way to the car. Really, this is all about the tutu. If you have ever met Tiller, you will realize that her in a tutu is about as funny as me in a tutu.
I Want to be an Elephant
Friday, August 21st, 2009Tiller: [Crying and arching her back on the couch.]
Me: “Baby, what is it?”
Tiller: “I want to be an elephant!!!!” [More crying.]
Me: [Under my breath.] “Good luck with that.”
Me: [Aloud] “Why do you want to be an elephant?”
Tiller: “I want to be able to pick stuff up and pour it on my head!”
Don’t Mess With My Tutu
Friday, August 21st, 2009Things here in Dogwood Girl world have been a little wild lately. This whole year has been a roller coaster, but the commencement of school has really amped up our schedules. Oddly, though, in the midst of all of the rushing around to practices and stores to find shoes and helmets and gloves and bats and tutus, there have been these wonderful moments where I am struck by deja vu. I have been here before. I have felt this joy. Parenting is funny like that: You reach a milestone in your child’s life, and it brings you back instantly to that time in your own childhood.
Tiller started ballet last Thursday. She takes it at the rec center here in town. The minute I walked in there, I was rushed back to the old rec center at Wills Park in Alpharetta, the one next to the awesome wooden playground thingie – the ultradangerous one, with a bridge that went over a creek and lots of holes high up on the structure for little kids to fall out of. We never did. We also never injured ourselves on that fast merry-go-round; we just went faster and faster, squealing our guts out. Pretty sure those are gone now, replaced by some safer, more plastic, less wood and metal playground, with sustainable mulch or some such crap underneath it. I used to take baton twirling there at the rec center. I think it was maybe only one room, with some public restrooms. As soon as I walked in the dance room, i was brought back. Tutus and tights and little black patent leather tap shoes with ribbon laces. Pale pink ballet slippers.
I had been told that Tiller should ‘wear something comfortable” that first day. She had on shorts and a t-shirt. All of the other little girls wore tutus and had their hair in ponytails or buns. Most of them had their own shoes.
Ballerina Parent Fail.
Tiller didn’t even notice, though. She doesn’t realize yet that her mother is a Bull in a China Shop who never took more than one year of Dance. I was hideous. To this day, my photos from that one year of ballet and tap, taken in a studio that I believe was in the upstairs over the Indian Trading Post toy store in downtown Alpharetta, right across from Milton High school, are still the most-commented-on of all of my childhood pictures. (They do not, however, compare to the still-much-discussed naked run around the parking lot photo from a college game of truth or dare gone awry.) People think they are hysterical. So, before someone leaks them, I will share them here on Dogwood Girl, for all the world to see.
This is me on the left end of this group. I want to say the girl next to me is Heather Flack. Not sure who the other sad girls are. . . . It appears that the red monstrosities are what you wear for tap. I can still feel the material these little numbers were made of . . . .
Okay, this next one is me in. . . I don’t know what this getup is. I think this was the ballet number. Because nothing says graceful ballet like a CountryBumpkinVaudevilleShowgirl costume. Who comes up with these? Nice lipstick, huh?
This is the one that people really dig. . . Look at that poof in my hair. Yes, that is mom’s attempt at giving me a Dorothy Hamill, but I have curly hair, and it never did work. See that polka dot trim? It itched like a motherfucker. Red lipstick on a five-year-old is classy.
Now, this post is about how parenting reminds one of their own childhood. And one time that I was really struck by this was when I took the kids to Tucker Day last year. Tucker Day is for all the world just like I remember the Alpharetta Parade being. Tractors, and farmers, and bands, and groups like baseball teams and dancers. Yes, I believe that my dance troupe was in the parade, and I seem to remember wearing the above red and polka dot-trimmed outfit, while this next picture was being taken of my sister and my cousins, who lived right across the street from me back then. (Yes, I told you I was Southern. Southerners live across the street from their cousins, people!) Mom evidently parked the red Caprice Classic station wagon, with wood on the side, in the filling station parking lot near the Food Lion. (Food Giant? I get those confused.) The one on Hwy 9. She propped Graham, Adam, and Lisa up on the hood, and gave them a couple of bottles of Coke. Please note Lisa’s lionhead. (See also: The Lionhead Files.)
This next one is prompted by Rollie playing t-ball. This is my softball team. Before that, I played t-ball with a bunch of boys, and one other girl, Ashley Marvin. Now, I don’t remember exactly why i played t’ball with a bunch of boys. But this next picture is from a softball team I played on. We had an after season party at Ashley’s house. Ashley had an awesome old renovated house near Crabapple, and a pool. Also, please note our totally trippy 70’s-style Fulton Co. Parks and Rec shirts.
This final one is just one of my fave pics ever. It is of the spectators at one of my b-ball games. I guess it was when I played on the boys’ team, because my cousin’s mom is there. I LOVE this picture. The folks are sitting on the bleachers at Wills Park. I guess it is cold. Maybe my dad took the picture? My mom is standing to the left, in the plaid pants, smoking a cigarette. The blonde next to her is my cousin’s mom, Connie. That is Adam in her lap – I love that he is twirling his hair, like he always did at that age!. To my Mom’s left is my sister, Lisa, sitting next to my Uncle Harry, a.,k. a Gran, my grandma Smith’s brother. His wife, Virginia, or Bubba as we called her, is sitting the next row back. You can almost make out her reddish hair. Would love to know who some of the other folks are.
Now we have the metal bleachers, but there is still that same feel at practices. I am looking forward to enjoying some of those after-game ice creams, and to watching my Tiller keep herself occupied around the field while Rollie plays this season.
Forget About Me, God
Wednesday, August 19th, 2009I woke Rollie up this morning. (After Todd woke me up; I almost never hear the alarm. He usually has to nudge me awake.) Rollie is having trouble waking up in the mornings, after a summer of sleeping later and waking with the sun. It is still dark at 6:45 and he usually mumbles something like, “I want to stay under the covers,” and I kiss him on the forehead and whisper, “I do too.”
I made sure he was awake and then went down to start coffee, make oatmeal, and fix his lunch. He came down, sleepy-eyed, and hair sticking up in a thousand different directions. (I call him, “Little Cecil,” because his hair is just like my dad’s – thick, slightly curly, and sticks up when he’s been sleeping on it.) I told him to put on his shoes, and then he came into the kitchen and said, “Mom, I am going to tell you a joke.” I turned around from my coffee, ready for the laughs.
Now, any parent of a preschooler or young elementary-age kid will understand that this means you will probably get a Knock Knock joke that makes absolutely zero sense. For instance, Todd told Rollie and Tiller the old Knock Knock joke that ends in “Orange you glad . . . .” They have improvised on this theme and will say, “Aren’t you glad I didn’t say Banana?” Or “Knock Knock. Who’s there? Table!” And then they explode into laughter, thinking they made a joke. You laugh, too, because otherwise you would be crying.
It is possibly one of the most torturous parts of parenting, being stuck at a dinner table with young Knock Knock joke comedians.
So, I really wasn’t expecting this joke to be unusual, and definitely wasn’t expecting it to be funny. I really wasn’t expecting this:
Me: “Okay, let’s hear it.”
Rollie: “Forget about me, God!” [He twists his face into a goofy expression, one that indicates that he is trying to be funny.]
I stare at him.
Me: “Rollie, that’s not funny.”
Rollie: “Well, I think it’s funny!” [Runs off into the den, balls up on the couch and wails and cries.]
I stand there thinking, “Well, shit.” I guess he expected me to laugh. We always laugh.
Now, I am not the most religious person in the world. I would say I am not religious at all. But I do think about God, I think there might be a God, but I am not sure. Because sometimes I also think that we are all just millions of ants in a huge anthill, waiting to get stomped on, or have a huge Dixie Cup of Kool Aid dumped over our hill, washing us all away in a red typhoon. But I was raised to believe in God, and so i have a great respect for that belief (which I think is sorely missing in our society today) and I would be mortified if my child ever said that to a believer.
I took a deep breath. Looked longingly at the coffee just starting to trickle it’s way into the pot. Thought, once again, that some mornings there just isn’t enough coffee in the world. Went in and sat on the couch next to Rollie.
I asked if he knew why his joke wasn’t funny. He protested that his joke was funny. I finally had to tell him that he would lose privileges if he kept using the joke, because the joke might be offensive to other people. I then had to try to explain the word, “offensive,” which just came off as “might hurt someone’s feelings.” I explained that it would hurt his Grandparents’ feelings to hear that joke. That one of his friends might really have their feelings hurt if he said it to them. He said, “okay,” all the while still claiming that it was funny. (No idea where he gets this stubborn streak from.)
I asked where he heard this joke.
He replied that he made it up.
I am going to need a whole bunch more coffee to ponder how on earth my son came up with this in the first place, and what it might mean to him. Should I be glad that he has a concept of a higher being, and that somehow he is thinking about his place in the world? Is he thinking about his place in the world? Maybe he just liked the way it sounded.
It was only 7:15 a.m. when I finished this conversation with him. Have you ever seen me in the morning before coffee?
Parenting is fucking hard.