A Few Things

Talking about it makes it better.

I can't believe I have a niece who is one year old.

Todd has one week to purchase and install my new UGA flag. Sex withheld until installation complete.

My favorite movie of all time is most definitely The Black Stallion. And it holds up well to time, too. You are making fun of me, but it was Oscar-nominated for Cinematography (Caleb Deschanel, who is Zoey and Emily's Daddy, i believe) and Mickey Rooney was nominated for Best Supporting Actor. The only sad thing about it is that Kelly Reno, the kid who plays Alec, never really did anything else and ended up a cab driver in NYC. That being said, if i ever got into his cab, he would feel like a rock star after my reaction. Um, the kids and I watched The Black Stallion last night.

Britt A. from high school is purchasing a ticket for me to attend the GA Auburn game. I will explain this another time, when I don't have to drive to Montgomery for a birthday party, but know(shon) this: It does not bode well for the Auburn Tigers.

SEVEN DAYS!!!!!!

This Week in Dogwood Girl

Is just kinda dark and confused, and not really ready to be written about at all. Some things suck and are nebulous and I just can't put them into words without it all coming out completely wrong.

It will all come out. I just don't know when.

Just didn't want everyone to think i fell off the face of the earth. And no, no one is dying. I just got a reality check is all.

On a happier note, there is some Cecil discussion of purchasing a Waverunner or Seadoo type of thing. I will believe it when I see it. But if that happens, then all we need for the lakehouse after that is a chihuahua and a frozen drink machine.

The Kind of Mother I Wanted to Be

One of the major things that you never hear about having children is how completely isolating it is. I spend all week with my kids, except for when I play trivia on Tuesday nights, or when I go out if Todd watches the kids. I get a couple hours off on Tuesdays and Thursday mornings when they are in MMO. Rollie goes all week, so i have some mornings without Rollie, but I still have Tiller. More manageable, but not what I would call relaxing. My weekends are exactly like my weekdays, so that they blur together and become one big block of monotony that continues for weeks, only being broken up by occasional trips out of town. Before I had children, I thought I would be someone with well-behaved children who could travel anywhere, who would be well-behaved whenever i took them out, and who would thrive on the interesting and stimulating things that i wanted to do with them.

This, of course, is making anyone who has children laugh their asses off. Unless you have one child under a year old, in which case you are still in the honeymoon phase, thinking that your child will always nap well in public, and that those people with kids having tantrums in restaurants are just crappy parents who did everything wrong.

The thing is, a parent wants to go out in public every once in a while, and so you take the chance on your kids. You explain that we have to use inside voices, and show respect for others, and that anything else will not be tolerated. If the kids can't follow the rules, then they must understand that we will leave the restaurant. If they can't behave, they will not get to go run errands with Mama, like we planned. So, when you take them to a restaurant, everything is fine, until someone takes a crayon from someone else, and the one warning is issued, and the bad behavior continues, and then you have to cowboy up as a parent. You have to leave the restaurant, and take the little offender home, with apologies to all the patrons staring at you as you leave the restaurant near tears. And you pile them in the car, and feel sorry for yourself because you can't even have one fucking meal in peace, or have one Saturday afternoon where you walk around with your child and look in shop windows, or get a coffee, or stop by the bike shop, like you had planned all fucking week. Nope, you gotta go back to the fucking house, and be stuck with the little assholes who fucked up your day in the first place. And then you feel like you could die, because you love them so much, and what if something happened to one of them, and you had written something so terrible about them?

Truth is, i am lonely. We made a choice to live somewhere that has lots of things to do that Todd and I like to do, but that really don't translate all that well to the preschool set. We live in a neighborhood where there are no kids Rollie's age. Mom says she used to have friends in her neighborhood who had kids our age, and so they watched each other's kids. That sounds awesome, but there are no Stay-at-home moms in my neighborhood, and I just don't think trading dogsitting and babysitting services with the gay neighbors is an option. Babysitter, you say? Yeah, we use one for special events, but babysitters do not come cheap, and for a family on a very tight budget, it just isn't something you are going to do weekly.

So, we continue to watch the kids for each other, and that is cool and much appreciated by both of us, and we go out with friends and it is fun, but it would be nice to go out with my husband every once in a while. Another thing about parenting, especially once you have two children, is how dividing it is. There is just not enough time for everyone to get what they need, and so you go out of your way to watch the kids for each other, so that each person gets kid-free time, but what you never get is kid-free time together. It would be nice to win the lottery and have a night each week where i get to go out in public with him and not have the kids with us.

Most of all, it would be nice to not feel like I'm turning into some desperate housewife (I have never watched that show, so i have no idea what it means to be that kind of desperate housewife.) My son seems to pretty much despise me, except when he wants something. He is four, for God's sake. I used to tear up a little when he screamed and cried for Daddy at bedtime, but now i just feel a little dead inside, like here is what I got myself into, and there is nothing honorable to do but keep on loving him and taking care of him, and just shut off the part of my heart that used to hurt when he insulted me every night. I just know that I lose my temper too much, raise my voice too much, often dread being with my children, and feel resentment that I never have any free time to think straight. And so I can see why they love their father more.

There, i said it: Sometimes i dread being with my children, and I cringe at the sound of their grating little voices, and sometimes I wish I was the one that felt fresh and renewed and fun when I was with them.

And I hate myself for that, because that is never the kind of mother I wanted to be.

The Times Have Changed

Last night, I took a night away from the kids and had a burger at the EARL (best burgers in America!) and then hit the coffee shop to write for a little while. Over dinner on the sidewalk, I read Todd's Men's Journal. There was an article about the 50 Best Places to Live. Two Atlanta towns were on the list. Dahlonegha, which I could see, and Gainesville. Huh? Gainesville was on the "bedroom community" list. Basically, i think they were saying that you could live there and commute to Atlanta every day. Obviously, these jerks don't actually drive in Atlanta, or they would know that a 50-mile commute in Atlanta can take three hours to complete on a bad day.

Also? It's Gainesville.

Wow, got a little off subject there. What I was really thinking, as I ate my Blue Bacon Burger and gazed at The East Side Lounge across the street, was this: Things have really changed for me in less than ten years.

East Side Lounge used to be The Fountainhead. I remember a February night back in 1999, when I left the bar with friends Honey and Andy, and my sister. We were pretty loaded, and as I got in the car with them (Lisa was not so loaded, and she was driving,) we discussed the people we had met that night. Thoughts on Robin's friend, Todd? I believe I said, "He seemed really nice." Then we proceeded to discuss a couple other people Honey and I hadn't seen since college and they looked exactly the same! And then there was that weirdness of seeing two guys that I hooked up with in college. One I made out with on the roof of my boyfriend-at-the-time's house while said boyfriend was in the house below. Everyone who knows me will attest to the fact that I am way classier now, but word to the wise, children - you cheat on your boyfriend, even if it's the only time you have ever cheated, and even if it was only a stupid drunk kiss, you might just end up running into someone you might not want to hanging out with the man you will marry; Karma is a total bitch like that. The other i made out with at a party, then ended up living with platonically later and who turned out to be a total psychopath.

I mean, pretty memorable night! You run into two former hookups and the man you will spend the rest of your life with, all in one night, in one little bar, in one little corner of Atlanta and the world. I was giddy that night, leaving the bar, and I like to think that while part of it was the alcohol, part of it was some deep part of me that felt and knew on an almost cellular level that I had met The One.

I don't know, but things sure have changed since February 1999. Now I am just sitting here blogging in our second house in the same neighborhood, and trying to block out the sound of my kids beating the shit out of each other with Hot Wheels and lunchboxes.

Not that I'm complaining. I kind of like my life better now than i did back then. But I wouldn't mind a drunken evening at The Fountainhead with my husband again, and the following day sans kids to recover. March 31st anyone? March 31st is the night.

Oh, and everybody wish Dogwood Girl's Daddy a big old HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I love you, Dad.

Heartwarming Story of the Day

This one was lost in the shuffle of my trip to Orlando. It happened a few weeks ago.

Todd helped me dye my hair and took his wedding ring off to do it. He set the ring on the counter, then helped me with the hair, then put the ring back on. Or so he thought.

After going to the hardware store, then coming home and putting pine straw out over the entire area of beds in our yard, he came inside and realized he was not wearing his ring. He sheepishly informed me. I think he thought I was angry that he lost the ring, but I wasn't. As the day went on, we turned the house upside down looking for the ring, and I became more and more aware that I was a little upset that he had lost the ring. Not upset with him, but upset that it was gone. Sure, we could replace it, but it wouldn't be the same ring that he had slipped on my finger that April day back in 2001, as I giggled and cried and he sweat nervously. It would have to be newly-engraved with our mysterious code word and the date. It just wouldn't be the same.

We looked on the floor of the bathroom. We looked in the drain. We looked in the bathtub, the trash cans. We looked on the floors upstairs. We gave Rollie the Spanish Inquisition, and still i think he had no clue what a wedding ring even is. I even kept an eye on Tiller's poop for a couple days. We walked the yard, and looked in the cars. We pretty much gave up. Oh, well. C'est la vie. It is only a ring. It is replaceable, and it isn't platinum, just white gold.

Todd had decided that it was lost while he was putting out the pine straw. Talk about the proverbial needle in a haystack. He had traversed every square inch of the beds putting out the straw, so it could be anywhere. On the off chance that someone had one, he posted on the East Atlanta community board to see if anyone had a metal detector. As if.

Sure enough, there was a guy who owned one in the Village. Seems that he asked for it for Christmas so that he could search for civil war artifacts in his yard. (The Battle of Atlanta took place right here in East Atlanta. People find bullets and the like all the time here.) So, this nice guy agreed to come out and help us look for the ring. He took the time out of his Saturday to help strangers find a wedding band. Pretty nice.

The guy showed up, he showed Todd how to work the metal detector, and Todd started scanning the beds, while me and the guy chatted. Turns out he's a Cartographer - never met a Cartographer, and it sounds really archaic, but was actually really interesting to talk about.

He was here for a good thirty minutes. Todd finished two the beds and was about halfway through the third one. I had given up hope, but was appreciative of the guy coming out to help, and of Todd for giving it the old college try in finding the ring, even though there was a snowball's chance in hell of finding it. Then the detector beeped again (we had false alarms all over the yard already - there is an old t.v. buried back there, for god's sake) and Todd leaned down, and stood up in triumph. There it was, sitting right next to the Gardenia the whole time.

I almost cried, I almost hugged the stranger, Todd and I kissed. It was like movie for a moment.

When you have been married for five years, even the little things become meaningful. They may even become more meaningful than the big ones.

And here's a big Thank You! to our Good Samaritan neighbor, the Eros of East Atlanta, the metal detector guy.

35

So. 35. I kind of thought it would feel different, but it doesn't. It feels like any other day. I guess when I was 15 or 20, 35 sounded really old to me. The reality of 35, though, is that I feel 25, with all of the insecurities and fears about the future that I always had. I don't feel like I have some kind of wisdom that I didn't have ten years ago. What i do have is one great husband (although I am thinking he may not be so into me lately - what is with "losing" the wedding ring?) and two awesome kids. Those are three things that I never imagined would be so fulfilling, or even a part of me at 35.

I am one lucky 35-year old hot mom, people.

You will have to take my word for it. I was going to put a picture of me up from today, but geez, i just feel fat - inside, where it counts, i am 25. The outside? Not so twentyish anymore. . . .

Instead, look at me on birthdays past! Or, at least the ones that I have photos scanned in for. And then there are a few birthdays where I was too poor to have pictures made, and then there was that one . . . well, let's just say that it is better that there were no cameras for that one.

Happy birthday, me!

p.s. This post would be so much better, if Todd wasn't walking around sighing and asking when I was going to finish up so that we can watch Battlestar. As if it's his birthday or something.


Mom and I the day I was born.



My first birthday: Me with Daddy.



My second birthday.



My fourth birthday: Farrell's Ice Cream Parlor.



My fifth birthday, with Scott Gage.



Sixth birthday, with the neighborhood kids and my cousins. I am also wearing a homemade crown that they gave me at school. The dress I am wearing was long and I thought it made me look like Laura Ingalls, which totally rocked my world.