Confessions, Eliott

Reading Before Bedtime

“Mommy, can you come upstairs and talk about my day?”

This is Eliott’s new favorite thing to do.  John does the bed and bath routine every single night now, because by five o’clock, I really need to punch out of mommy duty for the day.  But just before she’s settled in and the lights are out, she comes to the top of the stairs and asks this question.  Every single night, as if I have a choice.  We’ve been doing it for several months now, and though I’m wise to the fact that it is a five-year old plot to stay up a little bit later at night, at the same time, I will keep it going as long as I possibly can.  Obviously.  When she doesn’t want to go to bed, the girl divulges secrets like I’m the diary she doesn’t know how to write in yet.

The other night, after two days of sickness (thus, no pre-bed snuggle time with mommy) I finally had to cut her off and tell her it was time for me to go downstairs.

Continue reading “Reading Before Bedtime” →

Confessions

Popularity Contest

Who said I was above being nominated for Prom Queen?  Just because it never happened, doesn’t mean it wasn’t a secret desire.

You might notice the shiny new pink button to the right.  Click it.  Find The UnderToad (waaay at the bottom of the list) and vote.  You can do this once a day for the next ten days.  It is a silly little contest with no apparent prize, besides Internet fame.  Shameless plug for votes here people, but to be honest, I’d just like to finish in the top three.  (Think I can get 1,000 votes?)

I am a little late in the entry so there are only ten days left.  I think it would be awesome for The UnderToad to make a tortoise rocket-jet pack finish and cause all ten of the top blogs to go, “What the–?  Where’d this come from?!”

So will you tell your friends?

Confessions

Oh You, Crazy Internet, You

So I’m not really sure how to begin this post.  I’m finding myself typing and erasing, and typing, and erasing, and sitting here staring into a very bright afternoon, and wishing my mother would call me back, and suddenly feeling very, very thirsty.

Brace yourself for a whole bunch of emotional drivel, intertwined with an inordinate amount of social networking references.

On Saturday morning, I found out my 7th grade English teacher had been prompted by–the now Undertoad infamous–Miss Gotzian, to check out this blog.  And he did.  And then he followed me on Twitter.  So I followed him back.  One of his tweets prompted me to his Goodreads page, and out of sheer curiosity for just how many books they guy really has read, I requested his friendship there, as well.

Fast forward to Monday night, when I posted my plan to start waking up earlier, as an effort in discipline and focused self-control (over sleep, of all the embarrassing addictions).

At about 3am, I awoke with a nausea so powerful, that though it did not get me out of bed to throw up, it did cause me to dream of throwing up for the next four hours.  May I also submit without evidence that this nausea was accompanied by an immediate fever.

And to top it off, Carter was up at 6:30 yesterday morning, doing that thing kids do when they are awake but mom is not.  Hovering.  At my side of the bed.  Just breathing and looking at me.

Apparently Satan, or one of his minions, follows my blog.  (Somebody mark that down in my WordPress Milestone stats!)

By the time I realized I was in the throws of a full blown stomach virus, John was already blissfully ignoring all phone calls in court.  I texted him to simply say: “I’m having dry heaves diarrhea, and a full-body migraine.  I think I can make it until nap-time.  I’ll keep you posted.”

The rest of the day is a blur.  I went from sleeping on the couch to sleeping in my bed, and I remember telling Eliott to help Carter wipe and not to open the door if anyone rings the doorbell.  More than once, I woke up to her singing the “Clean Up” song, which means she was taking her role as substitute Mom more seriously than I would have expected.  Carter just kept waking me up to tell me she was hungry.  I know she was not hungry, but I think in her two-year old brain, this was the only thing that might get me out of bed.  I’m fairly certain, if it came to it, they could have lived off dry Rice Chex and peanut butter (the two things in the pantry they recognize and can reach).

Needless to say, I didn’t get on the computer at all.

So today, as I weaned myself back into the real world with the BRAT diet, and attempted to re-hydrate, you can imagine my surprise to find a message from the aforementioned 7th grade English teacher, in my Goodreads inbox.

It was written on Monday night, apologizing for the bizarre connection, thanking me for the shout out’s to Ender’s Game and Les Mis, and informing me that Miss G had passed away, suddenly, late last week.

So here I sit, all medicine-heady, and already empty, just stunned.

I immediately went to her Facebook page, which, of course has turned in to an Internet memorial site.  Scrolling through the notes and memories, I find myself crying when I see a name I recognize, crying more when the sentiment is exactly something I could have said myself.

The woman was loved.

I actually saw Miss G last summer, the weekend of my sister’s wedding in Spokane.  Of all the people I could have seen from my hometown, the one and only person I blocked out any time for was her.  She drove out to my hotel and spent the better part of an afternoon talking and laughing and catching up.  We hugged a teary goodbye and said we need to do this more often.  (“Next time–and every time–I’m back in Spokane, I promise.”)

I sort of hate, now, that the blog post which has turned in to my personal memorial, must also share space with a diarrhea story, but I’m not going back to edit.  And not because, “This is what Miss G would have wanted,”  (honestly, I don’t think she would have cared) but because I have no reason to remember this moment any differently than the way it happened.

I think I can say with complete honesty that Miss G is the first person of real significance in my life, to die.  Does that make me sheltered, or lucky, or what?  The geographical distance between us for the last decade has been such that I’m not going to walk around in some sort of a cloud of mourning for the next several days or weeks, as I’m sure many are, in her absence.  But I am in a bit of a fog, nonetheless.

People always talk about leaving a legacy.  I think it’s pretty clear, that she is one woman who did just that.  I only hope that one day, after I’m gone, someone has similar memories of my awesomeness, as I, and so many others, have of hers.

At the end of every day in 5th grade, we stood up, put our chairs up, and with backpacks on, recited this poem together, aloud, as a class.  I couldn’t actually find it, even when I searched the all powerful Oz (Google) using entire phrases, so what I’ve written is only what I can remember.  There are a few gaps.  Come on, it’s been 25 years.  But somehow, it feels appropriate.

Appropriate that I can remember in such detail, so many things about 5th grade.  Appropriate, that my mom and I were just discussing that Miss Gotzian could not possibly have been in her 50s, she looked way too good to be 50.  Appropriate that so much of what I’ve said and done in front of this woman has been so inappropriate, and yet she managed to handle me and my 5th grade idiot self, with grace and a really loud laugh.

And appropriate, that almost a year ago exactly, I reconnected with her through my April Fool’s Day Confession, on this blog, and we’ve been in the most close contact of our relationship since that day.

Jill Gotzian, you are loved.

The light that shines for you
The heart that beats for all,
You bring no need to great
You have no hurt to small.

Step now into the Light,
That in this holy place
Shines through the soul’s dark night
And feels prayer’s warm embrace.

Friend, you are not alone,
Look to the light of prayer
Love’s truth come shining plain,
That God is always there.


In Memory.  Jill Gotzian, January 24, 1959 – March 1, 2012.

Confessions

Lent Schment

Don’t know if I’ve mentioned this.  I was raised Catholic.

And to a very strong extent, there is much about this background that still resonates spiritually and otherwise with me.  I suppose I often sit through my (currently) Baptist (or other evangelical) church services with a bit of a God complex or sense of religious-intellectual-superiority that I perhaps wrongly attribute to my childhood of Catholic school and mass.

Call me crazy, but there’s something about the tradition, the liturgy, the stations of the cross, the reciting of the Apostle’s Creed, even those crazy ash tattoos once a year, that somehow had me believing if God listened to anyone’s prayers, He was probably listening to mine.  I don’t know why I thought this.  Or why I still do, for that matter.  But I blissfully blame the Catholic church, and will never begrudge this part of my past.

I also secretly love it when my Baptist friends are surprised to find out that even while I was a Catholic (and gasp, at that) I knew–and loved–Jesus.

Even after my family ceased attending mass and started spending far more than the obligatory sixty minutes in a pew on Sundays, I still attempted to observe Lent every year.  In college, I graduated from King Cakes and took things up a notch by kicking Lent off with Baylor’s version of Fat Tuesday.  The year my memory remains the spottiest, ironically, was at a party thrown by Truett Seminary students.  And who said that Catholics and Baptists can’t find a common ground?

Traditionally, Lent is of course the forty days before Easter when most observing Americans (I assume) attempt to give up things which make us fat, smell bad, or run slower.  Generally, though we call it “fasting,” it seems to be more of a diet of sorts, often secretly done in the name of losing weight, clearing up our complexions, or becoming more productive.  Or was I the only one basing my sacrifice on the things that I thought were negatively in control of some aspect of my appearance?

Now that I’ve had two children though, Lent kind of seems like a joke.  I mean.  What’s forty days without soda once you’ve gone forty weeks without dairy?  And alcohol.  And Excedrin Migraine for crying out loud.

So it should come as no shock that today I realized we are now, what, fully two weeks into Lent (?), and I didn’t even notice. Blame my “post-modern” evangelical church and it’s lack of candles and purple drapery.  I mean, I completely missed it.

Pardon me, Pope Benedict, but I’ve decided to start my Lenten observance tomorrow.

There is, actually, something I’ve been considering, for months now, and I think I’m finally ready to say enough is enough.  I’m addressing the fact that I do not get out of bed before 8 o’clock on any given weekday morning and not before 9:30 on the weekends.

It would truly be a sacrifice to give up that extra hour of sleep I tend to guard, rabid bulldog style, every morning.

(Every mother of children under five on the planet is breaking her Lenten cursing fast right now.  Sorry.  It is true.  I get to sleep in and my children know to just leave me alone.  Some mornings, I even come downstairs to find Eliott has toasted me a bagel.)

Truth be told, it is something John and I talk about frequently.  He and I both agree that there is something sacred about getting up before the rest of the house and having that first hour to prepare for the day.  When we were counseling in the woods, this time often was the difference between a mediocre day (or season) and progress in a group.  For John, it was the difference between C’s and A’s in law school.  When I was teaching, it allowed me to leave before the afternoon buses, most days of the week.

But now that my life predominantly revolves around feeding my family and making sure my children don’t die, somehow, that competitive edge that had me up before sunrise for so many years of my life, is lacking.

And I miss it.

So this is my plan.  John is up and out of the house, most days, an hour and a half before I’m awake.  The idea of enjoying my first cup of coffee to Morning Edition is going to have to serve as my rabbit, even if all I do for that extra hour is pray my children stay in bed.

Books

Several Book Reviews

I’m not going to apologize.  I’m really tired of this 30 Day Book Challenge thing.  Perhaps this is why the word “challenge” is in the title.  Anyway, I’m finishing it today, by simply putting a book in the following categories without explanation.  I’m also omitting redundant or ridiculous categories.  I’d be happy to field questions in the comments section, however.

Day 15: Favorite “chapter book” you can remember reading as a child:

Dicey’s Song, by Cynthia Voigt, is one of the first books I remember getting truly sucked in to. It was one I loved reading, dreamt about, and still think about today. I cannot wait to re-read it when my kids are the right age.

 

 

 

 

Day 21: Favorite picture book from childhood:

The Thingumajig Book of Manners, hard to find, worth the premium price you might pay on Amazon or Ebay or wherever you find it. This book is just good. All around good. Funny. Great illustrations. And as a bonus, it includes some pretty good advice about actual manners that my kids have taken to heart.

 

 

 

 

Day 23: Book you tell people you’ve read, but haven’t actually finished:

A Million Little Pieces by James Frey. God. Where do I begin? This book sucked me on the first page, as it did many people. The idea that this was a true account of an actual drug addict, well, obviously it was pretty compelling. Until it turned out not to be true. Then, it just became difficult to read. Because here’s the thing: reading about the events that may or may not have happened (could or could not have happened) to someone addicted to drugs? It’s dark. No matter how you slice it. As a true story I was compelled to keep reading from a respectful distance. As a fiction story pawned off as true to sell copies, just annoyed me and then grossed me out. Couldn’t finish this for so many reasons.

 

Day 25: A book everyone hated but you liked: (this goes for John too, which is what made me decide to teach it)

The first year I taught high school English I had juniors (American literature) and didn’t really know what to teach. The Scarlet Letter was actually John’s recommendation because it was one of the few books from high school he remembered liking. Obviously the language is difficult, and it turned out I was one of the last remaining teachers in my department still tackling this book. But when we took it slowly and really broke down what was going on, most of my students ended up liking it and resonating with the message.

Weirdly, the thing has become even more near and dear to my heart as I get older, and realize how many of Hawthorne’s principles still ring true today.

 

Day 26: Favorite book turned into a movie:

The Help by Kathryn Stockett was a book club pick for two different book clubs (I moved). When I finally got my hands on a copy, I realized why.

This book was just good.

And then the movie was good.

You’ve read it. Tell me you’ve read it. Never read it? Go read it.

 

 

 

Alright.  That’s all I’ve got.

30 Day Book Challenge, Books

Days 15-30: Finishing the Challenge Now

I’m not going to apologize.  I’m really tired of this 30 Day Book Challenge thing.  Perhaps this is why the word “challenge” is in the title.  Anyway, I’m finishing it today, by simply putting a book in the following categories without explanation.  I’m also omitting redundant or ridiculous categories.  I’d be happy to field questions in the comments section, however.

Day 15: Favorite “chapter book” you can remember reading as a child

Day 21: Favorite picture book from childhood

Day 23: Book you tell people you’ve read, but haven’t actually finished

Day 24: Book you thought you wouldn’t like but ended up loving

Day 25: A book everyone hated but you liked (this goes for John too, which is what made me decide to teach it)

Day 26: Favorite book turned into a movie

Alright.  That’s all I’ve got.

Books

Author I Used To Love But Don’t Anymore

Anne Lamott

I fell in love with her in college when I first read Traveling Mercies, and even today, I think if I picked up that book, I’d still laugh.  But I’m not sure I would find it as inspiring now, as I thought I did then.  I started to lose interest with the second of this inspirational series, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith.  When the final book came out (Grace Eventually) I didn’t even finish it.  I’m not sure what it was.  She annoyed me.

I also remember laughing through Operating Instructions, and thought at the time how I would love to be Sam’s high school teacher, just so I could have a non-stalkeresque reason to meet the woman.  Now that I’m a mother, I wonder what my current reaction would be.  Strangely, of all the books I’ve ever read, Anne Lamott is my most read author.  I even tried some of her fiction.  (It also failed me.)

John and I were discussing this weekend, the way certain books hit you at just the right time in life, and they have an effect which is deeply personal but directly connected to circumstances.  There are other books that we feel certain we would love no matter when we read them (or how often).  Anne Lamott is obviously the former.

I should probably stop recommending her as a favorite to people.

30 Day Book Challenge, Books

Day 14: Author I Used to Love but Don’t Anymore

Anne Lamott

I fell in love with her in college when I first read Traveling Mercies, and even today, I think if I picked up that book, I’d still laugh.  But I’m not sure I would find it as inspiring now, as I thought I did then.  I started to lose interest with the second of this inspirational series, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith.  When the final book came out (Grace Eventually) I didn’t even finish it.  I’m not sure what it was.  She annoyed me.

I also remember laughing through Operating Instructions, and thought at the time how I would love to be Sam’s high school teacher, just so I could have a non-stalkeresque reason to meet the woman.  Now that I’m a mother, I wonder what my current reaction would be.  Strangely, of all the books I’ve ever read, Anne Lamott is my most read author.  I even tried some of her fiction.  (It also failed me.)

John and I were discussing this weekend, the way certain books hit you at just the right time in life, and they have an effect which is deeply personal but directly connected to circumstances.  There are other books that we feel certain we would love no matter when we read them (or how often).  Anne Lamott is obviously the former.

I should probably stop recommending her as a favorite to people.

Books

Most Surprising Plot Twist or Ending

Day 13: 

A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving

Given my more recent propensity for reading the end of books to see if they are even worth my time, it was hard for me to come up with a book that surprised me.  Hah.

From what I remember of this book (which I read several years ago, and only remember that I loved it, and then made John read it, and he loved it too), there is a huge buildup to the climax.  What is made clear throughout the novel is that Owen Meany practices a basketball shot over and over and over again with Johnny Wheelwright because he believes this is necessary for his destiny in life.  It is also very strongly suggested that the fulfillment of this destiny will result in Owen’s death.

Other than that, the actual moment of “The Shot’s” heroic appearance is bizzarre and completely unexpected.  I won’t spoil it.  Truth be told, I don’t remember enough detail to do a spoiler any justice anyway.  Just know that this was one book I did not read ahead and ruin in advance, and I was surprised.

30 Day Book Challenge, Books

Day 13: Most Surprising Plot Twist or Ending

A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving

Given my more recent propensity for reading the end of books to see if they are even worth my time, it was hard for me to come up with a book that surprised me.  Hah.

From what I remember of this book (which I read several years ago, and only remember that I loved it, and then made John read it, and he loved it too), there is a huge buildup to the climax.  What is made clear throughout the novel is that Owen Meany practices a basketball shot over and over and over again with Johnny Wheelwright because he believes this is necessary for his destiny in life.  It is also very strongly suggested that the fulfillment of this destiny will result in Owen’s death.

Other than that, the actual moment of “The Shot’s” heroic appearance is bizzarre and completely unexpected.  I won’t spoil it.  Truth be told, I don’t remember enough detail to do a spoiler any justice anyway.  Just know that this was one book I did not read ahead and ruin in advance, and I was surprised.