On the Line

"Do you wanna join us for line-dancing?"  This question was posed to me as I attempted in vain to dispense scalding caffeine in a 10 ounce dose into an 8 ounce (at best) tea cup.  I direct you to my obvious dearth of spatial awareness skills.

"There will be wine..."  At least I assume this was the spelling they intended.  But let's be honest, I will be bringing both varieties with me to the occasion.

And this was where I had to confess my Elaine tendencies.  No, not flashing the lady-goods on the holiday Christmas photo, but the fact that when I dance I spend the first five minutes thinking I look like Elaine dancing at the office party, and then convince myself I'm overthinking it, only to realize, (usually much later, and often in video format), that I wasn't overthinking it all.   This girl is less Uptown Funk and more Uptight Flunk.

I have no ability to move gracefully, fluidly, or in a coordinated fashion.  You could put me in ballet slippers or cement boots and my dancing would not be radically different.  It's all well-intended, but I simply cannot motor plan something that looks intentional, and keep a beat, and not focus so hard that I look like I am in pain.

I took swing dance lessons once.  Or more precisely, I took one swing dance lesson, one time.  I love the music.  I love the shoes.  I love the glamour of the couples moving so in sync.  In my head I can do it, in reality, I've got nothing.  And my partner at the time, specialized in a more hip-hop/ street dance/ innovation that didn't lend itself to the swing dance milieu.  They kept promising that we were going to move into switching partners throughout the night, but one look at the hot mess in our corner of the floor, and that never came to fruition.

I've been offered bellydancing classes, Zumba, classes, latin dance classes, tap, modern, jazz, and hip-hop.  I'll tell you honestly, if sheer desire and persistence were all it took, I would be amazing.   Instead I have the hips of my pilgrim forefathers.  Ever facing forward, serious, and stolid.  No hint of shimmy need apply.  Marching I can do, Marengue I cannot.

I really don't know if I will ever master the combined skills of letting loose my anxiety and extreme self-awareness,  blending my love of music and ability to appreciate rhythm with an ability to actually move to that rhythm, and find my inner danseuse.  All I can tell you for now is that I have fully embraced the "Seuss" part of that equation.

So will I go line-dancing with you?  Sure, but you may want me to simply bring the wine.

Almond Tea and the Corian Connection

Picture Day.  

 Frankly, it brings the same level of anxiety that I feel when I hear the words “Mammogram” or “phlebotomy”.  Frankly, the prep for any of the aforementioned is pretty similar in discomfort and anxiety in my house.    This year I had two students participating in this ritual and the process was anything but picture-perfect.

First of all, I have a very hard time knowing how the clothing is going to photograph with the slightly countertop-esque background selections.  In many cases I find myself wishing I had a slate-blue Corian surface to throw the clothes on to get an idea of how the clothes are going to look in the end product.  And we have gone from one, diner counter blue option, to six options on a theme, all of them looking like a food-service surface. 

Depending on the company you work with, there are backgrounds that are more “stylized”, such as falling leaves, autumnal burnt-orange maples in the background, or one year, a big yellow school bus.  (I did feel that this one would prompt more questions than compliments.  “Well, look at this new picture of my granddaughter.  She’s in first grade now.  Her Mama clearly hasn’t taught her not to play in the street, but it is nice that they got the accident scene photographed so professionally.”) 

And then there are the years when there were flashy “futuristic” lazer-like effects, or the weirdly disembodied floating head in side profile options.    The futuristic impact is lost on me as this was also an option during my junior high photos and that was a LONG time ago.  (Of course I went for it.  I wore my best dangly earrings with my boomerang perm and scarf, tied just so, in a manner that created a bib-like effect.  Looking back on it now, my only comfort is that I was not the only one.)

And hair.  Don’t even talk to me about the hair.  I am, not someone who knows the current trends, and my hair and makeup routine take a total of five minutes.  In the grand scheme of “pretty lady” continuum, I’m sort of fumbling through, trying to strike a midpoint somewhere between totally giving up and reaching beyond my grasp.

So when my oldest asked for a braid she had seen on a peer with the kind of glossy, golden, straight hair that Barbie dreams about at night, I felt a sickening plummet.  My daughter’s hair is baby fine, and wavy, and will never ever lie smooth and flat like silk.   It is easily more than a foot shorter than the friend in question.   In other words, “Chickie, this is a brush, not a magic wand!”   I did the best I could, but really, I plan on denying in the future that I was the one who put that braid in.  And if that doesn’t work, I plan on relying on “It’s what you asked me to do!”

As for Sister Middle, she went happily off to school in her brightly colored dress and tights I can only hope stay intact and clean long enough for picture day, with her fleece hood firmly over her carefully washed and dried hair.  The lotions and potions used to tame her fuzziness, cannot compete with the power of fleece, and so, I try to remember that she is at an age where all photos will be viewed in her later years as precious and the static-induced halo will look somewhat angelic by then.  I did have several conversations about sitting with one’s legs together while in a dress, but within the first half-hour this was a distant memory, and I can honestly name approximately forty people who can vouch that my child had on character-endorsed underwear under her tights this morning.  (Note however that there were underwear under her tights THIS morning.  Score one for Mama!)

And this year’s staff picture includes my purple hair.  Yes, purple.  Yes, on purpose.  Yes, it has been met with mixed review, ranging from “You look like a rockstar!” from Sister Big, to “…mid-life crisis?” from an adult male who shall remain in witness protection for some time to come.  But it is something I had to exorcise from my bucket list. 

You see, from the time that I was seven or eight, I longed for hair that matched Almond Tea’s immaculately groomed, violaceous bob.  I had the cut, just not the color.  And it was never an option as a minor, and then I was too self-conscious, or too economically disadvantaged, or too “What do you think?” about it for the next twenty-plus years.  It was time to try it out, see if it changed my life or made me “more” of something.  What I’ve discovered is that is does make me more noticed, and largely in a positive tone, but it didn’t really change who I am.  And realistically, I didn’t think it would, but sort of like donning a costume and taking on a role, for a few weeks into months, I feel a little more free to “not give a damn”.  Until picture day…

I had huge angst about the day when the picture would come back to us and amongst all of my smooth and polished colleagues, who came dressed as professionals, I came as an aging rockstar.  I felt every minute of my age that morning and although I was wearing a dress I loved, the process of getting to that dress was annoying at best.  Too sedate?  Too matronly?  Too 80’s tea party? This one?  That one?  Too short?  Too…I make myself crazy with this.  And ultimately, my purple hair didn’t change one thing about the group photo.  It was a repeat of school photos 1979 through present.  “Um, you?  In the back?  You’re really tall.  Can you go over there?”

And for the record Mr Photographer, let me tell you something about group photography that I think you should know.  Fifty people standing in a line facing the camera straight on?  Not flattering for at least fifty of us.  Asking the “tall one” in the dress to just “jump up on the stage and sit in a chair in the row behind the standing staff?  Um, if you want see if I have undies on, I could just tell you.  Not happening. 

I’m tall. 

My hair matches my favorite doll.

Deal with it.

The pictures should be fabulous.

It Keeps on Ticking

Time keeps on slippin'...into the future.  If you look closely, you will see that my fingernails have left imprints on its slippery hide as it passes me by.  My babies are getting bigger, bolder, and bossier, and I am getting older.  The combination lends to an interesting fusion of slow down and hurry up already that has us all reeling.

Miss Little Middle has boldly gone off to kindergarten.  On opening day she bolted down the sidewalk and onto the bus so fast that I didn't even kiss her little face goodbye one last time before she became a full-on school-ager.  I tried to get even a wave, but she was already in the zone.   And I'm glad for her, but the apron string stitches have begun to fall away at an alarming rate and I'm beginning to have tugs of "Did I do enough?" and "Have we given her what she needs?" and for all that she looks like a mighty big kid, she is still so little to me many days.  And then out of the blue, two teeth fall out within days of each other, and suddenly she is that jackolantern-y, slightly goofy, and precious mix of baby and big that gets me in the soft and unprotected place in my heart. 


Tick-Tock.

And recently, Sister Middle informed me that she knows her new kindergarten male friend "LOVES" her.  I asked how she knew and she answered me with, "Oh Mama, it's how he says my name.  Like this..." and proceeded to demonstrate a sighing, breathless production of her name that made both giggle and want to home-school immediately.  (At least she didn't quote Cher, "It's in his kiss, that's where it is!")  I promptly informed her that it was illegal to have boyfriends in kindergarten.  Against the law I tell you.  But I also recalled that on day one of kindergarten she came home to say she had made friends with two boys, "...and they're the mischief boys Mama."  Holy hell.  My child has a thing for "bad boys" at age five.

Tick-Tick-Tick

Sister Big attends the school where I am employed.  This has been a huge learning curve for both of us.  But biggest of all, has been the rude awakening that when she tells a teacher something, it will get back to me in short order.  Within the first two weeks of school she had told stories that would have brought tears to children's services workers' eyes. 

They weren't accurate mind you, but it did make it sound as though we let the children collectively free-range, fending for themselves, until there was blood, and then, (maybe), would we rise to the occasion of parenting them.  What makes this so ludicrous is that we stop just shy of being employed by Chinook we are so prone to hovering. ( Listen closely now, you can almost hear the "whup-whup-whup of the maternal rotor-blades as I type and listen for even the slightest hint that Mr. Unscripted has let them out of sight. )  We have talked about the boy who cried wolf so often that Sister Little, now two, can recite some of the story.   "And den da woof came and da boy 'Hep! Hep! but nobody comes."  And yet, each day is a new chance to start a conversation with a colleague in the following manner..."So what you need to know is..."

Tickety-Tickety-Tock

Sister Little is verbal.  Very, very, very, verbal.  I both long for the days when she was Moby-wrapped into tacquito size against my body, and that point a few months out where she might be slightly less full-force terrorist, and slightly more "Hey! Let's play this game for five or six minutes, and NOT fling anything to the ground, smear anything with goo, or stuff a food-based object into an orifice not intended for ingestion."  She is a ball of energy, inquisitive thought, and intent on grasping the world by the tail with both sticky hands.  But I am a tired, tired Mama.   And she is smart.  She knows when my defenses are down, and she can stealth-mode into action in that brief interlude between "Where did I set down the coffee this time?" and "Who put peanut butter on the fish?" when I'm not attentive enough. 

Tick, Tick, Tick

And all the while, the world continues to change.  I know that parents of every generation have said "It's not the world I grew up in!"  And yet, I worry about how to teach, inform, and protect my girls while giving them the room to grow.  How do I prepare them for the world they are going into, which is truly nothing like my childhood days?  Despite the fashions trends that are circling back around, (Talking to you neon, and harem pants, and high-waisted jeans...), nothing feels as mild as the threats did then.   It was easy to listen to Nancy Reagan and "Just Say No", but to quote my childhood, "I'm not sure we're in Kansas anymore Toto". 

And in moments like these, when crazy propeller brain has taken over, I have to force myself to think about the other half of the time passage equation.  Tock, or rather "Talk".  My girls talk to me.  And I to them.  I will do time-out for particularly egregious behavior regardless of where we are, I will tell them why and what they need to do to repair the problem.   I will tell them how I feel, how I think, and what I wish, but I also try to get at those same elements from their perspective.  I try to surround them with extended circles of safe friends who can be the sane Mama brain when I cannot.  I try to fill their world with quality "talk", but balance it with quality "listen".  And I hope, and I wish, and I pray, and pray some more.

And now, I have talked to you.  I need to go and check on my merry band of three boisterous, bossy, and bold babies.   Somewhere out there, those three are up to no good and Mr. Unscripted's propellers are tuned to a different rotation than mine ;)