My Mama's Going To Be So Mad

Hey y'all - 

You know what group of people can always be counted on to be a little weird? Nurses. They enjoy the world's least-appropriate dinner conversation, and they can't hold hands and watch a movie without absently looking at your inner arm for a good vein, just in case. 

You know who can be guaranteed to be a little kooky? Southern women. If it's not actively in motion, we're going to monogram it, slap a bow on it and throw it a themed party, using only the good clear plastic plates, not those trashy paper ones. 

You know who's always overzealous? SEC football fans. If kick-off is five days from now, they're already out in the stadium parking lot, grilling out next to their RV... the one with the Bear Bryant commemorative license plate. 

So, if you get a building full of southern nurses at an SEC school, the weather report is going to call for a perfect storm of crazy. 

Remember how I mentioned that when we were in Arkansas, Peg Peg took us for a tour of the University of Arkansas School of Nursing, where she works as the something-or-other? And I mentioned how they have mannequins that the nursing students practice on? And they even have a fake labor and delivery room where a robotic woman gives birth to a rubber baby, which is the kind of thing that will haunt my dreams 'til I die?

Peg Peg sent me this picture today - apparently, they threw a baby shower for this rubber woman, who I will remind you is not actually alive, and she went into real-sounding labor, yelling "It hurts so much!"  A real midwife helped the "patient" give birth, and - per Peg Peg - "She even delivered the placenta!" Y'all would'a had to scrape me up off the floor with a spatula.

But then there's the matter of the fire engine red "Welcome Baby Hog" cake, commemorating that this fake baby born to this fake woman with a lazy eye was pulled into the world at a learning institution whose mascot is a feral pig. 

Now, who wants the corner piece?

Love,
Mom

P.S. The diapers were donated to the United Way. The staff is aware that the "mother" is not real. I mean, they're fun-crazy, not crazy-crazy.

The Kindergartener

Dear Laney,

Yesterday, we went to kindergarten orientation at your new school. We met your teacher and you picked your cubby and we took a tour of the school and practiced locking and unlocking the bathroom stall doors so you won't get trapped inside the potty. These are the crises kindergarten teachers must prepare for. We practiced how to drop you off and how to pick you up and how you'll walk to the cafeteria. And I did not cry, not once, all day. 

When your dad and I decided on the spur of the moment to get married at the County Courthouse back in '08, I remember turning to your dad outside the judge's chambers and asking, "Are you freaked out? It seems like this should feel like a bigger deal than it does." Your dad shrugged and said, "Not really. I've felt like we've been married for the past year." And that's kinda how we've both felt about your starting kindergarten...you've been going to school for years, you have no problem hanging out with new people, and if we'd stop chasing after you, you'd probably make it all the way to Orlando via Denver. This is just another fun adventure, and we're sure you're going to do just fine. 

Today was your first "official" day of school, when I had to drop you off and leave you there. 

For the past few years, I've been asking you on the first day of school what you want to "be" when you grow up. To be clear, I don't ask you this because I'm invested in the answer. You could say "happy" or "a long-haul truck driver," and that would be just fine. Mostly, I do it because it delights me that you always have an answer without having to think about it, and the answers are always a hoot. 

Last week, knowing that the first day of school was approaching, I asked you again:

Me: Hey, Laney, what do you think you'll want to do when you grow up?

Laney: I want to be a secret agent.

Me: A WHAT?!?

Laney: You know, like a super spy. 

Me: Well...okay...but you're going to have to work hard in school and learn a lot of languages and it's almost impossible to find an affordable apartment near Langley. 

So this morning before school, right before I hit "print" on the sign, I asked you one more time what you wanted to be, just to make sure. And as of 8am this morning, this was your answer:

I like to think that you still want to be an international super spy, and you've already chosen your cover as a cat-training librarian. Those evil dictators abroad will never suspect the short, bookish blonde trailed by a herd of highly-trained ninja cats. 

Love,

Mom

Can We Party? Yes We Spokane!

FYI - I have completely given up on posting about our lives in any sort of chronological order. Quite possibly, I will find some pictures later today that I forgot I had taken the night before Christmas 2013, and post about that next. Go with it. 

Dear Laney,

This summer has been out of control. We've gone on trips, separately and together. We had a lot of company, because when you live in Montana, it seems people only want to visit you in August. I had a brain injury, and we threw a party for your school (two events that were equally stressful). I just couldn't fathom throwing you a birthday party at our house...the more I thought about picking a theme and decorating and cleaning the house before and after and inviting 20 screaming young'uns into our yard and ordering a cake and etc etc ad infinitum, the more I wanted to take to my bed. 

Instead, I presented you with four or five possible destinations, and told you to pick a birthday trip. Wherever you wanted to go, that's where our family would celebrate your birthday. You chose Spokane, Washington, because they have both a Chuck E Cheese and mini golf. AND you could stay in a hotel! Good gracious, how magical can one place BE?

This past Saturday, we loaded up in the truck and headed two states away, and as it turned out, Spokane was the perfect place for you to go from being:

to being:

On our way through Idaho, we stopped at Wendy's for lunch. This is the picture I took about two seconds after asking, "Who's excited we're at Wendy's?!?"

Three seconds after that, I realized that I had maybe oversold this birthday thing, and instead of suggesting birthday destinations like "Camping and canoeing on Flathead Lake," I could'a been pitching "Random fast food establishment off I-90, with an additional stop at the rest area of your choice!"

Since it was your birthday weekend, we told you you could do anything you wanted, within reason. You spent the first 30 minutes of this newfound freedom adjusting the air conditioning unit in our hotel room. 

First stop on Laney's birthday tour: The Mobius Discovery Museum in downtown Spokane.

Your dad always acts grumpy about going to these kinds of places, but then he's always the first person to build a castle out of blocks, or play with the electromagnetic catapult or challenge you to a race on the virtual touring bikes. I'm thinking for his 40th birthday next year, we will have to bring him back to the Discovery Museum. 

Anyone who has visited your various imaginary stores or restaurants knows you run a tight ship. You ensconced yourself behind the museum's lemonade stand and ran that place with German precision - A cup of imaginary lemonade for $10. No refunds, no exchanges, and no, we don't give change. 

Then, the inevitable trip to Chuck E Cheese for dinner and games and a grab-bag of communicable diseases that probably haven't hit us yet:

That night, after winning 153 tickets that you redeemed for a purple bracelet for you and a green airplane for Hagen, you didn't have to be asked to go to bed. Instead, you said, "I can't wait to go to sleep so my body can turn me 5." I don't know what crazy transformational process you thought was going to happen overnight, but we were relieved to see that you looked exactly the same the next morning. 

Sunday, the morning of your birthday, we let you open presents right away. Your dad and I got you a scooter, Grandma Sue got you a sparkly purple helmet, Peg Peg and Tex got you a "Frozen" Elsa dress, Granny Jack got you a new backpack and lunch box for kindergarten and Grandpops and Grandma CC got you 10 rock climbing lessons (which is the kind of thing that can happen when someone calls your dad for gift ideas).

Dad took you out to the dead end of our hotel's parking lot to practice.

And I think we all knew this would happen:

Then we made our way to the Spokane Riverfront, stopping at the playground on the way. Later, when I asked your dad what his favorite thing was on our trip, he chose this moment on the playground when a little boy got down on his hands and knees so his sister could use his back as a stool to climb up on a swing. "Those weren't even our kids," I pointed out. "But it proves chivalry's not dead," he said. 

The Spokane Riverfront has an entertainment complex with carnival rides and an IMAX theatre and a tour train and an indoor mini golf course, and they sell a day pass for $17 that lets you do it all, all day long. The whole thing is shaded, and there's almost no one there. It was about 70 degrees with a nice breeze coming off the river. Perfection. 

We made our way to the carnival midway about eight minutes before the rides were scheduled to open. I told you we'd need to wait eight minutes, and you asked, "How long is eight minutes?" I never know how to answer questions like this. It's like asking, "What color is green?" Uh... So I said, "Eight minutes is how long it takes to count to 60 eight times."

So that's what you did. 

We rode everything:

We rode that twirling berry so many times that I noticed these marks on the spinning wheel:

...and could totally relate to whichever poor parent had tried to claw his or her way out of that damn strawberry. 

Because it was over 100 degrees every day in south Georgia last week, I include this picture of a sign that was posted near the bumper boats: 

Hagen's favorite ride - by far - was this runaway steamboat, which he rode three times and always refused to get out of.

Your favorite - also by a long shot - was the Tilt-A-Whirl. I rode it with you twice:

...And then you asked your dad to go with you. I don't know why, but it tickles me to no end that your dad gets motion sickness on anything that spins. Almost a hundred percent of the time, you dad is the toughest guy in the room - a black belt in Judo who can fly combat missions and survive in the wild. But put him in a spinning strawberry and he is toast.

The teenaged ride operator instructed your dad that if your dad felt sick at any time, he should give a "thumbs-down" sign, and the ride would come to a stop.

Thankfully, that wasn't necessary.

Our last stop was for lunch and birthday cake (Red Robin's Mile High Mud Pie). 

And then finally, after 36 hours of non-stop birthday excitement, it was time to head home. You fell asleep before we were out of the Spokane city limits. 

Every time the truck would make a turn or go over a bump, your forehead would bang against your computer, so I ended up holding your head all the way through Idaho.

I hope this was the birthday trip of your dreams. 

Thanks for being so incredible. 

Love,

Mom

Big Fun and Small Lessons In Little Rock

Hey y'all - 

For the last weekend of our trip to Arkansas, we drove down to Little Rock. My high school was having their 20th reunion, and I thought I wanted to attend. 

We stayed in downtown Little Rock, where we visited the Children's Museum. The museum is really impressive, and among other exhibits features a tornado simulator that's a small room staged to look like an average suburban garage with an 80's-era TV in the corner tuned to the "local news." Apparently, if you stay in the room long enough, it loses power and things on the shelves rattle and the wind howls at a crazy high volume and the window "breaks" and there's powerful gusts of wind, and... I'm totally guessing here, because Laney and I left about 28 seconds into the simulation, as soon as the fake reporter on the TV said, "Central Arkansas is under a tornado watch..."  Goodbye. 

There was a TV studio where you could pretend to be a news anchor. There, we learned that Laney's career in broadcasting is limited only by her inability to read the monitor. I sat next to her so we could practice our morning show banter. 

Laney: Did you know there's a tornado coming to Arkansas?

Mom: No! I hadn't heard! What should we tell our viewers to do?

Laney: Head for their attic!

We apologize to our imaginary viewers that you were probably blown to smithereens by this hypothetical weather event. 

I also made the rookie mistake of wearing a green shirt in front of a green screen, so I look like the Easter Bunny's butt is growing out of my shoulder. We should have been reporting on my strange medical condition.

The museum was a huge hit with Hagen, too, who enjoyed all the things you'd think he would:

We took the trolley tour, we explored the riverfront, we ate frozen treats, we went to War Memorial Park and did some serious swinging and climbing.

...and then it was time for me to go to my reunion.

There were 250+ students in my graduating class back in 1994. I was probably friends with about 12 of them, which is par for the course in high school, I think. I have kept in touch with about 5 of them. I don't know what made me think, 20 years later, that I would want to sit in a meeting room of a hotel and eat dry chicken with people I didn't know then and wouldn't recognize on the street today. But such is the pull of nostalgia, I guess.

We're about 10 years early on this conversation, but if I forget to tell you later:

High school is awful for 99.9% of people. You're physically awkward.  You never feel as attractive as everyone else.  You wake up some days and nothing in your closet fits right and your hair won't do. You get caught up in stupid friend drama, and this is coming from someone who didn't have internet in her house 'til after she graduated, so I can only assume with social media, things are going to get worse. You dip your toe in the dating pool and sooner or later someone breaks your heart - though, I can tell you with great confidence, you will probably not remember his/her name 20 years later. You try to pass algebra while surrounded by adults asking you where you're going to college and what you want to do with your life. And all you can think about is how you can't believe that the guy in 4th period that you've been in love with for months was last seen holding hands on the bus with that girl from 3rd period who has the personality of wallpaper.* It's just the worst.

But if high school is terrible, that's okay. It's good, even. Because that means you haven't peaked. You don't want to be one of those people who run their high school and then never accomplish anything else. The struggle is good - it stinks while you're going through it, but if you persevere, it'll make you stronger. Or at least way more interesting. You don't want to be 20 years past graduation, listening to Springsteen sing "Glory Days," with a tear in your eye as you realize the best time in your life has come and gone.

So go forth and struggle. Then, 20 years later, you can look back and laugh at those awful years as you share a dry chicken dinner with people you will probably never see again.

Or, better yet, just skip the reunion and stay home and celebrate how far you've come with the people you love most.

Love,

Mom

* OK, this is a true story. In fact, as I was heading to the reunion, Peg Peg asked me about this boy, and if he was going to be there, and if he had ended up marrying that girl who was dull as a box of rocks. The lesson here is that you might forget about your high school heartbreaks, but your mama doesn't forgive so easily.