Where Did You Find Me, Mommy?

A couple of weeks ago, two of my children told me separately that they did not want to attend the maturation program at the school.

When the second one said it, I was dumbfounded. "Don't you want to know what the other kids will know?" I asked.

This was not the problem I expected to deal with. In my head, I was wondering whose kids these were. Answer: their shy father's. Back when, I was curious.

Still, it seemed unlikely that both of them would have that reaction. I asked my daughter, "Have you been scaring your brother about the maturation program?"

One shoulder came up while a silly look came over her face.

So I talked to my son. A little bit. About his body and how it would be changing. (I had already talked to his sister over a year ago.) Then, looking into his beautiful, innocent, brown eyes, I veered off a bit into discussing what being a man really means. What being a father really means. I talked about working hard, responsibility, treating women fairly and with respect. Being there for his eventual children. Following the example of his father, grandfather, and uncles.

Which is not an altogether bad maturation pre-talk after all, I guess.

I completely agree with having "The Talk" with my kids. I agree that they need to get their knowledge and values from their parents. And information--it shouldn't all come from dubious or out-of-the-home sources. I do not want to be as reticent as my mother was.

But, when you're looking into the face and eyes of your child--that child whose whole existence you have spent protecting and shielding--and you're doing it really just to be ahead of some school's arbitrary schedule and not because this child came to you needing to know--it can feel a lot like you're shattering that child's innocence. So, it's hard.

Ideally, this information should come as the child is ready for it. Ideally, age-appropriate answers should be given when the child asks questions and clearly wants to and is ready to know.

The best talk like this happened when one of my children was two or three years old. He looked up at me and asked, "Mommy, where did you find me?" Clearly, he could not remember how we had met.

First, I laughed at his cuteness, and, second, I was stymied for a minute, but then I answered honestly, "I found you in my tummy. You were just a little tiny baby in there starting to grow, and I was so happy when I found out you were in there." I explained that babies grow in a special place in their mother's tummies until they are big enough to be born. That was all he needed to know at the time.

The next time he brought it up, I repeated, then elaborated, "And where did I find your sister?"

He looked at me sideways to see if I was joking, then said, "In your nose."

Apparently, more talks will need to be had.

Which matches what I told my ten-year-old son before his terrifying maturation program: growing up is a process. You're not a child one day and an adult the next. Not in any way.

Which is why I guess I believe there should not be just one "The Talk." There should be several--at different times, answering different questions, giving different information, with different levels of formality, in different places.

It, like everything else in life, should be a circular, ever-widening-and-deepening-each-time-you-go-around process.

Slashing Spice Cake with Pear Sauce to Fit

After dinner Sunday, my kids asked for dessert.

I felt deflated and defeated. I was trying to go for three weeks without sugar. In fact, the night before, I had avoided four kinds of cookies, several kinds of pop, and birthday cake at a family party. I had been strong then, but, since then, I had been fasting, and I wasn't sure I could last in the face of temptation.

"We have lots of things to use for dessert," my husband said, encouragingly. I looked over to him, wondering what he was talking about. "Peaches, pears, strawberries. . ." he started to list.

I smiled to myself. This is another example of a major difference between Paul and me. My list of things to make dessert with would not be all fruit--it would be things like chocolate, caramel, whipped cream. . . .

It used to be that I made a spice cake with pear sauce for my family. I think it must have been two years ago--I don't think I made it at all last summer, when I was trying hard to lose weight until The Day I Got Old. My family started clamoring for spice cake with pear sauce. They weren't really clamoring, by any dictionary definition of the word, but they wanted it.

I went into my bedroom.

When I came out, I started to make spice cake with pear sauce. I asked Paul if he knew where the recipe for the spice cake I'd used was. He brought out a big green loose-leaf binder, full to the point of explosion with recipes. A couple of them are apparently mine. He helped me find the spice cake recipe I had used back in 2007 or 2008. "Did it have raisins?" I asked, surprised.

"I don't know. Don't think so."

I didn't, either, but I put raisins in, anyway. What i didn't put in was sugar. Or flour. I was brave. I was bold. I thought I should probably put in half sugar and half Splenda (which is basically sugar with no calories and doesn't usually bake as well as sugar does), so it would turn out all right--and half whole wheat and half white flour, but I didn't. I used only Splenda! I used only whole wheat flour! I wanted to be able to eat some when I was done and not just stare at it the way I had the cookies the night before.

I dug up the lemon sauce recipe I had modified for the pear sauce. "Did I double this?" I asked Paul.

"I don't know."

"Did I pare the pears? Or leave the skins on?"

"Don't remember."

"Did I use two, or three?"

"Dunno."

Clearly, I was on my own.

So while my son whose name starts with P made up "pare a pair of pears" jokes in the living room, I made that spice cake with pear sauce, and I made it good. I made it edible on my low-carb diet. I made the pear sauce with Splenda, too. And it was good. Paul said it was fine, but didn't eat any more than one serving. Although he did empty the cookie jars of the two kinds of cookies I had had to make for another family party on Monday. So sweet, that man.

After dessert, I picked up a reference book and figured out how many calories were in the two versions. Answer: 454 per serving with sugar and flour; 250 per serving with Splenda and whole wheat flour.

I felt omnipotent.

Hi, Dad, Where's Mom?

I want to see if any of you can help me figure something out.

Lately, I have been having several dreams I can remember, as opposed to dreams I cannot remember--which I'm merely taking on faith from what I learned in high school health class that I am having, since I can't remember them.

Anyway.

In all these dreams, I dream that I am at "home," sleeping, getting ready for work, hanging out, or whatever, but in all these dreams that I am at home, I am actually in my parents' home, where I was raised. That's not actually my question, as I have always dreamed that I am in that home when I dream that I am home. I never dream about my current house, and I only dreamed about the previous house, where I lived for 15 years, when I dreamed about my ex.

My question is, how come in all these dreams, my dad is at home, sleeping in his bedroom, or just standing in the kitchen, or something like that, but my mom never is? Don't get me wrong--I love my dad, but I was much closer to my mom, and, well, I really wouldn't mind dreaming about her, too. It used to be that she figured in a lot of my dreams as just someone who was in the room or place with me. Not really saying anything, just there. Which I took to mean she is still a presence in my life, or that she is a core part of me. Something like that.

But, lately, I dream that I am in their house (which we sold after their deaths several years ago), but she is not in the house, although my dad is. He's not usually a part of the central action, but he is there. (Which is actually symbolic of his role in my life--he was always there for everything but not often putting himself forward to be the center of attention.) And I find myself thinking something like, "Oh, yeah, Mom's work schedule is completely off from mine"--which makes no sense when it comes to Mom but actually applies in real life to my husband or my grown son.

Oh, and one other detail. Typing the title of this post made me cringe, because it's a lot like the last thing I ever said to my dad. I actually asked him how Mom was doing while his heart was winding up to give him the coronary of his life, so to speak. Just as we hung up, I thought to ask, "And how are you, Dad?" but it was too late. And then it was really too late.

Any thoughts? If you have any guesses at all, please be brave. My sister who was good at helping me with my dreams is no longer available, either.

The Lies that Bind Us

Ugh.

These are the things I was losing weight for (besides my health and happiness, which are huge): My anniversary. Easter. A family reunion. THE WEDDING! My cousins' party. My high school reunion.

All of these events are now behind--not ahead of--me.

How did I do? Pretty well. Was I happy with myself at each of these events? Yes. Did I reach my goal weight? Not quite. But I'm close enough now that I could reach it by my husband's birthday. Maybe for his birthday, I could present myself to him at my dating weight! On the other hand, if there happens to be any kind of correlation between something being given to him for his birthday and how much he actually uses it--I'm not saying there is, but just if there happens to be, that might not be good.

(And let me just insert here in this very natural place for it that the wonderful man I married had a meal on the table for me when I got home from work, as he does almost every night. Thanks, hon! I know how busy you are!)

Apparently, though, I still need something to motivate me.

Here's how things have gone once the last event--my reunion--came and went.

At the reunion, after several "perfect eating" days, I had da-da-da-da! one small dessert. Which is exactly what I'd planned to have. So far, so good. My husband had a small plateful. Then came back with another white roll and two more. I gave him a look. He said, "Well there were two more that I hadn't seen before." The next day, he said, "They were small."

Yes, they were small, but probably 200 calories each. Times whatever. I know--I've been thinking this way for months.

The next day, I had two taffies out of my goodie bag from the reunion. Not so good--I didn't really need them. But I was really tired and they were, well, just sitting there! What else was I supposed to do?

Today started out pretty well. Only I was late for the gym, so I only burned 2/3 of the calories I usually burn. This wouldn't be a problem if I would just make it up during the rest of the week. I also wore a very cute lime green dress that I haven't worn in years. It was a little tight, though. Maybe if I'd burned those 300 other calories. . .

A very young, very cute coworker gave me very large compliments when she saw me. She also told me she had brought home-baked chocolate chip cookies. "But you are not allowed to have one!" she said, by way of encouragement, I'm sure.

And, no, I'm not blaming her.

I'm blaming all the years of lies I've told myself, before I started telling myself the truth about treats--that each one is so many calories and would take so long to burn off, and so forth. The lies that support my triggers, which all seemed to be cocked and waiting today.

Well, I knew that Miss Manners would say that the only polite thing to do in this situation was take her seriously and not have any of her cookies. Anything else would be, well, begging.

I also knew that another coworker had a stash of fun-size Hershey bars that I was welcome to. I knew that very well because I'd avoided them like the Black Death all last week. One day, I wouldn't even go near her cubicle.

Early this morning, it had occurred to me that I could maybe allow myself, now that the reunion was over, to have one of them.

But when I wasn't allowed to have one cookie (because I'm sure I would have called it quits there), I helped myself to one Hershey bar.

Not that the dress wasn't tight enough or anything, and not that I hadn't started out very well eating my one orange, then an hour later my two eggs and glass of milk, then my nut snack, then my lunch. Well, by the time I went home, I had had 259 Hershey bars. Or something like that. I was driven--compelled--to make that dress tighter and tighter and tighter! Maybe, who knows--it would explode and I could shoot off like a popped green balloon around and around the ceiling and land weighing absolutely nothing.

That didn't happen.

After all, the only compelling reasons to NOT pig out were my health and happiness. Who cares about those?

So, what lies do you tell yourself when you overeat?

On Procrastinating Home Repairs

So we have had a drip in the master bathroom sink since, I don't know, last year, maybe? I can't even tell you how long that drip. . .drip. . .drip has been driving me nuts at night. Only, recently it has become more of a dripdripdrip and we HAD TO do something about it!

I know it's been going on for several months at least, because we wanted to get it fixed last time we had a plumber over (last summer?). My husband mentioned it to him. The plumber told him it would be another $175 to fix. We were already spending something obscene like $850 to have the kitchen faucet fixed.

The man who sold us our house nine years ago had the brilliant idea of putting in impossibly expensive fixtures and appliances that we could never hope to repair so that he could flip the property and make a fortune.

Unfortunately for him and fortunately for us, that didn't happen. He sold it to us instead.

But whoever heard of a kitchen faucet costing that much to replace?!!!

Anyway, I digress. We couldn't even hope to add to that expense at that time. And then I walked around for months thinking all we needed was a new washer in the faucet. And being slightly miffed in the back of my mind (to that drip. . .drip. . .drip accompaniment) that no one ever did anything about the new washer we needed.

It was Friday that my husband divulged (at least in a way so that I heard him) that our bathroom faucet was WASHERLESS! That's what the plumber said to him last. . .year?

Anyway.

Since then, we had the dishwasher go on the blink, but not before ruining the kitchen floor. We had to replace both vehicles. We had a two or three weddings in the family--one that we were directly responsible for. And two deaths (which we were not responsible for). We had a plastic wolf dropped in the main toilet. So the bathroom faucet waited.

And waited.

Meanwhile, the water company sent me a letter that they were raising our rates, effective July 1. I lamely tried to say that my son would be moving out then and couldn't we wait and see what impact that had on our water usage before we got hasty and raised the rates? They sent an investigator to the house. The first report I got was that the water meter was not moving, meaning there was no leak. In subsequent phone calls, someone said it had been moving. Personally, I knew there was a leak. At any rate, the higher rate stuck.

"Your usage has doubled since last year," I was told.

I couldn't imagine why.

Paul said it was because we were doing dishes by hand instead of using the dishwasher. I disagreed. But, eventually, we did agree on something. The dripdripdrip woke us up, and by Friday, it had come to the top of both my husband's and my lists.

He took the faucet off the sink and knew exactly where to take it. "Your dad probably came here a lot," he commented.

"Really? He wasn't a plumber," I said, but felt comforted anyway, like maybe we would experience a visitation while we were there or something.

We walked in and sat at the counter. I imagined the place had once been a sandwich counter and fantasized briefly about ordering a double malt for us both from the muscle man standing behind the counter. But it was too tinny and dingy for that. Not chromey and vinylly like the fifties would have had it.

The quiet muscle man behind the counter smiled at our story and brought us a tiny black dob of plastic with a tiny spring. He added a jar of putty to put the sink back together with.

The cost? Five dollars, four cents.

Or did you mean the cost of the water bill?

Vintage Wear

So I went through my overflow clothes that have been in my baby's closet since we moved here. (Doesn't everyone have a closet like that?) Never mind that who the "baby" in that room is has changed three times. And I thought that I would add some of those clothes back into my wardrobe.

Woot woot!

First off, who knew when I stored these clothes away that people would stop tucking shirts in? Some of my old shells and blouses definitely require a tuck-in, but I feel downright ancient doing it. Also, my waist isn't really quite ready for that display yet. Although I DID wear the mint suit at my son's wedding reception and my husband said that if I couldn't have looked any nicer without upstaging the bride. Who is movie-star beautiful and at least that tall, too. In her elaborate ivory wedding dress with her hair done up, she looked exactly like she could have been plucked from the heroine role in a Jane Austen film. So, I was forced to forgive him on the spot for all past sins. (Can you believe I'm going to have to start over now?)

Have you ever found a $20 somewhere and you have no idea how it ever got there or how you forgot about it? Well, no, I didn't find a twenty, but something like that. While excavating this closet, I found a perfect little black dress skirt that had NEVER BEEN WORN!

I KNOW! How did that happen? Slobbering, I hurriedly checked the tag, and it was a size 12. So I immediately grabbed an old mauve shell I'd been saving and put it with it to form an outfit for this week. "I'd better wear this thing quick before I can't wear twelves anymore," I said to myself.

Yeah, right. So, to figure out if this shell can really go with this skirt and what to do about tucking or not tucking, etc., I tried this outfit on in that small moment between when I walk in the door and when I am already wearing my nightgown for the night. (Paul calls me the fastest nightgown in the West, which really doesn't quite equal the earlier comment in any way but is still okay.)

I couldn't believe it. The skirt didn't fit. I checked the label again. Twelve. I weighed myself. I measured my waist. Of course both of those numbers were up a little because--hello!--this is evening and I never in my right mind weigh or measure in the evening. So I'm tearing my hair out wondering if I've really gained weight or if something else is off.

I'm thinking something really funky happened to this skirt in the factory. I've been wearing tens and this was not fitting like an 8 or a 6.

Which might explain why it's never been worn.

And why I forgot about it. I mean, who wants to remember a size 12 skirt that they could NEVER WEAR?

So I put it back in my closet--but only a week back. I'm still going to keep trying it until I can wear it--mauve blouse or not, tucked or not.

Truth Stranger than Fiction

On my son's last night at home, I entertained mixed feelings. Fatigue being among the top contenders, I headed to bed early. Also, I had nothing left to prepare and wanted a good night's sleep in order to be at my best for the next day's events.

He had been going in and out of the house, cleaning his car and attending to last-minute details before his wedding the next morning.

As I went through my bedroom door, I glanced at the digital clock on the dresser. Eight-thirteen. At the same time, I heard the front door of the house close behind my son.

Wow.

I could hardly believe it. Eight-thirteen p.m. is the time my son was born.

So, exactly 8770 days from the moment he was born, the last day of my life with him in my home ended and I heard the door shut behind him.

I couldn't write fiction this good if I tried.

I have noticed this at other times in my life, like when my daughter, through a series of strange small events, was born on my parents' anniversary, as I'd wanted her to be because my mother had recently joined my dad in the hereafter and her due date had been close to their wedding date. My doctor had said it was impossible for her to be born that day unless it happened on its own (and I only once in seven children went into labor on my own), because she was going to be on her way to China that day. But, the universe smiled on me and gave me exactly what I wanted--a daughter I could name after my mother on the day my mom and dad had been married.

And the time I was writing about my life and saw how certain events had fit together just as smoothly as a jig-saw puzzle to make things work out. And when I struggled for the exact words I needed to express something very important that had happened and they came into my mind and I knelt with tears streaming down my face to thank God not only that I had the ability to write what had happened, but because I could finally see that the misery I had passed through fit with the writing talent and other blessings I had been given to allow me a way to do some good in the world.

Sometimes, I think the entire history of the world is a very good, long novel of the most intricate detail imaginable--like zooming in on the pattern of a flower far enough down to see the pattern of its cellular structure, and then the patterns of the molecules, and then the patterns of the atoms themselves. A novel with characters of every sort, a meaningful plot line, important themes, life lessons, and a glorious ending we're still waiting to get to. God knows every detail and has the thread to every plot line in His hands.

As my own section of this novel whizzes past, I have to marvel as I see its plot line fall into place. With my son getting married, I am scared to realize how far through this story I am, and I feel the same sort of longing I feel when I realize a good book I can't put down is going to end sooner than I want it to.

Here I was, the mother of the groom, giving him the wedding luncheon I wanted to have for myself--at the Lion House. Here I was, going to bed like an old person, while he shut the door without a care on my significant moment and moved on--as he should. Here I was, not the young person any longer, but the wiser, more worried one, watching and hoping with all my might to see how it turns out. Glad that he is in a better situation than I was in. Glad he has made better choices, is better set up, better equipped. Glad that the wedding luncheon I can offer him is not at an all-you-can eat buffet, as mine was, by his father's choice (due to his own sense of taste and not financial concerns). That should have been one clue to me of the life I was taking on, but I guess I couldn't see the red flag for the orange centerpieces.

When this son was serving his mission 6184 miles away--farther away than almost all of Europe, his twentieth birthday fell on a Monday. I thought that would mean that I would get an email from him that day, but the day waned on with no word from him. It turns out to have been the best reason possible. The people he knew there were taking good care of him.

I had become interested in seeing how light or dark it had been when each of my children had been born. For middle-of-the night births, of course it had been pitch black, but five of my children had been born in the morning or evening. Light in the morning or evening varies according to the time of the year, of course. So, on his birthday, I went outside at 8:13 to look at the light.

I found out the next day--when I was able to read the email message that did come late--that he had been looking out at the sky at the exact same time (only it was 11:13 where he was), wondering how light the sky was in Salt Lake City.

When life can give us moments like that--moments that connect us with each other and time and space and the universe and what's meaningful--I'll devour it like any great novel and hope against hope that I can catch on to what it's all about.