Capital P - Big Mama

Knock, knock. Who’s there? Orange. Except not.

October 31, 2012

Wouldn’t it be great if I already had a picture of Caroline in her costume? That would be perfect since it’s, you know, Halloween and all. But today will be the first time she’s actually worn her costume because she’s officially reached the age where it’s not cool to wear your costume to the Pumpkin Patch and have pictures taken. And we didn’t do the neighborhood shopping center carnival because she had a soccer game on Saturday and probably wouldn’t have cared that much about it anyway.

Excuse me while I go have a nice cry.

Anyway, we had some drama here yesterday. And before you jump to conclusions, I want to let you know that Disney didn’t buy my film company for 4.05 billion dollars. Mainly because I don’t own a film company. Unless you count the occasional videos I take of Caroline with my iPhone. But I’m guessing those are probably only worth about four total dollars. Maybe $5.00 if I threw in one where she’s making a joke about poop.

So about a year and a half ago, P brought home a tiny little orange tree. He was planning to plant it down at the ranch but Caroline begged him to plant it in our front yard instead. And so he did. Because why would he deny his only daughter the dream of having fresh-squeezed orange juice made from oranges from her very own orange tree?

She helped him plant it in the front yard and over the last year and a half has been slightly obsessed with it, checking it at regular intervals to see if it had produced any fruit. And then it finally flowered this spring and P told her that meant that it would actually grow a few oranges this year. She was beside herself when she noticed about nine very small green oranges beginning to grow around April.

Over the last six months she has watered that tree and checked on her oranges and made big plans to drink homemade orange juice on Christmas morning. We noticed last week that the oranges were officially the size of, well, an orange. And the color was beginning to turn from green to slightly yellow. There was much excitement.

Then yesterday afternoon Caroline had an appointment to get her hair cut after school. And as we were coming back home from the beauty salon, I noticed there was a van parked in front of our house and a man in our front yard doing something. It took me a minute to figure out what it was before I realized he was hurriedly picking every single one of our oranges off our tree. Without even thinking, I rolled down my window and yelled, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING? THOSE ARE OUR ORANGES. YOU CAN’T STEAL OUR ORANGES!”

P happened to be working in the driveway around back, heard me yelling, saw my car parked at a funny angle and thought I’d been in a wreck. I yelled to him, “THIS GUY IS STEALING OUR ORANGES”.

And so P quickly made his way to the front yard to confront the fruit thief. It turns out this guy was actually a contract employee for the Yellow Pages. He’d just delivered new Yellow Pages to our front door and then decided to help himself to all our oranges.

First of all, 1985 called and they want their Yellow Pages back. Does anyone even still use the Yellow Pages?

Secondly, who thinks they can just steal all the fruit from someone’s tree? Even worse, it wasn’t even ripe yet. He just ruined it.

Before you think I’m a little obsessed with my first world fruit thief problems, it’s not about the oranges. I realize it’s just a few oranges. In light of the hurricane on the East Coast and a million other things going on all over the world, this doesn’t even register. I need you to know that I know that.

But, like Gulley said, it was the anger at watching someone take something that my child had invested so much time in. He didn’t steal oranges, he stole her joy and sense of accomplishment.

And here’s the thing. If he had knocked on our door and asked for a glass of water or a piece of fruit or anything, we would have gladly given it to him. We try to live our lives with an open hand in recognition that everything we have belongs to God and not us anyway.

It was the stealing. It was the coming up in our front yard to deliver some lame Yellow Pages that we didn’t even want and then deciding he needed to take every single one of those oranges. Every single one. Seriously.

P made sure the guy knew how much those oranges meant to Caroline. And the guy offered to put them back. Except that doesn’t really work with unripe fruit from a tree. It’s basic science.

So I got on the Google and now we have our own little science fair experiment going with the unripe oranges (at least the ones he didn’t smash in the street) in a brown paper bag with some apples. Apparently the apples emit some sort of chemical that tells the oranges to ripen. You’re welcome for that free lesson.

We’ll see if it works.

As for Caroline, she finally settled down and we explained that it was just fruit and used it as a good lesson for why you should never take something that doesn’t belong to you. But she made sure to tell us later that she came in the house looking for a weapon to use on the thief and had decided her best bet was our metal toilet paper stand.

Because everyone knows it’s best to bring a toilet paper holder to a fruit fight.

Or something like that.

Hope y’all have a Happy Halloween.

First day of school

August 28, 2012

Yesterday morning P woke Caroline and me up bright and early. And, in what will be the only time for the next nine months, we jumped out of bed ready to start the day and I cooked eggs for breakfast. Not that I’m opposed to making a delicious home-cooked breakfast. I’m just opposed to going to the effort so that someone can just move eggs around on a plate and tell me they’re full.

It’s really best for all involved parties if I just whip up a bowl of dry Honey Nut Cheerios.

I’d made Pioneer Woman’s prairie sushi the night before and I have to confess a little pride over how cute her lunch looked. I should have taken a picture but it was so early and my brain was still trying to compute what was going on.

Then she put on her first day of school outfit, put her hair in a side ponytail with a bow because “it’s what all the fourth grade girls wear”, and I made her go out on the front porch so I could take the requisite first day of school pictures.

(I know everyone on Pinterest makes you feel like you have to have one of those cute signs for them to hold, but we roll old school around here.)

(Which means someday I’ll have to look at the date of the picture and do actual math in an attempt to figure out what grade she was in.)

It’s a shame she hates to pose.

And then P and I drove her to school. Her only apprehension of the morning was over whether she’d be the only kid whose parents walked her to her classroom, which I assured her would not be the case as evidenced by the massive amounts of cars parked within a mile of the school. So she agreed we could walk her in and even held my hand for about three minutes before she realized what she was doing and that this is fourth grade and she may move out and get her own apartment by next week.

I helped her unload her box of school supplies, said goodbye and walked out of the classroom. For a minute I thought I might cry because FOURTH GRADE, but I pulled it together, NANCY, and drove home and poured myself a strong cup of coffee.

For the next few hours I worked on a few projects and then I went to lunch with Mimi and Bops. After that I decided to be super productive and go put gas in my car and get it inspected since my inspection sticker expired two months ago.

Unfortunately, the nice man at the Mobil station couldn’t inspect my car because my proof of insurance expired in May and he needed to see the current one.

I operate at a level of disorganization and procrastination that would put some people in a home.

So I drove back to the house but didn’t have time to try to remember my online password so I could print out my proof of insurance and get the car inspected before it was time to pick up Caroline. But I figured I’ve waited two months and what’s one more day?

After waiting in a carpool line that was more complicated and emotionally wrought than a journey to self-discovery, I finally managed to pick up Caroline from school. She announced that her day was great and everyone was happy to see her.

Of course.

I asked if she liked her prairie sushi for lunch and she informed me she didn’t really eat any of it because she wasn’t hungry. (See? This is why I don’t cook eggs.) But then I remembered to ask a critical question, “Did you buy anything in the cafeteria line?”

“Well, I bought one Slim Jim beef jerky. I tried to buy enough for everyone in my class but the cafeteria lady told me that wasn’t allowed.”

Yes. Thank goodness for the cafeteria lady.

I appreciate Caroline’s attempt at generosity but we really can’t fund an entire fourth grade class’s Slim Jim habit day after day.

We met Gulley and her boys for ice cream to celebrate the first day of school and then headed home to do homework before soccer practice because there is no rest for the weary. There’s no easing into the reality of the school year. It’s just like a headfirst plunge into ice cold water.

And it took about five minutes before we were arguing about her homework assignment like old pros. Apparently I know nothing about writing a summary. Even though that’s essentially what I do every day.

Finally it was time for soccer practice. P loaded her up and drove my car to soccer practice. And here’s where I need to tell you that our soccer practices are on an Army base.

Did you know Army bases won’t let you on base if your inspection sticker isn’t current?

Neither did I.

And so P had to call another soccer mom to drive out of the base and pick up Caroline and the other girls he drove to practice.

It’s really these types of moments that make a marriage great.

I’ll give you two guesses as to what I’m doing first thing in the morning.

Blue skies, green water

August 27, 2012

So I’m sitting here typing this on Sunday night. And tomorrow is the first day of school. I’ve got school supplies stacked up, a new backpack packed, and Caroline’s choice of outfit laid out on the bed. But nothing can really prepare me for the fact that my baby is going to be a fourth grader. I mean, I remember being a fourth grader. I vividly recall getting in trouble for repeatedly singing the Diet Pepsi jingle over and over again with my best friend, Jill, until our teacher suggested that maybe we should sing it in front of the entire class.

She thought we’d be mortified. However, we saw it as an opportunity to entertain the fourth grade masses. I think that teacher retired the following year.

Anyway, fourth grade it is. A whole other side of the elementary school. The big kid side.

But before I lapse into total schmaltz and a few choruses of “Cat’s In the Cradle”, I need to wrap up the summer with a recap of our last week or so.

A week ago this past Friday, I headed down to Port Aransas with five of my friends. We call ourselves Birthday Club. Last summer we spent a weekend at the beach together because my friend, Julie, and I were turning forty. And this year Gulley and our friend, Hillary, turned forty so we felt like this was a good reason to have another girls’ beach weekend.

The good news is Steph will be forty next year. Then our friend, Amy, will be forty the following year. So we have excuses for beach weekends every summer for the foreseeable future. But really the only excuse we need is that we are all mamas that work hard all year round and sometimes a girl just needs to blow off some steam and eat Fritos and bean dip on the beach and rest in the comfort of spending two whole days by the ocean without having to build one, single sandcastle.

We caravanned to the beach and arrived mid-afternoon on Friday. After a quick lunch of fried shrimp baskets (because nothing like some fried shrimp before you put on a swimsuit) we headed to our condo to unpack the cars so we could spend the rest of the day on the beach.

Good thing we packed light.

And I have to confess these photos only represent about half the stuff we brought. Antoine de St Exupery said, “He who would travel happily must travel light,” but apparently someone forgot to tell us.

We also believe there is no such thing as too many chips. (I believe Gandhi said that.)

Particularly Fritos or Julios.

(Since I know someone will ask. Julios are the most delicious tortilla chips ever made with some kind of special seasoned salt on them. I’m pretty sure you can only get them in Texas. You have my condolences.)

There was one culinary low point when Amy was eating one of the frozen empanadas that Julie bought at Costco and said, “This is delicious. Is it seafood?” And Julie replied, “No. It’s black bean and chicken.” Is there really anything more concerning than something tasting like seafood when it’s not actually seafood?

So we spent the next forty-eight hours sitting on the beach. We ate too much and laughed too loud and might have even danced to Call Me Maybe like we were fifteen years old instead of forty. It was blissful. And ended all too soon.

But my time at the beach was just beginning because P and Caroline met me on Sunday so we could spend the next few days there as a family. I packed up my stuff, which was significantly less without all the Fritos, and met them at another condo.

Naturally, Caroline wanted to get to the beach right away. I put my suit back on and spent the next few hours digging an enormous hole in the sand while she alternated between supervising (barking orders) and filling it with water so she could make a home for her fish.

And then she headed out to play in the waves with P, ordering me to make sure her fish had plenty of water because she clearly doesn’t have a good understanding of sand and the way water tends to just get absorbed and how her mother would rather read InStyle than make repeated trips to the ocean with a plastic bucket.

Over the next few days I dug more holes in the sand and we built sandcastles and she and P fished out in the surf while I tried not to think about sharks.

She also discovered the fun of digging for sand dollars.

It was the perfect way to end the summer.

We came home tired and a little sunburned and with sand on every single item we brought with us. And I spent the next couple of days shaking out suitcases and washing swimsuits and thinking about dunking my entire face in a vat of Retin A to get rid of all the sun spots I’ve acquired this summer.

But there was still more fun to be had.

P and Caroline ended up driving back down to the coast to fish with one of his friends on Thursday and Friday. Which meant I had time to get a pedicure and watch forty-two episodes of Parenthood on Netflix.

Meanwhile, Caroline got her first black drum.

And ate her first meal at The Boiling Pot.

It was a win for us all.

They got home late Friday night and Caroline was so tired I had to carry her into the house. But she mustered up enough energy to go with P to the Hunters’ Extravaganza on Saturday afternoon. Where she rode a mechanical bull for twenty-seven seconds.

And had her picture taken with a large sasquatch holding beef jerky.

It’s really everything I ever imagined for my daughter. Back when I was in fourth grade and watched Urban Cowboy too many times and thought mechanical bull-riding was an actual occupation.

And spent my spare time memorizing lyrics from Diet Pepsi commercials.

A decade and a half

August 16, 2012

Fifteen years ago today P and I stood at the front of a church, in front of all our friends and family, and vowed to love each other for better or for worse.

And we’ve had some of both over the years. But the scale has definitely tipped in favor of better much more often than worse.

However, this seemed like an appropriate time to tell y’all about the holes in my walls.

Because it was a low.

If you’ve been reading the blog for any amount of time, you might remember that P has grand ambitions to seal our home up like a Frigidaire. There has been much talk of installing radiant barrier paint or some type of foil in the attic for years. And I’ve never gotten on board because you know what no one ever compliments you on when they visit your house?

Your attic.

Also, you know what’s more fun to spend money on than insulating your attic?

Everything else in the world.

But earlier this summer I was out of town. And P took that opportunity to have Blah Blah Insulation Company come out and give us an estimate on insulating our walls and our attic. The problem with living in a house built almost 100 years ago is that people neglected to insulate their walls. But considering that they had to hang wallpaper by nailing it to the wall, you can hardly fault them. They had bigger fish to fry. And this is where I begin to think about the people who originally built this house and how they didn’t have air-conditioning at all and it makes me break out in hives just thinking about it.

I’m like Queen Esther. I was born for such a time as this.

This time being a time when man figured out how to make air cold.

Anyway, P convinced me that we should at least get the walls insulated, especially since removing the sheetrock in the guest room made that room significantly hotter than it used to be. And since we’re planning to repaint most of the house already, it seemed like a good time to do it. He said it would just be a matter of them drilling a hole in the wall and pumping in insulation.

Here’s the thing about marriage. Sometimes there are breakdowns in communication. And sometimes you speak such different languages that you forget to ask important, clarifying questions. Questions like, “How many holes are we talking about?”

Because while I naively envisioned that each wall would receive one small hole in a discreet location, what actually took place was a sheetrock apocalypse.

The workmen came into our house with saws and drills and hoses while wearing masks. It was like the end of E.T. when the scientists realize E.T. is living in Elliot’s house and come barging in wearing space suits. And I wanted to ride off on my bike and fly across the moon to escape.

In his defense, the insulation sales guy hadn’t been completely upfront with P either. And so we were completely unprepared for the mess and the dust and the hysteria and the tears. Of course I was solely responsible for the hysteria and tears. The workmen didn’t even cry one time.

After he saw me breathing into a brown paper bag, P suggested that maybe I should get out of the house for the rest of the day. And I agreed because I was curled up in a corner singing “Turn On Your Heartlight”.

The next two days were a blur of insulation and dust and walking back into the house to find my living room curtains tied in a knot to keep them off the floor. It was bleak. There was so much sheetrock dust in my house that I believed there was no way it would ever be clean again.

And then they finally finished pumping insulation, filled the silver dollar size holes all over each wall with some type of white foam that I think they use in hell, and left.

I’d spent that entire day at the pool with Caroline because, seriously, workmen act uneasy when a woman is crying on her dusty couch while they do their job. But about 4:00 that afternoon, P called me and asked where we kept the mop and the swiffer broom.

And by the time I walked through the door an hour later, the house was completely put back together. The floors were swept and mopped. The curtains were untied. The furniture had been dusted.

As silly as this sounds it was one of those moments in a marriage where I loved him more than ever. Not just because he cleaned the house, but because I realized he knows me well enough to know that I needed the house to be clean. That he knows me well enough to know that I wouldn’t be able to sleep that night until the house was put back together.

And there’s something about being known like that. It makes you feel loved. Because knowing to clean up all that dust is just the tip of the iceberg of things P has learned about me over the last fifteen years. But he loves me more because of some of them and in spite of the rest.

For better or for worse.

I’m just so glad we’ll spend the next fifteen years in a living room that’s now two degrees cooler every evening thanks to all that new insulation.

I love you, P. Happy fifteenth anniversary.

Hair is what we’ve been up to

January 26, 2012

Well this week hasn’t really gone as planned.

I kept Caroline home from school on Monday because she seemed tired and congested and just wasn’t acting like herself. Which is to say that she was content to just lay in bed and do absolutely nothing. And then Tuesday morning she woke up and announced that her throat still felt “googly” and “scritchy” and so she stayed home again.

On Wednesday morning she was still complaining of a sore throat but didn’t have fever and I was a little suspicious that she might just be enjoying her ill-health and repeated viewings of Mr. Popper’s Penguins while I waited on her hand and foot and fetched her additional ice cubes because “this orange juice isn’t quite as cold as I like it, Mama”. So I sent her to school but told her she could go to the nurse if she didn’t feel good.

Which is why my phone rang at 9:24. It was the school nurse. And so I went and picked Caroline up from school and immediately called the pediatrician to make an appointment to find out if she had strep.

The strep test came back negative but she was diagnosed with a sinus infection and we left with a prescription for an antibiotic.

And so that’s what we’ve been doing for the last three days.

In fact, I’ll go ahead and admit that I hadn’t worn anything but pajama pants until I had to go to school and pick her up yesterday. Three days in pajama pants might be some kind of record. But if you combine the fact that I’m trying to meet a book deadline with a sick child and rainy weather? Well, that’s just a pure laziness trifecta.

P ended up being home most of the day Tuesday because the weather was wet and rainy. (It’s so odd how rain is wet. Wet and rainy? Lamest description ever. I blame too many viewings of Mr. Popper’s Penguins.) We spent some of the day reading a few chapters of Harry Potter and ate a lot of soup.

(We could talk or not talk for hours and we both enjoy soup.)

(So many bowls of soup have been consumed at our house over the last three days that I went to serve chili tonight and discovered we’d completely run out of clean bowls.)

(I ate my chili in a plastic Tony the Tiger bowl.)

(None of that is important. I don’t know why I’m talking about our bowl shortage.)

Anyway, we were all slightly stir crazy by late afternoon and sitting in the kitchen when P called to reschedule an appointment he had to get his hair cut.

He hung up the phone and lamented changing the appointment and said he couldn’t stand one more day with his hair so long. (He’s been growing it out since early December at Caroline’s request. It was a mass of gray cowlicks.) I jokingly said, “I’ll cut it for you.” And Caroline piped in and said, “Me too! Let me cut it, Daddy!”.

And he said, “Okay”.

Really?

You’re going to let our eight year old cut your hair?

Yes. Yes he was.

And so Caroline began to cut his hair while she occasionally said things like, “OOOH! HERE’S A BIG PIECE RIGHT HERE, DADDY! I’M GOING TO CHOP IT!” with just a little too much enthusiasm in her voice.

His reasoning in allowing her to do it was that you can’t really screw up his hair.

But he was wrong.

It seems that the person who was supposed to be supervising the haircut got caught up in the new Boden spring catalog and might have forgotten to pay attention to the child with the scissors.

The good news is it looked pretty good from the front. Good being a relative term. And assuming you’re nearsighted.

The best news is he got it cut by a professional yesterday. And she managed to even the whole thing up. Although he said there were a few times she would remark, “Oh, you’re kind of missing a chunk right here.”

Of course the lesson I’ve learned from all this is I have two people in my house who should never be left alone with scissors when they’re bored.

Or maybe the lesson is the Boden catalog can wait until after your daughter finishes cutting your husband’s hair.

Knock, knock. Who’s there? Orange. Except not.

First day of school

Blue skies, green water

A decade and a half

Hair is what we’ve been up to

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