Author: Big Mama

  • Eight

    Dear Caroline,

    Today you are eight years old. Eight. I don’t know how eight years have gone by so fast and I can’t believe you are now an age that I vividly remember being myself. I guess that means I better be careful because we’ve reached the years you’ll be able to recall with clarity someday and get mad all over again about that time I didn’t let you wear jeans to church in July when it was 110 degrees outside.

    On Monday we went to the mall because you wanted to go to Claire’s and decide if you were brave enough to get your ears pierced. I had no idea if you’d actually go through with it or not and my doubts only grew stronger when you asked if we could just look at clothes for a while instead. But eventually we made our way there and you looked at the various starter earring options and weighed your decision as carefully as I’ve ever seen you think about anything.

    Ultimately, the desire for earrings outweighed your fears. I told the salesgirl we were ready to proceed with the piercing. And so she began to mark your ears.

    You’ve never looked more solemn or nervous.

    And I felt like my own heart was about to jump out of my chest. I knew exactly what you were feeling and I wanted to protect you from the fear and help you conquer it all at the same time.

    About two seconds later, they squeezed the triggers and you officially had pierced ears.

    You let out a loud gasp. I held my breath, not sure if you were going to cry or scream or completely freak out. And then you said, “That didn’t hurt AT ALL!” I’m not sure if that’s true but I think your complete giddiness over your new green sparkly earrings trumped any pain. You jumped on me and hugged me, so full of joy and excitement. And my heart almost couldn’t take it.

    We made our way to Starbucks and celebrated with a double chocolaty chip frappuccino.

    You were beside yourself with happiness the rest of the afternoon, recapping the ear piercing event for anyone who would listen while occasionally wandering in search of a mirror to admire your new earrings. Your favorite question to ask was, “Did you really think I’d do it?” and you wanted an answer that reflected the percentage each person believed you’d actually leave the mall with pierced ears.

    I told you a million times how proud I was of you for facing your fears and tried to turn it into a life lesson about how sometimes the anticipation of a thing is worse than the actual event. But, honestly, I think that’s a lesson you already know.

    You embrace life.

    After you won the watermelon seed spitting contest and the belly flop contest at the pool on the fourth of July, I was so proud of you. Not because you won, but because you had the courage to try. I watched you walk out on that diving board and flop into the water with all the confidence in the world and all I could think about was how you constantly amaze me with your desire to absolutely soak up every bit of joy life has to offer. You inspire me.

    A few weeks ago we were headed to the library to return some books, many of which you never got around to reading. I asked if you wanted to go in and check out some new ones and you replied, “Mama, I don’t really enjoy sitting around and just reading. Why would I want to sit around and read a book when I can be outside doing all those things instead of just reading about them?”

    I don’t know if there’s anything I can say that sums you up more than that. Even though I do hope you’ll turn into an avid reader one of these days. Otherwise I’m doomed to be the only member of our immediate family who enjoys literature other than the latest Cabela’s catalog.

    You, my love, are a girl who is ready to take things on. You want new adventures. You ask questions all the time because you want to know about everything. You love nothing more than to spend a day at the ranch with your daddy exploring, but I love that you can still be my girly-girl when you feel like it. No one loves to put together an outfit and accessorize like you do. Even though there are times we don’t agree on your wardrobe selections.

    This past school year was a rough one. It was the year I had to figure out how much I let you handle on your own and when I should step in. I’m still not sure I handled everything the right way, but I guess that’s motherhood. You, however, showed remarkable character and resilience. I’m so proud of your ability to make the best of all situations. You have one of the best hearts of anyone I know.

    With eight years behind us, I feel like we’re embarking on new territory. Like when I embarrassed you in the grocery store the other day when I was doing your version of a rap song. You informed me, “Moms really shouldn’t rap”. Which only made me want to do it more. It seems like we’re at the official beginning of BIG KID-NESS. But I have enjoyed you more and more each year and I know this will be no exception. They say these are the golden years of childhood and I can’t wait to watch you continue to become the person God made you to be.

    You are our light and my joy. Eight years ago today you entered our world and changed us totally and completely. It was as if we’d been living life in black and white and you brought the color. Daddy and I could not love you more.

    We are so proud of you and so grateful that God blessed us with the special gift of you. Happy 8th birthday, sweet girl.

    Love,
    Mama

  • Ain’t no party like a beach trip party

    You know how sometimes you have a great weekend with your girlfriends and get home and someone immediately asks, “What’s for dinner tonight?” and you kind of wish you could get back in the car and go back from whence you came? Or at least hand someone the menu for Papa John’s Pizza?

    Re-entry is tough. Just ask an astronaut. Granted, you probably don’t know an astronaut in real life and I don’t really know that re-entry is tough for them, but it might be. All of this is just my way of explaining why I didn’t bother to write anything yesterday. After a wonderful weekend away, I had a re-entry fraught with drama levels rarely seen outside of Southfork Ranch.

    It wasn’t really that bad. Just piles of laundry and a family that hadn’t seen me in two days and a daughter who likes to be attached to my hip at all times and no food to speak of in the refrigerator.

    But I’m not complaining. (It sounds like I’m complaining. I’m not. I’m just observing.) I had the best weekend away with my friends and Tropical Storm Don turned out to be a bigger dud than several people who sat next to me in the Finance 201 course I took in college.

    On Thursday night I was a little concerned about Don and P didn’t help by throwing around words like “storm surge” and “widespread power outages”. Fortunately, he packed me an army green tactical bag full of flashlights and glow sticks and even a head lamp in case I needed to reenact a scene from Coalminer’s Daughter.

    The girls and I headed out around 11:00 a.m. on Friday in an attempt to beat the storm and get at least a little time on the beach. We made it there in record time, grabbed a quick bite to eat and checked into the condo.

    Then it was time to unload the cars which was precisely the time we discovered none of us have the gift of minimalism. We are a group that believes it’s not worth the trip if you can’t bring your own blanket,fan, and sixty-eight bags of various types of potato chips.

    And down the next part of the sidewalk.

    Embarrassing.

    But not as embarrassing as it would have been if I’d actually lost my grip on the luggage cart and it flew into the parking lot with suitcases and fans flying willy-nilly. Which was almost a reality save for my cat-like reflexes.

    After we unpacked our eighty-two bags of assorted chips and forty-nine cream cheese based dips, we made our way to the beach.

    The sea was slightly angry that day, my friends. Less like an old man trying to send back soup in a deli and more like the mildly irritable feeling you might feel if you really wanted to watch The Bachelorette this season but couldn’t deal with the way Ashley says everything is “PAR-FACT”.

    But we sat around in our beach chairs while it sprinkled occasionally and discussed a variety of topics including, but not limited to, the debt ceiling crisis and our hair. Eventually we made our way back inside because we thought Don was on his way. The storm, not some random man named Don.

    We changed into pajamas and settled down to enjoy our dips and that’s when four of the girls left the room and came back singing Happy Birthday to me. But it wasn’t just any birthday song, they sang it while holding up these masks.

    Those would be images bearing various hairstyles and time periods throughout my forty years. There is a lot of perm solution represented there. And then it was Julie’s turn to be haunted by the ghosts of hairstyles past.

    After that they gave us each a darling hand-painted wine glass with our initial on one side and 40 on the other. Which will help to remind me how old I am when I drink to forget how many gray hairs I have now.

    It was just the sweetest thing and confirmed what I already knew. I truly have some of the best friends in the world. Our little group has been together and drama-free for over six years and that’s a gift I don’t take lightly. Not to mention that we make each other laugh until we cry. I adore them.

    Saturday morning we attempted to hit the beach early until Julie’s car got stuck in the sand and she had to be rescued by a group of families that call themselves “The Pigs”. The Pigs ended up right next to us on the beach that day and we became honorary pigs for a day. And they even gave us all matching straw cowboy hats that we wore proudly. I’d post a picture but we’re all in our swimsuits and, PLEASE, never gonna happen.

    When Sunday rolled around, we all hated the fun had to end so we decided to eat lunch before leaving Port Aransas. And then we made the ill-fated decision to take the ferry which is always a bad decision. NEVER take the ferry. The ferry is for children and people who enjoy shutting off the A/C in their car when it’s 108 degrees outside. In other words, it’s for people who lack good sense.

    But we got in the ferry line and one of us who will not be named in order to protect the innocent got a ticket for allegedly getting in the ferry line when it wasn’t her turn. Even though it TOTALLY was her turn and the officer had even motioned for her to go. As it turns out, he was motioning her aside to give her a ticket.

    And that’s how we all ended up in the Port Aransas jail.

    Not really.

    But that would be such a good story.

    Instead we took the ticket and spent the rest of the drive home vowing to fight for our legal rights. Just like Norma Rae. Except we weren’t trying to unionize a mill. We were just wanted to get on the ferry.

    And get home to our families.

    So they could ask us what’s for dinner.

  • Fashion Friday: Edition cone of uncertainty

    Well, this is going to be brief. Mainly because I am still monitoring the weather situation to determine if our girls’ trip to the beach is still going to happen. As of now it looks like all systems are a go. Especially because P packed me a handy tactical bag full of flashlights, glow sticks and TWO headlamps in case of a power outage.

    So now I just need to finish making one of the fourteen different dips we’re going to eat over the course of the weekend and continue to obsessively watch the radar to see if the cone of uncertainty shifts.

    But here are a few cute things I’ve found. Complete with no pictures. However, everything this week is very moderately priced and most of it is on sale. So there’s that.

    1. boronia curvy plus top

    I think this is so pretty and I adore the berry color. It would look especially great with turquoise accessories.

    2. three layer gold coin necklace

    When we were in Bryan last week, Nena had on a gold necklace with a very small gold coin pendant. I said, “Nena! Gold coins are so in right now. Did you know that?”

    “Of course I knew that.”

    Then Gulley asked her if it was a real coin and she replied with the utmost authority, “Yes. It’s Mexican.”

    Between you and me, I don’t think it was any type of peso. In fact, I’m hard pressed to believe it was any form of legitimate currency.

    But gold coin necklaces are in right now.

    3. v-neck tab blouse

    This is a great blouse and would be a great transition piece for fall with the addition of a scarf.

    4. tiered midi skirt

    I love a skirt when the weather is so hot that people wish they lived on the surface of the sun.

    5. deco adoration blouse

    I love this and it’s a deal right now.

    6. schoolboy eyelet blazer

    Personally, I don’t live in a place that allows a fun, warm weather blazer. But I wish I did because I adore this.

    7. raw edge ruffle tops

    Great top.

    8. ruffle trim henleys

    I really like these tops.

    9. mementos maxi dress

    This is really pretty. But only in the yellow.

    10. summer ballad maxi dress

    I like this because it’s a maxi dress with a little more coverage than your average maxi dress.

    And that’s it.

    Y’all have a great Friday.

  • The weather outside may be frightful

    Some of you may remember that I’ve mentioned once or eighty-four times that we are in the midst of a drought. And by we, I mean pretty much the entire state of Texas. Let me present this map of the United States as a visual aid.

    Oh yes. For those of you who have always wondered when I would bring the educational visual aids to enhance my blogging, let me just say, it has been BROUGHTEN.

    In case you can’t tell, Texas is colored almost completely maroon which indicates EXCEPTIONAL drought. Not mediocre drought. Not NEEDS IMPROVEMENT drought. EXCEPTIONAL. Drought like I foolishly bought a new pair of rain boots back in January and have worn them one time. WHEN IT SNOWED.

    And so between the drought and the extreme heat wave, I have spent much of the last six months claiming, and perhaps whining, that what we really need is for a hurricane or a tropical storm to hit somewhere in the vicinity of Corpus Christi. No offense to my peeps in Corpus. I wish you no harm, just some gusty winds and rain that would eventually move through Texas and dump about ten to forty-six inches of rain in the vicinity of San Antonio.

    Some of you may know (and the rest of you probably don’t care) that I’ll celebrate my 40th birthday in a little over two weeks. I’m not really stressed about turning forty because I hear it can be your best decade ever. Granted, most of the people who tell me this are in their seventies and possibly senile, but I choose to believe them. The only thing I have against forty is that it seems to have already hurt my metabolism’s feelings and I think they may have had a dump.

    Anyway, many, many months ago, like back in January, my group of girlfriends known as Birthday Club began to talk about the fact that Julie and I were both turning forty this year. And we decided that a girls weekend was in order to mark the occasion. This was perfect because I could think of no other way I’d rather celebrate my 40th birthday than on a trip with some of my best girlfriends since a big party would only cause me to hide in a corner and some people might feel that is antisocial behavior.

    On a semi-related growing older note, a few years ago Gulley and I went back to A&M for a Diamond Darling reunion and decided to go to the Chicken later on that evening. She decided it would be a fun game to ask various college age kids how old they thought we were. All of them guessed twenty-seven. Gulley was ecstatic and took it as a sign that we’re aging extremely well. And then I had to point out that when you’re in college you can’t fathom an age older than twenty-seven. If we were any older than that we surely wouldn’t have been at the Chicken for fear of missing Murder She Wrote and keeping our dentures in too long and needing to curl up under an afghan after we made our way home in our Cadillac with the box of Kleenex stuck in the back window next to the WWII Veterans baseball cap.

    But back to the birthday plans.

    We spent months discussing various destinations and decided it would be best to go somewhere within driving distance but where we could truly feel like we’d gotten away from all our responsibilities and people who may want us to cook dinner for them or wipe their bottoms.

    So now you may be wondering what on earth this has to do with the aforementioned drought. Well, I’m glad you asked.

    We ultimately decided to rent a condo for the last weekend in July in Port Aransas, Texas which is right by Corpus Christi. At this point I feel like I should provide you with an additional visual aid.

    Perfect.

    Even factoring in THE CONE OF UNCERTAINTY, it looks like God has heard my prayer for a tropical storm to hit somewhere near Corpus Christi. Unfortunately, I forgot to add a disclaimer that I’d prefer it be a weekend other than the last one in July.

    As we watched the news last night and realized there was a storm headed right for the Texas coast, P said, “There is no way I’m letting you go down there if that thing turns into a hurricane. That would just be stupid.”

    And I nodded my head and agreed with him because that’s the best thing to do in these situations. But Gulley and I agreed that while we aren’t dumb enough to head down there if it’s a hurricane, we are absolutely not going to let some little tropical depression named Don keep us from a good girls weekend even if it means we spend the weekend holed up in the condo with a few bottles of wine and sixteen different kinds of chips and dip while we watch plastic beach chairs fly past the windows.

    However, like Gulley said, if we make a run to Super S Foods and happen to see Jim Cantore, we’ll know it’s time to get the heck out of dodge.

    Right after we get our picture taken with him.

  • Nothing from nothing equals nothing

    I’m sitting here on the couch next to P and just told him I had absolutely nothing to write about. He looked at me and helpfully uttered a “Huh”. Which I think is a sign of two things:

    1. He isn’t concerned about my lack of material.

    2. He doesn’t have any plans to help me come up with something.

    The problem is we didn’t do much of anything yesterday. Actually, take nothing and subtract even more nothing and that sums up our day. Caroline and I stayed in our pajamas until almost noon and then Gulley dropped off Jackson while she took Will to a friend’s birthday party.

    I was going to take the kids to see Cars 2 (again) but they got caught up watching Swamp People and who am I to deprive them of the experience of watching a bunch of Cajuns hunt alligators in Louisiana? If that isn’t educational, then I don’t know what is.

    The rest of the afternoon was spent listening to Caroline debate whether or not she should get her ears pierced. She REALLY wants to get them pierced. We went to lunch with my sister and my niece Sarah the other day. Sarah just got her ears pierced which only heightened Caroline’s obsession with the whole thing. And, truly, I’m fine with it. I just want her to know that it’s going to hurt and she’s going to have to let them pierce BOTH ears after she does the first one.

    Of course she asked Jackson for his opinion on getting her ears pierced and he said, “I don’t know why you would want to do that. Earrings are for fancy parties and going out on dates and you don’t do any of those things.”

    I believe that’s the nine year old boy equivalent of looking at your wife after she tells you she has nothing to write about on her blog and saying “Huh”.

  • I guess I’ll be at the library if you need me

    Yesterday was all about easing back into the real world. Well, the summer version of the real world. The REAL real world won’t happen until school starts next month or, as I like to think of it, that time we have to be up at the crack of too early for nine months in a row.

    I made a grocery list along with a list of errands we needed to run, specifically a trip to the drycleaners’ to see if they got the spaghetti sauce out of my brand new ivory blouse. (Yes, they did. However, it also came back missing a button. But they’ve promised to replace it. The button, not the blouse.) We also needed to go to TJ Maxx in search of new sheets for Caroline’s bed and make a run to Borders since they are going out of business and everything is marked down up to 40% off.

    (Please note that everything is not 40% off. That’s what I originally thought because I failed to read the “Up To” portion of the sign. Comprehensive reading has never been my strong suit.)

    Can we talk about Borders closing? I feel like I’ve been in a state of mourning since I heard the news.

    From the earliest time I can remember, one of my very favorite things has been to go to the bookstore. Any trip to the mall ended with me browsing through B.Dalton Booksellers or Walden Books and picking up the latest Judy Blume book (Starring Sally J. Freedmen as Herself is still one of my favorites) and, later, the most recent edition of Sweet Valley High so I could keep up with the Wakefield twins, Enid, Todd, Bruce Patman, and Lila.

    Eventually it seemed that most of the bookstores in the mall closed down and it was a new day of Borders and Barnes and Noble with in-house coffee bars and train tables for the kids. In my day, you had to drink coffee at home and walk uphill both ways IN THE SNOW to find a train table. But I adjusted and grew to love the new fancy version of bookstores.

    Now it seems like we’re just one step away from our kids telling us, “Oh Mom. I read To Kill A Mockingbird last year when I downloaded it on that chip embedded in my brain” and that makes me sad. I know people love their Kindles and their Nooks and their whoozee-whatzits, but you can’t tell me that’s better than the smell and texture of a real live book with actual pages.

    Actually, you can tell me that. I just won’t believe you.

    And I know you can still buy books and that Barnes and Noble is still around. For now. I just hate to think that Caroline might grow up in a world where she’ll never know the thrill of looking through all the books on the shelves of a real, live store and discovering some hidden treasure that she never would have found online, like Sweet Valley High #3 Dangerous Love.

    What if, by the time she’s a teenager, she reflects back on the books of her childhood and says, “Remember when books were made of paper and you had to turn the page?” Much like I have vague memories of the days when I had to find the perfect line on a record album to get it on the song I wanted to hear. Or when I had to listen to “Beauty School Dropout” on my Grease eight-track tape to get to “Greased Lightning”?

    On a total sidenote, I went to elementary school with a girl named ZZ and she had an eight-track player that was shaped like a square and had a pump you pushed like a detonator to change the tracks on the tape. Oh I coveted that eight-track player. Even though I had a very fancy one with speakers that looked like the pockets of blue jeans.

    I realize that one of these days I’ll probably give in and get some type of electronic reading device, but I’ll always prefer my books. And I’ll miss the days of running in the bookstore just to see what I can find.

    Am I alone in this? Do you feel like you just read a post by your MaMaw? Does anyone else have fond memories of Sweet Valley High? And, most importantly, did anyone have that eight-track player with the detonator?

    I need to know these things.