Author: Big Mama

Sometime around the beginning of June I asked Caroline how she’d like to celebrate her sixth birthday. I assumed we’d do another pool party because that’s the fate assigned to anyone born in August in Texas, but she insisted that she had no interest in a party at the pool. Truthfully, I couldn’t blame her because how is that any different from what we do practically every day except with cupcakes instead of ice cream sandwiches?

She said she wanted to have a slumber party and I promptly began congratulating myself on the prospect of putting together the EASIEST birthday party ever. All those suckers paying for a big party at Pump It Up complete with communicable diseases and the possibility that you might have to (hypothetically) climb to the top of the bouncy slide while wearing a skirt to retrieve your child and I was going to get away with taking four girls to the movies and letting them sleep in sleeping bags on my living room floor? How hard can that be?

And now as I sit here feeling a level of exhaustion that I didn’t think existed outside of being forced to watch a marathon of ShamWow! commercials, I realize that those suckers who pay to have a party at Pump It Up have the advantage of being able to send everyone home after two hours. It doesn’t matter to them one way or the other if those kids stay up until 2:00 a.m. because their parents picked them up hours ago.

So here I sit. Fairly incoherent from the tiredness and in pain due to the fact that I thought it was a good idea to use a sharp knife to open up a frozen pizza wrapper last night. P is constantly reminding me of the hazards contained in my unorthodox methods of opening packages, but I just nod and then keep sawing away with whatever sharp utensil happens to be closest. Ninety-seven percent of the time it works out beautifully, but last night in a frenzy of helping a bunch of girls decorate white pillowcases with fabric paint and glitter and simultaneously trying to open up a box of frozen nutrition for any of the girls who didn’t want to eat Caroline’s requested birthday dinner of her daddy’s fried fish, I sliced the pointer finger of my right hand which is making it a little bit painful to type right now. I guess there is no workman’s comp for people who write on the internet or I’d check out my options for short-term disability.

The most important thing is that Caroline had a great sixth birthday. I mean, what little girl doesn’t dream of getting her very own pink .22?

(Before anyone leaves me a comment about it, let me assure you that it will remain locked in a safe that even I can’t get into and is for ranch use only.)

She also received some Bendaroos which have to be the most clever marketing scheme ever in the history of mankind because it’s just some string covered in some sort of bendy wax. Why not just pick up a pack of pipe cleaners and call it a day?

Mimi and Bops bought her an American Girl doll. It’s one of the Just Like Me dolls so it doesn’t come with a name and bio like all the other American Girl dolls, which are incidentally made in China. Caroline is wavering between naming her Dorothy or Glory. I think we all know I’m hoping she goes with Glory so I can amuse myself by saying “Oh Glory, I can’t believe you’re made in China and your clothing is more expensive than mine.”

I don’t even know if I’m making any sense at this point. Have I mentioned I’m exhausted and that I may have to get my finger amputated? Oh, and that I tried to use that new spray Neosporin on it to prevent the gangrene from setting in and sprayed myself right in the eye around midnight during the slumber party at which point things were beginning to head south due to an epidemic of tiredness denial?

Finally, after three hours of serving as a manicure/pedicure technician to four of the most indecisive little girls on the planet (Oh! I wanted blue polish like her! Can we take off all this pink and make it rainbow instead? Can you hurry up please?) I finally cracked and told them it was TIME. TO. GO. TO. BED.

Then they stayed up another hour and a half giggling and laughing which in all honesty made me smile more than a little bit because it brought back memories of how fun it used to be to stay up way too late surrounded by your best friends, some microwave popcorn, and a few good Barbie movies.

Of course these days Ma-Maw has to get her beauty rest.

Glory, I am tired.

You know how sometimes you think you’re so tired you can’t even move? Yeah, I’m more tired than that.

This is what my living room looked like last night.

I spent the better part of my evening helping four little girls achieve a look that would make people in New Orleans say, “Well, that seems a little excessive”, until I finally decided to hide in my room and hope they didn’t dismantle the house piece by piece.

Finally around midnight I found myself in a bit of an ethical dilemma wondering if it would be wrong to give a healthy dose of Benadryl to other people’s children.

Oh I’m just joking.

Kind of.

Dear Caroline,

Today is your sixth birthday. Six years. I know it in my head but my heart is having a hard time comprehending that you are six years old.

Up until the day he died, my Pa-Pa never missed an opportunity to tell me about the day I was born. He loved to tell me how he took a sleeping pill because he couldn’t sleep and then got the call from my daddy at midnight letting them know they better head to Houston right then if they wanted to be there when I was born. So he and my Me-Ma picked up my Nanny and the three of them headed to the hospital with my Pa-Pa at the wheel in spite of his medicated state. I always loved hearing him tell me that story even though I never totally understood why he told it so often.

Now I understand.

There are moments in your life that are so significant that they don’t fade with the passing of time. I’ve mostly forgotten the pain of not getting an epidural until way too late in labor and the fact that I managed to inflict a thumb injury on your daddy while he held my hand during a contraction, but I will never forget the way I felt when they placed you in my arms for the first time. You looked at me with eyes that never seemed to blink as if you were giving me the once over to see if I was up for the challenge of motherhood.

Some days I feel like the verdict is still out. There are days I get it right and days I get it wrong, but the one constant is that you bring me more joy and laughter than I knew existed six years ago.

A few weeks ago we were coming home from an exciting morning of grocery shopping at HEB and all of a sudden I hear your little voice ask, “Why am I here?”

“What do you mean? Why are you in the car?”

“No. I mean why am I here? Why did God put me here?”

Wow. I don’t think I asked that question until my mid-twenties. Or yesterday.

I explained that God has a purpose and a plan for all of us. He loves us and wants to use us to help those around us. You listened to me very intently and then said, “I think maybe God wants me to be a clown”. If that’s your calling then I will do what I can to help you be the best clown you can be, but you need to know that your daddy had a bad circus experience as a child and may not be able to hang out with all your clown friends. Something about all those people fitting in one tiny car freaks him out.

This summer we’ve spent a lot of time at the pool and you never fail to act completely devastated when it’s time to leave. It’s especially bad if you see one of your friends walking in as we’re leaving. In fact there have been moments that I’ve wanted to fake an injury or throw a beach towel over your head to distract you from the realization that someone you haven’t seen in “at least two days” just walked in to swim.

The drama reached new heights last week as we left to go home after your pleas for “just five more minutes” fell on deaf ears. You looked at me with big tears in your eyes and announced, “I am as sad as a pickle that has just been eaten.”

It’s my new favorite phrase. I kind of think we ought to make some t-shirts and see if it catches on.

But that’s what I love about you. You’re not afraid to voice your opinion. You will never be one to sit back and see what everyone else does. You’re ready to take on life the same way you jump off the diving board, one great big flying leap.

When you were still just a baby, I would rock you and sing to you. These days you’d probably tell me that my voice doesn’t sound very good, but back then you weren’t able to complain unless it was in the form of a toxic diaper. I usually treated you to a wide array of song choices during those middle of the night hours, but one that I always ended up singing was “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” even though singing Aerosmith songs to your newborn is such a cliche’. Maybe it was the sleep deprivation that led me to resort to Steven Tyler, but it summed up how I felt as we sat and rocked with your little baby fingers curled around mine.

“I could stay awake just to hear you breathing
Watch you smile while you are sleeping
While you’re far away dreaming
I could spend my life in this sweet surrender
I could stay lost in this moment forever
Every moment spent with you is a moment I treasure”

Last night I tucked you in and began to read the books you’d picked out for us to read. My voice cracked and I felt tears come to my eyes. You just seemed so big to me as you sat snuggled up next to me and pointed out the words you can read by yourself. Time just seems to be going by too fast.

And I don’t want to miss a thing.

Daddy and I love you more than you’ll ever know. Happy Birthday, sweet girl.

Love,
Mama

Later today I’m leaving on a jet plane for Charlotte, North Carolina to speak at the She Speaks conference. Actually it’s not quite midnight here right now so the real truth is I’m leaving tomorrow, I’ll be lucky if the plane is anything more than a miniscule tube of death, and I’m only speaking at one session called “Blogging for Beginners”, which will basically consist of me standing in front of a room of people or maybe just six people and saying, “A blog is a journal that is on the internet. What? You have a question about writing code? Sorry, can’t help you but I love that shirt you have on. Where did you get it?”

I know it makes you sad to think that you’ll be missing out on such a vast wealth of world wide web knowledge.

Anyway, you might think that I’ve spent the day packing for my trip or at least making some sort of list of things I need to pack, but you would be wrong. I’m just going to throw a bunch of stuff in a small carry-on bag an hour before I leave and hope for the best. It’s like I don’t even know myself.

Part of the problem is that I had a busy day getting everything ready for the slumber party we’re throwing for Caroline’s birthday which happens to be the day after I get back from the conference. The other issue is we had another friend’s birthday party to attend for most of the afternoon. And not just any kind of party, but a party that involved this.

Yes. That is my foot in a roller skate. Please note that neither the carpeting nor the skates have changed since 1982 which was the last time I was in a roller rink.

I’ll tell you what else hasn’t changed; The pro shop that still sells beautiful white roller skates with hot pink wheels that make you want to take up professional roller skating because they are just that cool, the roller rink disc jockey who announces “Time for all you fast-skaters to get on the floor and show us what you’ve got!”, and the guy that’s way too old to be there, yet has all the best moves and spends the majority of the time skating backwards in his fancy black skates with white stripes while his long hair flows behind him like he’s the Fabio of the Magic Skate.

Caroline was invited to a roller skate party which caused me no small amount of distress because she’s never really skated. Santa Claus brought her some Disney Princess plastic skates for Christmas but he didn’t realize that her parents wouldn’t have an infinite amount of patience to teach a child to skate who insists that she knows what she’s doing only to fall flat on her bottom, so our skating experience has been limited.

My thought was that I’d put her in roller skates and I’d just stay in my shoes and help her keep her balance. It might have been a brilliant plan had I not worn flip-flops but it only takes 42 pounds rolling over your big toe once to make you rethink a strategy.

So I went and got myself a pair of size 8 skates circa 1976 when Disco Duck was king and hit the floor in spite of the fact that my center of gravity and bone density have significantly changed since the last time I donned a pair of skates. I figured at least a broken arm might make a good opener for my session at She Speaks. “I got this broken arm while I was roller skating yesterday. I totally lost my balance when I reached for the comb in my back pocket to brush out my wings.”

As it turns out, roller skating is kind of like riding a bike, it all comes back to you. In fact, for about thirty glorious seconds I even skated backwards which caused Caroline to scream to all her friends, “LOOK AT MY MAMA! SHE KNOWS HOW TO SKATE BACKWARDS!” That’s right, kids, Mama knows how to skate backwards because when she was a little girl Hollywood gave us quality movies like Skatetown U.S.A. and Xanadu that motivated you to hone your roller skating skills. At least I know that when she turns thirteen and starts to doubt my coolness and relevance, all I have to do is take her roller skating and remind her that I know how to skate backwards. I’m sure it will still be just as impressive.

By the end of the party, Caroline was getting the hang of it a little bit during the brief periods of time that she’d actually let go of the wall and move her feet as opposed to just pulling herself around the wall to achieve forward motion. Based on her enthusiasm for the loud music, the disco ball and the skates with hot pink wheels, I think we have a lot of skating in our future.

The whole experience was honestly like stepping into some sort of time warp where the employees, carpets and disco ball haven’t changed since 1978. What other establishment gives you that kind of experience other than maybe a Waffle House?

Not many, my friends. Not many.

And now I have to go pack or at least come up with reasons why it can wait until later.

Because what else are you supposed to do when it’s 106 degrees outside?