Author: Big Mama

I am here to tell y’all that what the Bible says is true. “Weeping may remain for a night, but joy comes in the morning”.

Or, a stomach virus remains for the night, but joy comes two mornings later.

After two days of wondering if I had been infected with the E.Coli, I finally started to feel better late yesterday afternoon. Maybe it was due to the fact that I was able to get plenty of rest, maybe it was due to the fact that I knew Caroline was going back to school, or maybe it was the fact that P came in and told me he had made arrangements for Ava to come clean the house today.

Bless P’s heart. He knows one of my love languages is hiring someone else to clean my house. It moved me to tears of joy.

I’ve gotten to the point where I can clean my own house. The problem is it’s never all clean at the same time. I have time management issues due to my OCD. I start to clean, then notice that the glass on my chandelier is filthy, and the next thing I know I am scouring the chandelier. And then I realize the baseboards in the dining room are totally dirty, but I haven’t noticed because the dust on the chandelier was obscuring the lighting. All of a sudden 4 hours have passed and I have clean dining room baseboards, but little else to show for my efforts.

So, I go eat an ice cream sandwich and call it a day.

Anyway, the other reason I was feeling better was because AJ and I had a shopping trip planned. Plus, as a bonus, she was going to let me go to her house first and help her throw some of her old clothes out. It was like Christmas and my birthday all rolled into one.

Before AJ’s mama passed away, one of her last requests was that AJ’s daddy continue to pay for the girls’ clothing, makeup, manicures, pedicures, highlights, etc. In her words, “anything that will help them find a husband”.

Do you see why her mother was such a wonderful woman? I mean, talk about looking out for your daughters. That’s a rich legacy.

My daddy would have never agreed to anything like that, because he knows me well enough to know that I would have never given up the free clothing. P and I would be living in sin, but I would have a fab closet full of Jimmy Choos and weekly pedicures to take the sting out of my wayward lifestyle.

I’m kidding.

I’d probably prefer Manolo Blahniks over Jimmy Choos.

Anyway, AJ enlisted my help because at some point I’ve convinced her I know what I’m talking about. She sees me on an almost daily basis so she certainly knows I don’t always practice what I preach, but she trusts me anyway.

She told her daddy that we were going shopping, so he got on the phone last night and told me there were a couple of rules. First, don’t even go in Neiman Marcus. Second, AJ is a pretty girl and will look just as good in a $130 skirt as a $400 skirt. I don’t get the impression he shops much.

Or knows the going rate for your average skirt.

AJ and I spent a little bit of time going through her closet this morning. At some point I’m going to need to go back for a complete closet overhaul. There were wire hangers everywhere and shirts and pants running amok. And y’all don’t even want to know about some of the fine knitwear crumpled up in little balls and stuffed into rubbermaid containers. It’s just too sad.

We assessed her basic fashion needs and headed out to La Cantera. First stop, Neiman Marcus. We totally broke the rule right out of the gate. But, in our defense, she needed jeans. Nice jeans. And Neimans really has the best jean selection. I’m proud to say we walked out of there with 2 new pairs of jeans, one of which I made her try on even though she didn’t think she’d like them. And she did. She liked them and bought them. I was so proud and only a little envious of her fabulous new jeans with little front pockets that made me want to take them home with me, and cherish them forever. Or at least until little front pockets are out of style.

After that, we promptly vacated Neiman Marcus and headed to the more reasonable Banana Republic.

We found a really cute dress and took it into the dressing room. We couldn’t find any zippers or buttons, so AJ just started pulling it over her head. And got stuck.

She wanted to give up. She started to pull it back off saying, “This isn’t going to work”. But oh no. I wasn’t taking no for an answer. That dress wouldn’t beat us. I told her, as if she was training for a marathon, “DON’T GIVE UP. YOU’VE GOT TO REALLY WANT IT.”

True story.

And then we collapsed with laughter in the dressing room.

After all that, the dress let us down. It just wasn’t all it needed to be. However, we did find a darling dress at Anthropologie which should come as no big shock. I believe my love of Anthropologie is well-documented.

Finally, AJ was shopped out. I could have kept going, but I could tell she was fading fast. She’s not really a shopper at heart and, while I don’t understand that, I accept it.

We ended our day by having lunch on the balcony at The Mariposa in Neiman’s. We drank fresh strawberry lemonade, ate croissants as big as our head, and had the best chicken salad sandwich ever. Y’all want to know what makes a chicken salad sandwich even better? Bacon. And swiss cheese.

It was delightful. Even better than Whataburger if you can imagine such a thing.

AJ dropped me off and I walked into my house, which smelled of lemony clean freshness. My floors were mopped, my kitchen was scrubbed and my toilet paper was folded into neat triangles on the end.

Then, I realized it was about time to pick Caroline up from school, so I headed to my car. A car, by the way, that P had one of his workers completely wash, wax and vacuum for me.

I’m sorry. Did I wake up as one of the Trumps without realizing it? Did I move on up to the East side? Is this how George and Weesie felt?

I’ve got to say, I could get used to it.

Especially since Ava doesn’t backtalk like that sassy Florence.

And if you were born after 1980, you don’t know what I’m talking about. Which is probably just as well.

Just know it means I had a good day.

Last night, when I wrote that post about my stomach virus, I had no idea that the worst was yet to come. I have never in my life been so sick.

Before I had Caroline I hadn’t had a stomach virus in probably 10 years. Now, I average one every 6 months. Having a child is the equivalent of having one of those African monkeys that spread rampant disease.

Except my child is potty-trained and not from Africa.

I woke up this morning around 9:30. P got up with Caroline and mercifully, let me sleep in. Since the head of our bed is right against the wall to our master bath, no one knew better than him what a horrendous night I had. Every now and then throughout the night, he’d call out, “Do you need anything?”

Yes. A better immune system.

And new intestines.

And some Phenegran.

Maybe a mallet to put myself out of my misery.

However, those things are hard to come by at 3:30 a.m.

Anyway, I stumbled into the living room this morning feeling as if I’d been run over by a bus and then a truck. P took one look at me and said, “You look awful”.

I do. I look awful.

It would seem that the evening’s festivities caused me to break little blood vessels all over my face, especially around my eyes. Caroline said, “OH MAMA! You have the chicken pox”.

I should be so lucky. The chicken pox would look good compared to what is going on in my facial area.

I have some major complexion issues that don’t appear to be subsiding as the day goes on. Picture deep red freckles all over my face and then multiply the hideousness of that image by 1,000.

Needless to say, I have had happier Columbus Day celebrations.

Caroline had the day off school so I had envisioned spending Columbus Day building small scale models of the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria while giving her a rich history lesson of Columbus and his amazing voyage across the ocean way back in 1492.

Or, I thought we could go to Target.

Neither of those things came to pass.

Instead, Caroline spent the morning with P. They made bullets in the backhouse, because that’s what little girls do.

Around lunchtime she came inside and wanted a bowl of oatmeal for lunch. I figured I could power through making a bowl of oatmeal. I lovingly microwaved the oatmeal and set it in front of her, while desperately trying not to get sick. She took one look at it and said, “That looks BISGUSTING. Did you throw up in this bowl?”

And I wondered if I could trade her in for one of those monkeys from Africa.

But instead, had P take her over to Mimi’s house for the rest of the day. Thank God for Mimi.

I went back to bed and slept for 3 hours because I was too sick to even watch T.V.

Let your brain wrap around the seriousness of that statement.

On the plus side, in yesterday’s comments, Leslie reminded me of a line from “The Devil Wears Prada”, “I’m just a stomach flu away from my goal weight”.

I’m well on my way. Especially since I only ate 2 Saltines today. If I keep this up I’ll be able to go into the holiday season with a 5 pound deficit. That way, when I gain 10 pounds from eating all the pie, I’ll still just be 5 pounds on the plus side.

But I must be on my way to recovery because I’m actually starting to think about a cheeseburger from Whataburger. For some reason, this is my cure-all. When I had morning sickness with Caroline, I knew that a Whataburger cheeseburger with extra mustard would ease my misery.

And no, I am definitely not pregnant. I just enjoy the healing properties of mustard.

With a side of fries.

Remember about a week and a half ago when Caroline had that stomach virus? And we were up most of the night?

I never got sick, so I breathed a huge sigh of relief that I had dodged the proverbial bullet.

Apparently, the bullet circled the circumference of the earth and has now promptly hit me between the eyes, or the stomach as the case may be.

Stomach virus.

Bad stomach virus.

And remember how Caroline was so cheerful and upbeat the whole time?

She doesn’t get that characteristic from her mama.

I’m pretty sure I’m about to die.