Author: Big Mama

  • The rainbow connection

    I would love to write something profound and life changing about the institution of motherhood, but it would require thought and effort, and after a day that started at 5:45 a.m., I’ll be honest, I don’t have it in me. Plus, I still have two Oprahs waiting for me on the DVR and it’s really all about priorities.

    Mother’s Day 2002, I was 7 weeks pregnant. I was excited, hopeful and giddy. P and I had prayed for a baby and now one was on the way. I remember sitting in church on that Sunday feeling so blessed to be on my way to becoming a baby carrying, spit up wearing member of the motherhood sorority.

    And then 2 weeks later, P and I found ourselves sitting in the doctor’s office as he told us there was no heartbeat, no baby.

    I didn’t know it then, but I look back now and realize that moment prepared me more for what motherhood really is than if I had carried that baby to term.

    Motherhood is about holding someone close and letting them go all at the same time. It’s about loving someone more than you ever imagined, yet not being able to completely protect them from all the challenges they will face. It’s about wanting to do the best job imaginable and raise fine, upstanding members of society, but spending years and years wondering if it’s actually going to happen.

    It’s about trust. Trusting that God knows you and knows this child He has given you. Knowing that my strengths are designed to cover her weaknesses. Knowing that even before I was born, God knew someday He would entrust Caroline to me.

    And it overwhelms me.

    Late last Thursday afternoon, a rainstorm came through and after it was over, an incredible rainbow appeared in the sky. I carried Caroline outside to see it and watched her face as she just stared in pure amazement while my heart exploded just a little bit. She said, “Oh Mama, it’s just like in my books, but better!”

    And I was thinking the same thing. Motherhood is just what I dreamed about, but better.

    Happy Mother’s Day, y’all.

  • Back when wild pasta roamed the plains

    Last night, P and I had some friends over for dinner and Caroline went out to eat with Mimi and Bops. I made spaghetti with meat sauce with Caesar salad and garlic bread.

    A little while ago, I heated up some leftover spaghetti for Caroline to eat for dinner tonight. She took a big bite and said, “Oh Mama, THIS IS DELICIOUS! Did you shoot this?”

  • If I could just lose 10,870 pounds

    I went and picked Caroline up from school yesterday afternoon and in her school bag, she had a wrapped present for me along with a card. Of course there was no way she was going to wait until Sunday to bestow my gifts on me, so she “helped” me open them as soon as we got in the car.

    We openend the wrapped present which revealed a sweet, little necklace that she had made. I immediately put it on and raved about how beautiful it was and thanked her for such a sweet present.

    And then I opened the card.

    The front of the card had her little handprints lined up to make a heart shape and on the inside was a piece of paper where she had answered questions about me.

    My mother’s name is Big Mama (she actually used my real name).

    She is 680 years old.

    She is 11 feet tall and weighs 11,000 pounds.

    Her favorite thing is to eat at restaurants.

    It’s no wonder I’ve been so tired lately. And if I’m going to lose any of this weight, I probably need to find a new favorite activity.

  • There is no such thing as natural beauty

    On Monday, Caroline endured her last dance class because this Sunday is the recital, which will most likely go down in history as “The Mother’s Day that I Paid Hundreds of Dollars for a Beating”, because I feel pretty certain this whole experience will basically serve the purpose of me being able to watch my daughter daydream on stage, twirl and jump for a few minutes to the music she hears in her head, and then perhaps pick her nose for an encore.

    At least we have ruled out ballerina as a future career choice at a young age. It will give us much more time to prepare her for a career in nuclear physics or professional worm digging.

    Anyway, at the end of the dance class on Monday, the teacher called all the mamas into the classroom to go over a few last minute recital details and to push us to buy t-shirts for $15.00 that say “Dance Recital”.

    As if.

    It seems that Caroline’s teacher is living in some delusional fantasy world and is not aware that she has been teaching a class of 3 year olds all year long. She kept making references to helping them focus and whether or not we’re allowed to bring them bouquets of flowers to present to them as they come off stage. I have a sneaking suspicion there are some mamas who are taking this a lot more seriously than I am.

    I’m not even sure what time we’re supposed to be there on Sunday, but I knew if I raised my hand and asked, I would be completely ostracized from the Britney Spears Stage Mother Association.

    They were all talking about the various makeup they had purchased for their daughters to wear, and there was much concern over whether their daughters’ hair should be curled or not. And finally, when someone started to discuss whether or not we should pencil in their eyebrows after we apply their mascara, it took everything in me not to stand up and yell, “You people need to get a grip on reality”.

    However, the teacher did insist that all the little ballerinas need to wear makeup so that they’ll show up on stage, and I certainly don’t want Caroline to not show up. If she is going to dance to the beat of her own drummer, then I guess the least I can do is attempt to put some lipstick on her.

    So, today I went to HEB and strolled the cosmetics aisle looking for the cheapest makeup I could find. One of the dance mothers mentioned that her Mary Kay lady had put together a great makeup package for the recital for just $40.00. Seriously? There is no way my 3 year old is going to have a better makeup bag than I do.

    I headed to the Cover Girl section and picked up some lavender eye shadow because I’m just too frightened by the blue eyeshadow. It is my belief that most of the evil in the world can be traced back to blue eyeshadow. If you don’t believe me, then just watch a rerun of Dynasty.

    I also found some pink blush and a tube of red lipstick. When Caroline saw the makeup and I told her it was for the recital, it was the first time she has shown any real enthusiasm for this entire event. There is nothing she likes more than to coat her face with any type of lipstick she can find, especially if we’re about to walk out the door to go to church and are already running 10 minutes late.

    When we got home, I decided to do a trial makeup run. I had her sit as still as she ever sits, while she scrunched up her entire face as I tried to apply eyeshadow, blush and some lip color to her actual lips. The thing that got me was the smell of the Cover Girl makeup. It immediately transported me back to junior high and those first experimental days of applying makeup and then taking it off with Noxema.

    I’ll never forget that my Home Economics teacher had a Merle Norman consultant come in to teach us all about applying makeup. The consultant had some kind of contest and I won this handheld vanity mirror that opened up to reveal eyeshadows in every shade of the rainbow. It was glorious. Nevermind that I never learned how to sew in Home Ec, I was the recipient of the most wondrous eyeshadow collection ever assembled.

    It was the Time/Life Soft Rock Classics Collection of the eyeshadow world.

    Every morning I would get up and choose my outfit for the day. Then, for the crowning touch I would open up my Merle Norman eyeshadow mirror and apply whatever color matched my clothes. Blue Izod? Blue eyeshadow. Purple argyle vest? Purple eyeshadow. Green Polo? Green eyeshadow. And most unfortunately, yellow sweater? Yellow eyeshadow.

    I was committing cosmetic heresy every single morning and was proud.

    So proud.

    I’m not sure when I realized it wasn’t always in the best interest of natural beauty to match my eyeshadow to my wardrobe selection, but I’ll tell y’all this, when I saw Caroline today, with the purple eyeshadow on, I knew for sure that I made the wrong decision on that day back in 7th grade when I matched my eyes to my purple argyle vest.

  • It’s the sound of the men working on the chain gang

    Caroline was up bright and early this morning at 6:15. It’s all her daddy’s fault, really. Not that he woke her up, but it is his gene pool that has given her this propensity for early rising. At least he takes some responsibility for it and he was the one to go get her out of bed. She came and got in our bed and immediately started demanding that I get up.

    I refused.

    6:15 is just too early. It’s a decent hour if you’re a farmer and there are cows to be milked and crops to be tended, but we live in the city and our milk is in the fridge. It’ll keep until 7:30.

    Anyway, she went to play in her playroom and entertain herself until I finally stumbled out of bed a little after 7 a.m. We ate breakfast, we played Hungry, Hungry Hippos, we played Candyland, we looked for caterpillars on the back porch, we fingerpainted and painted with paintbrushes, then glitter glued sheet after sheet of construction paper, and finally we calculated the national deficit and figured out a solution to the social security crisis. It was a full day and I was exhausted.

    I looked at the clock to check the time.

    It was 10:15 a.m.

    I was out of activities and it was barely 10 in the morning. I knew we should have spent more time crunching those numbers on the federal deficit.

    Fortunately, the Disney Channel was airing The Tigger Movie which gave her something to do until lunchtime so that I could concentrate on filing my fingernails and growing out my bangs.

    And then we had rest time.

    Or technically, I had rest time while Caroline came out of her room every 5 minutes to ask if rest time was over. Her energy knows no limit. If I could harness it, I could solve the global warming crisis or whatever other crisis requires alternate sources of energy.

    After she finally wore me down and I conceded that rest time could be over, she went in her playroom and put on what I like to call her “Copacabana outfit”. Because although her name isn’t Lola, she is definitely a show girl, albeit a show girl without “yellow ribbons in her hair and a dress cut down to there”.

    Now y’all might think she put on that outfit so she could do the merengue or the cha-cha or to just look pretty, but you would be wrong. She picked that particular outfit so we could go dig for worms in the backyard. Because if you’re going to be digging for creatures that can regenerate themselves after being cut in half, you want to look your best. At least that’s what I read in Emily Post.

    Along the side of our house in the backyard, is what should be a flowerbed, but since we have two dogs who hold no regard for flora or fauna, it is instead just a bed of dirt. P recently added some sand to the dirt and sprinkled the whole thing with cornmeal because, apparently, this creates the equivalent of heaven for earthworms, and he and Caroline decided a person really can’t get enough of the earthworm, which is not an opinion I share. Nevertheless, digging for worms has become a new favorite activity at our house.

    For Caroline, not for me.

    My new favorite activity is figuring out how to keep my hair out of my eyes.

    We head out to the backyard, and she stands over me like a well dressed prison warden, while I get the shovel and dig in the dirt. She stands over me and keeps asking, “Have you found any yet? HAVE YOU FOUND ANY?”

    Four years ago when I saw that ultrasound and found out I was having a girl, I dreamed of the day we would brush Barbie’s hair together while we talked about what color we should paint our toenails. I dreamed of shopping together for beautiful shoes. I dreamed of frilly dresses and big bows.

    And naturally, I dreamed of digging up worms in the backyard like I’m on a chain gang while she barks orders at me to dig faster because those worms aren’t going to dig themselves.

  • A career change

    Some of y’all have asked how my adjustment to being a stay at home mama is going and let me say that I haven’t regretted my decision for one minute. It still feels weird to wake up in the morning and realize my day isn’t filled with having to check voicemail and meet sales quotas, but I love it.

    I always referred to my job as “the bank” for fear of being found in a random google search and not wanting to get fired for writing about my job on the internet, but now that I don’t have to worry about any of that, I’ll let y’all know that I was actually a pharmaceutical sales representative for a pharmaceutical company.

    Anyway, I thought y’all might enjoy a comparison of how I spent my day as a pharmaceutical rep versus a day spent as a stay at home mom.

    Drug Rep 6:30 a.m. – Wake up to the sounds of a belligerent 3 year old yelling, “MAMA, come get me! It’s MORNING!”

    SAHM 6:30 a.m. – Wake up to the sounds of a belligerent 3 year old yelling, “MAMA, come get me! It’s MORNING!”

    Drug Rep 7:00 a.m. – Stumble into the kitchen, make Caroline’s lunch and try to come up with something she’ll actually eat for breakfast while she begs to eat candy. Listen to her throw a fit after I say that York Peppermint Patties aren’t really a breakfast food.

    SAHM 7:00 a.m. – Stumble into the kitchen and offer several breakfast options, all of which are turned down because they aren’t York Peppermint Patties.

    Drug Rep 8:30 a.m. – Load myself up like a pack mule headed for a 10 day camping trip in the bottom of the Grand Canyon. On one shoulder I have Caroline’s school bag, my purse, my work bag, and my laptop bag. In the other hand, I have her lunch box and my car keys. Follow her out to the car while she stops to examine every crack in the sidewalk, look at every bug, and give the dogs a hug goodbye. Finally get to the car right before my arm is about to fall off from the sheer volume and weight of items that I’m toting.

    SAHM 8:30 a.m. – Stay in our pajamas for a little while longer because we can. Watch Charlie and Lola and continue to push my breakfast eating agenda. She is so over breakfast. Breakfast is for the weak.

    Drug Rep 9:00-12:00 p.m. – Spend morning trying to convince doctors, who already know everything, why they should use my drug instead of my competitor’s drug, and they pretend to listen while I know they are completely ignoring everything I’m saying.

    SAHM 9:00-12:00 p.m. – Spend morning trying to convince 3 year old, who already knows everything, why she shouldn’t color on the walls, run with sharp objects, or spill her cereal all over the kitchen floor, and she pretends to listen while I know she’s ignoring everything I’m saying.

    Drug Rep 12:00-1:00 p.m. – Have lunch delivered to doctor’s office so that I can have the pleasure of treating office staff and physicians to a free lunch while they complain that they’ve already had Jason’s Deli this week and ask why I didn’t bring more Diet Dr. Pepper.

    SAHM 12:00-1:00 p.m. – Make peanut butter and jelly sandwich, deliver it to 3 year old so that I can have the pleasure of making her a delicious lunch while she complains that she’s already had peanut butter and jelly this week and ask why I didn’t give her pink lemonade.

    Drug Rep 1:00-2:00 p.m. – Take nap.

    I’m joking. It’s a joke.

    Everyone knows drug reps don’t take naps from 1-2:00 because they finish their day by 3:00 and go home and take a nap then.

    SAHM 1:00-2:00 p.m. – Take nap and try to get Caroline to do the same.

    Or at the very least, to not wake me up.

    Drug Rep 2:00-4:30 p.m. – Go see more doctors and bring them free samples of drugs while most of them act put out that they must acknowledge my presence. Some of them enjoy asking me difficult questions that I don’t know how to answer, such as the particle size of the ldl and apo-B lipoproteins.

    Umm yeah, I majored in Speech Communications.

    SAHM 2:00-4:30 p.m. – Go to the grocery store and buy food for Caroline while she often acts put out that she must acknowledge my presence. She enjoys asking me difficult questions that I don’t know how to answer, such as how do watermelons turn green on the outside.

    Umm yeah, I majored in Speech Communications.

    Drug Rep 5:00-bedtime – The day is over with the exception of an occasional evening where I get to go out on the company’s dime to some of the nicest restaurants in town and eat good food and drink fine wine while listening to some of the most boring presentations known to man.

    SAHM 5:00-bedtime – I still have miles to go before I sleep. Dinnertime, bathtime and bedtime routines. There are chicken nuggets to be eaten, hair to be washed, and stories to be read. I wouldn’t trade it for the best meal in town at the nicest restaurant, even without the boring presentation.

    Although the wine would be nice.

    Drug Rep middle of the night – Wake up completely stressed out about how I’m going to grow market share when the only way I’ll be able to convince some of these doctors to write my drug is if they undergo a complete lobotomy.

    SAHM middle of the night – Wake up completely stressed out about how I’m going to fill all the hours in the next day with meaningful activities that don’t include watching Backyardigans over and over again.

    As y’all can see, in some ways my days aren’t that different. The commonality between being a drug rep and being a mama is before I actually started doing either one, I read a ton of books. I studied, I learned all I could, I memorized material that could help me in any situation and allow me to answer any question.

    But the thing is, only the reality of doing something every day prepares you for what it’s really like. No book can tell you how to make a doctor prescribe your drug and no book can tell you how to get a toddler to eat breakfast. It’s all a game of skill and chance. Some days I get it right and some days I don’t. Some days I think I’ve got it all figured out and some days I’m sure I must be the most incompetent person to ever do this job.

    For me, I’m just thankful that if I’m going to spend my day with someone ignoring half of what I say and acting like they know better than me, it’s with my daughter. Because for all those moments she is so over me, are the moments we spend digging for worms, lying on the floor coloring pictures, and playing Go Fish.

    Moments I wouldn’t trade for anything.

    Plus, most of my doctors were terrible at Go Fish.