Author: Big Mama

  • The road to crazy is paved with sleeplessness

    It was a fairly uneventful weekend around here. Well, I mean other than the fact that I almost had a nervous breakdown on Saturday.

    It all started last Wednesday night when Caroline decided that sleep is completely overrated and just takes time away from more important activities like driving your mama flat crazy with a new, improved belligerent demeanor.

    Toddler obstinance and fury…now three times as strong!

    All my friends keep telling me that three is a really hard age and that it will pass. All I can say is from their mouths to God’s ears, because this new level of attitude is not appealing.

    Anyway, Caroline has decided that she really only needs about 5 hours of sleep at night, punctuated by intervals of calling for me to update me on the current state of her non-tiredness.

    And let me state for the record, that there is NO way she isn’t tired. I have run that child like she’s in training for a marathon in my futile attempts to ensure a good nights sleep for both of us.

    So, after a fairly sleepless Friday night, which ended when she was up for the day at 4:45 a.m. (Lord have mercy on my soul), I was a prime candidate for some type of nut house. And honestly, if I thought they’d let me sleep while they put me in my straight jacket, I would’ve gone without a fight.

    Fortunately, Mimi and Bops called Saturday morning around 9:30 while Caroline was eating a peanut butter sandwich for lunch (because when you’ve been up since 4:45, lunch is at 9:30), and heard the desperation and perhaps a touch of mental instability in my voice and came to the rescue. I’m not sure who they were trying to save, Caroline or me.

    Caroline spent the whole day with them while I curled up on the couch and slept the sleep of angels.

    Thank God for grandparents. And sleep, thank God for sleep. Oh, and the pan of brownies that sustained me in the midst of sleeplesseness.

    It’s not so much just the lack of sleep that drove me to the brink of insanity. It’s the sleep deprivation combined with the constant testing to see if I’m still going to say no to all the things I’ve said no to in the previous 48 hours, followed by a screaming fit about the unfairness of life.

    It’s so much fun.

  • Kitty Cat Round Up

    Yesterday, Caroline and I went to meet a friend for lunch. I got her out of her carseat and then helped her walk to the sidewalk.

    I realized I had forgotten some things I needed in the car, so I told her to stay on the sidewalk while I started rummaging around my front seat looking for my phone and some papers.

    I guess I took too long because all of a sudden I hear her say, “Come on Mama, hurry up. It’s like herding a bunch of cats.”

    I don’t know where she’s heard that before.

  • It’s like a Whitman sampler, but with thoughts

    I’m sure some of y’all came to Big Mama yesterday expecting to read about Emmitt and his glorious victory over the cheesiness that is Mario Lopez, and instead you got a story about rats. And for that, I’m truly sorry.

    I was just giving the Mario fans a chance to get over the loss, because I know about the heartbreak of coming so close and then losing, because I am a Texas A&M football fan. Maybe we need Cheryl Burke to coach the Aggies…she couldn’t do any worse than Coach Fran.

    And if you don’t know anything about college football and don’t watch Dancing with the Stars, you are completely lost at this point.

    So, now I’ll give you my thoughts on Emmitt, along with some other miscellaneous things that are currently on my mind.

    1. Emmitt brought it to the dance floor, y’all. It was Hammer Time and that my friends, is how you do old school. Do NOT break out in some tired break dance moves that you learned off some VHS tape back in 1986 called “So You Want to be a Break Dancer”. I know the judges loved Mario’s dance, but to me it just reeked of the cheese of cheesiness that has been his trademark all season.

    Tuesday nights will be a little less bright now that Emmitt will no longer be sambaing and mamboing his way into my heart with that twinkle in his eye.

    2. I’m a little sad about the fact that either I wasn’t invited to Tom and Katie’s big wedding this weekend or my invitation got lost in the mail. Of course, I’ll console myself with the fact that Oprah wasn’t invited either and he jumped on her couch over this whole relationship.

    3. Speaking of celebrity pairings, how about K-Fed and Britney getting divorced? If those two crazy kids can’t make it, what chance do the rest of us have?

    4. Caroline was up 4 times last night because she couldn’t sleep for a myriad of reasons such as her mouth hurt, her foot hurt, she was hungry and my personal favorite “I’m just not TI-RED.” She also told me at one point “waiting for morning is killing me”, and she in turn was killing her mama.

    5. We went to the zoo a few days ago and I took this picture.

    I think that leopard is either looking for a playmate or lunch, I can’t decide which one.

    6. Gulley and I have a friend named Stephanie and she bought her little boy a nativity scene the other day so that he could learn the Christmas story. She told him the story and pointed out all the different figures in the nativity and then quizzed him. He named Joseph, Baby Jesus, the Shepherds, the Angel and then she picked up Mary and asked “Who is this?” and he said, “Oh Mama, that’s Gulley”.

    Who knew?

    Gulley said that she takes it as a sign that she might need a haircut and to start dressing a little better.

    And on that note, I’ll wish you a Happy Friday!

  • I don’t care if it’s Chuck E. Cheese, no rat is a good rat

    I was talking to AJ on the phone tonight and she was telling me she was on her way to buy some rat poison because the house she is renting with another girl has a little bit of a rat problem. Last week, she decided that the problem was the bag of dog food she was keeping in the laundry room, so she went and bought a heavy duty trash can to store the food. She went out of town for three days and got home tonight to discover that the rats had chewed through the industrial strengh trash can.

    Chewed through the trash can.

    It reminded me of my own rat story. Ahh, fond memories.

    When P and I were newly married, a family friend offered us free rent in one of his townhomes in exchange for P acting as a leasing manager for the complex. We were young and poor, so we jumped at the chance.

    The townhomes were built around the 1950’s and really quaint. The one we lived in was two stories with hardwood floors and I just loved it.

    One night, while we were sleeping, P jumped up and said “Did you see that?” He’s notorious for talking in his sleep so I didn’t pay that much attention. “What? Did I see what?” He said, “It was a gray, furry thing that ran across the floor.” Umm, yeah sure…go back to sleep.

    Two mornings later, P got up early to go hunting and as he was drinking his coffee, he felt something staring at him. It was a family of baby possums huddled in the corner of our kitchen. So, he grabbed his gun and went hunting in the comfort of his own home.

    I’m kidding.

    The possums scurried out a small hole in the kitchen baseboards. So the next night, P put a Have a Heart trap in our kitchen. It was a tip we’d seen on Martha Stewart for catching wildlife that live in your home.

    The next morning, P goes downstairs fully expecting to see some possums, but instead sees that he has caught a rat. A big, nasty, fat rat. And from what he told me later, the rat lunged at the side of the cage and hissed at him. This was no Jerry mouse, my friends.

    Of course at that point, I felt like we were living under siege. I was completely grossed out to the point of never wanting to step foot in the kitchen again.

    The next night, P was out playing basketball with some friends. I was home by myself, minding my own business, when I start hearing rustling noises coming from the kitchen. Not wanting to come face to face with any member of the phylum rodentia, I run over to the doorway of the kitchen and flip on the light thinking the light will scare whatever it is away.

    Well, the light came on in time for me to see a piece of half eaten toast go flying across the kitchen floor. The worst part (well, maybe not the worst part, but still very bad) was that we don’t even eat toast. This creature was flinging half eaten toast of an unknown origin across my kitchen.

    P came home to find me just slightly undone by this turn of events, so once again the trap came out followed by a good, solid round of rat poison and boarding up any potential gateways to the outdoors that existed in our kitchen.

    And that was the end of our rat problem.

    And we moved out a month later.

  • Paging Dr. Dobson

    I don’t really get my feelings hurt that easily. I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt and think if they say something hurtful, they probably didn’t mean it. Of course, I also spent the first 32 years of my life not being insulted by a person I brought into this world.

    Yesterday, I arrived to pick Caroline up from school only to have her turn away from me and tell me “just leave me alone”. Excuse me?

    She walked away from me and kept telling me to “just leave”.

    I informed her that she had to come with me because there are laws about leaving her alone and like it or not, she had to get in the car with her mama and go home.

    We get in the car and I’m already a little upset by her attitude and behavior. Then, as we’re driving across the parking lot, I hear her voice from the backseat saying “I didn’t want you to pick me up, I don’t like you because you’re an ugly girl.”

    I pulled the move patented by angry, frustrated mothers everywhere, and one I remember well from my childhood. I SLAMMED on my brakes and I promise I laid rubber in the parking lot of the Methodist Church. Hell hath no fury like a mama who spent 24 hours in labor with no epidural until it was time to push.

    I had flashbacks of my own childhood as I heard things coming out of my mouth such as “I am your Mother. You do NOT talk to your Mother like that. I will wear you out if I EVER hear you talk like that.”

    And for all my big talk, what I really wanted to do was put my head down on the steering wheel and cry. I know she’s three, I know she’s figuring out the art of emotional manipulation, and I know that she was tired after her school day. I know I shouldn’t let it hurt, but it did. I wanted to yell, “I would give up my life for you without even a second thought and this is the thanks I get?”

    I had to call Gulley for therapy and it makes me laugh to think of how much our lives have changed since we first became friends seventeen years ago. I remember nights spent talking about things like, “Do you think he likes me? What do you think he meant when he said he’d call?” and now I’m asking, “Am I a good mother? Am I doing something wrong? Why would she say that?”

    I know that as the years go by, Caroline and I are going to have our ups and downs. It’s the dance that mamas and daughters have been doing since the beginning of time and we’ll be no different.

    I know she loves me, she’s just figuring this whole thing out, pushing the limits, testing my boundaries to see how far she can go. As P likes to remind me, I did this. I prayed that we would have a daughter with a strong spirit because in all my rookie, hormonal, pregnant mama confidence, I believed we were up to the task of raising a leader. God is probably still shaking His head and laughing at me saying “Here you go, one strong willed leader coming right up.” I’m going to need all of His help to mold this spirit in the right direction, because that’s my prayer, to mold her spirit without breaking her spirit.

    This evening after bathtime, all the drama of the afternoon was forgotten. I dressed her in her “I Love Mom” pj’s (a shameless ploy to make myself feel better) and we snuggled on the couch. She scooched up under my arm, looked up, kissed me and said “Oh Mama, I hope someday I have a big nose just like you.”

    And that’s how I know, in spite of how she may act or what she may say, that she loves me.

  • The brightest star

    By now, y’all know me well enough to know that I have a serious addiction to Dancing With the Stars. 6 hours and 38 minutes left until go time for Emmitt.

    Y’all know he’s going to bring it on.

    If Mario Lopez wins, it will be the final straw in completely destroying my faith in the American public.

    And if you’re wondering if I am maybe a little over the top in my reality T.V. viewing habits…well yes, yes I am.