Doodle

  • The trip afield

    Wow. They aren’t kidding about that whole killer whale thing.

    Shamu – 1 Melanie – 0

    That’s not a photo of the real Shamu leaping out of the perfectly landscaped flowers, by the way. I wish I had one to share with you but my iPhone doesn’t come with a telephoto lens and it wouldn’t have mattered anyway because I was too busy counting heads and making sure no one decided to run off in search of cotton candy to take close up photos of a whale. Plus, I’m assuming you’ve seen one before and don’t really need a visual aid.

    Yesterday morning I got up a little earlier than usual because I knew I’d need the extra time to pack two sack lunches and get us all sunscreened up in preparation for our day o’ fun. I dropped Caroline off at school so she could ride the school bus to Sea World with her class and headed to meet them in my own car. Her teacher had sent a note home asking parents to please take their own cars because there wouldn’t be enough room for everyone on the school bus and for that I am forever grateful. I didn’t really handle the school bus experience that well when I was actually in school, so you can only imagine what my late thirties have done to me in terms of transportation flexibility.

    I arrived about thirty minutes before the bus and huddled together with a group of parents as we attempted to stay warm. What none of us counted on was that the temps (What am I? A meteorologist? Temps?) were in the high 50’s and we’d all dressed like it was in the high 80’s because we live in San Antonio and it’s the end of April and it’s always in the high 80’s by the end of April. Who needs to watch the weather this time of year? The forecast is HOT AND GETTING HOTTER. Except for yesterday. If any of the gift shops had been open they would have made a killing selling Shamu sweatshirts for $50 a pop.

    Eventually the kids arrived and I was assigned my own little group of five girls, including Caroline, to guide through the park. We spent the morning learning about the differences between sea lions and seals, how many pounds of snow are produced in the penguin exhibit each day, and why you should never, EVER pick up a fake fingernail that you find on the ground. (I personally conducted that last lecture and I feel it will be a life lesson that will benefit and perhaps scar them all forever.)

    The girls fed the sea lions and the dolphins.

    They tried to feed the alligators but they weren’t hungry. I didn’t miss the opportunity to tell them that the alligators were probably full from eating a first grader that wandered away from their field trip chaperone. Don’t judge me. That park was swarming with kids and I did what had to be done.

    Caroline fell in love with the shark exhibit and the coral reefs full of fish and asked for my phone so she could take pictures. At the end of the day there were about 276 photos of everything from someone’s foot to the sandwich she ate for lunch, but she did take one picture that I think looks a little bit like a piece of colorful, yet blurry, art.

    Or maybe I just think that because I’m her mother. And I’m really tired.

    After lunch, everyone was herded into Shamu’s stadium for an educational lesson on killer whales and then when it was over we walked five miles to listen to a two minute presentation about sea lions. Totally worth it.

    Finally it was time to get the kids back on the bus. I walked Caroline and the other girls to the meeting spot, told her I loved her and asked for a hug. She said, “MOM. I NEED TO GET ON THE BUS. I’M GOING TO BE LATE.” and got on the bus just like she was fifteen years old. Whatever happened to “Thank you, mama, for spending your entire day at Sea World when you could have spent that time trying to get your eyebrows under control or folding the laundry that’s been sitting on top of the dryer for two weeks.”?

    I got in my car, turned on some music to take me to my happy place, and headed to Happy Hour.

    Many of you have mentioned that you aren’t familiar with Sonic or that they don’t have them where you live. I’m not one to tell people what to do, but you really need to put your house on the market and move TOOT SUITE to a town that has a Sonic. You are living a shadow of what your life could be.

    Then I got home and made Ree’s French Breakfast Puffs for Bible Study tomorrow morning while I sang “I’m Every Woman” by Whitney Houston.

    And I ate one of them. Or maybe two.

    Three at the most.

    And then we ordered sushi for dinner because we are cold and heartless creatures who were apparently unmoved by all the sea life we communed with throughout the day.

    A long time ago, before I had a child, a woman told me in all seriousness that the worst part of raising kids was having to endure the theme parks. Even after yesterday’s field trip, I don’t agree with that statement. I still contend that the worst part of raising kids is having to take them to the zoo.

    Because, the smell of the penguin habit notwithstanding, Sea World is not a bad place to spend a day.

    Especially with a six-year-old who won’t be six forever.

  • High maintenance

    Last night while Caroline was taking a bath, I was in the bathroom putting away clean clothes and examining my eyebrows in the magnifying mirror. (You don’t even want to know the state they were in. Like two caterpillars fighting for space above my eyes.)

    As I moved around the bathroom and went in and out of my closet, Caroline filled me in on the rules of some kind of game we were supposed to be playing that involved me guessing which side of the bathtub she was on and if she was on her back or her stomach.

    I wasn’t really in the mood to play this game that didn’t really seem like a game so I was just half-heartedly answering “left” or “right” whenever she yelled at me that it was time to choose my answer. So she came up out of the water and told me I needed to be more excited about the game.

    Then she said, “You know what, Mama? Some people tell me that I’m high maintenance. And you know what?”

    “What, baby?”

    “They’re totally right.”

    At least she owns it.

  • Girl world

    Yesterday was one of those days where it threatened to rain all day, but it never actually poured down rain until the minute I walked out the door to pick up Caroline from school. I was so glad I was wearing a white shirt. Nothing like a peep show at the elementary school.

    After we got home and changed into dry clothes, I emailed the soccer team to let them know we would still have practice unless it was pouring down rain at 5:30. If we’re going to continue at our current level of mediocrity, we need all the practice we can get. Especially since I missed last week’s practice and P reported that he’d basically spent an hour being beat up by a bunch of six year old girls. To which I replied, “Oh, that’s too bad. Did I tell you that I chose a color called Bubblebath for my toes during my pedicure today? Wow, I’d love to hear more about soccer practice but I’m on my way to eat delicious sushi with grownups at Nobu. Love you.”

    We checked the radar around 5:00 because we are big meteorology nerds and determined that practice could go on as scheduled even though there were definitely some showers to the south that appeared to be heading our way in the next hour or so. But we decided a few measly showers wouldn’t stop the Cheetah Girls. The Cheetah Girls are warriors who may or may not occasionally cry when one of them falls and scrapes her knees.

    After about twenty minutes of practice (insert picture of P and I herding a very cute group of feral cats), the skies opened up and the rain came down. Most of the girls’ parents were there so we called practice and everyone ran to their cars to head home.

    But there were two girls left whose mothers weren’t there yet because they had to shuttle other kids to other various practices all over town, so we told those girls to hop in the car with us and we’d just all wait in the parking lot until their mothers arrived.

    A little over seven years ago, I was pregnant with Caroline and P was in Colorado chaperoning about sixty high school students on a ski trip. Normally I would have been on the trip with him, but I had a host of issues with riding a bus for seventeen hours with high school kids before I ever got pregnant so there wasn’t really even a remote possibility that I was going to attempt that kind of torture while carrying a child. He’d arranged to have a few other female chaperones on the trip, but they’d all had to cancel at the last minute.

    P, bless his heart, ended up being the chaperone and small group leader for ten fourteen year old girls during that trip. He’d call me every night after he got back to his hotel room and report that they’d put gel in his hair or that they’d used something called a “straight iron” on him. On the last night of the trip he called to tell me that someone had a pair of scissors and he wasn’t sure what happened but the girls all started cutting each other’s hair and, the next thing he knew, three of them were crying in the bathroom while the other girls gathered outside the door and tried to console them with loving statements like “it will grow back” or “it doesn’t look that uneven from the left side”.

    In short, he was slightly traumatized by the whole experience.

    He arrived home from the trip on Wednesday afternoon and I was scheduled to have an ultrasound the following Friday. It was the big ultrasound. The ultrasound that can tell you if you’re having a boy or a girl. And if you think I was going to wait to find out that piece of information then you don’t know me at all. Of course it wasn’t like I really needed the ultrasound to tell me I was having a girl because I’d known that for a long time thanks to the science of peeing on some Drano Crystals and seeing them turn a lovely shade of seafoam green. Not to mention that I felt that God was speaking to me through Neil Diamond every time I heard “Sweet Caroline” come on the radio.

    On the way to the doctor’s office that Friday morning, P looked at me and told me he knew we were having a girl. I thought maybe Neil Diamond had been speaking to him too, but he said that he knew when he was on that ski trip surrounded by all the chaos and squeals of those girls that God was preparing him for life with a daughter. And as much as he didn’t understand all the drama and the high pitched voices and the nail polish and why they thought it was a good idea to cut each other’s hair, he knew that it was exactly what he wanted.

    Fast forward to a rained out soccer practice seven years later. We pile in the car and we’re all soaking wet. The girls are all squealing in their high pitched voices and I put some Taylor Swift on my iPod because I know the love language of six year old girls. And from the backseat, all three of them start singing “Our Song” as loud as their little voices can sing. The fact that they didn’t know the majority of the real lyrics didn’t dim their enthusiasm and confirmed why I never realized that “Greased Lightning” was a really dirty song until I was in my twenties.

    They sang their hearts out and laughed and tickled each other. And in between they were all yelling “COACH P! COACH P! DID I TELL YOU ABOUT THE TIME THAT MY MOM TOLD MY SISTER SHE WAS GROUNDED FOR A WEEK BECAUSE SHE STAYED ON THE PHONE TOO LATE?” and “COACH P! COACH P! DID YOU KNOW THAT I HAVE AN IMAGINARY FRIEND NAMED ZUM ZUM?” and “COACH P! COACH P! DID YOU KNOW THAT ‘WHITE HORSE’ BY TAYLOR SWIFT IS MY VERY FAVORITE SONG IN THE WHOLE WORLD OR MAYBE IT’S ‘PARTY IN THE U.S.A.’?”

    At one point he asked me if Taylor Swift had been a contestant on American Idol and I replied, “No, she was just a seventeen year old girl who got struck by lightning.” (Because I like to mix metaphors.) And Caroline yelled out, “MY MOM JUST SAW SOME GIRL GET STRUCK BY LIGHTNING!” All the girls screamed and I had to explain that no one got struck by lightning, I was just using an expression that ultimately didn’t even make sense.

    P just looked at me in amazement that so many different conversations and activities were taking place all at the same time in the backseat of our car. It was like his official welcome party to GIRL WORLD.

    And I don’t know if anything has ever made me happier in my whole life.

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  • Gone fishing

    While I was on my tour of the United States, P and Caroline headed to the ranch to do a little fishing.

    I think they had a pretty good time.

    We won’t talk about how long it took me to get all the tangles out of her hair when I got home.

    Because what’s important is the size of that bass.

    And the size of those smiles.

    *Caroline’s shirt says “A bad day huntin’ with Dad beats a good day shoppin’ with Mom”. Personally, I think that’s debatable.

  • I’ll be singing On the Wings of Love all day

    Oh, did we have a big day yesterday and not just because it was the season premiere of Tori & Dean: Home Sweet Hollywood. Although really? What else could I have possibly wanted to make my quest for the perfect day complete?

    Not that I was really on the quest for a perfect day because what are the odds that a day will come when I am able to watch a marathon of Real Housewives of NY while eating chips and queso in bed and not gain even a single pound?

    So about a month ago, P mentioned that it was time for another helicopter hunt and he asked Caroline if she wanted to go with him. And she has spent the last thirty days telling anyone who will listen that she is going to ride in a helicopter. She’s also spent the last thirty days waking up first thing in the morning and asking in a voice not fit for 6:30 a.m., “IS TODAY THE DAY I’M FLYING IN THE HELICOPTER WITH DADDY?”

    P also asked me if I’d like to go up in the helicopter but my response was slightly less enthusiastic than Caroline’s. I believe my exact words were “I wouldn’t go up in that helicopter if Jesus were the pilot”. Which I guess means I’ll never have one of those bumper stickers on the back of my car declaring that God is my co-pilot. And for that I believe that God and I are both very grateful.

    But I did want to go down to the ranch and experience the whole thing. I just wanted to do it on the ground where sane people like to stay. And also people who made the mistake of underestimating their fear of heights at the Rodeo Carnival and walked around feeling seasick for three hours after deciding it was a good idea to ride the Tower of Doom.

    However, I am a strong believer in not passing down my fears and phobias and general oddities to my child. It’s why I’ve spent the last six years trying to act like carnival workers and people who are double-jointed don’t completely freak me out. And why I force myself to occasionally play something on my iPod besides Kenny Rogers’ Greatest Hits.

    Ruby, don’t take your love to town.

    Sure enough, we arrived at the ranch and there was a real live helicopter. With a propellor and everything. I felt a little bit like I just stepped on to the set of The Bachelor because they do love them some helicopters.

    (I believe this post may serve as confirmation that I am addicted to reality television. If I mention Flava Flav, feel free to stage an intervention.)

    P and Caroline walked up to where the helicopter had landed. Notice their matching safety orange shirts.

    They surveyed the situation.

    They climbed into the helicopter. I began to pray without ceasing.

    What? They get to wear headsets? I would have totally considered doing it if I’d known there were headsets involved.

    Truthfully, the headsets wouldn’t have made any difference because a chicken can’t change her spots or her feathers or whatever. (I’m resisting the urge to say I’m the coward of the county but everything comes back to Kenny sooner or later.)

    And they’re off. Flying high upon the wings of love.

    I spent the next ten minutes experiencing mild to moderate nausea until they were safely back on the ground. Judging from the look on Caroline’s face, I think it may go down as the highlight of her six and a half years.

    After the hunt was over and we all ate some lunch, we hopped into my granite countertops and Caroline drove us around the ranch.

    The wildflowers are truly unbelievable. There are only about three weeks a year when South Texas is this beautiful so I took about a hundred pictures to document it. (And, yes, I’m still experimenting with iPhoto apps.)

    I asked Caroline if she wanted to change into the pretty pink dress I’d brought along so we could take some pictures in the flowers. She looked at me and said, “NO WAY, JOSE.”

    So I’ll just have to treasure these precious memories of her in an oversized safety orange t-shirt.

    After our wildflower safari, Caroline had a little target practice. There are three less water bottles in the world courtesy of her superior marksmanship.

    And then it was time to go home. Even though she wasn’t tired AT ALL. NOT EVEN A LITTLE BIT TIRED.

    Or maybe just a little.

  • Fast Eddie

    So many of you asked about yesterday’s pictures that I wanted to let you know that they were taken by P at our friend’s ranch this past Saturday about forty-five minutes south of San Antonio. Which explains not only the mass quantity of wildflowers, but slightly better photography skills that what I usually feature.

    Other than the wildflowers, I can’t remember everything we did last weekend but I can assure you that it involved nothing to get me closer to my goal of having a turquoise kitchen. After I spent most of Thursday afternoon picking up various paint chips from all manner of hardware stores, P wanted to kill my buzz by reminding me that we have cracks in our sheetrock that will need to be taped and floated.

    I don’t really understand all the specifics of the situation but know enough to realize it involves things that are beyond my skill level. Part of me was really tempted to just grab some caulk and throw caution to the wind. However, our kitchen is the first room people see when they walk in our house and it deserves better than my rudimentary floating and taping skills. Hopefully Shorty can get to it at some point in the next few weeks, but P seems to think he needs Shorty to perform his actual job instead of helping me with my home decorating whims. I’ll keep you posted on Project Turquoise because, as God is my witness, I will never go hungry again and I will have turquoise walls.

    On Saturday we had our first soccer game of the season. I can’t really tell you how sad I am that every single one of our games this spring are scheduled for 8:30 or 9:30. Whatever happened to 11:00? Why do people hate 11:00 so much?

    We showed up at the field a little before game time. Caroline had spent the night with Mimi and Bops and she came running across the field to meet us and express her excitement about the beauty of her lavender uniform. As we gathered all the Cheetah Girls around us for a little pre-game pep talk (Remember to kick the ball! Don’t forget to run down the field! There’s no crying in soccer! Mental toughness!) the coach of the opposing team walked over and asked to speak with us. The poor woman appeared to be on the verge of tears as she explained that she didn’t know anything about coaching soccer. She said the only reason she was coaching was because her daughter’s team needed a coach and she didn’t know how to contact all of her players and only two of them had shown up to play. She was afraid the Dragonflies were going to have to forfeit the game.

    Our hearts went out to her because that was us last season. P and I signed up for the whole coaching gig because we played the email version of Chicken with the other players’ parents for an entire weekend before we finally caved and agreed that we could coach the team, forever branding ourselves as BIG SUCKERS. Never mind the fact that what we don’t know about soccer could fill a large, highly uninteresting book.

    Of course I think it speaks volumes about our coaching ability that all of our players wanted to be back on our team for the spring season. Or maybe it just indicates how much their parents don’t want to coach. Whatever. I choose to believe it’s the level of skill and quality of snacks that we’ve brought to the team.

    Since each team needs a least four players to run up and down the field aimlessly, P suggested that we just let the other team substitute in some of our girls so that we could play the game and the girls could have a good time. Their coach was overjoyed with this suggestion and tearfully thanked us for our understanding.

    None of our girls wanted to play for the Dragonflies but we explained the concept of good sportsmanship and that the alternative was to go home and clean their room for a quarter. That seemed to persuade them, so the game began with two of the Cheetah Girls playing for the Dragonflies.

    Well, about two minutes in and after one of our girls had scored a goal for the Dragonflies, their other team members showed up. We immediately pulled our girls back to our side and proceeded to play out the rest of the game. I am sad to report that the Dragonflies promptly destroyed the Cheetah Girls. In fact, I told P that I believe the whole thing was some sort of elaborate Hustler-like scheme to throw us off our game. We were conned into feeling sorry for them and then they laid the SMACK DOWN.

    The coach walked up to us after the game with a big smile on her face and said, “I don’t know where they learned that. It wasn’t from me.”

    Then, clearly, she is fielding a team of future Mia Hamms. Or con artists.

    But I take pride in knowing we had the best snacks and the cutest uniforms. Because that’s what soccer is really all about.