Doodle

You can’t change your spots

The other night Caroline and P got home from the ranch late. I walked out to the truck where I found her sound asleep and carried her into her bedroom.

As gently as possible (Don’t anger it! Don’t awaken it!) I changed her out of her dirty ranch clothes and into her pajamas. Then carefully, I tucked her into bed and just as I started to tiptoe out of the room, I heard a little voice say, “Mama?”

“What baby?”

“You look different at night than you do in the daytime.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you don’t look so good and you have a lot of spots on your face.”

Wow. Tough crowd.

And so today I give thanks for my foundation, otherwise known as a miracle in a bottle.
The march of time

The other day I received an email from April, the producer of Vicki Courtney’s “Five Conversations You Must Have With Your Daughter” DVD’s. She needed me to send her a few pictures of Caroline and me to use in the opening sequences of the study and so I started going through photo albums to pull out a few photos.

Looking at all those old photos made my ovaries and my heart feel like they were going to explode. And I also thought about a conversation Caroline and I had before church last Sunday morning.

“Mama? I’m getting big.”

“Yes, baby. You’re pretty big.”

“Am I almost a teenager?”

“No, we still have about eight years until you’re a teenager.” (We just fight over your wardrobe like you’re one.)

“Mama? How long have you had me?”

“Well, I’ve had you almost five and a half years.”

“That’s not very long.”

“No, it’s not very long.”

“Well then how did I get big so fast?”

That’s the question I keep asking myself.

photo by Hollimon Photography
I’m too tired to be coherent

I can’t even talk about the backhouse.

For that matter, I can barely even type so gnarled and twisted are my fingers from all the scraping.

On Sunday, when P pulled out the camera and began taking pictures, Caroline had to get in on the picture-taking action. She picked up the camera and I agreed to let her take one picture of me.

This is what she shot.

Hello Paris Hilton. I think I have your safety goggles.

Caroline looked at the display window and said, “Oh! You look cute, Mama!”

I replied, “Thanks, babe!”

And then I returned to my own private scraping hell without thinking about the fact that she still had the precious camera in her hands. So I shouldn’t have been surprised when I uploaded pictures and found this.

Apparently she is her own favorite subject.
G.E.: They bring baked goods to life

I guess I probably knew from the moment I had a daughter that a day would come when the Easy Bake Oven would enter our lives. It’s really inevitable that at some time in a girl’s life, she will be overcome with the desire to make baked goods using nothing but a packet of powder, a teaspoon of water and a 100 watt lightbulb.

So when Gulley and I were in the midst of our Christmas shopping weekend and she asked if I thought Caroline would like an Easy Bake Oven, I laid down in the aisles of Target and cried.

In reality, I told Gulley that I thought Caroline would love the oven so she bought it for her for Christmas.

Two days after Christmas we all exchanged gifts and, sure enough, Caroline was thrilled with her very own oven. Gulley’s son, Will, was so impressed that he quickly informed us that he’d like Caroline to make the cake for his birthday party using her new Easy Bake Oven, which would be such a sweet idea if the cake was larger than one serving size.

And really, even then, it would have to be just one person who doesn’t really care for dessert.

Anyway, the next day we busted out the Easy Bake Oven at the bright, sunshine-y hour of 7:00 a.m., but then tragedy struck when we realized we didn’t have any 100-watt light bulbs. P and Caroline quickly headed to Home Depot to secure the proper wattage because he is much nicer than I am and, let’s be honest, you know he was hoping for some of that cake.

Easy Baking from Big Mama on Vimeo.

There are a few things I’d like to point out about the video.

1. I have always believed that “if we don’t get stirring, it won’t be good”. It’s practically my life motto.

2. Please notice that I had my large whisk at the ready. Clearly, I’d forgotten that those packets produce about two tablespoons worth of batter and the large whisk was an ambitious choice.

3. I love the way she enunciates “CUP. CAKE.” I believe her enunciatory skills may be directly inherited from her great, great Aunt Fina who definitively ended every word with a “T”.

4. Something about the way she tells me “We can share it” seems insincere and totally reminds me of Dwight Shrute on The Office.

5. I adore the phrase “a little jiffy”. I wish I could take credit for teaching her that, but she is completely self-taught.

And speaking of self-taught, I don’t know where she learned to lick the batter of her fingers like that.

Certainly not from me.
The future’s so bright

Here’s Caroline with Scout before she left for the ranch with her daddy today.

And one more.

I don’t think Scout was sad to see her go.
We felt connected

Before I even begin to attempt to sum up our Christmas in a concise, interesting way (like that will happen) that won’t cause this post to become the reason you were finally able to throw out the Ambien, I feel that I need to let you know that the picture of Caroline in the Merry Christmas post was the picture taken by AJ that we sent out on our Christmas cards.

I would never be so cruel as to subject my poor child to wearing all manner of winter fashion festiveness on a Christmas day where the temperature reached 80 degrees.

Although I’ll admit I was tempted.

And if she’d had her way, she’d have shown up at my mother-in-law’s house wearing a navy sundress from Gap that’s about two sizes too small, which is really irrelevant because IT’S A SUNDRESS and it’s Christmas day.

I only had to say that fifty-nine different times on Christmas morning.

Anyway, we started our Christmas festivities by attending church on Christmas Eve. Caroline has been looking forward to her opportunity to hold her very own candle since last Christmas and I drank enough wine before the service to ensure I wouldn’t be too nervous about it. You all know I’m kidding. There isn’t enough wine to make you feel good about your five-year-old holding a candle.

After the service, we went to Mimi and Bops’ house to have our Christmas celebration with them.

This is Caroline with her cousin Sarah. My sister and I both have one daughter so we have a master plan to make them dress alike for the next 4-5 years. It was what our mother did to us and there is no reason why they should be spared just because they don’t have a sibling.

This is what Caroline had waiting for her over there.

To say she was thrilled is an understatement. I knew that’s what she was getting and when we were in Bryan last week, I told Nena that Caroline was getting a pink Barbie Mustang and Nena said, “Honey, listen, who wouldn’t want a pink car?”

I believe the entire Mary Kay sales force has proved that point.

My sister and her husband bought Caroline the board game “Sorry” at my suggestion. It was one of my favorite games when I was little and I just knew Caroline would love it. And I was right; she does love it. However, I now know that the reason it’s called “Sorry” is because whoever invented it was “Sorry” that they had to play it with a five-year-old who likes to make up her own rules as the game goes on.

Later on, we finally managed to get her out of the car with the time-honored threat of Santa passing us by because she wasn’t asleep. When she got home, I let her open her new Christmas pajamas, courtesy of my mom.

The next morning, P and I were awakened with the news that she’d heard the dogs barking at Santa in the middle of the night and could we please GET UP RIGHT NOW.

She was thrilled to see that Santa brought the roller skates she wanted along with the Barbie Diamond Castle, Diamond Castle Barbie, and Diamond Ken, who we like to call Elvis, although judging by the sparkles on his jacket, Liberace might be the better moniker.

When you squeeze Barbie’s hand, she sings some song about how she feels connected and I’m not exactly sure what she feels connected to, but it’s a sure bet it’s not this metrosexual Diamond Castle Ken.

Although I did catch him doing some push-ups on the living room floor.

Santa also brought some incredibly cheap makeup that he found at Walmart and I got quite the Christmas morning makeover.

I haven’t worn that much blue glitter eye makeup since my 9th grade Homecoming dance when I hoped to channel Madonna.

After spending the rest of the morning playing Jenga (HELLO, new obsession), and attempting to permanently sever P’s toes with Caroline’s new roller skates, we headed over to my mother-in-law’s house for Christmas lunch.

Not in a navy sundress.

We ate way too much turkey and dressing, brought home leftovers while vowing we’d never manage to eat them all, and continued to eat ourselves into a stupor over the next few days.

And I can’t even discuss the mass consumption of sugar cookies. It just makes me feel shameful.

Especially when I see Ken/Elvis mocking me with his commitment to physical fitness even during the holiday season.

Hope y’alls was merry.