Another day

Many of y’all were wondering after yesterday’s post if I am going to take Caroline to get her hair cut, since obviously this issue is keeping her up at night. The answer is no, we are not getting her hair cut, and my reasons are two fold.

1. In all honesty, she couldn’t care less about her hair. The reason she wants to get it cut is because she knows when we visit the upscale salon called Great Clips, they give her a dum dum after they cut her hair.

2. I have spent way too many hours of my life coaxing that baby fine hair up into pigtails and other assorted up-dos while it was growing out to abandon my efforts so that she can have a free lollipop.

So, the hair? I have a drawerful of Goody elastics and big bows that say it is staying long. She can find free candy somewhere else besides Great Clips.

In other news, it was 79 degrees here yesterday. 79 degrees y’all. It’s the middle of February and I would be afraid it’s due to global warming, but since I’ve lived in Texas my whole life, I know it’s really due to the fact that I live in you know, Texas.

Anyway, this spring-like weather has me contemplating and pondering two very serious issues. Y’all know that old saying that says something like in spring a young man’s fancy turns to love?

Well for me, my fancy turns to thoughts of the imminent need for hair removal and new sunglasses.

Not necessarily in that order.

And I realize that some of y’all may now be concerned with all this talk of hair removal, wondering to yourself what kind of hairy beast is this one we call Big Mama? It does my heart good to know that some of y’all are picturing some kind of Cousin It with orthodontia.

Really it does.

But just so y’all know, what I am talking about here is shaving my legs. It’s the constant battle, and for someone who is as OCD as I am, I must have smooth legs when the weather is warm. I can’t do the every other day shave, the stubble will drive me to the brink of insanity and trust me, that’s a short trip. I have to do the every day leg shave. Just thinking about the stubble makes me want to itch.

When the weather turns warm, I have this sudden desire to get a second mortgage on our home and go to the nearest laser hair removal center and ask for a package called “The Works”. Let’s just take care of this, once and for all. And really, if I had saved the money and earned interest on what I’ve been spending, lo these past 24 years, on razors and shaving cream, I could head to Smooth Solutions and get it done.

But oh no, I have never been one to be that far sighted.

So, this summer I am pinning all my hopes on this fabulous product by Aveeno. I’m not saying it’s the answer to world peace, but I will say I have been using it all winter and it does seem to significantly slow down hair growth. Of course, the fact that I’ve been using it all winter means I’ve actually used it about 5 times since I don’t shave that often when the weather is cold. That’s what long pants and boots are for ladies.

Anyway, if you’re not ready to spend your life savings on laser hair removal, then y’all might want to give it a try. And no, this is not a paid advertisement, just a friendly suggestion from a fellow warrior in the ongoing battle against unsightly stubble.

My second issue and honestly, I have a multitude of issues, but I’m only addressing two today, is the search for a new pair of sunglasses. I seem to have misplaced my sunglasses, which means that is $12.00 spent at Steinmart that I’ll never get back.

Really, it’s just as well, because truth be told, one of the lenses had started falling out of the frame on a fairly regular basis, which just goes to show that the people in Taiwan aren’t manufacturing the same quality of product they used to provide. The only reason I’m sad about losing the glasses is they held some sentimental value because when I bought them two summers ago, I felt oh so cool in my oversized Nicole Richie type shades and one day as I was leaving Gulley’s house, I put them on and her son Jackson said “OH!! Can I please wear your goggles?”

I would feel bad, but y’all know that DJ AM probably said the same thing to Nicole at some point.

Anyway, I am in the midst of a sunglass style quandry. Do I purchase another pair of the goggle-like oversize sunglasses or do I go with a new look?

I am leaning towards the retro Ray-ban aviator style, circa Tom Cruise before he jumped on Oprah’s couch and became an idiot. I had a pair of aviators when I was in college that an ex-boyfriend bought me for Christmas, but I lost them after about six months. The relationship didn’t last much longer than the glasses because really, if he had known me at all, he would’ve known not to spend more than $10.00 on a pair of sunglasses for me, since I tend to abuse them like a rented circus monkey.

So, these are the deep and pressing issues that have been occupying my mind for about the last 24 hours. It’s a good thing I don’t have to worry about global warming, it would just be too much.

I realize that in talking about the toxic poop blowout yesterday, I completely overlooked all of the excitement we had this past weekend that didn’t involve throwing away a perfectly good pair of tights. I now feel it is my duty (as opposed to doody) to fill y’all in on the big happenings at the house of Big Mama.

Please realize that the term “big happenings” may be a slight exaggeration.

Saturday, Mimi and Bops took Caroline and me to see Go Dog Go! at the local children’s theater. It was our first trip to the theater and I have to say that all of us loved it. The performance was great and I loved watching Caroline’s face as she laughed out loud at so many different parts. The whole experience was perfect, except for the beginning when the director, who apparently forgot he was talking to an audience made up of little people with attention spans like a housefly on speed, kept going on and on about the concept behind Go Dog Go!. Bops leaned over and whispered “This guy is about to put me under”, so just imagine how the younger crowd felt.

After the show, Caroline and I drove down to meet P at the ranch. I realize that some of y’all may be wondering when Big Mama became a showcase of dead animals as opposed to a bastion of mediocre writing, so I promise this will be the last picture of carnage that I’ll post for awhile. But Caroline was so proud of what she and her daddy “KILLED” that I just have to share this picture.

In case any of y’all are wondering, those aren’t actually pigs, they are javelinas and they are nasty, stinky little creatures that have sharp teeth. It was like a dream come true watching my baby girl poke and prod these dead animals…really like something out of Beatrix Potter book.

And speaking of livestock that didn’t fare too well, how about the Aggies giving the Longhorns a 100-82 beating last night? Y’all didn’t think I wouldn’t mention it, did you? Gig’em Ags!

I promise that I will now return to our regular programming of things that don’t involve dead pigs and sports.

This morning, as I came stumbling out of the bedroom, P said to me, “You didn’t post anything last night”. For any of y’all who were thinking the same thing, let me explain the reason why.

We went to the rodeo last night.

By the time we got home, I was so exhausted that if I had written a post, this is what it would have said.

We went to the rodeo last night.

Now that it is the morning after, I am still suffering from a turkey leg/sausage on a stick/funnel cake hangover, but I think I can at least hit the high points.

Our morning started yesterday with Caroline leaping out of the bed and yelling “Let’s go watch some bullridin’ right now. Let me get my hat!”. As I made her lunch and got her ready to go to school, the hat remained on her head the entire time. There really are few things cuter than a cowgirl in footie pajamas.

By the time I picked her up from school, she was at a level of frenzy that I can’t explain other than to say there was a lot of talking! about! the! bulls! All I could think was that she was completely wired and hadn’t even had cotton candy yet.

We went with some friends of ours and their daughter, Sadie, who is Caroline’s age. As we all walked onto the fairgrounds, the girls held hands while they pointed out all THE COWS! AND THE TRASH CANS THAT LOOK LIKE COWS! AND THE HUGE HORSES!

We got there a little early so that we’d have time to eat the prerequisite rodeo food before the show started. Where else but the fair and the rodeo can you eat a dinner that can be summed up by saying, “I’ll start with the foot long corndog, followed by a turkey leg, an onion blossom, sausage on a stick and a fresh squeezed lemonade to wash it all down. Then for dessert, let’s have a couple of funnel cakes topped off with some cotton candy.”

The best part is it’s all so economical that our little family of three was able to eat dinner for about $100.00. And in case y’all were wondering, that price includes the indigestion.

We finally headed inside for the actual rodeo portion of the evening. Last night was opening night, which means one thing, XTREME Bull Riding, bull riding that is so tough that they don’t need to put the E in XTREME.

We were on our way to our seats, when the very helpful usher informed us that the show was about to start and we’d have to wait outside until the opening sequence of the rodeo was over, which would take about fifteen minutes and included FIREWORKS! and a RING! OF! FIRE!. I did what all mamas would do and threw myself on his mercy and begged that he let us take the little girls in because this would be their favorite part. He was very kind, understanding and accommodating and said, “Nope, sorry”, as he let the guys selling glow in the dark necklaces, beer and cotton candy go on in. Obviously, they had priority over the people who had actually purchased tickets.

When we saw that he had just let them in, P decided that there was no way the cotton candy salesman was going to see the fireworks and our daughter wasn’t, so he and Sadie’s mama took charge and just walked on in while the rest of us followed. It was an incredible act of rebellion that was obviously taking place all over the arena, given the floods of people walking to their seats.

So, with my heart still beating a little fast over our usher coup de grace due to the fact that I am such a rebel by nature, we found our seats and watched the opening of the rodeo, which really is the best part. Where else can you find real cowboys, fireworks and a ring of fire that would make Johnny Cash proud? Top it all off with the Star Spangled Banner and you’ve got yourself a little piece of Texas heaven.

We watched the rodeo clowns, including the legendary Leon Coffee and we watched the little kids in the Mutton Bustin’ competition while Caroline looked on with pure envy. It’s just a matter of time before she asks for her own helmet and mutton so that she can compete on the lucrative Mutton Bustin’ circuit. The little boy that won last night even received his very own belt buckle, if y’all can even imagine.

Then, it was time for XTREME Bulls. Let me just say that if I had a son, I would not want him to be a bull rider. Of course if he were to be a bull rider, I’d have to name him Cody, B.J., or Travis, since that seems to be a requirement for young men who want to risk their life on a bull.

We watched, we cheered, we laughed and a grand time was had by all. But really, for me, the hero of the night wasn’t the young man named B.J. who won the bull riding competition, it was P. Not just because he made sure Caroline got to see the opening fireworks, but because most importantly, he brought enough Tums in his pocket for everyone.

Yesterday, while I was reading different blogs, I discovered that Jeana over at Days to Come, had written about a dream she had about Dr. Phil, which was so weird because that same night I had a very real dream in which Boomama emailed me to let me know how to properly DVR the Montel show. It seems that I had been missing the first twenty minutes of Montel and she had the answer as to why.

I’m not sure anyone has the answer as to why Jeana and I are having dreams about third rate talk show hosts.

Let me state for the record, that in real life, I don’t actually watch the Montel show. I also feel fairly safe in saying that Boomama doesn’t either. That’s just a guess on my part, so if I’m wrong, she can let me know.

It amazes me how things like that creep into my subconcious. Okay, it makes sense that Boomama popped up in a dream because we do email back and forth on occasion, but Montel?

In all fairness, Montel and I do go way back because he spoke at an assembly at my high school during my junior year. They brought him in to ease tensions due to a “race riot” in my school cafeteria.

I attended high school in Beaumont, Texas, and due to the fact that Beaumont is a little behind the times by about thirty or forty years, the high schools had only been desegregated for about four years and this was in the late ’80’s. In truth, all of the students were fine with it and there weren’t any problems. However, the media (and I use that term loosely) in Beaumont was always looking for a good story about race relations.

At my high school, there were two different lines in the cafeteria; the hot lunch line and the a la carte line. The a la carte line was always the more popular choice because they served the best burritos ever. Seriously, they were these crunchy burritos with chili sauce and I’d eat one with a side of fries every day because I was sixteen and at a point in life where I was still acquainted with my metabolism.

The only problem with the burritos, other than an unbelievably high fat content that is probably affecting all of my classmates’ cholesterol levels to this day, is that they tended to run out of them. This meant that there was always a race to get to the a la carte line.

Well, one day, Antoine (who happened to be black) and Keith (who happened to be white) got into a fight over who was in line first. Due to the fact that they were high school boys overflowing with testosterone, the fight escalated and turned into pretty much a full blown cafeteria food fight. If memory serves, I think our vice-principal might have gotten pushed over a table. It was not a pretty scene, yet it was not a race riot, it was a burrito riot.

Word spread like wildfire and next thing we knew, all the media had shown up at the school to interview students about the “race riot” in the cafeteria. Of course, since we were teenagers and looking for any kind of fame, we lined up to talk about the incident. I’ll never forget our head cheerleader, Maggie, talking to Gail at Channel 4 news and saying, “I was like, so scared. Food was like, flying everywhere”.

Really, the only thing anyone was scared of was not getting a burrito for lunch.

One thing led to another and eventually the school administration decided to bring in Montel to ease the tensions caused by the burrito riot. Of course, the student body was totally fine, but the school officials were feeling the heat to do something, when really the best thing they could have done was up the order for burritos.

So, Montel came to the school and gave a speech that I can’t tell y’all anything about, except that he kept saying “MOUNTAIN, get out of my way” and none of us really knew what that had to do with anything, but from then on the lunchroom was filled with peace, harmony and plenty of burritos with chili sauce.

It’s no wonder he got his own talk show.

I have documented, without shame, my OCD tendencies when it comes to all things sleep related. Honestly, if the moon and the stars aren’t aligned just right, it can throw my entire REM cycle off. So y’all will realize exactly how tired I am when I tell you this.

Yesterday morning, we went to play with Jackson. The sun was shining for the first time in weeks and so the kids played outside. Naturally, they wanted to play in the sandbox and due to the previous cold, wet days, the sand was of a consistency guaranteed to find its way into crevices that it would never again find its way out of without a complete hose down.

In spite of the sun, it was too cold outside to hose the kids down like a scene out of a women in prison movie, so I had to settle for dusting Caroline off as well as you can dust wet, cold sand, before putting her socks and shoes back on and heading home.

When we got home, it was time for rest time and she wanted to rest in my bed. Due to the fact that I was so desperate for a moment or two of silence, I said sure. She climbed in my bed, we turned on a movie, and I went back in the kitchen to do important things like file my nails and read People magazine in sweet, sweet peace and quiet.

About an hour later, she comes out of the room and tells me she got a little sand in my bed. That sentence will go down as one of the understatements of the year. There was enough sand in my bed to claim my mattress “beachfront property”.

No big deal, I’ll just change the sheets later.

Well, it is now later and I just finished brushing the sand out of the bed with my hand. We all know that all the brushing in the world isn’t going to stop me from feeling like I’m camping tonight, but I am so tired that I can’t bring myself to change the sheets.

What happened to that sweet girl with the OCD? I guess I’m proof that sleep deprivation combined with a head cold can trump even the strongest OCD tendencies.

Over the last year and a half, it has become increasingly apparent that Caroline’s social calendar is far more packed with events than ours. Of course that’s not saying much considering that when we looked at our calendars for 2007 to mark down big social events, it equated to us writing down my cousin’s wedding on June 2…that’s it…for the whole year. Oh, I’m sure we’ll have other big events that will come up such as the Cattle Baron’s Ball or you know… a cookout at the neighbor’s house, but for now we’re not exactly all booked up.

Anyway, I realized that Caroline averages 3-4 birthday parties a month, which means that we average giving away 3-4 toys a month at these various parties. I have no problem with the gift giving, my issue is that I am a procrastinator.

In the perfect world that exists only inside my head, preparations for these parties would go like this. We would receive an invitation from some sweet child in Caroline’s class and I would display it on our magnetic chalkboard to remind me of the upcoming festivities. The day before the party, I would look through my stored stash of gender appropriate, moderately priced toys, pick one from the pile and gift wrap it in a room that looks just like Martha Stewart’s, complete with rolls of beautiful paper and streams of festive ribbon and more scotch tape than anyone could ever need. We would head to the party, fresh as a daisy, with the perfect gift in hand.

And then I wake up.

The reality is that the morning of the party, I notice an invitation displayed on our chalkboard and say “Oh man (truth be told I usually don’t say “man”, but I’m trying to keep it family friendly), that party is TODAY?”. Best case scenario, we head to Learning Express to find a toy that I’ll pay way too much for, but I do it anyway because it’s the closest toy store and they have free gift wrap. It’s just a bonus that I get to listen to Caroline whine and bargain to try to get a toy for herself while I threaten that if she doesn’t shape up, we’re not going to the party at all.

The whole experience really puts me in the party mood. Bring on the pinata and the Dora cupcakes.

There are times that I remember the party earlier in the week and while I’m making one of my thrice weekly visits to Target, I pick out a good toy. I always feel a little smug at my preparedness…it creates a real sense of accomplishment. I am ahead of the game. And yes, I need to get a life.

When this happens, I get home and deposit the gift on a shelf in our laundry room, still wrapped in the Target bag. The day of the party, usually around the time we’re about to walk out the door, I remember it needs to be wrapped and look in my real life gift wrapping station, which consists of a plastic container shoved under my bed filled with various wrap, ribbons, and an empty roll of scotch tape. Martha Stewart would cry if she saw it.

And I don’t mean a good kind of cry.

I’ll finally decide that maybe red and green polka dot wrap doesn’t necessarily look too Christmas-y or that the stork on a gift bag from my baby shower could pass as a whimsical birthday bird.

Anyway, I say all this to ask this question. Do any of y’all have a favorite gift that you like to give at a child’s birthday party? It can be anything, whether it’s for a boy or a girl, as long as it’s in a price range that won’t cause me to take a second mortgage on our home.

The dream of the gift wrapping room is never going to happen, but at least I could have my perfect stash of gifts that wouldn’t just exist in my head.

Martha would be so semi-proud.