Another day

Where do I even begin to talk about the last week?

The smart money would be at the beginning.

And the problem is I’d love to do just that but the truth is I’ve barely had one minute to myself in the last week. Which is fine if you’re a normal person but not so much if you’re an introvert.

That’s right. I’m an introvert. I’ve felt better about it ever since I read something that explained it’s not that I don’t want to be around people ever, it’s just that I need time by myself to recharge and regroup and not drink a bottle of tequila while rocking back and forth in a corner.

So the good news is I’m not a complete anti-social hermit. The bad news is I sometimes just need to be an anti-social hermit for about six hours in a row.

And the really bad news is that summer time doesn’t really allow that unless I stay up until 3:00 a.m. Which I’m not above doing except that I’m tired from all the summer fun. Plus I really want to write on the blog but sometimes I’m just OUT OF WORDS by the time I’ve spent all day “MOM! WATCH THIS!” “MOM! LET’S PLAY A GAME!” “MOM, ISN’T BEETHOVEN THE FUNNIEST MOVIE EVER?”

(No. It’s not. The answer is NO.)

(I also realize that someday I will look back on these days and be sad they’re over. Sunrise, sunset and all that. I adore my child. I just sometimes need five minutes of quiet.)

(I’m also sad to put my selfishness on display.)

But enough about my first world tale of woe.

I’ll just tell you about the last week. And now I’m going to feel ridiculous because it starts with a ton of fun.

Last Monday, Sophie flew in from Alabama. And then on Tuesday morning my friend Angie came in town and then we drove to the lake to meet up with Jen and Vicki.

Here we all are in front of The Bluebonnet Cafe in Marble Falls.

Yes. They have a Pie Happy Hour.

Which I’m also pretty sure they have in heaven.

It was the first time Angie had ever eaten chicken fried steak. I was sad for her, but the good news is we took charge of the situation and she has now experienced true culinary greatness.

And then we floated out on the lake and talked about books and kids and hair and books and life.

Sadly it was a quick trip and by Thursday everyone had flown home or driven home or dragged their sorry behind back to San Antonio to write boring blog posts about how they are an introvert at heart.

Then the weekend arrived and P went fishing. Caroline and I spent most of it hanging out with Gulley and her boys because the boys had been at camp the whole week before and they missed each other. And now you just died of boredom because who needs to know all that?

On Sunday afternoon we went to my niece Sarah’s birthday party at the bowling alley and a good time was had by all. Caroline helped my nephew, Luke, bowl and you’d be shocked at how enthusiastic a two-year-old is to just watch a ball roll down the lane and not knock down a single pin.

And on a day in between or somewhere thereabout, Caroline and I made a trip to the mall because my new iPhone has been temperamental since the day I bought it about six months ago. Which I guess means it’s not really new but it still shouldn’t die every three hours. At least that’s what I believe.

The girl at the Apple store was nice but didn’t really seem all that sympathetic to my plight. Her answer was to reset my entire phone. And as much as I appreciate that solution, I’m not sure it helped.

The mall is also where Caroline discovered the hermit crab kiosk. I mentioned this in the podcast so feel free to skip this part if you’ve heard it already. But Caroline bought two more hermit crabs with her own money. Bringing our hermit crab total to FOUR. Including a crab that can only be described as The Incredible Hulk of hermit crabs.

He frightens me. It’s like a small dog with pinchers.

In a hermit crab power play, he pinched Caroline a few days ago and is now dead to her. Except I’m not sure about the logistics of relocating a hermit crab. Sure, I could just set him free in the front yard but that seems wrong since we’re three hours from the nearest beach. I’m looking into a hermit crab rescue program.

We’ve also watched some of the Olympic trials and in related news I’ve discovered I suffer from a high level of performance anxiety even when I’m just sitting on my couch eating Nilla Wafers.

And that’s what’s been going on around here.

Today we’re going to the grocery store. I’m sure I’ll use 1,000 words to tell you all about it tomorrow.

I know.

Second week in a row that I’ve been a bad blogger.

But I’ll be back tomorrow with a full report of all I’ve been doing over the last few days.

It involves chicken fried steak and boat rides and floating in the water with friends.

In other words, I think I’ve been in heaven.

Here are just a few quick things I wanted to share. You may or may not care about any of them.

(That’s just a disclaimer to make your life easier.)

1. I saw this on Pinterest the other night and it makes me laugh every time I read it. This totally expresses how I felt in every math class I was ever in.

2. I loved this list by Alyssa featuring ten healthy recipes for the 4th of July. It will totally counterbalance the hot dogs and chips and queso I plan to eat to celebrate America.

3. Speaking of recipes, I also found this recipe for dried strawberries on Pinterest. I made them yesterday and they didn’t really turn out.

This has also happened to me with zucchini and squash chips. They don’t ever seem to really dry out the way they’re supposed to. And I cooked those dang strawberries on 100 degrees for at least four hours.

Where am I going wrong?

4. Several of you asked last week what book I was reading. It’s Anna Quindlen’s new book, Lot of Candles, Plenty of Cake.

I like it, but I’m a big fan of the memoir.

5. I’m sure many of you are more sophisticated and have a finer television palette than I do, but I’m currently watching the new season of Real Housewives of New York City.

One of the housewives ends her intro in the opening credits by saying, “HOLLA!” without a trace of irony. And it makes a little part of me die inside every time I hear it. Grown women don’t need to say HOLLA unless they’re half-joking.

6. And while we’re on the subject of bad T.V., is anyone else in love with the new Dallas like I am? That opening music takes me right back to childhood and I’m nine years old sitting on my Mema and Papa’s couch on a Friday night.

7. Yesterday Ree posted a recipe for calzones and now I’m obsessed. I will make these sometime soon.

And then serve them with a side of fruit.

I cannot express how desperately I wanted to come up with an even ten items but I’m flat out of anything even remotely interesting. But maybe y’all have something interesting to say or share or whatever.

Feel free to discuss in the comments.

Well when I said I might not be posting every day this summer I certainly didn’t realize it was a cue for my whole blog to crash and become forbidden on the internet. But it kind of worked out because our week last week ended up being busier than normal.

And by busier than normal I don’t mean the usual kind of busy where I realize we’re out of dog food and have to rush to the store to buy more.

(Is it just me or is busier a weird word to see spelled out?)

Anyway, Caroline and I ended up driving to Bryan on Wednesday morning because it was Honey’s sixtieth birthday. Gulley and the boys had already been there since Monday and I really wanted to make the trip but was in the middle of my brilliant plan to redo the walls in the guest room and needed to finish.

Normally I would have felt like the walls could wait, but since I have actual guests coming to stay in our house this week it seemed imperative to finish the walls because I may not be Emily Post but I know proper etiquette probably involves providing walls for a guest in your home.

But when P and I plowed through and finished the walls on Tuesday afternoon, I felt like it freed me up to hit the road. And I really wanted to get to Bryan for two reasons. One, I was at Honey’s fortieth birthday party and felt like I should be at her sixtieth. Two, Nena isn’t doing that great right now.

In fact, when we got there on Wednesday afternoon we went straight to the hospital to see Nena. Her heart surgery in the spring didn’t really fix the issues with her heart and she is continuing to have problems. As we walked into the hospital room I prepared myself to see her lying there in a weakened state but instead she waved from her bed like she was the Rose Queen in the Tournament of Roses Parade as she said “HELLLOOOOO!! MELANIE, WHERE DID YOU GET THAT PURSE?”

In other words, she is totally herself.

(Does anyone else think of Donna Martin anytime they hear about the Tournament of Roses parade or are you all normal?)

We spent some time visiting at the hospital and then headed home before Honey’s party that night. The whole family was meeting at Longhorn Tavern because birthdays are meant to be celebrated with chicken fried steak.

Everyone had a great time and then it was time to go back to the house. On the way there Caroline kept tooting in the back seat where she was sitting with the boys and I finally said, “Caroline! You need to stop! A day is going to come where boys won’t think it’s attractive or funny for a girl to toot in the back seat!”

And Jackson dryly replied, “Yes. That day is now.”

I’d planned for us to drive back to San Antonio on Thursday morning, but then Nena called to inform Honey that her doctor was discharging her from the hospital in a few hours. Which would be great except they had no idea where Nena was going to go since she needed more care than where she’d been living.

So Gulley and Honey drove to the hospital to figure out that situation while I took the kids to go swimming. At least I tried to take the kids swimming until we got to the pool and found out it didn’t open until 1:00. And that left us with an hour and a half to kill.

The park clearly wasn’t an option because it was hotter than the surface of the sun. I brainstormed and decided it was a great opportunity to take the kids on a little tour of their moms’ college years. The G rated version.

We drove by the duplex where we lived our last year of school and then got a drink from the Sonic that we singlehandedly kept in business from 1991-1994 with our love of Route 44 Cherry Vanilla Cokes. Since College Station is a small town this only took about fifteen minutes. And so I drove toward campus because they never get tired of seeing Blue Bell Park and Kyle Field.

Then I saw this and a tear came to my eye.

The future is now, my friends.

And then we saw the new baseballs they’ve put in front of Blue Bell Park.

Finally, we stopped by the gigantic Aggie ring for a photo op.

They’re all pretending that they’re putting the ring on their fingers because they’re at that age where they’re goofy as heck.

At last it was 1:00 and the pool was open. They spent the rest of the day swimming while I sat in the shade since I hadn’t thought to pack a bathing suit because I didn’t imagine my twenty-four hours in Bryan would include swimming. However, I used the time to beat my high score on Bookworm and even had a conference call with Tyndale because all true professionals conduct business while their children come up and beg them for giant pickles and snow cones from the snack bar.

By the way, I feel like I need to confess that I ate nachos from the snack bar in a weak moment. The kind with the cheese that pumps out of a spigot.

It was a low.

We left the pool at the end of the afternoon and met Gulley and Honey back at the house where they reported they’d gotten Nena settled for the time being. But when Honey called to check on her later and to tell her she’d bring more of her clothes over tomorrow, Nena said, “Oh, don’t bother. I’m not staying here.”

Then Honey called the next morning in the hopes the night had changed Nena’s mind and Nena told her, “This place is like an old folk’s home.”

Yes. Because it’s an old folk’s home.

Needless to say, Nena is going to be moving again soon.

Friday morning Caroline and I packed up to leave. We got in the car, waved goodbye and she cried all the way to Caldwell where we stopped to get her a BLT from Subway because that’s her love language. I kind of want to judge her for it but I eat nachos from a public pool snack bar. Her love of low rent foods is genetic.

The Subway happened to have a drive-through window which felt like the hand of God in my life at that moment. Until they told us to pull around and wait for our BLT sandwich.

We waited.

And then we waited some more.

And then we waited some more.

Twenty minutes later they arrived with the sandwich and apologies because they’d forgotten about it. I was annoyed but let it go in my anxiousness to just get on the road and get home. Which was a great plan until Caroline unwrapped her sandwich about ten minutes later to discover they’d given us a bacon and mayonnaise sandwich.

No L.

No T.

Who wants just a bacon and mayo sandwich? Besides someone I don’t want to know?

And isn’t the L and T implied when you order a BLT? Am I right?

The bacon sandwich pushed Caroline off her already perilous edge and she wailed, “I WAS ALREADY DEVASTATED TO LEAVE BRYAN AND NOW THIS.”

At least she’s not dramatic.

The rest of the weekend was a blur. We had Caroline’s last swim meet and I cannot express how overjoyed I am at the prospect of no longer having to set an alarm for 6:00 a.m. on Saturday mornings.

I plan to watch the Summer Olympics in August with a whole new respect for all those swimmer’s mothers.

And that’s what we’ve been up to.

(Lamest ending ever but I have no idea how to wrap this up and I’m at 1325 words which is just obnoxious.)

Two weeks ago Caroline spent the night with a friend. And when I picked her up the next day she mentioned that she’d fallen on her arm while they were playing soccer in the front yard and it kind of hurt. I said we could just keep an eye on it and see how it felt in a day or two which is code for I don’t really think anything is wrong except that you stayed up too late last night and are tired and I don’t want to waste a $50 co-pay on a fake injury.

Over the next several days she’d complain about it every now and then but it seemed like it was always worse at bedtime or when I asked her to do something else she didn’t want to do. Like pick up her dirty clothes off the floor and put them in the hamper because I am the meanest mom ever with my unreasonable requests that she practice hygiene and clean up after herself and she’s just going to use that towel again tomorrow so why does it need to be hung up?

But then on Thursday afternoon P and I were working on the guest room wall (That’s an entirely different post at this point. A post where I may rewrite the lyrics to Miranda Lambert’s song The House That Built Me to The House That Killed Me.) and Caroline walked in and said, “I really think I need to go to the doctor. My wrist hurts.”

And it all seemed legitimate since I hadn’t asked her to do anything and it wasn’t time for bed. So I loaded her up in the car and we drove to the medical clinic. They did x-rays and the doctor announced it looked like a tear in her tendon or possibly even a fracture.

That’s when Caroline beamed at me like she’d just won first prize at the County Fair.

Not that we’ve ever been to a County Fair but I hear the kids smile big when they win so I’m going with that analogy since it’s late and I can’t come up with anything else.

They gave her a brace to wear and a referral to go see the Orthopedist Pediatric guy the next day. Here’s Caroline in her brace.

You can see she’s all torn up about it.

And for the next few hours I was treated to running monologue about how she knew something was wrong and I just thought it was nothing and wasn’t I glad that she knew she needed to go to the doctor and see how she was right and I was wrong. I listened as she called Mimi and Bops to give them the news recited a list of people she’d like me to text with a report of her injury and how she was right and I was wrong. Apparently LETTING IT GO isn’t part of her current skill set. But she has got ENJOYING HER ILL HEALTH down to a science.

The next morning we went to see the other doctor. By this time the novelty of that brace had worn off because it was “HOT” and “UGLY” and “I CAN’T USE MY THUMB”. And so I was ready to cry at the thought of facing weeks with her in a cast or in that brace. One of us wouldn’t survive it and I had a feeling it was me.

He looked at the x-rays we brought in and agreed that it was a tear in the tendon and the wrist needed to be immobilized for the next three weeks. Then he offered us the choice of a cast or a waterproof splint. I’m no doctor and I’ve never even played one on T.V. but I knew the waterproof splint was the way to go.

And when the tech walked in with a neon pink, waterproof splint, I knew we were solid gold. Caroline was thrilled with her new fancy bright accessory and that she wouldn’t have to forgo any time in the pool due to her injury. They fitted her arm for the splint, put it on, made a few adjustments and said she needed to wear it 99% of the time.

As a bonus, it’s also anti-microbial which means it won’t smell like a baboon at the end of three weeks. Or at least that’s what they told us. I’ll let you know on July 6th.

After we left the office she called Mimi and Bops to give them the full update from the new doctor and told them all about her hot pink splint. And she was most excited to announce that it wouldn’t interfere with her ability to swim in her swim meet the next day.

Which is why I was so surprised when we woke her up for the meet on Saturday morning and she started to cry and said she didn’t want to go and it was going to be terrible and please don’t make her go and OH THE HUMANITY OF SWIM MEETS.

Have I ever mentioned that 6:00 a.m. isn’t my most coherent time? So I handled this crisis by walking in the kitchen and telling P there was drama brewing in the next room. And P was on the case. He told her she needed to get up and eat her breakfast and that her team was counting on her. In our family we follow through on commitments. In our family we persevere. He even pulled out a quote from a Navy Seal and told her that in life when challenges come we ADAPT AND OVERCOME.

It was like being in the kitchen with General Patton.

I kind of wanted to salute.

Or maybe hum of few bars of The Battle Hymn of The Republic.

And it’s times like this that I’m so glad he takes charge because I’m not so much an ADAPT AND OVERCOME type person as a CRY AND BE DRAMATIC AND OH MY POOR BABY HAS A HURT ARM type person. Especially at 6:30 a.m. on a Saturday.

So she dried her tears, put on her swimsuit and we headed to the swim meet. Where she ended up winning three first place ribbons and two second place ribbons.

Because she adapted and overcame.

It helped that everyone told her how awesome her hot pink waterproof splint was and how tough she was to still be competing. “EVEN SOME TEENAGERS”.

On the way home from the meet she was tired but glowing. She was thrilled with her success and that she didn’t give up. And it was a reminder to me, on the eve of Father’s Day, how much I need to P to help me with this whole parenting thing.

Honestly, I would have been tempted to let her stay home and skip the meet. And she wouldn’t have learned anything or won any ribbons or experienced the feeling of accomplishment. The right thing was to make her go and to follow through with her commitment. It’s a lesson I’m still learning because I’ve always been tempted to quit when things get hard or to take the easy way out. It’s one of the things I hate about myself.

I think that’s why it meant so much to me to see her learn such a valuable life lesson on Saturday. And it made me thankful that not only was I raised by a great dad who has taught me all kinds of important things over the past forty years, but that I’m married to a great dad who is doing the same for Caroline.

And I’m more than happy to hum a few bars of inspirational music while he does it.