Year: 2006

  • Like Magnum but without the ferarri

    I had a relatively easy pregnancy. I didn’t gain too much weight, I wasn’t too uncomfortable and don’t hate me but I was wearing my normal clothes again 2 weeks after I gave birth. I will admit that I was a little bit like “Hello, my name is fabulous” about my easy, breezy, beautiful gestation, but oh…the gods of pregnancy are fair my friends, they are fair.

    Do you know what I’m talking about when I say pregnancy mask? Or the technical term “melasma”? It’s when your skin gets blotchy dark patches due to hormones.

    I discovered the summer after I had Caroline that my hormones had undergone some kind of unspeakable horror that was causing me to have what looked like a mustache on my face. I will never forget looking at our pictures from 4th of July and asking P. “is that what I look like? Oh my good gracious, I have a mustache!” His reply was that since I’m half Italian he just thought I was dark and hairy. Did he not realize I hadn’t had a mustache during the eight previous years he had known me?

    I IMMEDIATELY headed down to the closest Eckerds to load up with every kind of bleaching cream known to man. I scrubbed, I bleached, I sunscreened and wore a hat that provided shade to anyone in a five foot radius when I was out in the sun. And thankfully, it faded.

    The problem is that just like bad relatives, it comes back for a visit every summer. The lethal cocktail of the sun combined with my hormones seems to call it into being. My dermatologist told me that it would go away for good if I got off the pill, but really for the time being if the choice is having a newborn or looking like Tom Selleck three months of the year…I’ll choose to go the Magnum PI route.

    At least for the other 9 months of the year, it’s barely noticeable. But the lesson I’ve learned is that it doesn’t matter how good you look in your bathing suit at the pool if you have a mustache that might cause a kid working at the grill to say “Excuse me Sir, your tater tots are ready”.

  • If you’re looking for Grey’s Anatomy, it’s on Channel 13

    I don’t know if y’all remember, but a few weeks ago I had AT&T come out to see about getting new television service that included 2 DVRs. They initially told me that the only way it would work would be if they ran a cable down the side of my house, so I politely sent them on their way. The conversation actually went like this, I said, “Do you mean to tell me that if I want this service I’ll have a white cable running down the side of my house?” and AT&T guy said, “Oh no ma’am, it will be a black cable”. Well, why didn’t he say so in the first place? A black cable is a COMPLETELY different story.

    AT&T guy left and I was totally despondent about losing 2 DVRs before I ever even had them. So, when P. got home I told him what had happened and he had a brilliant solution to ensure that we could in fact get our Dish Network and maintain the charm of our home. His problem solving skills are just one of many reasons that I keep him around. We called AT&T back and rescheduled. I am happy to report that we are now indeed the proud owners of 2 DVRs and satellite service.

    However, one thing I overlooked is that when you change providers for your television service, you have all new channels. I have no idea where any channel is anymore, except for Noggin because it’s a necessity. I’ve never been one to remember that a show is on CBS or ABC, it’s just on Channel 5 or Channel 13.

    So my new confusion brings Nena to mind because she will call you and say “Turn it to Channel 25. They are showing a movie about that cheerleading mom that tried to kill somebody. Isn’t that terrible? Why would someone do that? This is just awful, I can hardly watch. Turn it to Channel 25.”

    It has never occurred to her that your Channel 25 is different from her Channel 25 and if you ask her what network she couldn’t even begin to tell you (although with Nena it’s always a safe bet to assume she’s watching Lifetime). And now I find out that I’m not that different. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

    The fortunate thing is the timing of this situation. I have about 2-3 weeks to familiarize myself with my new T.V. channels before all the new shows start and once they start, my friends, I will have TWO DVRs to record them. It’s a multitude of riches.

  • In the stillness You are there

    As the mother of a three year old and as the wife of a man, I tend to be on the go quite a bit. From the time I wake up in the morning at a truly indecent hour until the time I go to bed at night, there is a lot of noise. As much as I love the sound of my daughter’s voice, I long for just a moment of silence.

    I love my family and friends more than I can ever express, but I am also a person who craves quiet like some people crave chocolate (I crave that too, by the way). Anyone who really knows me knows that I reach a point where I get “peopled out”. And as my little sister used to say “I need a piece of quiet”.

    When life starts to feel like a tug of war with everyone pulling me in different directions, the stillness helps me to regain my balance, figure out my thoughts on something, and most importantly hear the Voice that I need to hear the most to keep things in their proper perspective. If I am too busy or have too many external things going on, I quit hearing His voice and that’s usually when a meltdown will occur.

    So, today as I feel my frustration level starting to rise, I am reminding myself to carve out a piece of quiet for myself. For me, it’s the best thing I can do for my family and myself and if it means that Caroline has time to completely destroy her playroom, well then so be it. The quiet restores my soul and ultimately helps me be a more patient mother, wife and friend.

    The Lord your God is with you,
    he is mighty to save.
    He will take great delight in you
    he will quiet you with his love
    he will rejoice over you with singing.
    Zephaniah 3:17

  • She got tagged by She Lives

    So Carol over at She Lives tagged me for a meme about my dogs and made the comment that I would be like who is she and why is she tagging me. Are you kidding? Carol is the reason that I have been able to sleep until 7 a.m. for several mornings because after reading this post, she suggested a little trick called bribery. And y’all it works 90% of the time. To show my appreciation I will tell you five things about my dog Scout (we actually have 2 dogs, but Scout is by far the weirdest so there’s a lot more material). Scout is the one with the darker coat and dark face. I would tell you that he’s on the left or right but I don’t really know my left from my right without thinking about it really hard and I’m not that committed.

    1. If he is inside he will watch T.V. for hours. In fact, when he was a puppy he broke our VCR because a dog came on T.V. and he jumped up to attack the T.V. and slammed our VCR into the back of the armoire.

    2. We had him for 2 weeks when we discovered that he had a hole in his heart and wouldn’t live for more than a year without surgery. The surgery couldn’t be done in town, so we drove him to College Station (home of the fightin’ Texas Aggie vet school) to have the procedure done. I will not embarrass myself by revealing how much the surgery cost, but sufficed to say Scout has met his healthcare deductible.

    3. He is the only dog I’ve ever seen that will lick a beef rib like maybe he’s not sure that he wants it.

    4. He weighs over 50 lbs but if you call him he will hurl himself off the ground and into your arms. He has knocked me over on more than one occasion.

    5. P. is the pooper scooper at our house and he swears that anytime he’s picking up poop, Scout will walk right next to him and poop a fresh one. This could be one of the reasons P. doesn’t really claim him and says he’s my dog.

    I’m supposed to tag 5 people but with apologies to Carol, I am drawing a blank. If you have a dog (or a cat since we’re all about equal opportunity here at Big Mama’s), feel free to consider yourself tagged.

  • A rose by any other name is just as sweet

    Barb over at A Chelsea Morning is asking how people came up with the name of their blog. So here is my explanation.

    I started this blog back in July and when blogger asked for a name I sat and thought, and thought, and then thought some more. The name that kept coming to mind was Big Mama and I kept thinking, do I really want to be known as Big Mama? And obviously Motherhood has worn me down because the answer was yes.

    With each milestone that Caroline achieves we tell her what a big girl she is, so at some point she picked up that being “big” must be the highest compliment one can receive. So she started calling me “Big Mama”. As in “Come on Big Mama”, “What’s for dinner, Big Mama?”, “Tank you, Big Mama” and it cracked me up every time because here’s a little secret…I’m really not big.

    The other part of the story is that my Pa-Pa always called me “Big M.”. When I’d walk in the house, the first thing out of his mouth was always a loud “Big M.!” so I have been called “Big” by two people that I dearly love. I like to think that Caroline is carrying on a family tradition and I will honor it by letting myself be known as Big Mama…and did I mention that I’m really not big?