Year: 2010

  • The list didn’t include Valium

    We went shopping for school supplies yesterday.

    I’ll just let that sink in for a minute.

    In less than one month, Caroline will start second grade. Of course I can’t really think about it for too long because SECOND GRADE. How did that happen? I’m just trying to console myself with my personal theory that third grade is really the gateway grade to official BIG KID status and that second grade is just a filler grade that the school system threw in because no one wants to teach a bunch of seven-year-olds how to write in cursive and use a protractor.

    Let me have my denial.

    When I registered Caroline for Kindergarten, they handed me a form that allowed me to pre-order her school supplies courtesy of the PTO. I’m never one to play the martyr, so I filled out the form, wrote a check and when she showed up on the first day of school there was a shrink-wrapped package in her cubby containing all her school supplies. It was brilliant.

    So when the same form came home at the end of Kindergarten, I checked the box that read HOOK A MOTHER UP and sent in my check. And just like Kindergarten, the supplies appeared as if by magic on Caroline’s desk the first day of school. Perfect.

    Until the second week of school when Caroline came home upset because her teacher had passed out notebooks to be used as poetry journals and she received a plain red one. She didn’t understand why some of the girls got notebooks featuring furry kittens and baby seals while she only got a plain red notebook. And you need to know that she said “PLAIN RED NOTEBOOK” in the same voice she uses in the morning when she lovingly says, “YOUR BREATH SMELLS LIKE THE CIRCUS”.

    Her teacher explained that the plain red notebook was the one in her school supplies and that the other girls had brought the notebooks with dolphins and puppies. To which Caroline replied, “NO WAY DID MY MAMA PICK OUT A PLAIN RED NOTEBOOK”.

    And she’s right. I would have never picked out a plain red notebook.

    But the PTO would. Because all they care about it the bottom financial line and they aren’t really interested in wide-ruled notebooks featuring three kittens huddled together with a ball of yarn.

    So we went to the store and picked out a pretty notebook for her to use as her poetry journal. And then she made me sign in blood that I would never order school supplies from the PTO again because she wanted to pick them out herself.

    Which is how I ended up in the back of Target yesterday trying to figure out what the heck the list means by a Mead marble composition 100-count notebook with red baseline while Caroline danced around me holding a Trapper Keeper featuring a baby penguin and begging me to buy it.

    “It’s not on the list”

    “Well, it should be. That list is too strict. Why is second grade so strict?”

    “Second grade isn’t strict. It’s not that you can’t have it, but let’s just focus on getting the things you need first.”

    “Okay…but what if I get this one with the horses and can I pick out a new backpack and I need a new thermos because my old one is Disney Princess and I’m over Disney Princess and what I really want is a thermos that looks like Gabi’s and I love this notebook with the hearts and what I really want is this pack of glitter pencils with erasers shaped like stars.”

    Well, what I really want is a nerve pill.

    We can’t always get what we want.

    By the time we left Target I semi-regretted not ordering our school supplies from the PTO, but just knowing that Caroline will have a notebook depicting a baby seal makes it all worth it.

    Actually, that’s not true.

    But it makes me feel better to pretend that it does.

  • Cousins

    On Sunday afternoon we met my sister and her family over at Mimi and Bops’ house to do a little swimming and Caroline held her cousin, Luke, for a long time after he woke up from his nap.

    I may be a little biased, but this is almost too much cute for one picture.

    I think they like each other a lot.

    Although Luke really needs to learn how to relax a little bit.

  • This post makes War and Peace seem like a brief essay

    So I never really finished recounting all the details of our Road Trip Extravaganza last week because exhaustion set in sometime around Wednesday evening and I needed to reserve all my strength to maintain any shred of control. Also, Gulley and I were spending our nights contemplating how we feel about jean leggings, Frank turning into a woman on The Bachelorette, and our thoughts on the new financial regulations passed by Congress. I’ll let you guess which topic took up the lion’s share of our discussion time.

    But I feel like I need to complete the recap of the trip for posterity. And also because I have nothing else to write about.

    We kept things fairly tame on Wednesday because Will was recovering from his stomach bug and we weren’t entirely sure the rest of us weren’t going to be struck down at some point. However, that didn’t stop us from taking the kids to Gattiland to eat lunch and accumulate massive amounts of tickets in the arcade to be traded in for toys that make Happy Meal toys seem like Faberge eggs by comparison.

    Caroline had never experienced the Gattiland buffet before and was fascinated that you’re required to get a new plate every time you go back for more food. By the end of our lunch we had twenty-seven used plates on our table and I think fourteen of them belonged to her. I’ll spare you the picture I took of the table filled with plates because I just looked at it and it made me feel like I might dry heave.

    On Thursday morning we loaded the kids in the car for a day trip to Brenham to see my Nanny. The plan was for Gulley to take the kids to tour the Blue Bell Creamery while I visited with my ninety-two-year-old grandmother, but Nanny was quick to let us know she’d like for us to take her to Casa Ole’ for lunch. So we busted her out of the retirement home to get some Mexican food and everything went swimmingly except for the part where Gulley and I both let go of her walker as we were helping her back in the car and had to chase it across the parking lot.

    After lunch, Gulley and the kids headed to Blue Bell. She took a lot of pictures of the kids but I forgot to upload them to my computer so I have no evidence they were ever there. You just have to trust that I wouldn’t lie about a visit to a creamery to make our lives seem more exotic and glamorous.

    I did, however, get a picture of Caroline with Nanny.

    We woke up on Friday morning and weren’t totally sure what our plans were for the day. Initially, the kids wanted to go see a movie, but then started to lean towards swimming at Adamson Lagoon. Surprisingly, none of them were interested in my suggestion that we all drink a nice bottle of wine and take a nap.

    But then Jackson asked for the Sports page and saw that the Brazos Valley Bombers had a home game scheduled for Friday evening. Caroline and Will were playing outside, but Jackson immediately began to beg us to attend the baseball game. We told him we needed to talk about it (which is Mama code for figuring out if there is a way for us to get out of this) and he took two steps away from us to let us discuss it. Gulley told him to go outside and let us talk privately. Three seconds later he came sweeping through the back door and loudly proclaimed, “ALL THE KIDS WANT TO GO TO THE BOMBERS GAME. WE’RE GOING TO THE BOMBERS GAME!” And then he ran back outside while I yelled at the closed door, “WE ARE STILL IN CHARGE! WE ARE HANGING ON BY A VERY THIN THREAD BUT WE ARE STILL IN CHARGE.”

    So that’s how we ended up going to the Brazos Valley Bombers baseball game on Friday night.

    I’ll be honest, I love baseball. I particularly love college baseball. But I was not excited about sitting out in the heat and humidity to watch a baseball game in July. However, I was totally wrong because the whole night ended up being magical.

    The kids got to have their picture taken with Kaboom the Bombers’ mascot.

    And with Cookie Monster.

    We’re not sure what Cookie had to do with anything, but I’d be willing to bet upwards of $5.00 that someone happened to have an old Cookie Monster costume lying around and the team figured kids wouldn’t care that a monster who binges on cookies has nothing to do with baseball. (Although both could be considered America’s favorite past time.)

    The kids even got chosen by one of The Bombshells (the official team hostesses) to lead the crowd in Take Me Out to the Ballgame during the seventh inning stretch.

    And I managed to catch a t-shirt and a ball thrown to the crowd. I was en fuego. Although I have to confess I may have let my competitive nature get the best of me and jumped in front of a little boy to catch the ball. I felt so bad about it that Gulley finally told me I needed to re-read So Long, Insecurity.

    I also have to confess that I sat back down on Caroline’s ice cream after I caught the t-shirt. Nothing humbles a girl in a triumphant moment like some Cookies-N-Cream on the booty.

    The evening ended with a spectacular fireworks display after the game. Honestly, the whole night was the highlight of the trip. It was like everything that makes America and parenthood great all wrapped in one package.

    But it was late by the time we headed back to Honey and Big’s house. The kids were tired but yet all hyped up from the heady cocktail of kettle corn, baseball and fireworks. Gulley looked at me and said, “OH BRITNEY”.

    Years ago, on the show Will and Grace, there was a character named Beverly Leslie. He was a marginal character but, in a line that turned out to be totally prophetic, he once said of Britney Spears, “OH BRITNEY. This is not going to end well.”

    Gulley and I both embraced that line and now anytime we are witness to a scenario that doesn’t really bode well for a happy ending, one of us will look at the other and say, “OH BRITNEY” and we immediately know there’s a good chance we’re about to witness a meltdown.

    Fortunately, we were able to get everyone bathed and in bed before the fond moments of the evening were a distant memory.

    The next morning we packed up the car after a nutritious breakfast of chocolate-iced donuts and kolaches from Shipley’s and began the trek back to San Antonio. Gulley plugged her iPod into the car stereo and we began to sing along to our favorite songs. The kids suddenly realized they were no longer listening to a steady rotation of Crazytown and Party in the U.S.A. and began to call out their song suggestions.

    That’s when Gulley announced, “WE ARE CURRENTLY NOT TAKING ANY REQUESTS”.

    The kids all began to whine about our music selections, but we were not backing down. The radio suddenly became a symbol of our need to assert our ability to do what we wanted to do without having any input from three people who aren’t even five feet tall. We were giddy with our stereo coup d’etat and as Gulley began to play Michael Jackson’s P.Y.T., I looked back at the kids and announced, “IT’S ABOUT TO GET REAL ALL UP IN HERE”.

    Secretly, it’s one of those moments I hope becomes part of their childhood lore. They’ll all get together and talk about old times and one of them will ask, “Do you remember the summer we were on that road trip and your mom announced it was about to get real all up in here?” And then they’ll all die laughing, but might secretly think Gulley and I were pretty cool.

    Of course the fact we chose to listen to You’re The Reason God Made Oklahoma immediately following P.Y.T. might hurt our case.

  • The wild bunch

    I don’t want to overstate it or be overly dramatic but when we get back home from this trip I may sleep for five days straight. Then wake up long enough to eat some chips and salsa and go back to sleep for another day or two. It takes a lot of effort to have this much fun.

    However, the kids still have energy to spare. In fact, they have enough energy to mock their poor mamas and may have even referred to us as “FUN WASTERS” when we told them we were too tired to play volleyball in the backyard last night.

    Here’s a quick sample:

    Road Trip from Big Mama on Vimeo.

    I’ll be back with a final report from our Summer Road Trip Extravaganza 2010 next week. Or after I wake up from the extended nap I have planned.

  • All is well

    We are now thirty-six hours out from the stomach bug and the rest of us have remained unscathed. I can only attribute this to prayer because there is no good reason why all of us shouldn’t be hanging over a toilet.

    But instead, Will popped out of bed yesterday morning like nothing had ever happened. Which you have to admit is impressive because I’d have been in bed all day if I’d been as sick as he was on Tuesday.

    By the end of the day, we’d made a trip to Target where the kids amused themselves by trying on sunglasses.

    But right now Gulley and I are in the middle of a serious discussion which may or may not result in us solving all the world’s problems.

    I’ll keep you posted.

  • The plague of the wolf has descended

    Well.

    It is with great regret that I inform you a member of our road trip crew succumbed to a stomach virus yesterday morning. Specifically it was Gulley’s youngest son, Will.

    If you’d told me the night before that one of us was going to get sick, I would have placed bets on myself because I made the questionable decision to wolf down those three Taco Supremes. I told Gulley I felt certain eating lettuce from Taco Bell in these questionable bacterial times was a foolhardy choice.

    I woke up feeling fine yesterday morning. At least as fine as you can feel after being wedged into the top bunk of a simulated log cabin with a child who likes to practice high kicks in her sleep. However, Will woke up and wandered out to the main part of our hotel room looking a decidedly pale shade of green and shortly began his day of throwing up every thirty minutes.

    Which basically solidified all my theories about water parks. They are just Chuck E. Cheese in aquatic form.

    When it first began we hoped it would just be a fluke thing. So AJ and I took Jackson and Caroline back down to the water park to play until it was time to check out. But first, we took pictures in the log cabin.

    Then we went downstairs and rode all the different slides because the lines are surprisingly short at 9:30 a.m. When we got back up to the room we discovered Will wasn’t any better. Our plan was to head to Bryan to see Gulley’s mama, so we called to tell her we were coming and bringing the plague with us. And, bless her heart, she told us she couldn’t wait to see us.

    So we dropped AJ off at home, loaded up plenty of plastic bags, and headed to B/CS. Gulley sat in the back seat with Will and made good use of those plastic bags every 20-30 minutes. Not even Sonic ice helped him.

    Eventually, we had to make a restroom stop and there was Buc-ees in Madisonville shining like a bright beacon of hope and comfort. Gulley stayed in the car with Will while I took the kids in to use the bathroom and fortify ourselves with Buc-ees snacks.

    And maybe get a photo op with a stuffed beaver.

    Can we examine why my child has to make the same facial expressions as stuffed things?

    Exhibit A: Queen Esther puppet

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    It’s like a compulsion.

    Anyway, we loaded back into the car and I passed the beef jerky to Gulley. We decided there is really no better indicator you’re a mother than the ability to catch throw up in a plastic bag, disinfect your hands, and ask your friend to pass the beef jerky and the Beaver nuggets. It’s like a unique skill set.

    About that time AJ texted us to let us know she’d come down with the plague. Which serves to confirm that no good deed or visit to a water park goes unpunished.

    We finally arrived in Bryan. Will officially reached the twelve hour mark of not holding anything down so Gulley took him to the med clinic where they administered anti-nausea medication and, ultimately, a therapeutic mixture of Gatorade and Sprite. They knew he was feeling better when he looked at the nurse and said, “You’re gonna need to get me some more of that”.

    As for the rest of the crew, we have thus far dodged the stomach bullet and are taking intermittent baths in Purell while saying our prayers.

    I’ll let you know tomorrow if it works out for us.