Missed Callings

1.  Of course, color namer

2. Mason

3. Animated voice person

4. Children's musician, I'm pretty sure I could dominate the country kids music circuit if I could play an instrument.  Title track: "Whining never Wins"

5.  Fact checker

6. Professional name rememberer for someone important

7. Stained glass artist - I know nothing about this, but pretty sure if I did I would crush it.

I'm sure there are more, but at the moment, this list will have to do.

Earth Day - Belated

Yesterday, our morning was governed by a six and a half year old.  I would love to spend a day inside Natalie's brain to see how it works.  This is a child who regularly has what she thinks are incredibly genius ideas.  Like the the time, when she wouldn't dare touch anything called macaroni and cheese, told me that what would be really good for dinner would be if we made ziti and then mixed it with melted chèvre, cheddar, and jack cheeses.  I agreed that is did sound delicious, and it is also called macaroni and cheese.  "Oh." She says.  "Well, I think I would like to eat macaroni and cheese then."

So yesterday, Natalie has begged and pleaded for us to go to an Earth Day parade in Concord.  She cared not about the fact that it was celebrating Earth Day, but her little friend would be marching in the parade, and Natalie wanted to see her.  How does a parent argue with that?  Originally, I was told the parade started at 8:30, and I let Natalie know that we would not be making it.  But then the parade started at 10, so, again, I was without argument.  So we travelled, with no other information than what our daughter was told by someone else's daughter, into Concord to see a parade that for all we knew may or may not be happening.  After all, Earth Day was a week ago.

We drove aimlessly around Concord looking for signs of a parade, both literal and figurative.  Finally, we arrived to what we thought was the starting point of the parade-- families gathered on the bridge, children carrying hand made floats of sticks and  bark and leaves and flowers.  So we followed the crowds down to the river bank.  A parade on a river bank you ask?  Perhaps Dan and I should have also questioned this, but we didn't.  Instead we were involved in some bizarre Earth Day abduction/ritual.  A woman, face painted with stripes of blue and white and shiny strands of colors hanging down her back came wading through the water, picking up cups of it with a long wooden ladle and sprinkling it around her.  She was accompanied by a group of adults dressed as chickens who would both sing and "bock" complementing(?) her Earth Day speech of oil and warming and convenience and the amount of plastic water bottles we all consume. Dan and I try to do out part, really we do.  But this was the weirdest thing we have ever taken part in since we unknowingly walked into a Christian bookstore.  (Had we known it was a Christian bookstore, it would have been less uncomfortable, but not knowing and walking in...).

Joey, being the sweet boy he is, started yelling which allowed us to walk away shortly before it ended on its own.  And the parade that followed was impressive and earthy.  And Natalie saw her friend, which made both girls giggle with excitement.  I'm not sure Dan and I were as quick to recover....

Insert Foot Here

Joey is a bit of a politician-- making friends with potential, future campaign donors everywhere he goes. Taking names, shaking hands, and looking soulfully into other's eyes with his own beautiful blue ones. Today, out of sheer lack of anything to do, I took him to get a donut. We had time to kill, and he kept asking, and I gave in. So there were are, sitting at our high table at Dunkin Donuts with two random children next to us.

"What's your name?" Joey asks.

One child answered with what I heard as Alex. The grown up corrected me. "Alice and this is Grace." Yes, I heard Alice. I was looking at a little blonde headed child with hair styled just like my own son's. And the said child was wearing a plain, grey sweatshirt. Similar to the sweatshirts I used to wear with hand me down camo pants with which I would put my long, brown hair up into a matching camo camp and ask if I could pass for a boy. So I heard the name Alice, yes, typically a girl name, but people, this is 2012 and no name is gender specific anymore.

"Are you two brother and sister?" I ask.

Grown up with them responds, "Oh, they are both girls."

Oh dear. I have not been quite this embarrassed since, working in retail, I thought that a customer with a new baby was the baby's grandmother and said so. Then, I was able to slip into the back room and hide in shame until she was gone. This time...uh....not so much.

The mother was quite kind explaining that Alice has two older brothers with short hair and she, herself, with short hair had to finally give in to her small daughter's pleas for short hair like everyone else. I get that. I have a son who often comes to the dinner table in a dress and demands that we call him Eleanor. But there are lessons to be learned here.

1. Alice is still just a girl name

2. If your daughter looks like a boy, people will think she is a boy.

3. Don't let your children eat donuts. Had stayed strong in my beliefs, none of this would have happened.

Pussy

Yeah, you read that title right. Joey is OB-SESSED with Puss in Boots right now. To the point where he wakes up in the morning brandishing his imaginary sword and straightens the fake feather on his non-existent hat. And he rides off on his horse, Pussy.

Joey is also a little obsessed with The Chipmunks, so in an effort to not have him running into school and announcing to all the other 3 and 4 year olds that he is "riding Pussy," I tried to have him rename imaginary horse, Simon.

"Joey, why don't you name your horse Simon?"

"Oh! Mommy, I love Simon."

"Good. So what is your horse's name?"

"Pussy."

I'm very concerned for when he becomes a teenager.

Whitney

I was going to offer you another mom to read about, and I apologize to said mom for choosing Whitney over you, but she is everywhere post mortem. And, for me, her death really is very sad. Do I understand that she ravaged her body with drugs and that this outcome was bound to happen, yes, but it is sad for me nonetheless. My entire childhood is wrapped up in a Whitney Houston song.

Whitney Houston was the very first cassette that I remember having. That terra cotta background and her slicked back hair... I'm pretty sure she was 19 on the cover of that album and she looked like a goddess to me. And, she was on Silver Spoons (one of my very favorite shows) as Alfonso's uncle's date. Off that album, "Greatest Love of All." I don't know if anyone else remembers, but I quite clearly remember being a fourth grader performing this song in Carolyn Montrose's backyard with the Winogrond girls, and mi prima favorita.

"Do You Want to Dance" inspired me to want to grow my hair out so I could look just like her in the video...well, have hair like her. I was crushed, crushed when Julie Forcina told me it was a wig. And there isn't a girl out there, I don't care what you say, who when you hear that song come on you don't pump the volume up and belt it out as loud as you can. It is just that kind of song.

Julie, without whom I would have no childhood memories, and I would sit on her front steps, rearranging "Where Do Broken Hearts Go." I think we thought we were better than Whitney...we weren't, but man did we go at that song for hours.

For a solid decade, Clairie and I would head to the Pancake House for a Christmas Eve morning breakfast singing Whitney's version of "Do You Hear What I Hear" In her Jetta, we would sing along with soul hangs and "Chakas" adding them in wherever we saw fit.

"Queen of the Night" and "I'm Every Woman" were songs of choice for car rides from Durham, NH to Boston for my college roommate, Kate, and myself. Not to mention breakout song in our dorm rooms. I actually forgot about this until I started to think about Whitney's catalog and how it is part of my growing up.

Everyone is paying tribute to her with "I Will Always Love You" because that video (do they even make videos anymore?) was the most simple yet dramatic Whitney. When she opened her eyes and started singing again...it is an image that we can't forget. And we will always love her, because for those little girls who grew up with her, she was vocal brilliance and sang the soundtrack to our girlhood.

Demystification

So apparently I have built this tiny, little reputation of sorts, and I am here to set the record straight.

I would like the world to know the following:

1. I never check pockets before throwing too many clothes into the washing machine. Why? Mostly because I have been doing Dan's laundry for over ten years, and he hasn't learned to empty his pockets. So shame on him. Why do I put too many clothes in the wash? Really? I just want to get it done. And, for the record, today I had to pull a pair of pants out of the dirty hamper for Joey to wear. I do not like, nor am I good and keeping ahead of the laundry.

2. I cook most nights and out of seven nights in a week, at least one of those meals is a total flop and by total flop, I mean completely inedible. At least three nights out of the week I have to force my children to eat the meal with threats and bribery and at least two meals Dan suffers through because we must be united. So for all of you who see my "amazing" meals that I make, now you know the real deal.

3. Speaking of children, I bribe, threaten, huff, throw my hands up, the towel in, and yell regularly. There you have it.

4. My house is untidy. Plain and simple. I have two kids and a dog and a man who are not neat people. I clean for company, so for those of you who plan to come to my house, yes, it is clean. If you surprise me, I might not let you through the front door.

5. 8 times out of 10, I have not showered when you see me. Maybe it's gross, I don't know. I get there....eventually.

There are so many, many more...but for the sake of upcoming posts, this one was important to set the record straight. My kids are asleep now, therefore I must have a glass of wine. Yeah, I do that, too.

xo

Momfluence

I am so excited to get this ball rolling! At the end of the summer, I wanted to make it a weekly thing, but as we all know I couldn't even making blogging about anything a weekly thing. This time around I smartened up and sent my document to many moms whom I love and adore, so they are stockpiled and I can just dip in an pull one out each week. Yay me! And yay for the moms who surround me and are plain 'ole fabulous!

I'm not surprised that Izzy was the first to get back to me. If people think that I am Type A, well then, Izzy is Type AA to the A. I say that with the greatest amount of love. I think we all thought that she would be a mother first because she just takes care of people. Since college she has been my medical go to talking me down from every hypochondriac ledge I managed climb. And now she is a real mama and my first featured "Momfluence."

Q: How old were you when you became a mother?

A: 31

Q: How old are your child(ren)?

A: 3 years old and 3 months old

Q: What is your favorite part of being a mom?

A: The hugs and the smiles

Q: What is your least favoirte part of being a mom?

A: The sleepless nights and the worrying

Q: Stay at home or working out of the home?

A: Working part-time out of the home

Q: What was teh hardest part of becoming a mom?

A: Sleepless nights; recreating blance in relationship with husband; having no time for self

Q: How did you choose your kids names?

A: Lily from a song by Matt Pond. then we had signes to name her that! My great aunt is Lillian. Middle name [Paige] for Jason's great grandfather. Bryant is from Alabama football coach Paul Bear Bryant. Middle name, Collin, is from my second cousin in Scotland. Two "l"s because Lily has two "l"s in Lillian.

Q: What is the best parenting advice you can give?

A: Just roll with it!

Q:Who are your mom role models?

A: My friends with older children!