The Differences

There are many differences between me and Emma.  First, she has blue eyes.  Mine change color with my mood, but vary anywhere between green to hazel to dark brown.  Tread lightly when they are dark brown.  Second, would be our hair.  She has for the most part straight strawberry blond.  Me…I have thin annoyingly-curly-when-wet auburn.  The largest difference in us is what amazes me the most though.

Since the beginning of Kindergarten, I have been cast aside by my child starting with the infamous phrase, “You can go now, Mommy” which I have every intention of bringing up to her when she leasts expects it.  (The other phrase I’m saving for a later date, “That music is up too loud.  It’s hurting my ears.”)  I realize I should be grateful Emma is not like I was in grade school.  I was quiet and shy.  Unsure of myself and where I fit in.  Emma knows.

I see traces of my attitude in her.  The looks she gives people when they say something she doesn’t agree with or how she will correct someone when they have upset her.  Sometimes I can’t help but smirk.  I see the verbal tongue lashing form.  She will verbally give a person a list of wrongs.  Not only will she state the problem, but she will follow it up with an explanation as to why it was wrong.  Consider yourself lucky if she only gives you one explanation.

She does one more thing that impresses me.  If she’s taken the time to explain what you’ve done and you didn’t bother to listen to her, she then starts to ignore you.  In my opinion, that’s impressive for an 8 year old.

In many respects, I’m proud of Emma.  Prouder than I probably should be.  Somehow she managed to get the confidence it took me decades to master.  She thinks with her head and her heart all the while continuously vocalizing her opinion.  While there are periods where I have to re-explain which one of us is the parent, she knows she has boundries.

Most of the time…even when I’m frazzled…I realize I’m doing a good job with her.  She’s smart.  She’s creative.  She’s caring.  She’s confident.  She’s so many things that it took me a lifetime to figure out.  And yet…she’s still willing to ask every question if only to learn every difference.  In her…I see the past, live in the present, and hope for the future.

Life is good.

Is there a hair fairy?

Emma adores my brother, Wayne.  My brother being single with no kids adores Emma.  In many respects, it’s disgusting how well they like each other.

Wayne takes her fishing, somehow gets her to help around the yard, and plays with her constantly.  In fact, Emma has a nick name for Wayne…Big Headed Uncle Nanie.  She calls him this to his face and he just laughs.

One evening after Uncle Nanie had watched her till I came home from work, Emma and I were watching TV.  I had just given her dinner and sat down on the couch to eat mine.  It was a commercial break and Emma looked at me and said, “Mommy, maybe we should tell Uncle Nanie about this.”

Completely confused by the conversation, I asked, “About what?”

“About the Bosley Hair replacement.”  I looked up from my dinner, glanced at the TV where the commercial for Bosley was playing, and then at her.  She had the biggest “I’m a little snot who’s making a funny” grin on her face which reminded me soooooo much of Granny that I just sat there stunned in silence.  That is until she made her next comment, “He might want hair someday.”

With that…I couldn’t help but laugh.  Here’s a 7 year old (now she’s 8) trying to get her uncle a hair replacement system because “he might want hair someday.”  Of course, we told Big Headed Uncle Nanie.  In front of some friends who haven’t let him live it down…yet.  They still remind him of Bosley commercials.

Well, that was several months ago.  The joke died down in our house until a few days ago.

Emma lost another tooth.  She’s back to being my toothless wonder.  This time, she was with eating pizza and it came out and landed on her tongue and she opened her mouth and she thought in her brain, “Huh, this must be a tooth.”  (If you EVER have a conversation with Emma where she’s regaling you in a story, the realization of previous sentence will hit like an anvil on top your head.  She really does talk like that.)

However, the day before the tooth loss…Emma and I didn’t really have time to chit chat with Uncle Nanie.  Errands needed to be ran and we needed to go.  Wayne followed us out of the house.  As Emma buckled herself in, she starts screaming, “AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

“Emma, inside voice.  Remember?  We’re in a car.  We use our inside voice so that Mommy doesn’t get a headache and become grouchy all night long.”

“But Big Headed Uncle Nanie is pointing at me.”  She lowers her voice slightly.

“So.”

“He wants to take my tooth.  He says he needs the money.”  Now I’m starting to laugh.

“Emma, he’s not going to take your tooth.  Even if he did, the Tooth Fairy knows who the teeth belong too.  So, you would still get the money.”  That seemed to work.

She calms down for a few moments and we start to pull away from the house.  “Mommy, is there a Hair Fairy?”

“A what?”

“A Hair Fairy.  I was thinking…If there was a Hair Fairy, then when Uncle Nanie loses his hair he could put it under his pillow and get money that way.”

It took me a while to stop laughing.  In fact, it still makes me laugh.  Who comes up with the possibility of a Hair Fairy? That would be my child.

I am grateful though…she hasn’t figured out he has hair growing on his back yet and ask why he just doesn’t move it to his head.  Somehow, I see that statement coming in the future.

The Shrinking Head

On Friday (7/4/08), Emma and I did our normal errands.  Who cares that it was a holiday and everyone was at the store buying last minute things…we needed milk and of course when you go into the Super Wal-mart for one thing you end up buying a lot of things.

It usually starts with, “Mommy, can I have a toy if I’m good?”

“No.  We are not buying any toys.  You don’t take care of the toys you have now.”

“What about candy?  Can I have some candy?”

“I don’t know.  It depends how good you are.” 

“Can I get a cookie from the bakery?”

“Emma, would you just stop asking so many questions?  I mean really…how many questions can you ask from the car to the door?”  (Yes, I see the irony in this statement and I feel for all of you when I ask questions one right after another in an unrelenting manor.  I feel your pain.  Does it mean I’m going to stop?  No.  It just means I know what you go through while dealing with me and let me tell you… you have more tolerance than I.  Thank you for that.)

“A lot.”  Silence for two feet.  “What about some new sunglasses?  I could really use some new sunglasses.”

“Why do you need new sunglasses?  You don’t use any set of sunglasses I’ve ever purchased for you.”

“Well, the reason why I don’t wear my sunglasses is because they shrunk.”

“Your sunglasses did not shrink.”

“Yes, they did.”

“No, they didn’t.  Plastic just doesn’t shrink.”

“They did shrink.  Why don’t you just believe me.”

“Because they didn’t shrink.  You just have a big head.”

“I do not have a big head.”

“Yes, you do.  It’s from constantly wanting me to buy you things that you won’t take care of or need.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Yes, you do.  Why do you think I call you ‘Pumpkin?’  It’s short for Pumpkin Head.”

“My head’s not orange.” 

“No, but a pumpkin is a gourd and there are white gourds.  Remember, you painted one last year.  We put a purple feather on it’s head.”

“So, why not call me Gourd Head?” 

“It doesn’t sound as pleasant as Pumpkin.”

“But, I don’t want a big head.”

“Then, stop asking for everything you see.”  This was the highlights from the Wal-mart conversation when we went in to get one gallon of milk.  We ended up buying the milk along with sour cream, cream cheese, garlic bread, two shirts (a button up and a tank top) for me, five shirts for her, cat food, listerine, kid germ killer, spray bottle, tortilla chips and kid floss.  When I impluse buy…I impluse buy.  It’s a good thing I don’t have a truck, because I probably would have walked out with my patio set. 

Anyway…I didn’t think anymore about the conversation until this morning.  We left to go to church and on the way there Emma announces, “Mommy, my head shrunk.”

“What?”

“My head…I stopped asking you for things and my sunglasses don’t hurt my head anymore.  It must have shrunk.  It worked.  Thank you, Mommy.”

“You’re welcome.” If only life were that easy…

Good-bye 2009…Hello 2010

What a year. 

It started out on an emotional overload.  Go figure.  Me…emotional.  My ex-husband and I weren’t getting along and well…he was jamming his finger on every button there is with me.  The main one being our daughter.

A friend from the past came back into my life only to start on a very dramatic and somewhat unexpected shift in his life.  Another friend (or at least I thought at the time) became jealous of him turning to me with his problems and decided he needed to turn to her and not me.  Let’s just say it was not a pretty triangle.

Another friend and I argued repeatedly about whether or not we could be friends.  At the beginning of the 9-month stretch, he accused me of being a jealous girlfriend and in the very same breath worse than his mother.  Funny.  I don’t remember dating him and I never met his mother.  How could I be worse than her?  I’m no angel.  I accused him of some pretty bad stuff too.  It’s still debatable if we’re friends and I have no idea how exactly I provoked such an outburst.  He claimed he doesn’t care what I think and yet, I can push his buttons just as well as he pushes mine.

I ended up in the rumor mill.  Repeatedly.  Over the same crap with the same people.  Once I found out there were rumors, I corrected them.  Maybe I should rephrase that.  I corrected the ones that dealt with me.  The others I agreed with and declined to comment.  Then, when I thought they were over.  Surprise, surprise.  Another one came to light with the same people and I again was in the rumor mill.  This time, though, I was apologized to.

My flirting got me in trouble.  Again.  Me and another friend of mine openly flirted with one another and the next thing I knew his wife was emailing me telling me to pray for her children.  Talk about being stunned into silence.  I didn’t respond to her.  If it’s one thing I learned from the disillusionment of my marriage, it’s that she wouldn’t have believed me anyway and it would have made things a lot worse.  She thought she was where I once had been.  No words could have changed her thoughts.  Not from me. 

Of course, I wonder if she knows one of the things I find most endearing about her husband (and there are many) is how much he loves her.  Maybe someday she’ll know.  Maybe someday, she’ll realize I’m just an average woman who is a bit on the crazy side and I really meant her or her family no harm.  While we were equally stupid in flirting, I would never willingly come between them.  It’s just not in me to put someone where I once was.  But…that’s not for today and that’s not coming from me.

I turned my ex-husband in for child support delinquency.  The State is still tracking him and according to them, he’s not caught up.  He tries to hide small details about his employment from me.  Still trying to ascertain whether or not he truly believes I’m an idiot.

There was an ending of a friendship.  A very public on Facebook ending of a friendship (although not my page) that proved just how high-schoolish my reality had become.  My drama quotient went down when the friendship ended.  Significantly.  A hidden blessing.

My alien-abducted sister (I’m the only one who really believes she was abducted) tried to stalk my ex-husband in the attempt to get closer to my daughter.  I’m waiting for the logic of her actions to become apparent.  I doubt they will.

The ending to a event-filled year, my ex-husband forgetting that the next day…New Year’s Day…was his holiday and him making other plans.  What made it even worse?  It was our daughter who reminded him on New Year’s Eve that it was his holiday.

That was really the catalyst for realizing what a year I had and just how much I had grown.  We (Emma and I) were having what we thought was going to be an early dinner with my family.  Then, back home before the partying started.  He had called while we were at the restaurant and wanted to speak to Emma.  Emma reminded him and they spoke for another minute or two.  Then, he wanted to speak to me again. 

He had forgotten the next day was his holiday and he made other plans.  He wanted me to believe he was going to work.  Of course, he’s still trying to keep it from me that he started his own business.  He asked if he could see Emma for a few hours over the weekend to make-up for the missed holiday.  I agreed to make other arrangements for another day and we got off the phone. 

When I got off the phone, my aunt asked if he had forgotten his holiday again.  I said yes and the subject was dropped.  In an odd way, I wasn’t surprised he had forgotten, but I was relieved he didn’t blame me for him forgetting this time.  The last few times he had forgotten, an argument where he blamed me for not reminding him of his time with our daughter embarked.  I guess the last time where I explained (fine…I screamed) that we were divorced and I was no longer responsible for keeping his calendar finally sunk through.

Later that evening, I realized what 2009 was about.  It was about me.  About what I wanted.  About what I needed.  For a change, it was about realizing I deserved to be put first.  At least occasionally.

For years I’ve been told I’m acting self-righteous.  Or towns have named streets after me (one-way).  And for years, I tried to over-compensate by putting everyone before myself.  Yet, this was the year I started belly dancing.  Why?  Because it sounded fun.  This was also the year I got a tattoo.  Why?  Because I wanted one.  For once, I put what I wanted over what I needed.

I had been told my standards and expectations were too high.  I was deemed high maintenance.  Yet…the only one who I held to those standards (and still hold) was myself.  Everyone else I expected very little from.  I began to realize what the arguments with my “ex’s” were really about.  While I wasn’t holding them to my expectations, I was holding them to whom they claimed they were.  And the arguments…was just the realization that I no longer believed their fantasies.  And they realized it too.  Hence, the arguing.

So, I’d like to say to the people who are still in my life…thank you.  Thank you for being there.  For keeping me up mentally.  For handing me the pieces of my life and expecting me to put myself together.

To the people no longer in my life…thank you.  Thank you for the lessons either one of us or both of us learned.  For being what I needed at the time.  And for leaving even if it wasn’t under the best of circumstances.

To the people who feel like they’re holding on by a thread…you are.  I’m still waiting for you to decide:  are you the person you claimed to be that I know you can be?  Or are you the person I see before me whom you try to hide because you don’t want to be seen?  Either or…it’s up to you. 

To the people who intend to be in my life…buckle up and hang on.  The ride will be bumpy, filled with twists and turns, but well worth the road rash, the contusions, and the whip-lash.

Life isn’t about getting what you think you want.  It’s about wanting what you eventually get and appreciating the dance that took you there.  Life has a way of making the dance impromptu.  Enjoy the little bumps.  Once you look closely at the details, you’ll realize that’s what mattered during the dance.  May you have someone who knows your details and is willing to share your moments as theirs.

Good-bye, 2009.  You taught me well!

Hello, 2010!  Where should we begin?

Do I believe in Santa Claus?

I am asked many questions throughout the year.  Some deserve merit.  Others aren’t even good enough to respond with a “DUH”.  This time of year is special because someone always ends up looking at me with complete amazement as if they never had a conversation with me EVER and they wonder if I believe in Santa Claus.

What amuses me most is when they attempt to prove his nonexistence.  They use logic, reason, and usually physics as proof.  While those are extremely good analytical ways to prove or disprove anything.  They really have absolutely no bearing on Santa Claus.  Yes, I believe in Santa Claus and here are my reasons why…

I believe in dreams and the power they hold.  A dream can move a mountain, cross a river, and break down a wall.  The crazier the dream…the more impact it has over a life and the more willing I am to risk everything and follow it through.

I believe in hope and the reassurance it brings.  Hope stands against the obstacles.  It’s the umbrella in the torrential downpour where water is falling from the sky, splashing up from the ground, and the wind is blowing it sideways.  I’m bound to get wet from head to toe, but the rain is going to end, eventually I will dry, and the rainbow will be glorious.

I believe in love and the confidence it shows.  Love for anything is a presence.  It’s seeps through words and actions undetected and over-looked by the masses and yet comforted in silence by the few.  It stems from understanding and compassion.  Love survives when nothing else can.  It’s what’s left when my world crashes around me and provides me with the second chances I need to give.  Whether that chance is for me or for others around me.

There is nothing easy about any of them.  Each take work and persistence to achieve and if taken for granted can be lost in a mindless second.  There is no logic to a dream.  No reason to hope.  There are no physics to love.  Yet, given all the complications would anyone want a life without any of these three possibilities?

Do I believe an over-weight man with an affinity to hot chocolate and cookies has the ability to shrink himself into fitting down my chimney and leaving me a bottle of White Diamonds or a white gold tennis bracelet are going to left under the tree Christmas morning?  Of course, not.  But, I believe in what he represents: dreams, hope and love.

So, for those of you who are amazed by this one little aspect of me…keep in mind my biggest attribute is I have faith in the non-tangibles of Life, in my friends, and in myself.

By the way…I have two favorite moments every holiday season (and it probably explains why I’m reluctant to take down my tree).  The first moment is watching Emma look at the Christmas tree lit up in the dark.  Every year, she gazes at it with wonder.  She looks at the ornaments, the beads, the lights, etc.  I can see the hope on her face and the dreams start forming.  My second moment is on Christmas morning.  I wake up early.  Put on classical music.  Light up the tree.  Get breakfast started.  That’s when I sit by the light of my tree and watch the lights play off the beads and ornaments while drinking either coffee or mimosas.  I remember my friends and family, dreams that changed, and the possibilities for the coming year.  More importantly…I thank God for each one.

Hello world!

Welcome to Just South of Normal; a site all about the comings and goings of my life.

Given that I’m fairly average, the common thought would be “boring and so what”.  Unfortunately…it’s the people in my life that make my average life not so boring. 

From the outside, I’m a sane mundane human being.  I have a normal life, filled with normal family and friends, and not much happens out of the ordinary.

Once the threshold is opened…suddenly realization hits.  My dog likes to climb trees and is constantly thinking up new ways to drive me insane.  Not only does my daughter think that the ant she captured two summers ago is still alive (she has never fed it), but her latest excuse why she shouldn’t clean her room is that it might make her sweat.  My ex-husband and I do not get along.  In fact, there are many times I wonder why I know him.  Oh…and there’s my biological sister.  I swear she was abducted by aliens on the day of my birth.

Needless to say…my life happens to be just south of normal.