A Fistful of Little Ice Cream Sandwiches

In honor of Mother's Day and my birthday, I'm pulling a blog post from ye olde Myspace days. I believe my son was around three years old at the time and I was a big fat meanie. Happy Mother's Day to all my friends out there who are mean mamas too (on occasion). 

A Fistful of Little Ice Cream Sandwiches

I trotted through the doors of my apartment and out to the parking lot, where my son's father's truck was waiting. I'd just finished working out and was wondering if I'd have Happy Three-Year-Old or I-Hate-Mama-Three-Year-Old waiting for me in the car seat.

I did a little jig outside the car window to try to ensure a positive reception.

I could see his little mouth forming the "O" of a wail through the tinted glass and knew I was screwed. I opened the door.

"Waaah! I. Don't. Want. Ma. Ma!" Big tears rolled down his cheeks as he stretched his arm out towards his father and away from me.

"The Little Mermaid and little ice cream sandwiches!" I blurted.

"Noooo, I want Da..." He paused. "Little ice cream sandwiches?"

"Yes."

"And The Little Mermaid?"

"All this and more, if only you come with the mama," I gestured towards the apartment door as though ushering him into the Magical Kingdom.

"And you cuddle me on the couch?"

"Hells yeah!" I pumped my fist.

(Okay, I might not have said "Hells yeah!") Of course as I picked him up and carried him out of his father's truck (his father never puts his shoes on him), he again wound himself up and wailed as he reached his arms out towards his father.

"Littlemermaidicecreamsandwiches," I whispered in his ear over and over again like a mantra.

Thirty minutes of The Little Mermaid ("Under the Sea!") and one little ice cream sandwich later, with a smattering of hair-strokings and a toddler back rub with mini-baby-karate chops, it was time for bed.

"Five minutes," he waved me off with a pudgy hand.

"No, now."

"I didn't eat my 'nother little ice cream sandwiches!"

Okay, the kid had a solid point. Clearly there was an unfinished little ice cream sandwich on his plate and that's just plain wrong.

"Okay, you can eat the ice cream sandwich but then bed."

"No, I hafta finish watching my movie THEN I can go to bed," he said.

"No, I'm letting you eat the ice cream sandwich out of the kindness of my heart, for which you should say, 'Thank you, Mama,' and then you will go to bed a lucky little boy to have had that little ice cream sandwich." I narrowed my eyes at him.

Suddenly I could hear the theme song to The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

"I wanna watch The Little Mermaid!" he took the little ice cream sandwich out of his mouth and slid his hands towards his holster.

"No," I said out of the side of my mouth and rested both of my hands on my hips, my thumbs stroking the handles of my guns.

"Yes!" he cried.

Then the room exploded with gun fire.

If you're not familiar with that sound, ladies and gentlemen, that is the sound of Mama being DONE. I can outdraw a three-year-old any day of the week, my friends.

"How about you go to bed now, with no little ice cream sandwich?" I snapped up the remaining ice cream sandwich and marched it to the freezer.

"But Mama!"

"March," I said. "I'm done with this."

"Ma!" he cried. Now the tears were rolling and he looked paralyzed, shocked and completely ambushed by my gorilla-mama tactics.

He wailed as he took off his pants. He wailed as we turned on the hall light. He wailed as I helped him off with his shirt. And then finally:

"I'm sorry, Mama!" His face was overwrought. He truly looked like a little man who was horrified by his own actions and stricken with grief at the price he would have to pay.

"I'm sorry too. I bet that little ice cream sandwich would have tasted soooooooooo good!" I said and rubbed my belly.

Okay, I'm totally kidding about that last line. I would never say that. What I said was this:

"I know you're sorry, baby. Maybe next time you'll say 'Yes, Mama,' instead of trying to negotiate your own bedtime." I pulled his shirt off and grabbed a pajama top.

"I n-n-n-need a hug!" he said and draped his leaden arms around my shoulders, sobbing. I hugged him and rubbed his back.

"I love you," I said.

"I love you too, Mama." Pause. "Can I have a little ice cream sandwich now?"

"No."

"I said 'I'm sorry!'"

"Yeah, but you should have listened to Mama in the first place."

"I'll be nice now, I promise."

"You are nice, I know that. Maybe next time you'll do what I ask and not try to tell me what to do. You know Mama doesn't like it when she has to ask you to do something two or three times."

"I know," he said and sighed.

"So what are you going to do next time Mama asks you to do something?"

"Say 'Yes, Mama.'"

"Smart boy."

"Yeah. I am," he nodded, looking happier again, despite the red-eyes and the wet cheeks. He knew he would live to see another day.

See how easy it is? Listen to Mama and get ice cream sandwiches before bed. No wonder his dad's his favorite. His mama's such a bitch.

*Blows smoke from pistols, returns them to holsters*

Everything I Learned About Love, I Learned In Moonstruck. And Rehab.

In a pivotal moment in one of my all-time favorite movies, Moonstruck, Ronny Cammareri tells the woman he loves:

Loretta, I love you. Not like they told you love is, and I didn't know this either, but love don't make things nice -- it ruins everything. It breaks your heart. It makes things a mess. We aren't here to make things perfect. The snowflakes are perfect. The stars are perfect. Not us. Not us! We are here to ruin ourselves and to break our hearts and love the wrong people and die. The storybooks are bullshit. Now I want you to come upstairs with me and get in my bed!

Love doesn't make things nice. Love does ruin everything. It complicates everything. The fairy tales only tell us about falling in love, not about staying in love. The staying part is the work. If you're brave, if you take risks, if you're willing to make a complete ass of yourself — make yourself plain and naked with all your faults and weaknesses laid bare for this other person to see — then maybe just maybe you'll last a bit.

But who wants to do any of that?

Why on earth would you make yourself vulnerable to someone with sharp talons and a flesh-tearing beak? We're all capable of tearing each other to bits. Don't give me that, "He would never or she would never" baloney because all really is fair in love and war. One thing for sure is that when your ego is threatened, you're gonna dance. You're gonna float like a butterfly and sting like a mother-effin' bee.

You won't care if it's a girl. You'll punch her in the face.

You won't care if it's Prince Charming. You'll go for his nut sack.

Well, figuratively, at least.

My therapist once told me that conflict brings people closer together. I thought he was completely high off his Freudian pipe. Okay, he didn't have a pipe, but he looked as though he should. I've spent my life running from conflict. I dodge and weave. I duck and cover. I slip out the back, yo.

I remember when my mom went to rehab when I was 12, the counselors assembled us all in a room and asked each one of the kids to role play with one of the alcoholic parents. (This would forever ruin any sort of role play for me.) We each took a turn acting out what we would say to our alcoholic parent if we could say anything.

"What would you say, Mandy? What would you say if you could say anything?"

Standing in the center of a roomful of adult addicts and their children sitting on plastic chairs, I crossed my arms over my chest and shook my head.

"Tell us what you would do, Mandy."

"I would go climb a tree," I said when it was clear they wouldn't bug off. So they had me walk off in the corner and sit in my metaphorical tree. It felt like punishment.

I guess my therapist's point was that if you spend your life sitting in an imaginary tree avoiding conflict, you're never going to get close to anyone. Life is messy here on the ground. You trip. People screw with you. You're clumsy with your words and your actions. You hurt the people you love.

You make a complete donkey of yourself.

You say things you didn't mean.

You interpret their actions through the filter of the past. You don't see anyone for who they really are, but more for what they can do for you or how they make you feel. But that's not love.

Love is messy.

It tears you up.

You've got to get in there and confront it. You've got to cry and let your nose get all snotty. You've got to tell each other when you're hurt and you've got to keep telling each other until you both get it. You keep talking until somebody figures out that you both just want to be loved.

So say something nice. Say you love me still and I'll do the same for you. Wipe my nose and I'll wipe yours even though it's gross. Hug me, even though I'm this ruinous twelve-year-old girl inside who can only fold her arms and walk away. Hang in there because it's 25 years later and I'm finally learning to turn back around, re-enter the circle and speak my mind.





This is another old post from the unpublished vault. I wrote it when I was still dating my now husband. I'm still learning how to speak my mind. We're both still learning that we both just want to be loved. Yep, we're pretty lucky to have found each other.

Piece of Cake.

My husband and I have children spanning the ages from one to twenty-two. The twenty-two year olds are his, he also has a nineteen year old. The one year old is ours in common and I have a seven-year-old. The funny thing about having five kids spanning the ages from one to twenty-two is that their stages sometimes overlap.

I mean, I couldn't help but think as I watched the twenty-two year old walk across the stage this weekend to receive his college diploma, that he's on the cusp of independence. He's about take his first tentative steps into adulthood. I'm sure his father would like to follow behind and hold out his arms to catch his son if he falls. Not unlike the way he wants to protect his one-year-old daughter as she navigates walking (and god help us) running.

I see the same overlap between my one-year-old daughter and seven-year-old son. This weekend she was fussy and a little feverish. I also noticed that she was drooling, which is not something she's done up until now. It was clear she was teething, as her top two teeth have just come in and now she's got almost all four bottom teeth in too.

In the same weekend, my seven-year-old son lost his two front teeth. Currently he is missing two on top, and two on the bottom. He has developed an utterly charming lisp in the process. So strange to have one child pushing those baby teeth in for the first time with the other is pushing them out.

I asked my husband what he would say if he had a friend who was about to be a father again after the older children had already grown. I know for some people the idea is something akin to horrifying. My own husband got quite a bit of ribbing for it at work.

"I would tell him it's a piece of cake!" he said.

At first I thought he was joking, but he made it clear he meant it. I have to laugh at anyone who can come out of the first year with a baby and say, "It's a piece of cake." But I stop laughing when I realize he's not kidding. I find it overwhelmingly touching.

I see my husband with his arm slung around his graduating son's shoulders and I see him walking his one-year-old daughter down the sidewalk. In both endeavors he has the same look, the same proud smile. He loves them, that much is clear.

Lord knows the 2 a.m. wake up calls from a newborn were not a piece of cake. And raising a child from birth to college graduation is by no means a piece of cake. I think of 22 years of worrying about your children's safety, worrying about their progress, worrying about their feelings, worrying worrying worrying. But when you boil it down to its most basic parts, I think what you are left with is the love you feel for them.

Loving them, that part really is a piece of cake.



I wrote this post almost a year ago and never posted it. On second glance, I like it. Hope you like it too.

Meeting New People Is Not My Superpower.

So I've been wanting to try a new exercise class. I either work out by myself or with a personal trainer. I'm fine in a one-on-one situation. I know what I'm expected to do. I know where to go. I know how I will be treated. I can function this way with a bare minimum of neuroses at play.

A group glass triggers all sorts of red flags. First of all, a new class means new logistics, new location, new routines. What if I go to the wrong place? What if I'm early? What if I'm late? And a group class is filled with new people. In the form of a ... group. In my head, they become a group of fitness Superheroes. They will all hate me on sight. They will be forged in iron and they will leave me in a fat puddle in the middle of the gym while they scoff at what a Flabby McWeakerson I am. I will never be fit enough to work out with the Greek gods that are the fitness SuperFriends.

My brain is a scary place to live, I know.

I finally emailed the instructor and told him I was going to come to class. I thought if he expected me I would feel pressured to show up. But no. I skipped on Monday because my husband gave me an out when he said he had to leave early for work.

Wednesday morning I had no such excuse. I dragged myself out of bed at 5:30 a.m. I put on my gym clothes and contemplated getting back into bed in my gym clothes. I went downstairs and put on my shoes in the dark. I decided I would walk on the treadmill and see if I hated life any less. If I was still miserable and suicidal over joining a group fitness class, I would just stay on the treadmill.

Forever.

Once there, I decided to stay on the treadmill. Sure I was feeling better about life after ten minutes of cardio, but I wasn't feeling any better about how much I was going to suck at CrossFit. Maybe I would try it on Friday?

Or never.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the instructor enter the cardio room. I decided to zero in on the treadmill monitor and stare myself into invisibility. "Do not see me," I said, just like Gary Oldman in Bram Stoker's Dracula.

I even said it with an accent.

Then I saw someone moving toward me but I stared all the harder at the monitor. I could will myself into invisibility, just like I could will myself into Narnia when I was a kid being teased by the neighborhood thugs.

Oh yeah. That didn't work either. Damn.

"So are you coming?" the instructor asked me. He was standing on the next treadmill.

"Oh. Uh. Hi. Um. Well, I, er..." I pulled the earphones out of my ears and did my best to get out of it.

"Come on," he said and waved me over as he walked towards the gym.

"Yeah, uh, I, er, was thinking, maybe it will be too hard for me," I walked behind him, not wanting to be rude. "Maybe I should try it another time? When I'm more fit. I just don't know..."

He walked into the gym and I followed him like an obedient puppy. He introduced me to a group of people who smiled and welcomed me instantaneously.

"You're finally going to work out with the group?" one lady asked. She must have seen me working out with a personal trainer in the gym at some point.

The group seemed happy to have me. No one mentioned that 5'10" losers weren't allowed. I was overjoyed and motivated by both the class, and by the kindness of my fellow human beings.

Acceptance surprises me every time.

Also, I can barely walk today.

Holy.

Hell.

Somebody get me a wheelchair.

We'll Be Here, Listening to You Breathe

There's a striking age difference among the children in my family. We've got babies as young as my daughter who is one, and babies as old as in their twenties. But what strikes me is no matter how big or small, all of their parents continue worrying about them.

Just last night I put my own sturdy one-year-old in her bed and heard her throwing various stuffed animals out of her crib. The Soothe-and-Glow Seahorse is particularly heavy. It doesn't sound all that different from what I imagine a 20 lb. one-year-old body sounds like as it hits the floor. Then there's the kicking of the side of the crib to activate the Ocean Wonders Deep Blue Sea Soother that's strapped to the side of her crib. She kicks it to activate it.

My point is, there's a whole lot of ruckus going on in there and I think that smart little conniver is banking on freaking me out so I come to check on her to make sure she's alive. But because a pediatrician in my parenting group told me to leave that baby alone for 12 hours and I don't want her to wind up living a life of crime, I leave her in bed.

But I do stand outside her door with my ear pressed to it. And listen. I wait to hear the sounds of her breathing, or rustling around, or making whatever baby murmurs she might make. I also watch my sister talk on the phone to her 19-year-old baby (who doesn't like us calling her a baby) and the way my sister presses her head to the phone reminds me of myself. It reminds me of the intent way my brother and husband email, text and call their college-aged children – waiting and listening – to hear that their babies are okay.

But with the grown babies, they're not as easy to protect. It's not as easy as gathering them up off of the floor and covering them in kisses. It's not as simple as putting the plastic covers on the electrical outlets. You can't follow them around the house and prevent every fall.

More importantly, you have to let them fall. So they can learn how to pick themselves back up.

But I imagine my sister, my brother and my husband don't really see the grown adults their children have become. They still see these little babies in footed jammies, crying because they've bumped their heads. I'm sure they long to gather them up and make everything okay.

It makes me realize as I worry about my little baby sleeping in her crib, that it won't get easier. It gets harder. You get further and further away from the door, waiting longer and longer to know that they're okay.



I wrote this over a year ago and I guess I didn't think it was good enough to post. Now I like it. Hope you do too.

Sunshine on My Shoulders Makes Me Have a Biopsy.

I went to the dermatologist this morning to get my annual cancer check. I'm pasty and my husband is paranoid. That's why I go, in case you were wondering. If it were up to me, the less doctor's appointments, the better.

I've had this mole in the middle of my back that has bothered my husband since he met me. Or at least since he's seen me naked, which was not immediately after he met me. I'm a lady. Sort of. Anyway, the mole is dark. Which I guess translates to "cancer" in mole-speak. Over the past few years I've had a a general practice doctor, an oncologist and a dermatologist all look at it. They said it was fine.

But my husband is a worrier. And like I said, I'm pale. Like really, really pale. Most of the time I'm wearing a layer of Jergens Natural Glow self tanner and I'm still the envy of field hands. Most people would be surprised to discover that I wear self tanner at all because I am seriously pasty despite my efforts. As I see it, the self tanner takes the edge of the deathly sheen.

In addition to being pasty, I'm old. Old enough to have grown up in the 70s when sun protection wasn't really a thing. I think I have vague memories of Coppertone 4 coming out and my parents using it on me when we went to Florida, but aside from that, I really don't remember my mom ever putting sun protection on me. I'm sure she will object to this. Most of my memories before the age of five are suspect, I admit.

Exhibit A: Topless, hat-less and most definitely wearing SPF 0.

But back then, your parents sent you out the door first thing in the morning and they didn't see you again until you were hungry. So maybe you saw them at lunch and then at dinner. We spent our summers in the sun. There was no, "Wait, let me put this SPF 75 on you before you go and spend 12 hours on the face of the sun." I also recall getting so burnt in Florida that I had to go the hospital. I was throwing up from either heat stroke or sunburn, it's hard to say. They both happened in the same window of time. In any case, SPF 4 was not sufficient coverage for a pasty white kid like me.

My god, did they ever clothe me?

My mother, on the other hand, used to oil herself up with Hawaiian Tropic Dark Tanning Oil. She smelled like coconut cream pie. She was slick and slippery when you'd hug her. In the summer months, you'd often find her laying out on one of our folding chairs on the back patio. Chances are she'd be drinking a Tab, smoking a cigarette and flipping through Cosmo while she browned in the sun smelling like dessert.

Babies don't tan, Mother.

I didn't inherit my mother's ability to tan. I'm like my father — I pretty much alternate between pasty and burnt. There's no middle ground of "tan." That's not to say I didn't try to get a tan when I was a teenager. My friends and I would line large cardboard boxes with foil and lay inside them. We'd spread baby oil all over ourselves and shiver in the foil box over spring break in Michigan, trying to approximate the tan our other friends were getting on vacations in warmer climes.

You just can't get this kind of burn from a foil box.

Despite all my efforts, I never really got tan. I even spent a summer in the south of France as a foreign exchange student. I came back from the Cote D'Azur considerably blonder, but not much darker. Fortunately my failed attempts discouraged me from any sort of lifelong dedication to tanning. As soon as they came out with SPF 15, I was wearing it and I've worn every increasing denomination of sun protection as it has been unveiled. 

My children, on the other hand, have barely seen the sun. I'm one of those freaky moms who insisted her infants wear long sleeves, pants and hats any time they left the house. In fact, I'm surprised they both didn't have vitamin D deficiencies. Now I slather my son with sun protection before he goes to camp. I send him with a baseball hat and tell him to sit in the shade if the counselors leave them outside too long. 

It's a miracle he's normal at all.

Once he got a little bit of pink on the top of his foot from wearing flip flops and freaked out.

"Oh no! I have a sun burn! I have cancer!" he cried.

Okay, he didn't say the part about having cancer. But he did cry, even though his sunburn was just a sweet little pink blush. I wanted to show him the lobster red I had achieved as a child and say, "Back in my day when we had a sunburn it was a third degree burn and we were sent to the hospital!"

Anyway, this morning at the dermatologist, I told the doctor that I stay out of the sun and wear sun protection. She examined me from ears to toes. She asked if I had any moles I was concerned about and I said no. But then I reconsidered.

"Only, there is that one mole my husband is obsessed about," I said.

"Really? Let's see it," she said.

"It's the same size, shape and color as it's always been," I said. She was spending too much time looking at it and it was making me nervous.

"If it's something he's noticed we should take a look at it."

"I've had three doctors look at it and they said it was fine."

"Maybe we should take a biopsy of it just to be sure," she said. 

"I'm not worried about it. He is. And he's paranoid. So there's no need to biopsy it or cut it off, I'm perfectly fine with it." I was rambling. Have I mentioned I hate needles?

"I'd feel better about it if we biopsied it," she said. The next thing I knew, I was lying face down on the table getting my back numbed with needles.

"Give me the green blade," the doctor said to the nurse.

"Can we not say 'blade' when I'm in the room?" 

"Green tool. I meant to say green tool," the doctor said.

Ha ha ha. Hilarious. I'm lying on a table in a paper gown getting my back cut open because I'm married to an obsessive (yet incredibly handsome) man. If the mole comes back positive for cancer he's so going to say "I told you so" and that will really irritate me.

I called him after the appointment to let him know that after all these years of worrying about the mole on my back, he would be pleased to know they had finally biopsied it.

"What mole?" he said.

Animal Sacrifice Chic.

I've been trying to come up with a new theme for my home decor. I found this coffee table in the Anthropologie catalog and it really spoke to me.

Yes, those are stone dogs under glass.

Look into their eyes. They will eff you up. That dog is clearly communicating, "Don't even think about putting your cup on this table without a coaster."

Then I saw this side table and it seemed a little spare. It needed something beyond twine handles.

Yes. This. White ceramic animals. A Deer-Goat-Hare orgy can lend drama to an invisible table.

Once I discovered the animal orgy theme, I knew I needed to bring it into the bedroom. I thought this horse head would look nice on my husband's side of the bed. He loves The Godfather.

Admittedly, this chair is not from Anthropologie but I think it really ties the whole look together. Nothing says commitment to a design aesthetic like animal sacrifice.

Baa.